Chapter 21

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Chapter 21: The First Breakthrough

"Miaochun Pharmacy"

Wang Yu stood in front of a pharmacy, looking at the sign hanging on the door, and muttered to himself.

This pharmacy was carefully chosen by him from more than ten pharmacies in Yellow Stone City, because larger pharmacies might have connections to the City Lord’s mansion, while smaller ones might not have what he needed.

The front of this pharmacy was not very large, but people came in and out one after another, indicating that there were many kinds of herbs inside.

Wang Yu, wearing a cloak, walked into the pharmacy.

Before long, he walked out carrying several bags of herbs and went straight to the second pharmacy.

Several hours later, Wang Yu had visited three pharmacies, spent a small gold ingot, and not only gathered all the herbs for the Blood Refining Soup but even bought a portion of the ‘Corrupted Bone Water’ ingredient.

With a month left until the arrival of the ‘Treasure Pavilion’ magic ship, he naturally did not plan to stay at the inn all the time; to be safe, he even intended to leave Yellow Stone City and find a secure place outside to train properly.

Now, he still needs to do one last thing.

Wang Yu thought this as he carried a large package and headed straight down another street in Yellow Stone City.

…

"Iron Essence."

In a blacksmith shop in Yellow Stone City, a muscular dark-skinned man opened his eyes wide, staring at a small piece of dark fragment in his hand, his face full of surprise.

"Do you know this is called Iron Essence?" Wang Yu asked in a deep voice, changed by the hood he wore.

"Yes, how could a blacksmith not know about this material? Ordinary iron, after being hammered ten times, becomes ten-forged iron. After being hammered a hundred times, it is called hundred-forged iron. Only after being hammered over a thousand times can it become thousand-forged iron. After being refined by an Immortal Master using ground fire, it becomes Iron Essence. But even a simple piece of thousand-forged iron takes an experienced blacksmith more than a year to complete. As for Iron Essence, even a piece the size of a fingernail can cut through iron like mud. Sir, how much Iron Essence do you have? I will gladly take all you have, and the price will surely satisfy you!" The dark-skinned man looked at Wang Yu with eager eyes.

"I got this piece of Iron Essence by chance. I planned to use it to make a long sword. I wonder how much the master would need?" Wang Yu replied calmly, not surprised that the blacksmith knew about cultivators, but feeling he might have underestimated the true value of ‘Iron Essence.’

This small piece of Iron Essence was a fragment that splashed out when the white sword light pierced through the small iron shield, and he picked it up afterward.

After the Iron Essence box was bought at a "high price" by the Treasure Pavilion, he knew it was valuable, so he went to the Blacksmith Shop to ask a few questions.

"There isn’t any extra, which is a real shame. If you want to make a long sword, this piece of Iron Essence would definitely be enough. However, it is hard to melt, and you will need at least a hundred pounds of iron material to mix with it. Plus, I would need to hammer it day and night for three days and nights. So, the cost for this would be a hundred taels of silver, and you must pay half in advance." The dark-skinned blacksmith felt a bit regretful but quickly stated the price for making the long sword.

"No problem, is this enough for the deposit? I’ll come back in three days to pick up the long sword." Wang Yu agreed immediately and, after searching in his pocket for a moment, took out a small piece of gold ingot and handed it over.

In the last day or two, he had figured out the exchange rate of gold and silver in Yellow Stone City; one tael of gold could be exchanged for about twelve or thirteen taels of silver.

"That’s enough; you can come back in three days to collect your item." The dark-skinned blacksmith accepted the gold and glanced at it, noticing clear fingerprints on the surface as if it had been torn off directly. He suddenly felt a chill and respectfully replied.

After Wang Yu nodded, he turned and left the Blacksmith Shop, preparing to return to the inn.

But soon after leaving the Blacksmith Shop, he noticed a commotion in the street ahead where many pedestrians were crowding around a butcher shop, seemingly watching something and chatting excitedly.

"What a big one!"

"I’ve never seen such a complete demon beast corpse before."

"Make way, make way, let me see."

…

Demon beast!

Wang Yu was stunned when he heard this and hurried over, squeezing into the crowd.

In front of a large meat shop, there was a big piece of dirty, torn cloth, under which lay a stiff monster’s body with its legs in the air. It looked like a giant rat magnified many times, its belly a bloody mess, but with two long yellow horns on its head, and four huge claws that looked sharp like sickles, with several long tusks in its mouth.

Is this the demon beast? Even though it is just a dead demon beast, its fierce appearance made Wang Yu’s heart shiver.

Can an ordinary hunter really hunt something like this?

"I heard this is not an ordinary demon beast, but a true advanced demon beast. It’s not only hard to injure with swords, but it can also disappear underground. They say a whole squad of hunters died trying to catch it, and in the end, it was only the Immortal Master from the City Lord’s residence who managed to kill this beast," someone in the crowd seemed to know something and bragged to others.

"An advanced demon beast! I thought so! That’s why it looks so different from an ordinary demon beast. I wonder if it has a demon core inside. That thing is extremely valuable."

"What are you thinking? Can’t you see that the monster has a big hole in its belly? The demon core must have been taken away by the Immortal Master already."

"Wow, the Li family butcher shop could make a big profit by receiving the body of a demon beast at a higher level."

The crowd was buzzing with chatter.

When Wang Yu heard the words "City Lord’s Immortal Master," his pupils slightly shrank. He decided to return to the inn and not go out again until he received his customized Iron Essence Long Sword, after which he would leave Yellow Stone City immediately.

