Longevity by Grinding Skills

Upon hearing this, Yin Hong thought for a moment before refusing. "You’re not even sixteen. That Xu Yunfan is much older than you. You’d be at a disadvantage. It won’t do."

He looked up at the boy’s defiant gaze and couldn’t help but sigh. "At next year’s Jingzhe, if you can break through the three gates of Jade Net, Star Pivot, and Ziwei, I will grant your request."

These so-called three gates of Jade Net, Star Pivot, and Ziwei corresponded to the three stages of training: sinew, bone, and skin.

The Jiuyao Sect’s methods for tempering sinew, bone, and skin naturally had their own profundities.

Before his voice had even faded, Teng Lingchuan suddenly ripped the bandages from his chest.

Three gruesome hammer marks stretched from his collarbone to his abdomen. Beneath a dark golden ointment, jade-colored veins were faintly visible, writhing as they healed. A hint of gold could also be seen shining through from under his skin.

"Master, seven days ago, I reached the threshold of the Ziwei gate. Skin Cultivation Perfection is imminent. As for Star Pivot, with the boost from my Second Level Perfection, I will surely break through it by Jingzhe at the start of spring."

Yin Hong was exceptionally surprised. He instantly noticed the bulging blue veins on his disciple’s temples were in a spiral pattern—the very Anomaly that signaled Great Success in the Pleiades Jade Net Scripture.

After a long moment, he finally said, "You possess True Blood. Why get worked up over someone from a minor background? Given time, you will leave that Xu Yunfan far behind in your dust."

"Didn’t you say, Master, that even the Extreme True Immortals of the past were once of Mortal Body, cultivating one step at a time? If I show weakness today, how can I advance with courage and diligence to reach the very peak?"

Yin Hong suddenly burst out laughing, the sound making the iron chains on the cliff’s edge rattle. "Good! Good! Now this is worthy of a True Inheritor of my Celestial Pivot Peak!"

* * *

On this day, Xu Yunfan stood in his courtyard. His feet were in a neutral stance, and his body appeared loose and relaxed. But as his entire skeleton vibrated, it produced a sound like faint, wispy cicada cries, luring the cicadas perched on the treetops outside the courtyard to begin chirping uncontrollably in response.

’You simultaneously vibrate all three hundred sixty-five bones in your body. The vibration of your bones triggers a chain reaction in your sinews and skin as you seek a resonant frequency. Your Skill Level in Celestial Cicada Force has increased.’

’...’

Watching the stream of notifications about his rising Skill Level appear in his vision, Xu Yunfan let out a soft breath.

For three months straight, Xu Yunfan had not slacked off in the slightest. His Skill Level in Celestial Cicada Force increased by at least thirty points every day. Sometimes, thanks to various epiphanies or moments of inspiration, his Skill Level would see a massive jump.

He was nearly a month ahead of his own four-month estimate.

Today was the day to push his Great Mastery of Bone Cultivation to the level of Perfection.

As the sun began to set, Xu Yunfan’s body was gradually pushed to its limit. His muscles quivered, and his bones felt as if they were about to go numb.

’Celestial Cicada Force, 4999/5000 (Great Success)’

Glancing at the information floating in his vision, Xu Yunfan increased the vibration of his bones. The resulting cicada cry grew louder and more urgent.

When the notification for the final point of Skill Level appeared, Xu Yunfan’s body shuddered slightly.

’You have cultivated diligently, using resonant sonic vibrations to reshape the structure of your bone marrow. When your qi and blood fully synchronize with the frequency of your bone vibrations, your bones emit a clear cicada cry. Your Skill Level in Celestial Cicada Force has increased.’

’Your Celestial Cicada Force has reached Perfection.’

’Celestial Cicada Force (Perfection)

Effects: Bone-Transparent Wing Pattern, Cicada Cry Force, Cicada’s Chanting Overlapping Peaks, Vessel-Harmonizing Cicada Law, Vajra Iron Cauldron, All Things Bone Armor, Shocking Cicada Breaking the Sky, Vibrating Vein-Breaking Gold, Vajra Return’

In an instant, a series of pops like crackling soybeans burst from Xu Yunfan’s spine. The vibration that had been dormant deep within his bone marrow broke through a critical point.

The air resonated with the frenzied, high-frequency vibrations of his skeleton, causing the dust on the flagstones beneath Xu Yunfan’s feet to rise without a wind, outlining a perfect human silhouette on the blue bricks.

