Chapter 134: Chapter 134
For others, every step forward in cultivation demanded grinding effort — like the foolish old man moving the mountain — and a single misstep could undo all prior progress.
But Shen Xiuhan was different.
His martial realm and comprehension had long ago been cultivated to Hidden Strength Perfection through Deduction.
Which meant that, for him, there was no bottleneck whatsoever between Manifest Strength and Hidden Strength.
Like a fully dug irrigation channel — he had only to open the sluice gate, and the water would flow in of its own accord.
What he lacked was simply time: the slow, drop-by-drop gathering of more “water.”
And this Dragon Blood Essence Pool — “water” was the one thing it had in abundance.
In the dense blood-red fog, Shen Xiuhan’s eyes were half-closed, his spirit sunk entirely into clear emptiness.
The Golden Vulture Soaring Wind Art turned within him like an invisible net, guiding the vast, scalding qi-blood in a reverse flood toward the soles of his feet.
Manifest Strength and Hidden Strength seemed to differ by a single word — but in truth, the gulf between them was the difference between cloud and mud in one’s mastery of the flesh.
The Manifest Strength fighter externalized qi-blood — fierce, overbearing, explosive.
Its cultivation was mostly stance-work, the grinding of skin, flesh, sinew, and bone — grand and sweeping, but crude.
Hidden Strength, by contrast, condensed qi-blood into a finer “force,” stored within the apertures throughout the body — released and withdrawn at will, killing without a trace.
As the martial saying went: Manifest Strength knocks open three barriers; Hidden Strength opens nine apertures.
And the first of those nine apertures lay beneath the feet.
The meaning being: for a martial artist newly entering the gate of Hidden Strength, the easiest aperture to open lay on the instep.
Its name: Taichong!
…
The depths of the blood pool.
Time slipped quietly by.
Shen Xiuhan sat cross-legged, a fine, viscous layer of dark-red beads now clinging to his hair, his shoulders, and his sharply angled face.
His hands were locked in a seal, channeling force along his sinews and primary bones, scouring it down toward the instep.
How long passed, he didn’t know.
Then, at one moment —
HUMMM!
A muffled detonation of qi resounded from deep within him.
In the next breath, the fierce, externalized qi-blood that wrapped his body — like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, like all things collapsing inward — contracted at a terrifying speed.
The vast, heavy qi-blood was crushed and recombined, again and again, until at last it was sealed entirely into the Taichong aperture at his instep.
CRACKLE-POP!
A dense string of detonations rang out. Inside him, joints shifted and sinews trembled, like thunder rolling across the sky.
Along with a tearing, stabbing pain at his feet, a thread of force — fine as a floating filament, yet matchlessly sharp and condensed — abruptly broke free of its cocoon.
This newborn force flowed in reverse along his meridians.
Shen Xiuhan’s eyes snapped open, pupils flashing like lightning.
He lifted his right hand, fingers slightly curled. A barely visible dark current coiled and pulsed about them — silent, soundless, yet carrying a heart-stopping penetrating power.
“From external release to internal restraint — extreme hardness gives birth to hidden softness…”
Shen Xiuhan murmured to himself, a thread of feeling in his voice.
“This, then, is… Hidden Strength!”
The Taichong aperture!
Opened!
Hidden Strength — achieved!
“Hoo…”
Shen Xiuhan felt the reborn power coursing through him and let out a long breath, complicated emotion in his eyes.
From joining Mei Hall to now — a mere few months — he had walked a road others might not finish in years.
From a fisherman’s son who couldn’t even hold a steady horse-stance, to a martial artist who had now knocked open the gate of Hidden Strength…
He had walked this road too fast. So fast it felt unreal.
“But… it’s not enough!”
Shen Xiuhan pressed down the swell of emotion, his gaze hardening.
‘Hidden Strength — in a little place like Changyun County, it’s enough to be courted by every power, looked upon with new respect. But on the martial path, it’s only just crossing the threshold!’
‘My goal was never some paltry Hidden Strength.’
A flicker of thought, and his force slowly withdrew into the apertures.
He raised his eyes and glanced around.
The blood-fog was too thick, viscous as paste — he couldn’t make out the others, only the faint sound of breathing and qi-cycling drifting from afar, rising and falling like the tide.
