Zhang Ruochen pondered for a moment before asking again, “Lin Chenyu was executed?”
“No! How could His Highness the Seventh Prince let him off so easily?” Yun’er said, “Lin Chenyu was executed in the palace and turned into a eunuch who was taken as a slave by His Highness the Seventh Prince.”
Zhang Ruochen said, “The Lin Family’s number one genius, yet he turned into a eunuch and became a slave of his enemy. To the Lin Family, it is simply a great shame.”
Yun’er frowned and said, “But I am very unable to understand, since the Lin Family has suffered such a great humiliation. Why would the Lin Family’s family head still want to marry his daughter, to the seventh prince?”
Zhang Ruochen said, “This is very understandable! With the Seventh Prince’s natural talent, he will definitely inherit the throne in the future and become the Lord of the Yunwu County Kingdom. If the Lin Family wants to gain a foothold in the Yunwu County Kingdom, they will definitely need to repair their relationship with the Seventh Prince. A marriage is the best way.”
“Secondly, the Lin family’s first genius, since he became the seventh prince’s slave. The relationship between the Lin Family and the Seventh Prince is probably not as hostile as we thought. Perhaps the marriage between Lin Mishan and the Seventh Prince was made possible by the Lin family’s first genius, Lin Chenyu.”
Yun’er’s eyes stared straight at Zhang Ruochen, simply unable to believe that His Highness the Ninth Prince was able to analyse so well, not at all like the timid teenager he had once been, but instead, he gave off a feeling of sophistication and wisdom.
“It seems that after opening the Divine Martial Seal, it really made His Highness the Ninth Prince completely change.” Yun’er’s heart secretly thought, if Empress Lin knew that His Highness the Ninth Prince had changed so much, she would definitely be very pleased.
Returning to his room, Zhang Ruochen immediately entered the inner space of the Space-Time Crystal Stone.
“Start opening the second meridian now!”
Zhang Ruochen uncorked the small jade bottle and took a portion of the Marrow Cleansing Liquid.
Under the effect of the medicinal power of the Marrow Cleansing Liquid, the blood in his entire body seemed to boil. With the help of the huge medicinal power, Zhang Ruochen immediately began to open the second meridian according to the Nine Heavens Bright Emperor Scripture above.
The more meridians opened up in the body, the faster the speed of absorbing spiritual qi would be, and the faster the true qi in the body would run.
The more meridians in the body, the more powerful the cultivated martial body would naturally be, and in the same realm, it could erupt into a more powerful battle force.
With the help of his former cultivation experience, Zhang Ruochen quickly opened up a second meridian, and the running speed of the true qi in his body doubled.
“The Qi pool didn’t expand, and without breaking through the middle stage of the Yellow Extreme Realm, it seems that another meridian will have to be opened up.”
Zhang Ruochen took a Blood Pill to restore his strength, and after resting for roughly an hour to bring himself to his best state, he immediately took another serving of Marrow Cleansing Liquid and began to open up a third meridian.
Those other cultivators, after opening a new meridian, usually had to recuperate for a month to three months to increase the toughness and activity of the meridian before continuing to open the next meridian.
However, Zhang Ruochen couldn’t wait for a month after that, he was going to open his third meridian now to impact the middle stage of the Yellow Extreme Realm.
In this way, the difficulty had more than doubled.
“I can definitely do it, I can definitely do it, I must impact the middle stage of the Yellow Extreme Realm tonight.”
Zhang Ruochen’s hand pinched a Spirit Crystal, and while absorbing the Spirit Qi in the Spirit Crystal, he mobilised all the True Qi in his body and violently impacted towards the third meridian.
“Boom!”
A muffled sound was emitted from Zhang Ruochen’s brow.
The original pool of Qi that was only as big as a basketball immediately expanded tenfold to the size of a water tank, like a three-foot square pool.
Now, Zhang Ruochen’s Qi Pool could truly be called a Qi Pool.
This was the cultivation level of the middle stage of the Yellow Extreme Realm!
“Right now, it can only be considered that I have just entered the middle stage of the Yellow Extreme Realm, the true qi in my body hasn’t increased much. Of course, I now have room for improvement again, if I cultivate the true qi in the Qi Pool to its fullest, the true qi in my body will increase tenfold.” A sense of joy arose in Zhang Ruochen’s heart, his martial arts cultivation had finally become a whole lot stronger again.
With each level up, the capacity of the Qi Pool would follow suit, and naturally, it would be able to hold more True Qi.
If you were unable to break through the realm, then even if you cultivated for ten years, the true qi in your body would not increase in any way. This was because your Qi pool was only that big and could only hold that much True Qi.
When you broke through to the middle stage of the Yellow Extreme Realm, the impurities in your flesh, carried out from your pores, were like a layer of black sticky mud, emitting a faint fishy odour.
Zhang Ruochen immediately called for a bucket of hot water, and after taking a bath and changing into a new piece of clothing, he immediately returned to the inner space of the Space-Time Crystal Stone.
He cupped a pen in his hand, very smoothly, and transformed it into a human-shaped pattern on a scroll of paper.
Then, with the memories in his mind, he drew thirty-six meridians on top of the human-shaped pattern, with each meridian running on a different route.
There was only one thing in common: all thirty-six meridians, all of them had to converge to the Qi Pool in the centre of his eyebrows.