Just then, four people walked out of the butcher shop. Two of them were strong workers who parted the crowd and carried the monster’s body into the shop.

The other two were a big man and a small boy, both quite plump. The big man looked around forty, with layers of fat on his chin and a shaky walk, but he smiled warmly at the crowd, cupped his hands in greeting, said a few polite words, and then pulled the worried little fat boy back into the shop.

With a loud ‘bang,’ the butcher shop’s door closed tightly.

In the crowd, Wang Yu felt a surge of joy when he saw the little fat boy. Wasn’t he ‘Dongyue’?

The two had fled for their lives behind White Cloud Temple that day. He had been worried about what might have happened to him, but now it seemed he had worried too much.

Dongyue not only had no worries, but also escaped back to his home in Yellow Stone City. Now he dared to appear so boldly, which suggested that his family had some influence, able to protect a mere ordinary boy from White Cloud Temple.

He naturally would not seek out Dongyue again. After glancing deeply at the door of the butcher shop, he quietly left the area with the others.

Three days later, Wang Yu drove a small cart pulled by a donkey, mingling in a group leaving Yellow Stone City.

He traveled westward and soon reached a pile of rocks just twenty miles from Yellow Stone City, where he found several abandoned stone houses and decided to stay there.

Half a day later, he set up a simple stove inside one of the stone houses and placed a small iron pot on it.

He then followed the "Blood Refining Soup" recipe from Taoist Chongyun’s notes, first adding half a pot of water, then pouring packets of prepared herbal powder into the water in fixed amounts, and adding plenty of wood to the stove to start simmering.

Before long, a familiar herbal fragrance filled the air from the iron pot.

Wang Yu, who had been somewhat worried, relaxed when he poured out a little into a bowl that he had prepared earlier and tasted it, finally feeling reassured.

The Refining Blood Soup he made himself was almost no different from what Taoist Chongyun had given him before; the preparation of this medicinal soup was surprisingly simple.

In the following days, Wang Yu used spirit stones every day to improve his Yin Water Skill. When his divine sense was exhausted, he switched to practicing the ‘Wolf Running Picture’ technique. Then, every few days, he used Shadow Spirit Qi to train again and took a dose of Blood Refining Soup to practice the ‘Sword Slash Technique’ and ‘Splitting Wind Sword Technique.’

With the help of the spirit stones, Wang Yu’s practice of the Yin Water Skill progressed rapidly. After more than twenty days, when the last spirit stone was out of Spirit Qi, he vaguely felt that he had reached a bottleneck in the first level of the technique, and his practice suddenly slowed down.

The so-called bottleneck, he had heard Taoist Chongyun mention once, is when practicing the Breathing Exercises Technique reaches a certain level, and the internal power cannot be converted smoothly anymore. It becomes a kind of barrier that must be broken through by various means. If one can successfully pass through, their skill will greatly increase, and practicing will again become smooth sailing until the next bottleneck is reached.

Almost all Breathing Exercises Techniques are divided into levels based on these bottlenecks. The Yin Water Skill has a total of twelve levels, which means that Wang Yu must break through twelve bottlenecks to fully master this technique.

Taoist Chongyun once said that the first six levels of the Yin Water Skill are relatively easy to break through. As long as one is not extremely foolish and has enough resources for training, even relying only on refining their internal power, breaking through is just a matter of time. However, the last six levels depend on personal talent. Those with good talent can continue to advance, but those with poor talent might spend years or even more than a decade without breaking through a certain level.

So, Wang Yu was not in a hurry. He continued to practice the Yin Water Skill every day, slowly refining the tiny bit of power in his body.

A few days later, in the morning, Wang Yu was sitting cross-legged on the stone bed, practicing with the small bottle of Shadow Spirit Qi in front of him, when suddenly his body trembled slightly. With a "buzz," a wave of light blue energy rippled from his body and disappeared about a foot away.

He broke through!

Although Wang Yu had never experienced this before, he understood what had happened. His heart filled with joy, and with a flick of his thoughts, the first level of the Yin Water Skill smoothly transformed into the second level’s meridian pathway, without any obstacles or pauses in between.

At the same time, he felt the Spirit Seed in his Dantian, constantly releasing streams of cool air, which transformed into threads of magical power that flowed into his body.

After about ten minutes, the Spirit Seed returned to normal, but by then, the magical power inside him had more than doubled.

This is the second level of the Qi Refining Stage!

Breaking through the bottleneck allowed the magical power to increase so much. No wonder Taoist Chongyun said that only by reaching the second level of Yin Water Skill could one learn that magic trick.

Wang Yu felt the "strong" magical power inside him and carefully checked other aspects of his body, finding no abnormalities. When he practiced the second level of the Yin Water Skill again, he could clearly feel that the speed at which he absorbed Spirit Qi from the outside world had increased a little, and his divine sense had also become stronger.

Divine sense is mental power.

If this is true, doesn’t it mean that every time he breaks through in cultivation, the time for his Breathing Exercises will become longer, and he can maintain the overclocking synchronization mode for a longer time?

After all, both are related to mental power.

Wang Yu was overjoyed, recalling the day in the cave when Taoist Chongyun raised his hand, and a swirl of white cold air flew out. He immediately practiced the second level of the Yin Water Skill, directing his magical power into his palm and then slapping the empty space in front of him.