Survival

In the special space, Gu Yuan felt like something changed, he stopped feeling drowsy, and his mental prowess began to normalize.

[Lucky bastard.]

"What happened?" Gu Yuan asked while narrowing his eyes, the darkness began to give place to a huge glowing body.

[Just focus on observing what you can, you are safe now. Someone saved you.]

"Huh? Why would someone save me?" Gu Yuan was shocked. Except his parents, almost everyone he knew didn't like him.

[It seems that person wants to benefit from saving you by gaining pure causality power.]

"Huh?"

[Even If I try to explain, you won't be able to understand, just focus on observing what the panel is showing you.]

Gu Yuan focused and discovered the huge glowing body floating in the space was identical to his real body, and its many glowing lines and points were in the same locations as his meridians and acupoints. From time to time, the way the energy circulated changed, and many new meridians and acupoints were activated while others were abandoned.

"It's showing me how the technique is being perfected step by step..." Gu Yuan muttered and couldn't extricate himself. By observing that process, he could learn the principles behind the perfected technique more easily.

He didn't know how long it took, but when the transformation was over, his consciousness returned to his body.

It was deep into the night, and the living corpse beside him still had a dumbfounded expression.

He discovered a booklet beside him that wasn't there before, it was obviously left by the person who saved him.

"A technique to hide one's true realm... I truly need it," Gu Yuan muttered after reading a few pages of the booklet.

Afterward, he stole the young man's clothes for himself, he didn't want to stay naked.

He took a deep breath and left the place, not caring about the body of the "nameless" young man.

A heavy rain began to fall and Gu Yuan found a safe cave to seek refuge, he sat cross-legged and began to circulate his cultivation technique.

Instantly, a huge amount of spiritual energy began to be drawn towards him, and a vortex of a few dozen meters long was formed.

However, instead of increasing, his cultivation base began to return to the very beginning of the first layer. The process took a few hours to be completed.

Gu Yuan began to feel a huge difference in strength. If before he was comparable to an ordinary ninth layer, he could now be comparable to a simple genius in the ninth layer.

"Originally, the Firm Mountain cultivation technique was meant to be a simple technique to build an ordinary foundation. But now...

"It can not only build an unsurpassable foundation, it has many perks!"

After trying all the new things, he discovered that he could hide his true cultivation role easily, or even feign to be a mortal. The cultivation technique had been perfected to an incredible degree and had no gaps, he felt possession of complete control over his whole body.

Feeling the almost solid internal energy circulating in his body, Gu Yuan wondered if there were other techniques like that in the world.

The cultivation technique not only enabled him to hide his cultivation realm but also gave him the ability to increase his strength multiple times for a short period, with the price being his superficial vitality.

"If I use this ability... I might be able to contend with a weak Qi Refining cultivator," Gu Yuan was shocked and delighted.

"This technique deserves to be renamed, it can't have such a boring name.

"Let's call it the Mysterious Mountain Body Cultivation Technique."

[Lame...]

"Shut it!"

[Name: Gu Yuan

Age: 17

Authority Level: First Layer, Body Tempering Realm (10)

Authority Technique: Mysterious Mountain Body Cultivation Technique (Final Mastery) (Body Tempering Chapter) (10)

Talents: Wordly Spirit Root (10)

Troll Points: 1263274

Remaining lazy time: One year and one month

...]

[The panel actually recognized your lame naming sense! Damn it!]

"Sometimes you speak as if you weren't the panel's spirit," Gu Yuan chuckled and continued to study the cultivation technique.

The heavy rain continued until the next morning when it finally gave room for the yellow glow of the rising sun.

Gu Yuan stopped his meditation and rose up from the ground, he stretched his body and jumped to the crown of a tree to see the horizon.

He clenched his fist and urged his internal energy to the limit, an oppressive aura surged from his body, blowing away the leaves under him.

"Hah!" a shout left his mouth and his aura got even stronger with a faint red color, he was using the secret technique of burning his superficial vitality.

He jumped high in the air and began to kick and punch the empty air like a madman.

"Hahaha, it's crazy how powerful I am..." Gu Yuan enjoyed the moment until he felt he couldn't burn more of his superficial vitality.

Superficial vitality was a kind of vitality that wasn't as essential as life's essence, but it was still important. Although superficial vitality could be easily replenished, it would take a few days at least.

Gu Yuan stopped the secret technique and returned to the ground, he felt his body extremely heavy and tired, "To avoid hidden dangers, I can only use this technique for up to five continuous minutes.

