Four months passed in silence.
Within Lin Sheng's courtyard, the formations remained active day and night, their profound patterns quietly circulating around the secluded chamber while the atmosphere remained heavy with the lingering aura of Qi-Blood. The Rank 4 serpent corpse that had once appeared impossibly enormous had already been reduced considerably, its flesh, blood, organs, bones, and essence continuously refined into resources that Lin Sheng consumed through the Great Medicine Art, turning every trace of usable energy into nourishment for his rapidly transforming body.
At this moment, Lin Sheng sat cross-legged in the center of the courtyard, his eyes closed, his breathing slow and steady.
His body looked almost ordinary.
Yet beneath that calm exterior, an unimaginable transformation was occurring.
Within his liver, the newly generated Qi-Blood continued gathering, becoming denser and denser until it reached a critical point. The Qi-Blood no longer flowed like ordinary blood. It possessed an almost tangible quality, thick and vigorous, surging through the deepest parts of his body with every heartbeat.
Then Lin Sheng felt it.
The fifth dragon was beginning to form.
His eyes opened.
A trace of excitement appeared within them.
"Five dragons..."
His voice was low, but the anticipation contained within it was impossible to conceal.
Four dragons already represented a terrifying level of physical strength.
One million jin was the hallmark strength of a Rank 4 physique, yet he had already accumulated four times that amount. His body had become so terrifyingly dense that even the surrounding space seemed faintly distorted whenever he exerted himself.
If the fifth dragon successfully formed, his physical strength would rise another step.
More importantly...
Lin Sheng believed that it would finally be enough.
Enough to face the tribulation.
Enough to survive it.
Enough to finally escape the gaze of the Heavenly Mechanism.
He had spent years preparing for this moment.
The Heavenly Mechanism had noticed him.
It had already begun preparing something terrifying for him.
The Rank 5 Void Dragon from the past had been enough to make him understand just how dangerous being noticed by the Heavenly Mechanism could be. This time, however, he would not be caught unprepared.
His foundation was completely different now.
His Vajra Body had transformed into Jade Marrow, his Qi-Blood had already reached the state of five dragons in potential, his spiritual cultivation had advanced tremendously, and his comprehension of martial concepts had continued deepening.
As long as he successfully completed the transformation...
He could break through to Rank 4.
Once he became a Rank 4 existence, the world itself would acknowledge him.
The Heavenly Mechanism would no longer be able to casually treat him as an anomaly that needed to be erased.
Lin Sheng's expression gradually became solemn as the Qi-Blood within his liver began to change.
The first dragon had already formed within his heart.
The second rested within his spleen.
The third remained within his lungs.
The fourth had formed within his kidneys.
Now the fifth was emerging from his liver.
Qi-Blood surged.
A faint dragon-shaped outline appeared within the depths of his body.
The scales began forming.
One after another.
Everything seemed to be proceeding perfectly.
Then—
Crack.
Lin Sheng's pupils contracted.
"What?"
The sound hadn't come from his body.
It hadn't come from his Qi-Blood either.
It had come from somewhere much deeper.
His spirit.
Crack!
It felt as though an enormous structure had suddenly developed a fracture running through its foundation, as though a towering building had begun collapsing from the very bottom.
Lin Sheng's expression changed drastically.
The fifth dragon's formation suddenly stopped.
His spiritual sea trembled violently.
Something had gone wrong.
No.
Not something.
The blood exchange had failed.
"Puff!"
A mouthful of essence blood erupted from Lin Sheng's mouth.
His body shook violently as the Qi-Blood that had been gathering toward the fifth dragon abruptly lost its momentum.
Lin Sheng's face became pale.
"How?"
He stared inwardly at his body.
"How did I fail?"
His mind raced.
The Qi-Blood was stable.
His physical body was stable.
His Jing was stable.
Everything had been proceeding according to his calculations.
So why had the transformation collapsed?
No.
Calm down.
Lin Sheng immediately suppressed the turmoil within his mind.
Panicking would accomplish nothing.
He closed his eyes and entered his state of Emptiness, allowing his thoughts to settle like disturbed water gradually becoming still.
Then he began examining everything.
His Qi was stable.
His Jing was stable.
The problem had appeared within his Shen.
Lin Sheng frowned.
"How could my Shen affect the blood exchange?"
The moment those words left his mouth, his expression froze.
A few breaths later, he slowly covered his face.
"...I'm an idiot."
Of course it could.
Shen, Qi, and Jing were never truly independent.
They were the three treasures of life.
They could be cultivated separately, but they were never isolated from one another.
Every major breakthrough inevitably affected all three.
The difference between cultivation systems was merely which treasure they emphasized most strongly.
Immortal cultivation placed enormous emphasis on Qi and Shen, martial cultivation heavily emphasized Qi and Jing, external cultivation emphasized Jing, and yet none of them could completely escape the influence of the other two.