The first time Zhang Ruochen flipped through the first layer of the Nine Heavens Ming Emperor Scripture, he saw such a “meridian diagram”, which did not have any textual explanations, and relied entirely on his own enlightenment.
The more advanced the technique one cultivates, the more meridians one opens up in the body, and the faster one’s true qi can be transported.
“A lower-grade human grade technique can only open up seven meridians.”
“The Nine Heavens Bright Emperor Scripture, however, has thirty-six meridians recorded above, and with each additional cultivation meridian, the martial body becomes one point stronger. If all thirty-six meridians were opened up, how powerful would the martial body become?”
The word “extreme” in the Yellow Extreme Realm represented the meaning of the limits of the meridians.
Zhang Ruochen had only cultivated thirty-three meridians in his last life, and there were still three more meridians that he couldn’t open up in any way!
With his previous life’s martial body that had opened up thirty-three meridians, he had already defeated his peers without a match. Even the number one powerhouse in the world today, Empress Chi Yao, was a step behind him, having only opened up thirty-one meridians.
“I have now opened up three meridians, which belongs to the middle stage of the Yellow Extreme Realm, and if I want to break through to the late stage of the Yellow Extreme Realm, I will need to open up at least three more meridians before I can do so.”
Zhang Ruochen rolled up the meridian diagram and placed it on the stone platform.
If he wanted to impact the late stage of the Yellow Extreme Realm, he had to cultivate the True Qi in the Qi Pool to full capacity first.
If one were to follow the rules of cultivation, even with the help of the Spirit Crystal’s aura, it would take a month and a half of cultivation before the True Qi could fill up the entire body and overflow the Qi Pool.
Zhang Ruochen couldn’t wait that long, so he decided to take the “Qi Gathering Pill”.
A Qi Gathering Pill was worth 1,000 silver coins, which was a rare treasure for the average martial artist. Even the young scions of medium-sized clans would find it hard to get a Qi Gathering Pill.
Zhang Ruochen purchased ten of them at once, which he intended to use to quickly raise his cultivation level.
The Qi Gathering Pill, which was only the size of a pearl, carried a faint fragrance, and with the naked eye, one could see strands of Spiritual Qi flowing on the surface of the pill.
Zhang Ruochen swallowed the Qi Gathering Pill into his mouth.
A moment later.
With a “boom”, the Qi Gathering Pill exploded inside his body, transforming into a ball of furious dan qi that pulsed up and down inside Zhang Ruochen’s body.
The three meridians absorbed the dan qi at the fastest speed possible, and after running through the body for a large circumference, the dan qi was transformed into true qi and stored in the Qi Pool.
Although, Zhang Ruochen had done his best to absorb the dan qi, he still lost 70% of it through his pores. He had only absorbed 30% of the Dan Qi from one Qi Gathering Pill.
It took him a whole day to completely transform that 30% of the Dan Qi into his own True Qi.
After refining this 30% of Dan Qi, the amount of true qi in the qi pool, increased by two times.
“I’ve only opened up three meridians, the transformation speed of my true qi is still too slow, 70% of the dan qi was wasted. If a martial artist of the Yellow Extreme Realm’s Minor Extreme Position were to take the Qi Gathering Pill, he would be able to completely convert the dan qi of the Qi Gathering Pill into his own true qi without wasting a single trace.”
“Whatever! As long as I can quickly raise my cultivation, it’s worth wasting any amount of silver coins. With the medicinal power of the Qi Gathering Pill, I’ll be able to refine four more of them, and I’ll be able to cultivate the pool of qi to full capacity.”
Luckily, Zhang Ruochen had plenty of silver coins now and didn’t need to worry about money. Otherwise, a thousand silver coins a piece of Qi Gathering Pill would have caused him a heartache with each one he took.
He did not continue to take the second Qi Gathering Pill, stopped cultivating, and walked out from the inner space of the Space-Time Crystal Stone to return to his room again.
He had been cultivating for more than a day inside the Space-Time Crystal Stone, and only half a day had passed outside.
At this moment, it was exactly noon.
Zhang Ruochen didn’t startle Yun’er or Concubine Lin, and called for a bucket of hot water, placing it inside the room.
He wasn’t going to take a bath, but rather a medicinal bath.
Martial artists, not only did they just have to cultivate their True Qi, they also had to hammer their bodies.
Zhang Ruochen’s body was a bit soft compared to his peers, so if he wanted to make his body strong within a few months, he not only had to practice boxing, but he also had to take a medicinal bath.
Zhang Ruochen purchased a total of five copies of Body Refining Scatter, each worth a thousand silver coins.
Taking out one of the copies of the Body Refining Bulk, he put it into the wooden barrel.
Immediately, a “giggling” sound was emitted from the barrel, and white smoke came out from the barrel.
Zhang Ruochen sat cross-legged in the barrel, the top of his head submerged by the medicinal water.
The medicinal water was very hot, almost like boiling water, with bubbles coming out one by one.
A sharp pain came from the surface of the skin, and then that wave of pain drilled into the flesh and blood. Finally, that wave of pain entered the bone marrow and the five viscera.
All over the body, there was a fiery pain. If it was any other martial artist, they would definitely not be able to endure this wave of pain and would jump out of the barrel.
Zhang Ruochen was simply like a rock, sitting at the bottom of the wooden barrel without any change in expression, silently enduring that wave of pain from his flesh.
Only by eating the bitterness of bitterness could one become a human being.
