A powerful force roamed within Li Hao's body. He lightly clenched his fist and felt as if he could easily crush a large stone!
Just a moment ago, he was still an ordinary person, and now, in a short time, he had become a cultivator!
The Tongli Realm is the first level of martial arts, focusing on strength!
Strength that permeates the entire body is known as Tongli. After many years, the standards for each level of the Tongli Realm are clearly defined. The first level is lifting a cauldron, which is about 200 pounds of strength.
Ordinary people can barely reach the first level through regular food and exercise, but to go higher, one must cultivate unless they are naturally strong.
With each level gained, the strength increases by one cauldron. At the seventh level, that means seven cauldrons, which means Li Hao, with his five-year-old body, could lift 1,400 pounds!
And that’s just arm strength. The explosive power throughout his body would allow him to easily leap over a hundred meters, move like lightning, and effortlessly defeat hundreds of ordinary strong men.
"Finally, I can cultivate! At least I have some means to protect myself now," Li Hao thought excitedly. He felt that just a slight exertion would make his skin tough, like stretched leather that couldn’t be easily torn.
"But this should just be the limit of the Stone Skin technique. If I practice those two manuals, my abilities should improve even more!" Li Hao thought to himself.
He took a deep breath, adjusted his body, and waited for the red color of his skin to fade back to normal before leaving the room.
Then, he called for Uncle Zhao to send someone to inform the matriarch.
Soon, there was a response from the matriarch, and it was still the maid named Xue Jian who came to accompany him.
This time, they went straight to the sixth floor, where Li Hao picked up the two manuals and began to read them one by one.
With his understanding of the physical cultivation path, he found that many things he couldn’t comprehend before suddenly made sense.
"Have I learned the basics? Should I record it?"
Yes!
He recorded both manuals into his panel in just a short while, then asked Xue Jian to take him downstairs.
Though Xue Jian felt helpless, she didn’t show it on her face. After all, he was just a child, and she thought of it as accompanying him for fun. As for reading manuals, ha, even if he looked for a few days, it would be hard to understand anything.
Even the manuals on the first floor are of medium quality, and without at least three to five days of comprehension, it would be tough to grasp the basics.
Not to mention the manuals on the sixth floor.
The stronger the manual, the harder it is to learn, and the cultivation threshold is higher.
Li Hao didn’t know what the little girl was thinking, and even if he did, he wouldn’t care. After all, she was just a kid; who would argue with her?
Back in the courtyard, before cultivating, Li Hao asked the maids to prepare some food and drink.
After practicing the Stone Skin technique, he felt quite drained and was suddenly very hungry.
"Is this enough for anyone?"
"Bring me another plate! I mean, another plate of everything! I'm still growing, do you think I can't eat?"
Under the astonished gaze of the maids, Li Hao devoured a whole table of meat and wiped his greasy mouth, feeling only about six parts full.
But not wanting to scare them, he didn’t continue, swaggering back to his room to start cultivating.
The previously difficult "Qianjiao Sacred Body" had four layers, and when recorded into the panel, only the first two layers showed as mastered.
The first layer, the Jiao Demon Body, makes the bones hard and the skin tough like dragon scales, impervious to blades.
The second layer, the Jiao Dragon Body, contains half the power of a dragon, further enhancing his body in all aspects.
Li Hao took a stance, his body crouching like a fierce tiger, his back arched like a bow, and his bones made slight cracking sounds.
With his understanding of the physical cultivation path, he opened the hidden doors of his body.
His cells felt like they were being activated, and his blood flowed faster. This time, he also felt a cool power seeping in from the outside, entering his body.
This was the power of the Yin from the energies of heaven and earth.
As the Yin power entered his body, Li Hao’s red skin gradually returned to its normal color, but his flesh was rapidly transforming.
The hidden doors were opened, and he was honing himself with the energies of heaven and earth.
As more and more Yin power surged in, Li Hao’s skin gradually turned pale, then took on a slight bluish tint, resembling a corpse, with faint, weak protrusions on the surface of his skin, like dragon scales.
After three incense sticks worth of time, the first layer of cultivation was complete.
Li Hao checked his cultivation level and was surprised to find that he had risen from the seventh to the tenth level of the Tongli Realm, reaching perfection!
The first nine levels of the Tongli Realm have small differences, each level increasing strength by 200 pounds, but the jump from the ninth to the tenth level is a threshold where strength doubles!
The tenth level means complete Tongli, where strength reaches the whole body, becoming one!
And the lifting power of both hands would reach 3,600 pounds!
Li Hao was delighted but also felt a bit regretful; his divine blood had not awakened.
Those with divine blood awaken at the perfection of the Tongli Realm, and their strength would increase to 7,200 pounds!
Such a gap would allow those with divine blood to easily sweep through their peers, compensating for any technique gaps by relying purely on strength!
It was like the difference between a wealthy player and an ordinary one in a game.
It seemed very unfair, but it was normal because divine blood inheritance requires one's ancestors to reach the Immortal level, and in the entire Dayu Dynasty across nineteen states, there were only a few who had reached that level.
Without the boost of divine blood, Li Hao didn’t feel discouraged. Instead, he adjusted himself and continued to cultivate the second layer of the technique.
