Body Tempering Realm

Long Shen's eyes faded as he was once again in his Dantian with the many gates, in front of him was the Body Tempering Gate, but this time when looked at it he noticed that the gate was no longer shut, but was actually opened.

Without any hesitation Long Shen walked through the gate, what greeted him where 9 pillars each made out of stone, they stood around 3 meters tall, the only problem was that there were thick metal chains surrounding each pillar except for the 1st one. The chains looked like they weighed almost as much as mountains and immovable no matter how much force was put into them.

Long Shen wasn't surprised by this sight at all, in fact, he expected something like this. There are always 9 minor realms within one Major Realm. So there must be some way for him to advance minor realms, it was impossible to advance in cultivation without it.

Each chain had a lock, and the lock was inscribed with different runes. Long Shen walked over to the 2nd pillar which had a lock on it, he crouched down as he began to study it. The lock was as big as a grown man's foot, blood-colored runes were etched into the surface spanning across the entire lock, almost as if it were a story. Long Shen didn't need to look long for he already knew what these runes were. The runes were the written language of Immortals.

The runes were instructions, and read as so "A koi fish jumps the gate and becomes a dragon, why not I?

Long Shen was slightly confused by the passage on the lock, he kept trying to remember if there was ever any poem or passage that followed those words, but he kept coming up empty-handed no matter how much he thought about it. He ended up putting it to the back of his mind as he stood up.

Long Shen didn't look at the rest of the locks, as he was sure that there was another passage similar to the previous one. He decided that when he had free time he would look at the locks and start to study them. But right now he had a lot to do and was on a short schedule. He casted his consciousness back into the outside world as he sat up. He decided to once again inspect his body. He moved his Inner Qi along his body, he noticed that there were no damages during the breakthrough as he sighed in relief. It was not uncommon for someone to suffer from cultivation deviation due to them executing their technique wrong or some other mishap.

His Inner Qi did not grow much, but that is because he has yet to even reach the Qi Gathering stage where one was able to gather Qi and store it in their body. He was currently only a bit stronger than a regular human, and if he was ambushed or outnumbered by regular people there was still a large chance that he would die or face serious injury.

Currently, though, Long Shen did not worry about that, so he walked out of the cave, and came to a large boulder. He bent his knees and placed his hands beneath it as he began to lift it. This boulder was easily 400 pounds but he was able to lift it with relative ease. He held it above his head and did some light exercises for a bit before he returned it to the ground.

Long Shen walked over to a tree, where a stood with his left leg forwards and his right leg back, he got himself into an aggressive stance, and then he released a punch straight at the tree.

"BOOM! Crack" The tree let out creaking sounds as it was beaten. After just a single punch from Long Shen, the tree had a large dent in it. In fact, he had almost blown through the back of the tree. He looked at the tree seemingly very pleased with himself.

But a second later Long Shen frowned, 'As I remember I was never this strong when I was in body tempering stage before, at most I would have been able to slightly dent this type of tree. But I almost destroyed it…'

Then it dawned on him, maybe after unsealing his cultivation realms he would get a significant boost in power compared to others in the same realm as him. According to Long Shen's estimation, he currently had the strength of someone in the 2nd Stage of Body Tempering. He couldn't help but have a gleeful smile on his face. How rare was it for someone to have more battle power that rivaled a minor realm above their own? For one thing, it definitely was not common.

Long Shen then did more tests, he found that not only did he have a good amount of strength but his stamina had also increased. He was surprised as he was only in the 1st minor realm he hadn't even finished tempering his blood. He couldn't help but be excited about his future breakthroughs, he couldn't stop himself from imagining his future battle power. Long Shen stopped fantasizing and brought himself back to reality.

Long Shen decided that it was time to find a village or city to ask questions about, and hopefully, find some resources to help him with his cultivation. He drank some water from the pond in the cave, and then set off through the forest.

He continued to travel through the forest for a couple of days before he finally came across a dirt road that lead off into the horizon. Long Shen wasn���t worried about not having enough food or water for the trip as he had done plenty of hunting during his trip through the forest. Long Shen decided that he should do most of his travel at day, and then rest for the night beneath a tree or some other cover.

One night when he was resting he heard a slight "rustle…" Long Shen immediately awoke but didn't open his eyes. He continued to act like he was asleep.

"Boss, do you think this kid has anything good on him?" Long Shen heard a Husky Voice near him. He continued to act like nothing was happening, but in his mind, he was formulating a plan.

'He sounds to be around 10 meters from me. He said "Boss" is there another with him?' Long Shen kept thinking and thinking about what to do if the situation went awry. He could only hope that whoever the people were ignored him. It wasn't that he was afraid, it was simply that he wanted to avoid combat and arrive at a village or city in peak condition. If he was injured it would make his trip a lot more difficult than he wanted it to be.