Sat in his small hut, Lu Qingshan was frozen like a statue. His spine extended straight towards the sky like a heavenly pillar, while his deep, dark eyes gazed towards the horizon. A silence hung in the air.

  Some martial artists were walking around, minding their own tasks, and bringing their hauls back from their explorations. But then everyone in the area shivered, as if a great beast was looking down at them. They looked wildly around them for any enemies.

  An Xin came running on small currents of water. She joined the martial artists in searching the area. Then she stared at the hut where Lu Qingshan had entered cultivation.

  "It's the sect master," she said, her voice taking a low tone. "No need to worry."

  Lu Qingshan exhaled. He slowly stood up. A flash of something inhuman left his eyes, and he exited the room.

  With the Dragon Spine Manual at the fifth level, he had gained a physical body that could go blow to blow with his previous Innate realm self. Of course, he would've likely lost to attrition, but being able to withstand multiple rounds of battle meant his physical body was extremely powerful. And this wasn't even the end of the technique — it had not yet reached its limit.

  Lu Qingshan brought out a blade, and chopped it down on his arm. It didn't even break his skin until he brought out his water element primordial qi combined with his condensed Blood Seas Inner Force. Then a large scar was made, only to heal rapidly within a few breaths of time. He was much, much sturdier now.

  It was probably safe to begin experimenting with the Cold Abyss Pearl and the yin qi inside the artifact. An Xin had arrived outside his door, and the two of them quickly left towards a secluded area of the forest. He didn't want anything going wrong and affecting the martial artists around them.

  Artifacts didn't usually explode, An Xin had said. But damaged ones were a different story. Even if one was careful, they sometimes wore out on their own, unleashing their stored energies in a small blast of power around it. Thus, it was more dangerous, but she also said it was mostly fine, especially since they had no other alternatives.

  An immortal cultivator usually danced with death whenever they roamed the world. Most of the Qi Refinement realm cultivators she had seen carried stories of their own. Not a single one got to their position without some form of life and death battle. Some had even fought multiple, the most dangerous of the bunch, who had explored long-slumbering tombs and local forbidden lands.

  Lu Qingshan sat next to her and watched the Cold Abyss Pearl in her hands. Soon a spiritual energy flowed from her fingertips, pouring into the artifact and lighting up the trees in a frosty blue glow. He called upon the Giant Whale Breathing Method, and immediately received feedback that the concentration of water element in the air had jumped.

  Using the Elemental Tempering stage method, Lu Qingshan began channeling an increasingly large amount of water element primordial qi. It rapidly rose from ten percent to twenty percent, and then thirty percent, before finally stopping at around thirty-five percent. It was here that Lu Qingshan finally felt the strain in his body.

  His neck soaked in sweat, he called out to An Xin to stop. She pulled her hands away from the orb and placed it back into a cloth swaddle. A past gift of hers, she had stated it was made to help her carry delicate things.

  Lu Qingshan returned to his martial arts, easing the pain from his body. Such a damaging method of cultivation was only possible due to his Dragon Spine Manual. Without it, he ran the risk of his apertures deteriorating, or his body taking an increasing amount of internal damage. And he also needed a water-element immortal cultivator to properly use the artifact, or the thing would just remain dormant in his hands.

  It took a few days of rest in order to fully recover from a single session. In the meantime, Lu Qingshan actively hunted for demonized insect swarms. One could never go wrong with more tools in their arsenal, and the Eight Thorns Spiders were currently his most accessible trump card. He had left one with Liu Yingting, so he needed another as a replacement.

  With the martial artists in free roam around the area, this was fast enough. He managed to fill up the gu jar with half its capacity before he was ready for another cultivation session. Lu Qingshan quickly rushed back to An Xin and started a second round.

  This time, he only managed to channel half his primordial qi into the water element before he was forced to stop. But this was good progress. It got harder the more he channeled, and yet gained even more power than he expected. A single thrust of his palm could shatter a wall and penetrate deep inside mountain rock.

  Over the next half month, Lu Qingshan reared another Eight Thorns Spider and developed his Elemental Tempering stage to encompass the water element fully. His Flowing Cloud Inner Force couldn't help but reach the fourth level as well. Unsurprisingly, his cultivation speed only grew with that advance, and he managed to fully convert his primordial qi a few days earlier than he expected.

  His efforts were rewarded when he looked at the stone slab. Elemental Tempering, it read, right next to his Mortal Shedding realm. Lu Qingshan allowed himself a moment of satisfaction.

  But there was no time to rest. Wu Ruoling and An Xin had worked together to produce secret medicines aligned for his next stage of martial arts. They used the earthworm's metal element spiritual energy in order to propel his Golden Drop Inner Force to new heights.

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  In record time, Lu Qingshan accelerated his proficiency gain and caused the Golden Drop Inner Force to reach its limit within a few days. He began tempering his primordial qi again, except this time it was with the element of metal.

  Fortunately, the path was relatively obvious from here. Channeling a specific element tinted his primordial qi with trace amounts of that element, which was water. No matter what he did, he wouldn’t be able to fully channel the earth element at a hundred percent. That meant intertwining them was his best option.

