Cloud Mist Market, Lin Training Centre, Inner Courtyard.
Inside the isolated training room, heavy fist winds continuously exploded.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Each punch released a deep vibrating sound that echoed throughout the room like muffled thunder.
Lin Sheng stood at the center with his eyes closed.
His breathing was slow.
Steady.
Yet the pressure radiating from his body felt increasingly oppressive, almost like a dormant yao beast awakening from slumber.
The surrounding air distorted faintly under the circulation of his qi-blood.
Currently, he was attempting to break through the final limitation of the Body Nourishing stage of the Vajra Fist Technique.
Unlike ordinary martial arts cultivation, Body Refining followed an entirely different path.
Martial artists strengthened internal energy and transformed it into true qi.
Immortal cultivators refined spiritual qi into magic power.
But Body Refiners—
They refined the body itself.
Skin.
Muscles.
Tendons.
Bones.
Organs.
Every stage transformed the body closer toward the physique of powerful yao beasts.
Some techniques specialized purely in defense.
Others specialized in monstrous strength.
Certain body refinement arts even focused solely on speed or regeneration.
But the Vajra Fist Technique was different.
It pursued complete enhancement.
An all-round physical transformation.
That was also why its cultivation requirements were far harsher than ordinary body refinement methods.
Before officially entering the Body Refining Realm, one first had to complete the Body Nourishing stage.
This stage involved gathering and condensing qi-blood repeatedly to nourish parts of the body and prepare it for true refinement.
Ordinary practitioners could only complete three gates.
The First Gate.
Second Gate.
Third Gate.
Each completed gate represented a higher degree of qi-blood condensation and bodily enhancement.
But after analyzing the technique deeply using the chip—
Lin Sheng discovered something unusual.
The qi-blood condensation points corresponded directly to the five internal organs.
Heart.
Lungs.
Kidneys.
Liver.
Spleen.
Different body refinement techniques emphasized different organs depending on their specialty.
Techniques focused purely on destructive power usually strengthened the Heart, Lungs, and Kidneys.
Techniques focused on vitality and longevity emphasized the Heart, Liver, and Lungs.
After discovering this relationship, Lin Sheng immediately attempted something others had never considered.
Condensing qi-blood within all five organs simultaneously.
The chip had initially estimated the success rate as extremely low.
But after countless optimizations and repeated attempts—
He actually succeeded.
Now—
Only the final condensation remained.
Inside his body, immense quantities of qi-blood surged continuously through his meridians.
His heartbeats gradually slowed.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
The slowing rhythm appeared abnormal.
Dangerously abnormal.
Any ordinary person would already be dead from such a weak heartbeat.
Yet Lin Sheng remained completely calm.
His mental field spread throughout his body with absolute precision.
He could clearly observe every movement occurring internally.
The qi-blood within his heart continuously compressed inward.
Denser.
Hotter.
More violent.
The pressure gradually reached its limit.
Then—
BOOM!
A loud heartbeat exploded throughout the room like a war drum.
The sound alone shook the walls slightly.
Lin Sheng's eyes snapped open instantly.
A powerful wave of qi-blood erupted outward from his body.
The pressure resembled a ferocious beast roaring silently.
The Fifth Gate—
Complete.
At that moment, the condensed qi-blood inside the five organs began circulating automatically throughout his body.
Heart.
Lungs.
Kidneys.
Liver.
Spleen.
The five condensed sources connected together continuously, creating an endless cycle of nourishment.
The qi-blood flowed through his muscles, tendons, bones, and meridians while subtly strengthening them.
Lin Sheng slowly lowered his gaze toward his fist.
Then—
He punched forward casually.
BOOM!
A visible shockwave exploded through the air.
The training room trembled slightly.
The sheer physical force alone already approached one thousand jin.
And that was without using true qi.
Pure bodily strength.
Lin Sheng narrowed his eyes slightly.
"At least 1200 jin of force…"
Ordinary Body Refiners usually required enormous resources to reach this level.
Yao beast meat.
Medicinal baths.
Blood refinement pills.
Body tempering ointments.
Without resources, body refinement cultivation progressed extremely slowly.
More importantly—
It consumed terrifying amounts of money.
Lin Sheng estimated silently for a moment.
Once he officially entered the Body Refining stage, his current wealth would probably disappear extremely quickly.
Currently, he possessed around fifteen hundred low-grade spirit stones in total.
That amount sounded enormous for ordinary cultivators.
But for true Body Refiners—
It was barely enough to begin.
Lin Sheng exhaled slowly.
"I need a stable source of income…"
The missions from the training center alone would not be enough.
Especially once the alliance leaders from the core courtyard began targeting their small group indirectly.
That meant he needed another method.
A cultivation profession.
Among immortal cultivators, the Hundred Arts of Cultivation were the primary source of wealth generation.
