Chapter 21: Jade Bone Bottleneck, Diary and the Fierce Beast

Li Xuan's words, to Xu Yan, were like guidance from his master, teaching him how to perceive and how to break through the shackles.

"Capture the hidden spiritual opportunities around you, perceive the grass and trees, perceive the natural world..."

In a daze, Xu Yan seemed to gain some understanding.

"Thank you, Master, for your guidance. I understand!"

Xu Yan said respectfully.

Seeing that he had once again deceived his foolish disciple, Li Xuan nodded in satisfaction.

For the next two days, Xu Yan did not practice cultivation. Instead, he wandered around the small village, feeding the chickens, planting vegetables, and sitting on a stone at night, gazing at the stars.

His mind was unusually calm.

Without the obsession of breaking through the Golden Bone bottleneck and the obsession of cultivation, his mind felt as if it had shed a burden, making him feel much lighter.

At one moment, he even had a profound realization of the wonders of the world.

After three days, Xu Yan, after weeding, was about to leave when he suddenly noticed a segment of an earthworm emerging from the soil, trying to retreat back into it.

He then saw a small insect digging a hole in the soil.

A flash of inspiration struck his mind, as if a sudden enlightenment had occurred.

"Nourish the true essence, let the blood and qi flow like a dragon... I understand!"

At this moment, Xu Yan felt a sudden enlightenment, a flash of inspiration in his mind, instantly grasping the profound meaning of the cultivation technique.

"I will surely refine the Jade Bone!"

"Thank you, Master, for your guidance. It is because of your guidance that I could have this sudden enlightenment, capturing the hidden spiritual opportunities around me, and understanding how to break through the bottleneck!"

Xu Yan was extremely excited.

The next day, before dawn, Xu Yan began his cultivation.

Li Xuan was surprised to see this. This foolish disciple had recovered so quickly and was continuing to persist?

As long as Xu Yan didn't realize he had been deceived, everything would be fine.

When the one-year period ended, he would immediately sever the master-disciple relationship, the deception would end, and he could go live a small life in the Wu Kingdom!

He might never see Xu Yan again after that.

At this moment, Xu Yan was infusing his blood and qi into his bones, nurturing it in the bone marrow. Slowly, he was continuously seeping the blood and qi into his bones, nurturing it in the bone marrow.

After three days, Xu Yan felt a kind of soreness and swelling in his bones, and only then did he begin the refinement.

Xu Yan, immersed in cultivation, seemed to forget everything, with only the subtle spiritual opportunities of the world floating in his mind.

Boom!

The blood and qi in the bone marrow roared like a giant dragon, and the bone marrow surged and surged, as if it had come to life.

At this moment, Xu Yan felt an indescribable pain throughout his bones.

Itching, stabbing pain, soreness, and swelling...

His bones would swell for a while, as if about to burst, and then contract, as if becoming smaller, even compressing and solidifying the bone marrow.

In the process of swelling and contracting, more refined blood and qi were born.

Xu Yan felt as if a mysterious essence was being born within his bones.

This experience was more painful and harder to endure than the first time he refined his bones.

Sweat dripped continuously.

Xu Yan gritted his teeth and persisted, until he could hardly hold on, and then he stopped.

"The Golden Bone is a bit loose..."

Xu Yan discovered that the Golden Bone, which had reached its limit and could no longer be refined, had now loosened and become stronger.

"I have perceived correctly; the Jade Bone is not far away!"

Xu Yan, filled with excitement, practiced even harder in the following days.

The pain he endured was even more intense.

Seven days later.

The originally golden bones had faded.

Although the Golden Bone had faded, the strength of the bones had increased by more than thirty percent.

After half a month, the bones throughout his body turned white, but they were more than twice as hard as the Golden Bone.

The blood and qi were even more refined and powerful.

"I haven't even achieved the Jade Bone, and I am already so strong. If I achieve the Jade Bone, how much stronger will I be? My martial foundation will surpass the ancient prodigies!"

Xu Yan was extremely excited, knowing that the Jade Bone was not far away.

Ten days later, the bones throughout Xu Yan's body had become translucent, just one step away from the flawless Jade Bone.

However, this final step was met with resistance.

It seemed as if he had encountered a bottleneck and could not continue to transform.

Just one more step to truly refine the Jade Bone, how could Xu Yan be content?

So, in the following two days, he continuously refined, but made no progress. It seemed that only by breaking through some kind of constraint could he complete this final transformation.

...

Li Xuan had no idea that his foolish disciple was about to refine the Jade Bone.

On a day with nothing to do, he took out some relics of the village elders, mostly books.

The people in the village had come here to seek refuge, and some of them were literate, leaving behind books, which, though few, were the most valued things in the village.

Snap!

A rolled-up piece of cloth fell to the ground. Li Xuan bent down to pick it up and noticed that there were words on it.

"Whose relic is this? I don't remember seeing this before."

Out of curiosity, Li Xuan opened the cloth.

The cloth was quite long, and when spread out, it was covered with writing, seemingly a diary.

"Is this Big Niu's diary?"

Li Xuan looked surprised.

Big Niu, a rough man, actually wrote a diary?

"Big Niu died in the Evil Forest, but the tiger has been killed, so it can be considered avenged."

Li Xuan felt a deep sigh in his heart.

When the group left the village, Big Niu was among them, but only he managed to escape and return.

Flipping through the cloth, reading Big Niu's diary, Li Xuan treated it as a way to pass the time, reading some gossip.

"Big Niu actually wanted to marry eight wives. Ambitious, but what a pity."

Flipping to the end of the cloth, Li Xuan suddenly paused, his expression becoming serious.

At the end of the diary, it recorded that Big Niu had once left the village alone, intending to go to the city.

He saw a fierce beast outside the Evil Forest!

"The beast Big Niu saw wasn't the tiger!"

The village had always been talking about a fierce tiger in the Evil Forest, and Li Xuan had subconsciously assumed that there was only one tiger in the forest.

In fact, besides the tiger, there was another fierce beast?

"The fierce beast is even larger than the tiger, with fiery mane and fangs a foot long..."

Reading Big Niu's description of the fierce beast, Li Xuan was shocked. This fierce beast was even more terrifying than the tiger.

Why would there be another fierce beast in the Evil Forest besides the tiger?

The tiger is the king of the forest.

How could it allow another fierce beast to exist in its territory?

How could such a powerful fierce beast allow the tiger to dominate its territory?

"The first time I heard about a fierce beast in the Evil Forest was from Big Niu. He mentioned it more than once. When we initially planned to leave the village together, it was Big Niu who said it was too dangerous because of the fierce beast."

"Only when that guy returned, claiming he had learned the tiger-killing technique, did we have the confidence to leave the village..."

Li Xuan thought of a possibility. Could the tiger be a subordinate of the fierce beast in the Evil Forest?

"My foolish disciple, when he led people to hunt the tiger, did he encounter the fierce beast? It seems he didn't. Did the fierce beast hide because it saw too many people and didn't show itself?"

"I can't let this go. I need to ask my foolish disciple and have him lead people to search the Evil Forest, and make sure to kill that fierce beast!"

Li Xuan put away the items and went out to find Xu Yan.