The cicadas chirped in waves. The Divine Capital had officially entered summer.

Inside the bamboo building, the hundred and eight furnaces within Chen Chao's body were operating in perfect order. Chen Chao was moving through various apertures nonstop throughout the day. By this point, his energy was nearly depleted, but he could not give up. He knew very well what the consequences of giving up would be.

At this moment, he could only grit his teeth and endure.

After more than ten days, one of the furnaces within an aperture began to tremble. The lid of the furnace started to shake continuously. It was like a pot of boiling water inside, now bubbling violently, as if it were about to overflow at any moment.

Chen Chao did everything he could to control this furnace and prevent the aura inside from seeping out, while also having to split his attention to tend to the other furnaces.

Exhausted, Chen Chao was on the verge of collapse, but he still clenched his jaw and held on. He did not know how much time had passed when the furnace finally settled down just as he was reaching his limit. But then, with a series of cracking sounds, countless cracks spread across the surface of the furnace like a spiderweb.

Chen Chao looked at the furnace, but his eyes showed no sign of worry, because he could already sense that the aura inside had transformed. It was no longer chaotic, but had fully fused into a single, unified aura..

Chen Chao watched the furnace with anticipation. A moment later, there was a faint sound as a crack split open in the center of the furnace, and the aura flowed out.

The aura was pure white throughout, with faint golden light shimmering within. Once it emerged from the furnace, it entered the meridian in front of Chen Chao and quickly spread in all directions.

Chen Chao looked at that aura with exhaustion but also some joy. After spending so much time and effort, he was finally seeing the first glimmer of hope.

He had successfully fused the auras within his body, turning it into something he could truly command at will.

Although the stream of aura in this furnace looked substantial, once it entered the meridians, it was like a light rain - enough to moisten a long-dry field, but not enough to fully saturate it.

Still, Chen Chao was in no rush. As long as the rest of the furnaces were successfully refined, everything would return to the way it was.

Vitality would soon return.

But then, Chen Chao encountered the next difficulty: several furnaces began trembling at the same time. The qi within them had reached the critical moment of fusion. It was the final phase, and also the most crucial one. If Chen Chao failed to maintain control over these furnaces and the unrefined aura flowed into the meridians, it would merge with the already-refined qi, and everything would be ruined.

And it might not just be wasting all previous efforts; he could very well descend into qi deviation.

After all, the two kinds of qi were now completely different entities.

It would be like water meeting fire - conflict was inevitable.

Controlling a single furnace had already been difficult. Now with several trembling at once, Chen Chao's expression was ugly. He had no confidence in what was about to happen.

Only now did Chen Chao belatedly realize that perhaps he had indeed been too hasty in attempting something like this.

But that thought lasted only a moment before Chen Chao crushed it. At this point, it was pointless to think about such things.

"Even if there's no path, I'll carve one out. If I fail, then there won't be a second person in this world who can succeed!"

Chen Chao murmured to himself with his head lowered and forced himself to rally. He had nothing else to rely on now, only himself.

As he Chen Chao immersed himself in controlling the furnaces, they did calm slightly, but still trembled violently. Some of their lids were even pushed open by several inches, and aura nearly seeped out, but Chen Chao managed to suppress it just in time.

He then went to the most violently trembling furnace, reached out, and placed his hand on it.

Boom!

The lid of the furnace was slammed shut by Chen Chao. This young martial artist narrowed his eyes and stared at the furnace.

But in the next instant, even more furnaces erupted. In a flash, countless acupoints across Chen Chao's body began to tremble. The intense pain surged through his entire body, and his spirit suffered a dual blow, something he had never experienced before.

This had nearly exceeded the limits of what he could endure.

"AHH!"

Even someone as resilient as Chen Chao could not help but cry out at this moment.

Outside the bamboo building, Song Lian quickly heard the low, hoarse roar from inside. This Right Guard Commander stood up at once and wanted to rush in, but when he reached the door, Song Lian hesitated briefly and did not push it open.

"Commander Song?"

He Liang had been restless these past few days, unable to focus on cultivation, mainly worried that something would happen to his master.

Yu Qingfeng was originally practicing his punches, but upon hearing He Liang speak, he too looked curiously toward Song Lian.

Song Lian shook his head, stepped back a few paces, and said softly, "It's nothing."

After saying this, he sat back down on the steps, but was unable to calm down for a long time.

......

......

Inside the bamboo building, Chen Chao's spirit was hit again and again. His physical body had also begun to develop cracks at this point, as if countless threads had appeared on the surface of his skin. But looking closely, those threads were actually tiny wounds, from which fine beads of blood were slowly oozing.

Soon, Chen Chao was covered in blood, almost becoming a man of blood.

Inside his body, countless acupoints were also beginning to crack under the impact of the furnaces.

Chen Chao's mind was dazed. At this point, he was controlling the furnaces purely by instinct. Fortunately, the connection between his consciousness and the furnaces had not been severed. Otherwise, Chen Chao might have already failed completely.

In his daze, many faces flashed through his mind - first Xie Nandu, then the Great Liang Emperor. After that, Chen Chao seemed to return to his childhood, seeing his mother.

He saw that man whose back was the only thing he could remember.

That was his father, the Crown Prince Yiwen, who had once been just a step away from the throne. For Great Liang, he was a remarkable figure. But for Chen Chao, he was only a father in name. Chen Chao had never felt any fatherly warmth from him.

Perhaps it was because he was a concubine-born son. Or perhaps that man had stood too high, with too many matters to manage and no way to care for everything.

Chen Chao quickly came back to his senses. But as soon as he did, what he saw made this young martial artist give a bitter smile.

One of the furnaces before him had become almost uncontrollable. The lid had been blown open several dozen feet, and a chaotic stream of aura was surging out, about to pour into his meridians.

Was he destined to fail?

Chen Chao furrowed his brows, bit his teeth, and forcibly diverted his focus to suppress the lid. But just as he managed to hold it halfway down, the surging aura burst out again.

This time, the aura directly shattered the lid, rushing into the acupoint and then falling like a torrential rain.

Chen Chao looked somewhat helplessly at that downpour.

Had it all ended in failure after all?

A flash of unwillingness crossed his eyes. That sliver of unwillingness kept growing stronger. A stream of aura surged from Chen Chao's palm, rapidly spreading out and forming a barrier that blocked the rainfall just above the meridians.

But as the droplets kept falling, Chen Chao's barrier was also being pushed lower and lower, like an ordinary oil-paper umbrella in a storm, unable to truly keep out the rain.

Chen Chao gritted his teeth and stared hard at that barrier. Over the years, he had faced countless life-and-death trials. He had stood at the edge of death more than once, but every time, he had clenched his teeth and endured.

A feeling of powerlessness?

Chen Chao lowered his head and smiled.

Then Chen Chao raised his head again. The aura in his palm grew stronger and stronger, and in an instant, the barrier that had caved in swelled up once more.

Resign himself to fate?

Never!

As the barrier held back that rain-like aura, Chen Chao began to forcibly mobilize the already-refined qi in his meridians.

As the aura flowed through the meridians, Chen Chao reached out and absorbed it into his palm.

His eyes began to brighten.

This sensation was indeed different from before.