Alchemy.
Artifact Refining.
Formation Crafting.
Talisman Creation.
Each profession possessed immense value.
But also high barriers of entry.
Lin Sheng began analyzing them one by one calmly.
"Talisman creation…"
He immediately shook his head slightly.
Talismans required precise spiritual qi infusion into specialized inks while drawing complex spiritual patterns onto talisman paper.
The process consumed large amounts of spiritual qi continuously.
More importantly, the spiritual control required was extremely delicate.
Although his mental strength surpassed ordinary cultivators, martial artists naturally lacked the spiritual root affinities that immortal cultivators possessed.
His true qi simply was not suited for standard talisman creation methods.
"Artifact refining…"
Possible.
But impractical.
Artifact refining required extensive blacksmithing foundations, repeated forging experience, and large amounts of time investment.
Additionally, ordinary martial artist weapons simply could not compare to true magical artifacts refined by cultivators.
Most buyers naturally preferred Rank-1 magical artifacts instead.
Meaning the market demand for ordinary martial weapons remained limited.
"Formations…"
Impossible for now.
Formation Dao required massive knowledge accumulation.
Runic structures.
Spiritual vein synchronization.
Formation cores.
Pattern linking.
He currently lacked both the knowledge and resources.
Which only left—
Alchemy.
Lin Sheng's eyes narrowed slightly.
At first glance, alchemy seemed impossible for martial artists.
After all, alchemy normally required spiritual qi manipulation and fire control.
But after researching deeply using the chip, he discovered something important.
Rank-1 alchemists mainly relied on their own spiritual qi to stabilize medicinal fusion.
However—
Rank-2 and above relied far more heavily on divine sense manipulation.
Once an alchemist possessed sufficiently powerful spiritual control, they could directly manipulate surrounding heaven and earth spiritual qi during refinement.
And divine sense…
Was precisely Lin Sheng's greatest advantage.
Currently, his mental field already extended twenty-five li.
Even most early Foundation Establishment cultivators could not compare to him mentally.
The real problem was fire.
True alchemical flames.
Foundation Establishment cultivators could ignite their liquefied magic power to create true fire.
Without true fire, many medicinal impurities could not be refined properly.
But Lin Sheng—
Already possessed something extremely close.
Several days ago, he attempted combining the Fire Ignition Technique with a strand of power from the White Dwarf Stage.
The result shocked even him.
A flame.
Not ordinary fire.
But an incredibly dense white flame.
The temperature was terrifyingly high despite its tiny size.
Unfortunately, maintaining the flame consumed true qi rapidly.
Additionally, the flame remained too unstable for combat usage.
But for alchemy…
It might actually work.
Lin Sheng slowly raised his hand.
A strand of true qi circulated through his meridians before gathering at his fingertip.
Then—
A tiny white flame appeared silently.
The room temperature instantly rose.
The flame was extremely small.
Barely the size of a fingernail.
Yet the surrounding air distorted faintly from heat alone.
Lin Sheng observed it carefully.
The flame itself carried traces of the White Dwarf Visualization Art's terrifying compression properties.
Dense.
Stable.
Explosive.
Compared to ordinary spiritual fire, this flame seemed far more concentrated.
The chip interface flickered faintly.
•[Analyzing Flame Structure...]•
•[Estimated Temperature Exceeds Standard Rank-1 Spirit Flame]•
•[Stability: Moderate]•
•[Potential Use: Alchemy Assistance]•
Lin Sheng's eyes brightened slightly.
"So it really works…"
If he could truly enter the path of alchemy—
Then his future resource problems would decrease enormously.
Especially because his mental strength far exceeded ordinary alchemists of similar cultivation.
That alone already gave him terrifying potential.
But before that—
He needed knowledge.
Alchemy inheritance.
Pill formulas.
Medicinal compatibility.
Furnace operation methods.
Without those, possessing flame alone meant nothing.
Lin Sheng extinguished the white flame slowly.
Then he sat back down calmly.
His thoughts gradually deepened.
The cultivation world truly operated on resources.
Whether martial artists or immortal cultivators—
Without resources, progress slowed endlessly.
That was why countless cultivators risked their lives entering ruins, hunting yao beasts, robbing others, or joining dangerous factions.
The weak struggled for resources.
The strong monopolized them.
And those standing at the peak—
Controlled the entire cycle itself.
Lin Sheng slowly clenched his fist again.
A faint golden pressure spread from his skin.
Currently, he already possessed a little strength but compared to the top brass in the market, hes not even close.
His momentum mastery made his offensive power even more terrifying.
Combined with the Spiral Thorn mental attack—
Even Foundation Establishment cultivators could not ignore him completely anymore.
Yet despite all this—
He still felt insufficient.
Because the higher one climbed—
The larger the world became.
The current Cloud Mist Market was merely a small corner of the Yun Province.