Shen Xiuhan lowered his lids, his mind racing.
He didn’t know the exact time, but a fighter’s instinct told him he’d been here no more than a day.
Which meant two days remained to drink in the qi-blood freely.
Hidden Strength was done, but it was far from enough.
He’d opened only one of nine apertures. Eight more waited.
And this pool of blood was a breakthrough sanctum tailor-made for him.
‘The chance won’t come twice. Keep cultivating!’
Shen Xiuhan closed his eyes, formed the seal again, and resumed.
A single day of seclusion in this Dragon Blood Essence Pool was worth months of pill-aided training in the outside world!
A windfall like this came once in a thousand years. If he didn’t fleece it to the bone now, who knew how many years he’d wait to find such a treasure-ground again!
…
How long passed, no one could say.
From the far side of the pool came a roar of bone.
Xiao Wu opened his eyes, a fierce light bursting from their depths, a satisfied smile curving his lips.
The seventh aperture — open!
He had finally, fully entered Full Mastery of Hidden Strength!
Xiao Wu calculated inwardly.
Had he been training outside, even with his talent, he’d have needed several months at least to smoothly open his last two apertures.
But in this blood pool, if he could keep drinking it in like this, in no more than ten-odd days he might reach Hidden Strength Perfection and begin reaching for Transforming Strength.
‘A pity… only a day left…’
Xiao Wu shook his head in regret, then composed himself, ready to seize what time remained — every fraction of refinement counted.
But he had barely sunk back into meditation when his eyes flew open. His thick brows knit together.
‘Hm?’
‘The qi-blood here… why does it seem to have thinned?’
A puzzled look crossed Xiao Wu’s face. He stood and swept his gaze around.
And what he saw left him dumbstruck.
When he’d first set foot in this Dragon Blood Essence Pool, the blood-qi suffusing the air had been thick as solid matter — practically a fog and rain of blood.
But now…
That vast blood-qi was utterly gone. The mist in the air had visibly thinned.
Even the paste-thick blood pool beneath had dropped a level, its once-crimson color grown noticeably clearer and more translucent.
Disbelief written across his face, Xiao Wu couldn’t help muttering.
“That’s it?”
“The Wang family hyped this place to the heavens — dragging out the Imperial Sovereign, the True Lord Overturning-Sea and all the rest…”
“And it was barely enough for me to open a single aperture before running dry?”
“Brother Xiao! Brother Xiao!”
Just then, Wang Xuanyang’s voice called out from nearby.
Seeing Xiao Wu on his feet, he came wading hurriedly over.
The Wang young master, too, wore a look of baffled alarm.
“Th-this isn’t right!”
Wang Xuanyang said, aghast.
“The household head said with his own mouth that the surging blood-qi here was enough for every one of us to open one or two apertures!”
“So how is it that I haven’t even opened my first, and the blood-qi has thinned out like this?!”
Xiao Wu glanced at him and asked back, flatly:
“You’re asking me — who am I supposed to ask?”
As they spoke, Luo Tangyin, sitting alone in the distance, also rose to her feet.
Her exquisite face was drawn into a faint frown as she took in the thinned qi-blood around her — clearly displeased as well.
Then Ji Ning, Shen Xiuhan, and Lin Sheng woke one after another and gathered together, faces full of confusion.
Xiao Wu asked with concern: “Tangyin, did you open Hidden Strength smoothly?”
Luo Tangyin nodded faintly, a trace of regret in her voice.
“I’d just entered Hidden Strength when I woke. The qi-blood here isn’t even enough to cultivate the Taichong aperture to Perfection, let alone open the second — the Guanyuan.”
“Reaching Hidden Strength is good enough. The trip wasn’t wasted.”
Xiao Wu shook his head and offered a few soft words of comfort.
Then his gaze shifted to Ji Ning.
Ji Ning stood with arms crossed, face slightly dark. He shook his head.
“I formed the Guanyuan aperture, but the third — the Tinggong — couldn’t condense. The qi-blood gave out.”
“Any gain is good.”
Xiao Wu sighed, then turned his eyes to Shen Xiuhan.
“And you, Brother Shen?”