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Nana Toki still ignored the System, like shutting a window against a cold wind.
The Body-Tempering Pool lay in a tucked-away corner at the very heart of the Wildbeast Wasteland, a stone’s throw from the Longarm Demon Ape’s lair. Unlike the central rim, this patch wore spring like a silk robe.
When Nana found the place, doubt pricked her, like she’d strayed into the wrong realm. Green like polished jade spread underfoot, birdsong fell like beads, and beasts moved in peace.
Rare herbs sprouted like scattered stars. She walked a slow circle through the glade, brush light as mist, and found no lurking fangs—only the nearness of the ape’s den shadowed it.
It felt like an unmanned clean island set in the middle of hell, a quiet lotus in a killing sea, utterly at odds with the slaughtered wilds outside.
“We’ve got a little over two months till the Immortal Phoenix Flame Grass and the Holy Fruit of Illusory Feathers fully ripen,” the Heavenswallow Serpent murmured, voice low as a river under moonlight. “Want to cultivate here and raise your tier?”
“The Spirit Energy here is thicker than anywhere nearby, like fog you can hold,” it added, tongue tasting the air. “You won’t soar, but you’ll get twice the gain for half the effort.”
“As for their exact locations, don’t worry,” the serpent said, eyes like dark lanterns. “When they ripen, a long heaven-and-earth omen will flare like banners, and beasts will come like a tide.”
“We just tail the tide,” it said, laying plans like stones across a stream. “You only need to seize the time and cultivate.”
“Mm.” Nana offered no argument, calm settling like snow. If the steps were set, she’d walk them.
Spirit Energy stirred underfoot like a current. After swallowing the Tri-Serene Dragon Nightshade, she rose and slid straight toward the mist-veiled Body-Tempering Pool.
Sploosh—
Water leapt, silver scales of spray. The instant her body sank in, a dense force wrapped her like heated silk, and the herb’s medicine ran like a thin stream through meridians and dantian.
As she sank deeper, the pressure stacked like stone slabs, weight piling layer on layer in the dark water.
At the brink of what her body could bear, she stopped sinking, like a leaf catching on a rock, and began the tempering.
The pressure turned into walls, solid and unseen, pushing from every side toward her center, eager to crush her if she loosened a breath.
No wonder a single drop here held the bite of Foundation Establishment, Fifth Stage; the Spirit Energy inside felt monstrous, a storm coiled in a cup.
Light dimmed to dusk around her. The water’s cold bite turned to a kiln’s heat, and her skin prickled like iron set to a forge.
“Mm…” Nana’s breath broke into small, pained sounds, bubbles like pearls fleeing her lips. Eyes shut, brows knotted, she drew a thousand threads of energy through her pores into her dantian.
She thought the grind would stay steady, a wheel turning in rain, but the next moment a needle-deep agony surged from every direction.
I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.
It felt like every bone was ground and re-ground to powder, a millstone inside her. The energy she’d drawn in went wild, spirit pressure rampaging like stampeding bulls.
She hissed in a cold breath; the tempering fluid flooded her throat like winter river water. Her skin burned like coal, her face twisted like warped wood, and her body thrashed in the pool.
Damn body tempering—it’s a killer dressed as a cure.
Cramps radiated from her dantian like barbed vines, and she curled into a tight ball, a fallen leaf floating, mind unspooling while the light thinned to ash.
Tsk… am I really going to temper myself to death?
Figures flickered through her mind like lantern slides in rain. She bit her tongue hard; the metallic tang of blood flared like a whip, and shock dragged her drifting mind back to shore.
“Refine,” she snarled, voice a spark in the dark.
Teeth clenched like silver, her meridians roared like wind in pines. She forced the rampaging power into a tight sphere above her dantian, then ground it down, lap after lap, like a mortar and pestle.
Time lost its edges, a river with no banks. Spirit Energy in her dantian flowed like an endless stream, and waves kept pushing in from all sides.
