Chapter 10: A Dark Moonlit Night for Murder

Inside the cave dwelling, in a quiet room.

Lu Yang sat cross-legged and began his breakthrough.

With the spiritual pills in his stomach and his continuous cultivation over the past half-month, his cultivation level quickly reached a state approaching its limit.

"Rumble!"

In the next second, as if stepping up a staircase, Lu Yang felt a surge of majestic True Qi roaring within his body, surging like a great river, revitalizing his spirit.

Qi Refinement Level Two.

"There are no bottlenecks before Qi Refinement Level Four. As long as there are sufficient resources, one can reach it simply by grinding through time. However, looking at the current situation, I'm afraid I don't have that kind of time."

The existence of Fairy Qingchen had triggered a sense of crisis in Lu Yang.

He would not forget that in his previous life, Liu Xin had brazenly charged into his cave dwelling. If Liu Xin could do it, why couldn't Fairy Qingchen?

Even a cave dwelling was not reliable!

"What is truly reliable is one's own cultivation and strength!"

Thinking of this, Lu Yang gritted his teeth and directly took out all the remaining spiritual pills, swallowing them all in one go. He then summoned Yun Miaoqing.

Although doing so was somewhat wasteful of precious resources—at least thirty percent of the pills' medicinal efficacy was being squandered—it also allowed him to increase his cultivation at the fastest possible speed. In Lu Yang's view, as long as he could break through to Qi Refinement Level Three, these pills would have served their purpose and wouldn't have been a waste of money.

Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, three days and three nights had passed.

During this period, Lu Yang neither ate nor drank, and he finally felt himself breaking through a thin barrier.

"...I did it!"

Lu Yang inspected his body internally and felt a massive amount of True Qi, like a river, flowing through his meridians and tendons. It seemed vast, yet in reality, it could no longer make even the slightest progress.

At first glance, it seemed as though his cultivation had reached perfection at this stage.

"This is the bottleneck..."

The next step up was Qi Refinement Level Four, a leap from the early stage to the middle stage. In a Saint Sect, such a person could serve as an excellent disciple in certain positions.

Lu Yang did not rest, nor did he dare to relax; he directly took out the Innate Primordial Qi.

"Continue!"

As the Innate Primordial Qi circulated, Lu Yang manipulated his own True Qi to swallow it whole. He then watched as his True Qi surged violently, pouring into his dantian like a hundred rivers returning to the sea.

As the Innate Primordial Qi was continuously consumed, Lu Yang soon felt the bottleneck—which had previously felt as immovable as a mountain—being chipped away bit by bit. Once the Innate Primordial Qi was completely exhausted, that invisible bottleneck melted away like snow, collapsing in an instant!

In the dim quiet room, Lu Yang suddenly snapped his eyes open.

His gaze was as piercing as a torch, illuminating the dark room.

With a blink of his eyes, another day and night passed. However, from this moment on, Lu Yang's strength was worlds apart from what it had been a few days ago!

"The middle stage of Qi Refinement... it's simply not the same realm as the early stage." Feeling the changes within his body, Lu Yang's face lit up with joy. "If the True Qi of the early stage is a small river, then the middle stage is an ocean! It has increased more than tenfold! Only at this step can one truly be called a cultivator..."

In the early stage of Qi Refinement, True Qi was limited, and one had to be frugal with all spells and divine abilities.

But after advancing to the middle stage, one basically no longer had to worry about such things; ordinary spells could be cast at will, and the consumed True Qi could be replenished in a few breaths.

"Good! Very good!"

Lu Yang walked out of the quiet room and took out a white bone flying sword. With a thought, the flying sword instantly split into ten streaks of sword light, enveloping the entire cave dwelling.

*Whoosh—!*

In an instant, the sword lights roared fiercely. Lu Yang performed the Divine Firmament Sword Control Technique, merging his body with the sword light. For a moment, he felt an extreme sense of ease and exhilaration.

"I owe this to Liu Xin!"

"If it weren't for this 'Innate Primordial Qi' that perfectly matches me, it would have been impossible to break through. I would have been stuck at Qi Refinement Level Three for several years at least!"

"No wonder Liu Xin would give up the Yin-Yang Great Joy Scripture to cultivate that Innate Dao Book."

"A pity its intent is impure, using humans as medicine. I don't know how much slaughter Liu Xin caused after obtaining it; it all stemmed from that Innate Dao Book."

"Such an evil technique deserves to be used by me!"

