At Lin Sheng's courtyard, the silence after the recent rampage felt strangely empty.
He sat beneath the eaves with his eyes half-closed, his fingers resting against his knee as he quietly sensed the world around him, yet for the first time in years, that faint sensation he had become accustomed to was nowhere to be found, the invisible gaze that had once seemed to linger upon him from the depths of the heavens had completely disappeared.
The Heavenly Mechanism was no longer watching him.
Lin Sheng sighed.
"I actually miss it a little."
He shook his head immediately, finding the thought ridiculous, then closed his eyes and extended his perception outward, carefully searching for anything unusual, some kind of reaction, a change in the surrounding spiritual energy, perhaps even the mysterious ranking he had been expecting to appear after escaping the Heavenly Mechanism's observation.
Nothing.
His perception swept through the city, crossed the surrounding mountains, and continued outward, yet there was no response.
"So no ranking, huh?"
He opened his eyes and rubbed his chin, his expression thoughtful, before deciding that there was no point wasting time on something he didn't understand.
He reached into his storage ring and brought out the Grade A Concept Painting he had purchased from the Heavenly Dragon Auction House.
The moment the painting appeared, the atmosphere around him subtly changed.
The ancient landscape depicted upon the paper seemed almost alive, the earth within the painting carrying a profound rhythm that wasn't merely an artistic representation but an actual conceptual imprint left behind by the Daoists of the Temple.
Lin Sheng placed it before himself and slowly extended his perception inside.
His mind sank into the painting.
The profound rhythm of Kun Earth immediately surrounded him, heavy, vast, stable, and seemingly boundless, as though he had suddenly been buried beneath an ancient continent.
Lin Sheng remained motionless.
He had seven months remaining before the Five-Year Appointment.
That was enough time to prepare.
At least, he hoped it would be.
For the next several months, Lin Sheng entered a period of quiet cultivation, while outside his courtyard, the prefecture became increasingly lively.
Instead of decreasing after the auction, the number of martial artists entering the city continued to rise.
They came from every direction, from nearby counties, distant prefectures, martial halls, aristocratic families, wandering cultivators, sects, merchants, and even hidden powers that normally rarely appeared in public, all of them drawn by the coming Five-Year Appointment.
Everyone knew that something extraordinary was going to happen.
Rather than arriving at the last moment and potentially missing the event, many martial artists had decided to remain in the city and wait.
That decision created an entirely different problem.
The Yamen was suffering.
Their people were constantly being dispatched throughout the city because martial artists were not ordinary citizens, and whenever cultivators with powerful tempers gathered in large numbers, conflicts were inevitable.
A disagreement over a room could become a battle.
A dispute over a treasure could become a blood feud.
A young genius insulting another young genius could lead to an entire group drawing their weapons.
Fortunately, the Demon Suppression Division and the Yamen were both prepared for the increasing chaos, and whenever a fight became too dangerous, their people intervened before the situation could spiral completely out of control.
Meanwhile, Lin Sheng continued cultivating.
Lou Feng was the first to make a major breakthrough.
After years of accumulating knowledge and stabilizing his foundation, he finally stepped into Foundation Establishment, and the moment his breakthrough succeeded, his physique naturally strengthened to the early Rank 2 level, giving him a body considerably stronger than that of an ordinary immortal cultivator who had just established his foundation.
Su Yang was moving just as quickly.
He had already reached the threshold of Marrow Cleansing, but he refused to rush the breakthrough, instead spending his remaining time consolidating his comprehension.
Then one day, his sword intent changed.
The Four Seasons Sword Intent finally reached completion.
Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter were no longer separate images within his mind, but a single endless cycle, birth flowing into growth, growth flowing into decline, decline flowing into death, and death giving birth to another beginning.
With this comprehension supporting him, Su Yang finally attempted the Marrow Cleansing Realm.
His body underwent another transformation.