Just as her will and flesh hit the breaking point, her shoulder suddenly felt light, like a weight cut free.
The Heavenswallow Serpent hauled her up from shore, fished from darkness like a netted carp.
“Cough… cough, cough…!” She sprawled on the ground, dragging new air into burning lungs, coughs raking her throat like thorns.
The crushing spirit pressure was gone like a storm blown clear, and in its place rose a lightness, like shedding battered armor in spring wind.
At the same time, something inside loosened with a click, and her aura climbed like a fire racing up dry grass.
Foundation Establishment—Sixth. Seventh.
When the flow of Spirit Energy finally stopped flooding her dantian, her rise settled at Foundation Establishment, Seventh Stage peak.
“Broke through?” she whispered, tasting disbelief like sweet rain.
Feeling the change in her core, drenched and gasping, Nana let a small smile bloom like a late flower. Not bad—she’d held through.
Shame about the Tri-Serene Dragon Nightshade; it wasn’t fully refined. Finish the job after this hunt.
She kipped up with a neat carp-flip, joints crackling like twigs. Working warmth back into her limbs, she asked, “How is it? The Immortal Phoenix Flame Grass and the Holy Fruit of Illusory Feathers?”
“Hurry and get ready. They’re about to ripen.” The Heavenswallow Serpent produced a fresh black robe from nowhere, the fabric dark as a night lake, and tossed it to her.
Its willow-leaf brows drew tight; its gaze fixed on some far ripple, voice gone grave as distant thunder. “I’ve got a bad feeling. Their ripening might draw many strong ones. Be careful.”
“Eh? You’re not going to fight for them?” Nana blinked, surprise flashing like a dropped coin. She’d planned to ride the serpent’s Dongxu-stage might to show off, at least to block a few Nascent Soul beasts.
But—
“Not happening.” The Heavenswallow Serpent shook its head, slow as a bell swing. “I can’t. Folks in the Immortal Realm know my demonic qi and Spirit Energy pattern too well.”
“If I act, we’re exposed in an instant, like a torch in a cave,” it said, calm as a coiled spring. “The snatch-and-grab has to be your hands.”
Nana Toki: “……”
Rumble—
Rumble—
As its words faded, the Wildbeast Wasteland shuddered, mountain-bones groaning like drums.
At the foot of a certain peak, every gaze speared upward to the summit, where the Immortal Phoenix Flame Grass and the Holy Fruit of Illusory Feathers were slowly blooming like two suns and three moons.
“Didn’t expect both rare treasures to grow together,” someone muttered, voice like flint. “And look at the crowd—the air smells of fights.”
In the press, Tianqi Yu swept the scene, face dark as gathering rain. Two months ago he’d left the Boundless Peak team to roam the wastes, and the trials had cut him sharp.
He’d stepped from Foundation Establishment into Golden Core, a blade tempered in fire, and if it came to killing, he could beat eighty percent here.
Five in total this time—two Immortal Phoenix Flame Grass, three Holy Fruit of Illusory Feathers. If he wanted both kinds, he’d need to spill sweat like water.
“Shen Zhankuang of Wargod Peak, and Du Fei Yu of Giant Spirit Peak…” he counted, eyes glinting like steel. “They’re here, and plenty of other peak lords from the Heavenly Ascent Sect.”
And Zhao Zhan? Why hasn’t that bastard arrived?
He hadn’t seen a single Boundless Peak disciple either, their absence a hollow note in the drumbeat. Did something happen?
Surprise flickered in Tianqi Yu’s gaze like a moth under glass, then died. Better they weren’t here; fewer knots to untie with blood.
Only one thorn stayed in his mind—why hadn’t that woman, Azure An, appeared?
She didn’t strike him as someone who’d miss a feast like this, a hawk skipping a flock.
So why this silence? Did something happen to her in the Wildbeast Wasteland like Zhao Zhan, or was there another shadow on the trail?