CRACK!

Xu Yunfan felt an immense torrent of heat spontaneously generate within him and nourish his bones. The distal phalanx of his left pinky finger began to rapidly turn to jade. Beneath the translucent bone, a honeycomb-like crystal structure was visible.

This metamorphosis spread through his body like a plague. The moment his skull completed its transformation, the old locust tree outside the courtyard suddenly shed its leaves like rain. The frequency of his bone-song had surpassed the limits of a cicada’s perception, and all the cicadas in the tree burst apart from the high-frequency vibration.

Had anyone trespassed into the courtyard at that moment, the terrifying vibrations would have instantly thrown their qi, blood, and internal organs into disarray, leaving them unable to exert even thirty percent of their strength.

Next, his retinas quivered in resonance with his skull, and the world transformed before his eyes into a sea of vibrating strings. The disturbance in the air from an ant’s twitching antennae thirty feet away, the faint seismic waves of an earthworm burrowing underground—all of it became perfectly clear through bone conduction.

With a pulse of the cicada cry, he seemed able to perceive the most minute changes in his surroundings through vibration alone.

His previously bunched trapezius muscles suddenly collapsed, the muscle fibers rearranging themselves into layered rows like a harp’s strings.

With his sinew, bone, and skin all at Perfection, Xu Yunfan could clearly feel his body undergoing a truly astonishing transformation.

Xu Yunfan grabbed his Thunderfire Qilin Hammer in a reverse grip. The Meteorite Iron Spring in the handle resonated in perfect harmony with his bones.

A moment of inspiration struck, and he swung the hammer at the empty air. The nearly four-hundred-jin Heavy Hammer actually tore a visible vacuum turbulence in the air.

This was the airburst effect produced by the overlapping of his Flying Leg’s snapping Great Tendon, the rhombus-like muscle bulges of his Red Rope Copper Body Cloak Hammer, and the shockwave from his Celestial Zen Force.

BOOM!

The water vat thirty feet away exploded on cue, the water vaporizing into a fine mist before it could even hit the ground.

It seemed the transformation from reaching Bone Refinement Perfection with his Celestial Cicada Force was complete.

Just as Xu Yunfan’s mind was receiving a spontaneously generated memory about the cultivation of Celestial Cicada Force, his sinews, bones, and skin trembled violently.

"Hm?"

Before Xu Yunfan could investigate further, the muscles all over his body began to twitch violently.

In that instant, a boom like a war drum erupted from Xu Yunfan’s sternum, and his heart rate skyrocketed beyond all reason.

It beat twelve times per breath, pumping blood as thick as mercury to every corner of his body. The blue veins on his skin bulged like the gnarled roots of an old tree before being swiftly suppressed and flattened by the Bone Armor beneath his skin.

His Red Rope Copper Body, Celestial Cicada Force, and Flying Leg arts were fusing together. With his sinew, bone, and skin at Perfection, an Anomaly was occurring. In the space of a few breaths, the viscosity of his blood tripled, and its oxygen-carrying capacity became comparable to that of a Flood Dragon from the great rivers and seas.

In the next moment, before Xu Yunfan could even react, his trapezius muscles collapsed to one-third of their original volume, their fibers rearranging into a composite spring-like structure.

He subconsciously bent his elbow, and his muscle groups contracted in a seven-stage sequence to release kinetic energy. The conical shockwave from his fist breaking the sound barrier shot out, tearing a stone lock ten feet away to pieces.

Even stranger was the dark golden fascia growing between his muscle bundles. This mutated tissue, generated by the Perfection of three separate Martial Arts, possessed a toughness and generated a force far beyond his imagination.

Golden Skin and Jade Veins, a Jade Bone Qiu Long!

At the very least, the strength it generated was far, far greater than what he could previously unleash at full power.

As his body rapidly transformed, he felt an immense power welling up, so great that he wished the earth had rings to pull and the heavens handles to grasp.

What unsettled him even more was that a periosteum began to rapidly spread from the gaps between his ribs, quickly filling in the seams.

’This is!?’

Rigid Ribs and Sinewy Muscles!

One of the innate talents of the Martial Dao had actually manifested now that his sinew, bone, and skin had all reached Perfection.

*(Three more Chapters coming later, typing like crazy.)*