"Let's call it Extreme Vital Power Drawing Technique."

[Lame.]

"Just shut up. So what if the name is lame?" Gu Yuan clicked his tongue, "It's not like I will shout it every time I use it to fight."

[Oh, at least you aren't as brainless as some people out there, who shout their techniques' names before using them.]

"Are there people like that?" Gu Yuan was shocked, "In a mortal fight, any second is precious, how can they waste time like this?"

[Don't ask me.]

"I saw signs of a nearby village when I was up there, I guess I will pass by, I can't return to the capital anymore," Gu Yuan said and began to walk while trying to catch his breath, "That person I turned into a fool seemed someone of high status, I can't risk it.

"What if his father or grandfather is that foundation establishment cultivator? He might have some method to trace me."

[You should have burned that guy's body to ashes, how careless...]

"Eh, should I do it now?" Gu Yuan stopped in his tracks and looked back, "His body is too powerful to be eaten by ordinary beasts, he might still be intact."

[What if his allies already found him? He disappeared for a while after all, they might try to find him on their own.]

"Damn it, I was too stupid," Gu Yuan cursed and continued to walk towards the village.

[Don't worry so much, even if someone catches your remaining aura at the scene of the crime and tries to trace you, you can thoroughly hide your aura now, they won't be able to find you.]

[Unless, of course, it is someone so much stronger than you that he can see beyond your technique's disguise.]

"How strong one needs to be to be able to do this?"

[Maybe someone in the Core Formation Realm can do this.]

"Fortunately that mortal empire has no such powerhouse," Gu Yuan thought he made the right choice to go to such an underdeveloped place.

After reaching the vicinities of the village, Gu Yuan saw from afar some people working in fields or guiding cattle.

Gu Yuan only wanted to get food, he didn't wish for anyone to notice him. He spotted some chickens that no one was paying attention to and swiftly stole them without remorse.

Afterward, he used his strong body to steal some bread and other kinds of food, he filled a big sack with food. Of course, he found the sack by "luck."

Although he was shamelessly stealing from village people, Gu Yuan was uncomfortable enough to promise himself he would repay them shortly.

When he thought it was enough, he left the village and found another cave to hide. But soon, realization dawned upon him and he began to run far away with all the food.

He only stopped when he was tens of miles away, "This way, even if a search occurs, I won't be too close to where everything happened.

"I can also cook without fear of being spotted easily."

Impressively, he ate everything on the same day, he felt his body was as hungry as a starved beast, probably because of the use of the secret technique.

Fortunately, the food he stole was enough to stabilize his situation for the time being.

He spent the days hunting in the woods and cultivating with the thin spiritual energy available in the atmosphere. The only reason he was progressing was because his cultivation technique was advanced enough to absorb the thin spiritual energy at a rapid speed.

It was only after a month that he finally hit the limit of the first layer and began to break through.

A vortex of spiritual energy began to form around him and was absorbed by him rapidly, his body began to tremble and inflate slightly, as if being filled with some air.

Gu Yuan felt some kind of shackles surrounding his meridians and body, but he instantly shattered them to smithereens. His meridians began to grow stronger and larger, and his body began to welcome a new surge of strength.

His aura began to rise and more spiritual energy was attracted from afar toward his body, the trees close to his cave suffered from strong winds and lost many leaves.

His body began to return to complete normality after a few minutes and the vortex dissipated.

Gu Yuan left the cave and punched with all his strength towards a tree a few dozen meters away, the air pressure generated made the trunk almost explode on the spot despite the distance.

It was only possible because his advanced cultivation technique gave him an incredible amount of control over his internal energy, he was able to compress it to an unimaginable degree and launch attacks from far away.

Unfortunately, internal energy was very inefficient and rudimentary when compared to the True Qi of Qi Refining cultivators, so its strength dispersed quickly when outside the body. Otherwise, the tree would have exploded violently with that attack.

He set his eyes on a giant boulder beside the entrance of the cave, it was dozens of meters high and had an unknown depth in the ground.

He fearlessly struck with a simple inch punch powered by his internal energy and made the boulder violently explode, sending fragments far away and generating a huge crater where it originally was.

Because of the aftermath, the cave also collapsed and raised a huge column of dust.

[Congratulations on your first breakthrough, you unlocked another feature of the panel.]

[You can now upgrade your fighting techniques.]