His bones became increasingly dense, his marrow gradually turning clear and pure, while the Vajra State he had cultivated finally reached another level.
The Arhat Body was born.
The moment the transformation stabilized, Su Yang's foundation surged forward, and with the assistance of his Four Seasons Sword Intent, he successfully entered the Marrow Cleansing Realm.
He even reached Minor Achievement, the stage known as Clear Marrow.
With six months remaining before the Five-Year Appointment, Su Yang finally decided that it was time to complete his own internal breakthrough.
His acupoints had already been filled.
His physique had stabilized.
His foundation had reached the point where further accumulation would provide diminishing returns.
Now, it was time for his internal cultivation to advance.
Deep within his courtyard, Su Yang sat cross-legged in meditation.
His breathing was slow, but his body looked completely different from someone peacefully meditating.
The veins along his arms bulged like black ropes beneath his skin, his muscles tightened with every breath, and the meridians throughout his body were being stretched to their limits as an enormous amount of Qi-Blood surged through them.
Inside his ten Innate acupoints, True Qi had already reached an extremely dense state.
Su Yang was compressing it. Not gradually but ... violently.
His massive Qi-Blood surged around the spiritual energy stored within his acupoints, forcing it through a process of purification and transformation, while his Four Seasons Sword Intent descended from his Baihui Acupoint and spread throughout his entire circulation.
The Four Seasons Sword Intent acted like an invisible blade, cutting through impurities and forcing the energy to become purer.
His Qi-Blood acted like a furnace.
His mental strength controlled the entire process.
His body became the vessel.
And the True Qi became the material being transformed.
Su Yang's expression tightened.
"Come on."
The pressure increased.
BOOM!
A muffled explosion sounded from within his body.
His organs shook violently.
His heart accelerated, pounding against his chest like a war drum, while his lungs began drawing in enormous quantities of air, each breath becoming deeper and heavier as his metabolism accelerated under the overwhelming pressure.
Heat spread through his body.
Then it became unbearable.
Steam began escaping from his skin.
His entire body seemed to have become a furnace.
The True Qi inside his ten Innate acupoints began changing.
The gaseous energy slowly became denser.
Then denser.
Then denser still.
Su Yang could feel the transformation occurring at an extremely fundamental level.
True Qi was beginning to liquefy.
Pain suddenly erupted throughout his body.
His fingers dug into the ground.
His teeth clenched tightly.
The pressure was not merely affecting his acupoints, it was spreading through his meridians and into his organs, causing every part of his body to participate in the transformation.
His Qi-Blood surged harder.
His Four Seasons Sword Intent became sharper.
The spiritual energy surrounding the courtyard began flowing toward him.
One day passed.
Then another.
Then another.
Su Yang remained completely motionless.
The formations surrounding the courtyard continued gathering spiritual energy, but the amount being swallowed by his body was astonishing, and the spiritual energy density around the residence gradually dropped despite the formations operating at full power.
Three days passed.
Five days passed.
Then an entire week passed.
Su Yang's body had been ravaged from the inside out.
His organs were constantly being pressured, his meridians were stretched to their limits, and even his powerful Arhat Body was being forced to endure the strain of the transformation.
Yet he did not stop.
The True Qi continued changing.
The first trace of liquid energy finally appeared.
It was so small that an ordinary cultivator might not even notice it.
A single strand.
A tiny thread of condensed energy.
Yet Su Yang immediately sensed the difference.
His eyes opened.
The moment that first trace of True Essence appeared, the surrounding spiritual energy trembled.
Su Yang stared inwardly at that tiny strand.
For the first time, his True Qi had successfully crossed the boundary.
It had become True Essence.
His breathing became heavier.
A faint smile appeared on his face despite the exhaustion.
"So this is the beginning."
The first trace of True Essence slowly circulated through his meridians, and wherever it passed, Su Yang could feel an entirely different kind of power spreading through his body.
The breakthrough had begun.