Lin Sheng had simply encountered a problem that most cultivators rarely encountered.
His body had become too strong.
His Jing had surpassed the ability of his Shen to properly control it.
The Chip immediately began analyzing his condition.
Information rapidly appeared within his mind.
Lin Sheng's expression became strange.
Then he almost laughed.
His Shen wasn't weak in the ordinary sense.
His Shen was simply weak compared to his Jing.
There was a massive difference.
His mental cultivation had already reached the peak of Rank 3.
For an ordinary cultivator, this would already be an extremely impressive achievement.
But Lin Sheng's physical foundation had become ridiculous.
Four dragons.
Four million jin of physical strength.
And he had been attempting to condense a fifth.
His body was becoming an increasingly terrifying existence.
Every additional dragon wasn't merely increasing his punching strength.
It was increasing the fundamental weight of his existence.
His muscles, bones, organs, marrow, blood, and every microscopic part of his body were becoming denser.
His body was becoming something that ordinary Shen could no longer effortlessly control.
It was like trying to swing a hammer that had suddenly become several times heavier.
The problem wasn't whether the hammer was powerful.
The problem was whether the person holding it could still lift it.
Lin Sheng stared inwardly at his own body.
"So that's the problem."
The realization made him somewhat speechless.
This was the same fundamental problem he had encountered before when his Qi began placing pressure upon his Jing during the Astral Gang Realm.
When he opened his acupoints and continuously filled them with enormous amounts of spiritual energy, the energy itself placed a burden upon his physical foundation.
Qi affected Jing.
Now the reverse had happened.
His Jing had grown so powerful that it was beginning to place a burden upon Shen.
And there was something particularly ridiculous about it.
He had already managed to handle four dragons.
That alone was proof of how powerful his Shen foundation was.
One dragon was already considered the hallmark of Rank 4 physical strength.
Yet Lin Sheng had managed to accumulate four without encountering this problem.
If his Shen foundation had been ordinary, he wouldn't even have been capable of properly controlling the first dragon, much less four.
His comprehension of martial concepts had also strengthened his mind and will, allowing him to control his increasingly terrifying physique far beyond what his realm would normally permit.
But five dragons was different.
Five million jin.
That was already beginning to exceed the carrying capacity of his current Shen.
Lin Sheng slowly exhaled.
"Normally, cultivators would discover this problem through combat."
His eyes narrowed.
A cultivator who suddenly obtained enormous strength would naturally attempt to use it.
They would throw punches, move their bodies, circulate their Qi, fight fierce beasts, spar with other martial artists.
Eventually, they would discover the limits of their control.
But Lin Sheng had spent most of his time cultivating in seclusion.
His strength had increased too rapidly.
His physique had advanced continuously.
He had practically never been forced to fully test the limits of his current physical strength.
If he had fought someone at his current level, he would probably have discovered the problem much earlier.
He possessed four million jin of strength.
But could his Shen actually control all four million jin perfectly?
The answer was probably no.
The analogy was painfully simple.
If the hammer was too heavy to swing, how could one use it properly?
Lin Sheng shook his head.
"This really is a problem unique to me."
Most cultivators had the opposite problem.
Their Qi might advance too quickly while their bodies lagged behind.
Their Shen might advance too slowly and cause their breakthroughs to become unstable.
Some Qi Refining cultivators even deliberately tempered their bodies and strengthened their spirits before attempting Foundation Establishment because they understood that their foundation in all three treasures affected the success of the breakthrough.
But Jing becoming too strong?
That was almost unheard of.
At least, it was unheard of for someone at his level.
Lin Sheng looked inward again.
The fifth dragon had failed to form.
Yet the Qi-Blood wasn't gone.
Instead, the enormous quantity of Qi-Blood remained concentrated within his liver, slowly circulating through the organ without dissipating.
A faint smile appeared on his face.
"So I didn't actually waste those four months."
The blood exchange had failed to complete the final transformation, but the energy generated through the process remained.
The fifth dragon had not been destroyed.
It had simply been unable to complete its birth.
That meant once his Shen became strong enough, he could continue from where he had stopped.
Lin Sheng's eyes gradually became brighter.
He had already reached the fourth layer of Spirit Platform.
He only needed to continue cultivating until he reached the third layer.
The third layer of Spirit Platform would give him Golden Core-level mental strength.
With that level of Shen, controlling five dragons should no longer be a problem.
He slowly stood.
The pressure within his body remained enormous, but there was no longer any panic in his heart.
He had found the problem.
And once a problem had been identified...
It could be solved.
Lin Sheng looked toward the distant sky.
"Three layers."
His fingers slowly clenched.
"Once my Shen reaches the third layer of Spirit Platform, I'll try again."
The fifth dragon remained dormant within his liver, waiting for the moment when his spirit became strong enough to bear its weight.
And Lin Sheng had no intention of wasting that time.
His gaze became cold.