A sudden surge of greed surfaced in Lu Yang's heart.

"No rush, I can endure a bit longer... I'll deal with it in the next life. There is plenty of time ahead..."

While Lu Yang was lost in thought, his eyebrows suddenly twitched as he looked toward the entrance of the cave dwelling. One of the sword lights he had deployed had just been disturbed.

"Someone?"

A cold light flashed in Lu Yang's eyes, accompanied by a sense of relief. Fortunately, he had acted decisively, choosing to waste resources to break through as quickly as possible.

Had he not, he would currently be in seclusion, completely unaware of the outside world. Wouldn't he have been a dead man?

"I must take this as a warning..."

Thinking this, Lu Yang quickly suppressed his newly broken aura. His killing intent, however, grew more intense, like a hunter waiting for prey to come to him.

*Click.*

Accompanied by a soft sound, the cave dwelling's door was quietly pried open. Immediately after, three figures slipped into the cave dwelling one after another.

The three were dressed in black and wore masks, showing no trace of their True Qi. Hiding in the shadows, Lu Yang watched them with amazement. Had he not already broken through to a higher cultivation level, he might not have seen through them; he might have mistaken them for ordinary people. Their ability to conceal their breath was exquisite.

"..."

The leader of the three black-clad men made a hand gesture without speaking. The others understood immediately and quickly dispersed, preparing to search the cave dwelling.

*Whoosh!*

In the next second, the black-clad man leading the way felt his vision blur, and a brilliant streak of sword light, accompanied by a whistling roar, arrived right before his eyes!

"Not good!"

The man's expression changed drastically. He had no time to defend and could only roll to the side to try and dodge, but no matter how fast a person was, how could they be faster than a flying sword?

*Slash—!*

With a flash of sword light, a pillar of blood shot into the sky!

"Middle stage of Qi Refinement!?"

The leader was clearly an experienced man; he immediately recognized Lu Yang's cultivation level from the power and quality of the sword light and cried out in shock.

At the same time, he cursed inwardly.

*Damn you, Qingchen!*

*Is this some newly admitted disciple? Some soft persimmon to be squeezed?*

*And this Lu Yang—he's clearly at the middle stage of Qi Refinement and could easily crush the three of them in the early stage, yet he's actually here trying to trick and ambush them?*

*What a bastard!*

Seeing the sword light approaching, the leader frantically formed hand seals to release a layer of mysterious light to protect himself, while shouting loudly, "A misunderstanding! This is all a misunderstanding..."

*Boom!*

Lu Yang turned a deaf ear. The sword light slashed horizontally, instantly shattering the man's protective light. Simultaneously, another mass of True Qi roared out from the darkness like a terrifying tidal wave, transforming into a massive hand with clear palm lines several feet wide, which directly grabbed another black-clad man.

*Splat!*

In the next second, the massive hand exerted sudden force, crushing the second man until he exploded. Bones snapped and flesh tore, spraying red and white everywhere.

Such a brutal scene made the leader's eyes nearly burst with rage.

On the other side, Lu Yang looked satisfied.

"This Innate Primordial Qi Great Hand Seal is indeed quite good. Although it doesn't show much power against those of the same realm, it is incredibly effective against those of lower realms."

While he pondered, the sword light did not stop.

Over a dozen streaks of sword light roared through the cave dwelling, while the white bone flying sword teleported and darted through the light, giving the leader no chance to catch his breath.

After a few breaths, the leader was exhausted. Lu Yang seized the opening, and with a strike from his flying sword, another pillar of blood shot into the sky.

"Phew! That was dangerous..."

Only after finishing all this did Lu Yang finally breathe a sigh of relief. Looking at the corpses and scattered flesh on the ground, he felt a lingering fear from the battle just now.

Strictly speaking, this was his first time killing people.

Although he had practiced that smooth combo of hiding in the shadows and ambushing countless times in private, it was ultimately his first time using it in actual combat.

"To be fair, my combat experience is far inferior to these three. At the same cultivation level, forget three—I might not even be able to beat one. However, as long as I can manage an ambush, seize the initiative, and force them into a contest of strength, I can still easily suppress them with my higher realm."

"This is why fighting with power is inferior to fighting with divine abilities, and fighting with divine abilities is inferior to fighting with cultivation attainment..."

As Lu Yang reviewed and summarized the precious experience of this cross-level challenge, he thought about areas that could be optimized, believing he could certainly apply these lessons to his next life.