Two months went by. During the first month, he devoted himself entirely to the World Bearing Devil Suppressing Physique, and cultivating the seventh layer was brutally painful.
The technique compressed and strengthened his flesh, bones, meridians, and internal organs over and over, forcing every part of his body to adapt to an ever more terrifying hidden weight. Every breakthrough felt as if his body were being crushed apart and rebuilt.
Li Yun endured it, and eventually the final barrier broke with a boom. The seventh layer was complete, and his body now carried ten million times its weight.
He stood perfectly still, yet he could feel the terrifying mass sealed inside him. If he let go of his control completely, an ordinary step could crack the ground beneath him.
A punch would no longer rely only on muscle or essence qi, because it would carry the momentum of an unimaginably heavy body moving at terrifying speed. Combined with his bloodline and physical cultivation, its destructive force would be even more frightening.
During the second month, Li Yun turned his attention to two Intents he had neglected for some time, Wind Intent and Lightning Intent. Neither had reached the Xiantian Stage before, but with his current comprehension, crossing that boundary was no longer especially hard.
He began by deepening his understanding of Wind. Wind had no fixed form. It could be gentle enough to stir a blade of grass or violent enough to rip trees from the earth. Its greatest characteristic was freedom, because it moved constantly, changed direction naturally, and picked up speed without being bound by any rigid shape.
Lightning followed a different principle and stood for instant eruption. There was almost no transition between its stillness and its motion. One moment there was nothing, and the next, lightning had already crossed the sky.
When both Intents finally entered the Xiantian Stage, a thought came to Li Yun naturally.
Wind could provide continuous acceleration, and Lightning could provide sudden explosive speed. What would happen if he combined them? The answer was obvious: a movement technique built around a single purpose, which was speed.
Li Yun understood perfectly well that what he was pursuing now was nowhere near true Absolute Speed. Still, every supreme path had to start somewhere, so he began to experiment.
Wind and lightning swirled around his body again and again, and again and again the fusion failed. Sometimes the Wind accelerated too aggressively and disrupted the explosive rhythm of the Lightning.
At other times, the Lightning burst out too violently and broke the flow of the Wind before the technique could settle. Li Yun kept adjusting both forces. He changed their timing, altered their proportions, and refined the exact instant when the Lightning erupted and the Wind carried the momentum forward. Eventually, everything fell into place.
With a whoosh, Li Yun vanished. There was no gradual acceleration and not even a visible blur. One instant he was standing at one end of the cultivation chamber, and the next he had already reached the opposite wall.
Only after his body stopped did the sound catch up, as a howl of wind swept through the room and a sharp crack of thunder followed.
Li Yun slowly turned around, and his eyes lit up.
"Good. I’ll call this movement technique Gale Flash."
Gale Flash used Wind to build and sustain momentum, while Lightning supplied the instant burst needed to cover the first stretch of distance. The whole technique existed for speed and nothing else. If his understanding of Wind and Lightning kept improving, perhaps one day Gale Flash really could approach the realm of Absolute Speed.
Li Yun slowly clenched his fist. He now had Horizon Sword Light and Gale Flash, along with the seventh layer of the World Bearing Devil Suppressing Physique and its ten-millionfold body weight. His preparations were complete.
A smile appeared on his face. "Now I’m ready."
He took a step, and Gale Flash activated. Wind and lightning flickered around him for barely an instant before his body disappeared, and he entered the Everlasting Pagoda.
He did not stop at the first floor or the second. Space kept shifting around him until the world finally steadied, and he found himself on the third floor. A vast mountain range stretched around him, with clouds drifting between towering peaks and ancient trees covering the slopes. In the distance stood the familiar figure of the Verdant Sword Sage.
The guardian raised his head the moment Li Yun appeared, and a faint frown crossed his face.
"Hm? You’re back already?" His gaze swept over Li Yun. "It’s only been two months since your last attempt." He shook his head slightly. "Why the rush?"
Li Yun smiled. "Senior." His hand slowly moved toward the Profound Origin Sword. "This time, I’ve come to beat you."
The Verdant Sword Sage stared at him for a moment and then laughed.
"Interesting. Very well. Show me what gives you so much confidence."
Li Yun’s expression turned solemn. He did not draw his sword right away. Instead, his heartbeat changed. A deep pulse thumped in his chest, and then another followed. The blood flowing through his body quickly grew hotter, and an ancient, majestic pressure began to awaken deep within his bloodline.
The smile slowly faded from the Verdant Sword Sage’s face. "What is this?"
Golden light burst from Li Yun’s body with a boom as his Golden Ancient Dragon Bloodline awakened. A deep dragon roar seemed to echo across the entire mountain range. The clouds trembled, and the ancient trees bent under the invisible pressure of the bloodline. Li Yun’s physical aura surged, and then his eyes turned golden.
"Dragon Blood Transformation."
The Golden Ancient Dragon Bloodline erupted completely. Golden dragon scales spread rapidly across Li Yun’s skin until he looked like a half-dragon warrior. His muscles tightened, his bones rumbled beneath his flesh, and golden blood surged through every part of him.
Then the seventh layer of the World Bearing Devil Suppressing Physique awakened, and with it came ten million times his body weight. The ground beneath Li Yun caved in with a boom. He had not taken a single step. He had only released part of the enormous weight held inside his body, yet cracks spread hundreds of feet across the earth around him.

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