While the entire Lower Courtyard Island was in an uproar and Zhuo Yifan and the Battle Martial bunch were all but breathing fire, inside the Magma Chamber the man who had held on for two days and two nights—Wang Baole—was already drenched in sweat, his vision swimming with stars.
He felt like even breathing was hard. He was very close to his limit.
The searing heat of the Magma Chamber filled every inch of the room. His sweat poured out, only to be instantly evaporated, turning the chamber into a fog-shrouded steamer…
"I think I'm… almost cooked…"
Wang Baole's heart pounded wildly. He was genuinely afraid that if this kept up, he'd really end up steamed to death, and that would be one hell of a joke.
But there is a certain kind of person in this world—terrifying in their single-mindedness, terrifying in their obsession.
They are… people on a diet.
In the process of losing weight, they experience a very special kind of joy. The better the results, the sharper that joy becomes, climbing to ridiculous heights.
Especially when… the effect is huge in a very short time.
Wang Baole was clearly one of these people. Right now he was fighting down his fear of being cooked alive and staring at how much smaller his body had become over these two days and nights. Somehow, he suddenly felt really fired up again.
"Damn it, either I steam myself to death, or I will slim down!"
He clenched his teeth, raised his right hand, and slapped the formation switch beside him.
The Magma Chamber shuddered. An even fiercer wave of heat rushed out in an instant.
The entire room seemed to twist and warp. Wang Baole's body quivered, every bit of fat on him trembling violently. It felt like every breath he took was pure fire; inside and out, his body felt like it was burning.
The only reason he had lasted this long was because he'd accumulated a massive amount of spirit-fat in his body. As it "burned," the fat melted into spiritual energy that flooded his flesh and blood, constantly nourishing his body.
Under that nourishment, his Blood Qi continued to climb, step by step. At this very moment, as the temperature spiked again, crimson radiance from his Qi and blood actually seeped out through his skin and spread around him.
If anyone else saw this roaring tide of Qi and blood, they would have been stunned.
This was no ordinary vigor. Perhaps because it was infused with the Magma Chamber's heat, it roiled with a wild, violent edge that far surpassed others of the same realm.
Wang Baole had already been near the peak of Blood Qi before he came. After two days and nights of this burning grind, his Blood Qi had practically reached the absolute limit a human body could form…
He was only a hair's breadth from breaking through—stepping into the… Body-Sealing Realm!
In fact, he could have broken through already.
It was Wang Baole forcing himself to hold back, desperately suppressing his cultivation to stay in the Blood Qi stage and not step over that final line.
The reason was simple: he knew very well that once he entered the Body-Sealing Realm, his pores would close, his body would become isolated from the outside world…
And then his weight loss… would stop working.
With that in mind, he hung on with sheer willpower.
Under such brutal self-control, his whole body was shaking nonstop. Even so, his layers of fat continued to slowly shrink away. In that mixture of agony and thrill, the crowd outside the Magma Chamber grew larger and larger. Gasps and exclamations rose again and again.
"Th–three days already!!"
"Did Wang Baole die in there or what…"
"This is insane. Is he doing this for a breakthrough?"
Amid the chatter, Zhuo Yifan and the others gradually shifted from rage to sheer frustration. As much as they hated to admit it, staying in the Magma Chamber for three days straight was a feat that had only ever been accomplished once in the entire history of Ethereal Dao College.
Discussions about Wang Baole on the Spiritnet also grew more and more intense. Threads piled up, and soon someone even opened a betting pool—wagering on whether Wang Baole could break the previous Federal President's record…
Under this tide of attention and speculation, time flowed on.
Deep into the night, there were still many people watching outside the Magma Chamber.
Some of them clearly looked… professional. They were holding shadow-recorders, broadcasting everything live. One of them, a long-faced youth with his hair tied up in a Daoist topknot, freckles all over his cheeks and bright, shining eyes, was especially excited. He held his recorder high and shouted at the top of his lungs:
"Thanks to Sister Sunny for the cave-abode gift, thanks to Brother Ashtray for the airship…"
"Brothers, your support is my greatest motivation! Now, the most blood-pumping moment is upon us—after tonight, Wang Baole will officially break the record!"
"Gifts! I want to see those gifts fly! As long as someone sends me a rocket today, I swear I'll risk my life to dig out Wang Baole's secret of holding out for three days and three nights!"
That night, with these live streams outside the Magma Chamber… the entire Spiritnet boiled.
Especially that self-styled "Little Dao," who seemed tireless—he streamed for the entire night without stopping…
At the very moment when the first rays of dawn spilled down from the horizon and bathed the earth in light, inside the Magma Chamber, Wang Baole finally hit his physical limit.
His whole body was beet-red, swaying on the spot.
"Losing weight is so painful…"
He could no longer suppress his cultivation. As his Blood Qi surged past control, Wang Baole let out a heartbroken wail, and a deafening drum-like roar suddenly echoed from within his body.
The echo stirred his inner Devouring Seed to life. In an instant, an unimaginable suction force erupted from it, swallowing every bit of heat in the Magma Chamber in one gulp.
A wave of crushing, scorching power exploded inside him.
In the swirling mist, his layers of spirit-fat shrank at a speed visible to the naked eye. At the same time, every pore on his body, which had been forced open until now, began to snap shut in an instant—like a sealing formation being engraved all over him.