  Lu Qingshan knew all this through the Dragon Spine Manual, which also afforded him an improved ability to sense the state of himself. It also enhanced his overall perception. He found himself almost managing to succeed in his first try. But when he climbed up to a ratio of five percent, the two energies blew up on him.

  Sitting there and regenerating, Lu Qingshan thought about what to do. Each minor level of the Elemental Tempering stage was harder than the next. They built on top of one another, and a martial artist couldn't just be able to convert their primordial qi into two different elements. Yet channeling them both at the same time caused them a lot of damage if they failed. Surely there were martial techniques to make this easier, but too bad he only had these splintered martial arts for now.

  Lu Qingshan took the measured approach. He first worked to channel the metal element as much as he could before he worked on combining the two at once.

  It took roughly twice the amount of time to reach a hundred percent conversion. Metal was a more vicious element to his internal organs, and he found himself having to rest for much longer. But he made good use of this time. Wu Ruoling and An Xin produced a batch of earth element secret medicines, which he rapidly consumed to elevate his Earthen Crust Inner Force to the limit. He even managed to do this before accomplishing a hundred percent conversion in the earth element primordial qi.

  Lu Qingshan had to turn to another martial art in the meantime. This took some thought. His two options were the Black Fury Inner Force and the Verdant Summer Inner Force, which had to reach a higher level in order to propel his Elemental Tempering stage. But he lacked easy access to wood and fire element spiritual energy to make secret medicines from.

  Only the Verdant Summer Inner Force had a chance to use the abundance of medicinal herbs in the garden to extract small quantities of wood element energy. Wu Ruoling and An Xin still needed to research this, but it could prove useful to promote the growth of one field of herbs over another.

  In the end, he decided on the Black Fury Inner Force. Something about its effect on ghosts had him wanting a higher level on this martial art as soon as he reasonably could. Perhaps it could give him a surprise against the fetus silhouette.

  Lu Qingshan reached a ninety nine percent conversion in his second element soon enough. But he didn’t know for certain how to progress past this point. The Giant Whale Breathing Method only taught him how to channel a specific element. He had a feeling this martial arts stage wasn’t so simple to just condense five different elements.

  He moved onto the earth element. This didn’t take too long — slightly slower conversion than the water element, but faster than the metal element. Unfortunately, he didn’t manage to elevate the Black Fury Inner Force yet. Its proficiency points were still halfway when he called an end to his seclusion.

  A strange silhouette had been spotted in the distance, watching their camp. Its form resembled a human, but it gave the martial artists who saw it an unsettling feeling. Lu Qingshan had a bad feeling about this.

  Three elements channeled basically gave him amplified effects of his inner force techniques when he applied them. Still, they lacked pure power when compared to him going all-out with all five elements of inner forces. The best use of channeling these elements was to amplify what they did best. For example, metal had the sharpest force, and earth greatly enhanced the solidity of his movements. Water improved his dexterity by another level.

  Hopefully, this would be enough. Lu Qingshan set out to question the two martial artists who had seen the strange silhouette. They were being guarded by An Xin and Liu Yingting.

  "We only saw it for a few breaths," one of them said, a Marrow Tempering martial artist who had entered with Song Lin. "Then it disappeared."

  His companion nodded. "I swear it had five limbs,” he said. “Two as arms and two as legs, but there was another moving thing on their chest.”

  The fact that these two didn’t crack jokes about that made it a grave concern. “Did it leave behind anything?” Lu Qingshan asked.

  “No,” they said. “There was a large palm print on the side of some trees, though. It looked twice as large as our hands.”

  “I’m surprised you still went up there,” Lu Qingshan muttered. “I’ll handle it. Thanks for reporting this, you two. Feel free to take a share of secret medicine. If I find anything, your reward might be increased.”

  The two bowed and left the hut. Meanwhile, Lu Qingshan debated on who to bring with him. It didn’t take long for him to decide on going alone. After all, there was no one in this whole camp who could match his abilities.

  The necessary people were informed of his absence. Then, Lu Qingshan took off. He dashed into the forest and sank into his veil, cloaking his movements in a shimmering fog.

  During his past retreat, his Bloodseeker Flies had devoured some of the essence left behind by the demonized insect swarms. Most of the swarm had returned, and were now able to conduct scouting expeditions again. They hovered around the area where the strange silhouette had been spotted.

  Lu Qingshan kept his head on a swivel for most of the day. He only caught a trace of movement once the sun lowered itself under the horizon. The motions were twitchy, jerky, as if someone was pulling the strings on a puppet.

  He quickly hid himself behind a tree and peered out from a patch of his Hidden Veil cloud. Soon a five-limbed creature emerged stumbling from the tree line. Its face carried a grimace, and it had no hair. Whatever this thing was, it only vaguely looked human.

  Vomit dribbled down its mouth as it drew closer to his location. Above the creature, the Bloodseeker Flies were ready to pounce. But Lu Qingshan decided to hold off on the attack.

  The monster simply sat down and waited. Soon, someone arrived. It was one of the demonic cultivators, clad in a repaired black cloak. Not the black flame wielder, but one of his underlings.

  The man came close to the monstrous creature. Then, the two began hissing in low tongues. Lu Qingshan didn’t have the slightest idea what they were communicating. But he knew it must’ve been something bad.