The sky was dark as black ink, covered by heavy clouds that refused to stop pouring down droplets of water, producing a rainy symphony mixed with the sound of punches echoing from a mansion in the eastern part of Cloud City.
A handsome young man, his upper body bare and revealing a chiseled abdomen, was striking a wooden puppet. With each blow, the puppet was thrown backward but instantly rebounded toward him.
Taking a step back, the young man dodged the counterattack and blinked as the rain ran down his body, bringing a chilling sensation.
Ignoring it, he resumed his assault on the puppet, his strength increasing with every strike. After twenty consecutive punches without resting even for a second, the young man collapsed onto the ground, placing his hands over his eyes to shield them from the rain.
"Just a little more, and I can grasp the Art of the Great River," the young man named Luo Xie whispered as he rested.
Once his breathing steadied, he rose from the ground and rushed toward the puppet. With his palm clenched and all his strength concentrated in his forearm, he struck the wooden surface.
Boom!
The puppet was hurled backward, nearly blown away by the wind, but still managed to stay upright after trembling several times. As if in retaliation, it rebounded with double the speed, whistling through the air like a fierce gale toward Luo Xie—who didn't dodge.
Remaining still, he took the full hit to his chest, the impact lifting him off the ground and sending him flying backward through the air. He crashed violently into the wet mud, a mouthful of blood spraying out upon impact.
"That hurts..." Luo Xie groaned. His back tingled as if a swarm of drilling ants were boring into his skin. It was painful, but not unbearable—the mud eased part of the sting.
Struggling to his feet, he let a faint smile curve his lips and lifted his head toward the sky with his eyes closed. In his mind, he used the smell of wet earth, the humid air, the sound of raindrops striking the ground and his body, and even the pain from the puppet to comprehend the Art of the Great River.
Luo Xie imagined himself being thrown beneath a waterfall—the rain became the water cascading down, the scent turned into that of soaked stones, the air thick and heavy, his breath submerged... and the pain he now felt was the pressure of the rushing water upon his body. The sensation was so vivid that his brain magnified the agony tenfold!
Grimacing through the torment, he continued to comprehend, observing the flow of the water and how it merged with his current form. Minutes later, he reached the climax—all that remained was one final step, one stronger collision, to open every aperture in his body.
Rising once again, he charged at the puppet and delivered a heavy punch. Upon impact, it crashed to the ground, its wooden body slamming into the earth before rebounding with the full force of the blow. Luo Xie took the hit head-on, and his chest split open with a ten-centimeter gash, from which blood flowed endlessly.
Sitting cross-legged, he clenched his teeth to suppress his screams and used the pain to open the pores of his skin, absorbing the essence of the falling rain. At that very moment, the Art of the Great River was complete. A blue particle emerged from a droplet and entered his skin, drawn into a pearl within his body.
It was stored two fingers below his navel—the location of the dantian. Its color was purple, carrying an ominous aura. It spun endlessly, absorbing the blue particles. After consuming a hundred of them, it released a single purple drop upward that struck his flesh.
Luo Xie, who was nourishing the pearl, was overtaken by a gentle warmth that enhanced his physical endurance and healing ability. He felt his body regenerating faster, his muscles visibly strengthening.
"I became a cultivator!" he exclaimed joyfully. Luo Xie had just completed the Tempering of the Flesh, stepping into the Bridge Refinement Realm, which was divided into nine sub-realms: Tempering of the Flesh, Tempering of the Skin, Tempering of the Bones, Tempering of the Blood, Tempering of the Kidneys, Tempering of the Mouth, Tempering of the Ears, Tempering of the Eyes, and finally, the most complex of all, Tempering of the Mind—a bridge meant to refine the body from the bottom up.
"This Heretic Pearl is incredible!" Luo Xie knew that on his own, he could never have begun cultivating due to a congenital defect—his meridians were born blocked, making it impossible for him to circulate the essence of heaven and earth. But thanks to the item he had found long ago in a cave, he had achieved the impossible.
The Heretic Pearl was still a mystery to him—the only thing he understood was that it was undoubtedly a treasure.
As he smiled in satisfaction, Luo Xie was suddenly flooded with a torrent of information in his mind—fragments of memory showing a cultivator progressing through the nine initial realms. After memorizing it all, his eyes widened in shock.
"H-Heretic Bridge!" Luo Xie stammered. According to what he had seen, he could use an unorthodox method to create the nine initial realms in their perfect forms. In the Tempering of the Flesh, he could use the meat of beasts to evolve his own, even gaining the traits of the creatures he chose.
"This pearl is insanely overpowered! But... it doesn't seem to belong to the righteous path... Is that a problem?" he wondered, but soon shook his head. In such a dangerous world, good and evil meant nothing. The only thing that mattered was who had the stronger fist. The strong made the rules, and the weak were forced to obey—no matter how unfair.
"I will control my own destiny! Even if the world sees me as a demon, I don't care! As long as I know what is right, why should I heed others' opinions?" Luo Xie followed only his own philosophy of life.
Resolved about his future, he looked up at the sky—now clear. The clouds had been replaced by countless shimmering stars that lit up the surroundings, and right in the center hung a beautiful blue moon that cast its radiant light.
As he admired it, Luo Xie inhaled the pleasant scent of the early night and began walking toward the red door of the mansion.
His family was wealthy—his parents, renowned merchants of the Crimson Phoenix Dynasty, owned trade chambers in almost every city.
However, they didn't live there; their true residence was in the capital. Worried about Luo Xie, who had suffered bullying from spoiled young masters, they had sent him to this city, hoping he would live a peaceful life.
"When I reach the third major realm of cultivation, I'll return to the capital!"