By the time it was done, his entire body's surface was fully sealed.
Inside and outside… were completely cut off!
At that exact same moment, outside the Battle Martial Department's Magma Chamber, countless students were already shaken to the core. The indicator light for Room Thirty-Nine had now been on longer than any record in the history of Ethereal Dao College!
Even the instructors were watching closely now. Discussions on the Spiritnet reached a fever pitch.
"Three days and four nights—Wang Baole's broken the record!"
"He's surpassed the former Federal President!"
In the crowd, all the student streamers were screaming themselves hoarse. The long-faced youth was practically shrieking. Holding his recorder aloft, he howled like a lunatic:
"Brothers, did you see that? Wang Baole has broken the record! This historic moment—get those gifts flying!!"
"I'll say it again: as long as I see a rocket today, I'll definitely go probe out his secret!"
While the outside was in chaos and everyone was talking at once, the indicator light for Room Thirty-Nine suddenly went dark.
The moment it flicked off, someone immediately spotted it and shouted:
"Hey, look—the light's out!"
"Wang Baole's coming out!!"
Little Dao was beside himself with excitement. He burrowed through the crowd to the very front, still faithfully recording, yelling as he went:
"Wang Baole is about to appear, brothers! Rockets—do we have rockets or not!?"
At that moment, every gaze outside the Magma Chamber turned as one toward the beast-head entrance.
Even the students watching through the live stream stared, unblinking.
Under all those eyes, they felt a wave of heat roll out of the beast's mouth, spilling into the open air. The temperature around them spiked sharply.
"So hot!"
"That has to be Room Thirty-Nine venting heat!"
With the heat rolling over them, expectations surged yet higher. Before long, a silhouette appeared in everyone's line of sight.
It was a short, chubby figure, one hand on the wall, slowly walking out.
As the figure grew clearer, an oppressive aura—far more intense than simple Blood Qi—burst out from his body.
It was Wang Baole.
He was much slimmer than when he had gone in, but his face was pale and he looked utterly drained. Yet the aura rolling off him was sharp and fierce, carrying a pressure that was impossible to ignore.
This was… the pressure of the Body-Sealing Realm.
When one broke into Body-Sealing, one's flesh became perfectly cohesive, and one's body isolated itself from the world. The shift created a kind of aura that other people could clearly feel—though it would fade within a few days, once the body adapted.
The instant Wang Baole appeared, an explosion of shocked cries erupted outside the Magma Chamber.
"That aura… He really broke through!"
"Body-Sealing Realm!"
"His whole body feels sealed, like he's cut off from the world—that's… that's Body-Sealing!"
The roar of voices made Wang Baole pause in surprise.
His mind was still a bit foggy. He had lost weight too fast; his body wasn't just weak, his spirit had been worn thin by constant exposure to extreme heat. Faced with this sudden wall of people and noise, he was honestly a bit dazed.
That was when all the streamers in the crowd surged toward him.
Little Dao was the first to rush in. He popped up at Wang Baole's side, eyes wild, shadow-recorder raised. His voice was bursting with excitement:
"Brothers, look—this is Student Wang Baole! His face is a bit big, might not fit in the screen, but you still gotta send those gifts, right? If you can't afford gifts, hit that follow!"
Little Dao was ecstatic. He didn't care who Wang Baole was or how he felt—he knew very clearly that as long as he was streaming this, the guy wouldn't flip out too badly. After all… the whole college was watching.
Wang Baole was still somewhat out of it. He glanced at the long-faced youth, then at the viewer count and gift tally on the recorder screen. Slowly, a look of contempt crept over his exhausted features.
"Is this how you call it streaming? That's it? This little bit of popularity and your gifts are trash. Only two rockets—and you brushed those yourself, right?"
Little Dao stiffened, feeling awkward. He hurriedly spoke into the recorder, trying to change the subject.
"Brothers, what do you think—does Wang Baole look handsome? If he's handsome, type 1. If he's not, type 2."
"You're a newbie, huh? Who shouts like that?"
Wang Baole frowned, snatched the recorder out of his hand, stuck it in front of his own face and bellowed:
"Brothers! If you think I'm handsome, type 1. If you think I'm very handsome, type 2. If you stay quiet, that means I've already exploded the universe with my beauty!"
Little Dao froze.
The bullet comments on the screen instantly exploded. The words "shameless" and "no shame" flooded the display like a tidal wave…
Wang Baole looked very pleased with himself. He glanced sideways at the stunned Little Dao.
"See that? That's how you get the hype going. Brothers, listen up—starting now, as long as you send one rocket, this Little Dao fellow will stay inside the Magma Chamber for one full hour. The more rockets, the longer he stays!"
In the span of just a few breaths, over twenty rockets streaked across the screen.
Little Dao's mind went blank. He sucked in a huge breath, his back turned cold, sweat pouring down. He was just about to explain when Wang Baole tossed the recorder back at him.
"You got that now? This is how you ask for gifts."
Hands behind his back, filled with smug satisfaction and still silently muttering, 'Dare say my face is big, will you…' Wang Baole strode away through the crowd to a chorus of stunned stares and reverent whispers.
Only Little Dao was left standing there, holding his recorder, on the verge of tears, watching the rockets fly by one after another on the screen…