Half an hour later, he slowly finished, opening his eyes as if lightning had struck, his pupils appearing deeper and darker.
He felt his body; his strength was clearly much greater than before. At this moment, he wanted to find someone to spar with to test his strength.
He pulled up his panel and was surprised to see that he hadn’t broken through yet; his cultivation was still at the tenth level of the Tongli Realm.
His strength had clearly increased dramatically, but he hadn’t reached the Zhou Tian Realm?
Li Hao was taken aback, then suddenly realized he still didn’t know how to circulate his energy.
After reaching the perfection of the Tongli Realm, a new thing called "Qi" appeared in his body. Strength generates strength.
This feeling of Qi was like the power felt when the biceps bulge.
However, the Qi flowed throughout his body, and he couldn’t control it.
Li Hao suddenly remembered that the second layer of the Qianjiao Sacred Body didn’t mention how to circulate Qi.
And the third layer was something he couldn’t comprehend with his current understanding of the physical cultivation path.
"The Jiao Dragon Body, mastering half the power of a dragon, I wonder how strong I am now?" Li Hao thought to himself. He could feel that he was much stronger than before, at least double, if not more.
Li Hao didn’t rush to test it but turned to another body refining technique:
"The Beginning" fragment.
With the insights from the physical cultivation path, Li Hao quickly understood many things and began to practice.
According to the outline of the "Beginning" fragment, this body refining method has five levels.
But the fragment in Li Hao's hands only contained the first two levels; the last three were lost.
Just the first level of the Beginning secret method required opening the hidden doors of the body, feeling the power of the sun and the Yin from the heavens, and allowing both Yin and Yang to enter the body simultaneously to refine the flesh.
Without the help of the physical cultivation path, it would be nearly impossible for an ordinary person to complete the first step.
But at this moment, Li Hao felt like he was on familiar ground, easily mastering it.
As the Yin and Yang powers gathered in his body, his flesh was continuously transformed.
The second level involved using the Yin and Yang powers within him to draw in the power of the stars, cultivating into the Star Battle Body.
This was a physique even more powerful than the Jiao Dragon Body, containing the Yin and Yang powers, with the body resembling a star's core furnace, filled with abundant heat and strength.
When Li Hao opened his eyes again, it was already midnight.
He had unknowingly cultivated for seven or eight hours.
His gaze was calm and deep as he slowly opened his eyes, breathing deeply like a coiled dragon.
His hearing and vision had greatly improved.
Li Hao could even hear a faint sound of wind in the courtyard; it wasn’t the sound of the wind but of a sword.
Someone was practicing swordplay.
With Li Hao's level of swordsmanship, he could even visualize the posture and form of the person practicing just from the sound of the sword wind.
It was that little girl.
Was she working hard too?
Li Hao smiled slightly, then checked his panel.
[Name: Li Hao]
[Age: 5]
[Cultivation: Tongli Realm, Tenth Level]
[Swordsmanship: Second Stage]
[Skills: Sea Without End · Tides (Perfect) [Forbidden]]
[Physical Cultivation Path: First Stage]
[Skills: Stone Skin Hundred Refinements (Great Success) Qianjiao Sacred Body (Jiao Dragon Body Minor Success) The Beginning (Star Body Entry)]
[Chess Path: Third Stage (0/5000)]
[Chess Manual Collection: 0]
[Skill Points: 0]
"Still at the Tongli Realm?"
Li Hao was surprised. He could feel that his body had changed significantly, much stronger than when he first reached the tenth level. He even felt that with his current physique, using the perfect level of Tidal Sword Technique would be effortless, yet he hadn’t broken through.
However, he realized he still didn’t know how to circulate his energy.
The first two levels of the Beginning body refining technique seemed to be meant only for the Tongli Realm.
But the power it brought had already far exceeded that of the Tongli Realm.
The only problem was that the cultivation was incredibly difficult!
With his current understanding at the first stage of the physical cultivation path, he was only barely at the entry level. For an ordinary person, it would likely take ten to twenty years to reach this level.
By then, they would probably have already entered the Zhou Tian Realm.
After all, compared to entering the Zhou Tian Realm, this seemed even harder.
Li Hao stood up, adjusted to his body, and then opened the window to look outside. He saw a small figure practicing swordplay under the starlight.
What surprised Li Hao was that compared to her clumsy swings in the morning, she was now executing her moves quite well.
This little girl has some talent.
Li Hao smiled, then pushed himself out of the window and landed lightly on the ground.
He went to another part of the courtyard near a rockery. Uncle Zhao had said that this rockery was carried back by his father when he was young, weighing a hundred cauldrons!
Li Hao crouched down slightly; the servants and maids were resting, and the few on duty were patrolling elsewhere.
Taking advantage of the absence of others, he ran to the rockery, examined it, and reached into a groove to try to push it.
To his shock, when he exerted all his strength, this rockery, weighing over ten tons, was actually lifted by him!
As the rockery moved, the nearby pool water surged, flowing back into the base of the rockery.
At the tenth level of the Tongli Realm, without divine blood, he could lift 20,000 pounds!
Li Hao quickly let go, startled, and placed the rockery back down.
(End of Chapter)