You paid the villagers to build yourself a large villa.

You continued your cultivation.

But progressing from Skin Refining to Bone Tempering is a huge leap, and your progress was very slow.

To be blunt, there was basically no progress.

You knew this was normal and didn’t feel anxious.

In your spare time, you developed a liking for fishing.

As an avid fisherman, you always returned fully loaded from each trip.

Because whenever a fish didn’t bite for more than two breaths, you used your true qi to stun it and pulled it directly out.

You thought fishing was very simple and couldn’t understand why so many people ended up empty-handed.

In the twenty-third year, you had already lived in Xiangyue Village for two years and had grown accustomed to everything there.

You paid the villagers to feed the horse and chop firewood, while you faced the great lake, enjoying the warm spring blossoms.

You felt it would be fine to spend your life here until old age.

One day, you were fishing—stunning fish as usual.

Jiang the Barbarian, drooling but clever in his own way, came to the lakeside with a mischievous grin and imitated your method to stun fish.

You discovered that Jiang the Barbarian actually had true qi in his body, roughly at the early-stage Skin Refining level based on the amount.

His strength was due to the true qi inside him.

But Jiang the Barbarian was a big idiot; he couldn’t control the true qi, and it ran rampant within him.

This chaotic true qi constantly damaged his body.

Whenever the true qi damaged his body, he was in pain and became very irritable.

This explained why he would suddenly assault people.

You asked Jiang the Barbarian about the true qi inside him.

He just drooled and gave you a mischievous smile.

When you pressed him further, he relied on his strength and tried to hit you.

You countered and knocked him down, making him wail loudly on the ground.

“I usually don’t hit kids or idiots, but I didn’t expect you to stack two buffs and still be this annoying.”

After you hit him, Jiang the Barbarian’s eyes cleared up a lot.

His speech became more coherent.

He told you he had eaten sugar beans found at his grandfather’s grave, which made him stronger.

You went to Jiang the Barbarian’s grandfather’s grave.

You dug it open and found many valuable items inside.

There was a top-level Bone Tempering manual—the Dragon Roar Saber Technique.

“An even more powerful supreme technique beyond first-class manuals!”

You immediately took it and decided to switch to cultivating the Dragon Roar Saber Technique.

You also found a key and a token of the Extermination Sect.

The Extermination Sect is one of the three major demonic sects, and you felt uneasy about it.

Most surprisingly, there was also a recipe for Blood Qi Pills.

With this, you could refine Blood Qi Pills yourself and achieve freedom in producing them.

There were also many finished Blood Qi Pills in the grave.

Besides the portion Jiang the Barbarian had eaten as sugar beans, over two hundred Blood Qi Pills remained.

Jiang the Barbarian only increased his true qi by eating Blood Qi Pills but never practiced any cultivation method.

Thus, his uncontrolled true qi constantly destroyed his body and even damaged his brain.

You helped Jiang the Barbarian dissipate all the true qi inside him.

Without that true qi, his body would no longer be destroyed and he wouldn’t become irritable.

But his brain was already beyond repair.

He could only remain a carefree big fool forever.

You knew Jiang the Barbarian’s grandfather’s identity must be extraordinary, so you decided to leave Xiangyue Village immediately.

You left five thousand taels of silver with the village chief to take care of Jiang the Barbarian.

Jiang the Barbarian had grown up eating at many homes in the village; as long as he didn’t hit people, the simple and honest villagers were willing to take care of him.

You continued heading west.

Half a month later, you arrived at a bustling small city called Changfeng City.

This small city was located on the frontier of the Great Qian Kingdom.

Precisely because it was far from the central region of Great Qian, Changfeng City had developed its own unique beauty and prosperity.

You bought a quiet little courtyard in a remote area of Changfeng City.

You stopped cultivating the Golden Saber Technique and switched to the Dragon Roar Saber Technique.

“Men, always craving the new and abandoning the old.”

With the aid of Blood Qi Pills, it only took you half a year to bring the Dragon Roar Saber Technique up to the peak of Skin Refining.

You could clearly feel that the true qi in your body had become more majestic, growing five times stronger than with the Golden Saber Technique.

“No wonder it’s a supreme technique—so powerful!”

Every time you swung your saber, a faint dragon roar echoed, affecting your opponent’s mind and causing a brief moment of confusion.

Don’t underestimate that moment.

In combat, life and death hinge on an instant, and that instant is enough to decide victory or defeat.

After switching cultivation methods, you began experimenting with pill refining.

You purchased a large quantity of materials to refine Blood Qi Pills, then secluded yourself in the courtyard to practice diligently.

Refining pills required extremely precise control over true qi; even a slight mistake would cause failure.

You kept trying and failing.

Failing repeatedly but never giving up.

You opened your eyes every day only to refine pills.

Even when sleeping with eyes closed, you thought about technical details.

After half a year, you still hadn’t successfully refined a single Blood Qi Pill.

But you hadn’t wasted your time either.

Your control over true qi became increasingly precise, and your saber skills improved significantly.

Previously, you could only accurately cut flies; now you could split ants.

After another month, you stopped refining pills because your money was almost gone.

Those familiar with you knew you were about to start stealing again.

Actually, your thieving skills hadn’t been neglected these years; you practiced whenever you got a chance.

Sometimes, without even trying, you’d return from the streets with a few extra wallets in your hands.

You had developed an occupational disease.

Your automatic pickup function couldn’t be turned off.

This time, Flying Sky Cockroach reemerged in the world.

As expected, it only took you a month to steal enough money to continue refining pills.

You buried yourself in pill refining again.

After more than a year of attempts,

In the twenty-fifth year, your fortieth year, you finally refined your first Blood Qi Pill.

Your Blood Qi Pill refining technique had entered the beginner stage.

But your success rate was too low, only one or two successes out of ten attempts.

That yield was clearly insufficient.

You kept practicing.

With the first successful pill made, subsequent progress became easier.

In the twenty-sixth year, your Blood Qi Pill refining technique reached a small breakthrough, with about six successes out of ten attempts.

You could barely say you had mastered the core technology.

You thought it was enough and stopped practicing further.

Long-term pill refining had further enhanced your control over true qi.

Now, if you aimed for an ant’s upper eyelid, you would never hit its lower eyelid.

You began using the large quantity of Blood Qi Pills you refined to push toward Bone Tempering.

You could feel that breaking through to Bone Tempering was not far away.

You no longer ate Blood Qi Pills one by one but handfuls at a time.

You didn’t know exactly how many pills were in a handful.

You only knew there was no bottleneck that a handful of Blood Qi Pills couldn’t solve, and if there was, then two handfuls.

You had completely achieved freedom of Blood Qi Pills.

You now found life tedious—extremely tedious.

Two years of this dull life passed.

The old locust tree in your courtyard withered and flourished twice.

In the twenty-eighth year, at night, while cultivating and just having swallowed a handful of Blood Qi Pills, a dragon roar sounded inside your body.

You broke through to Bone Tempering.

True qi surged wildly around you, shattering your clothes and revealing a dozen abdominal muscles.

Your pants were also torn apart, exposing the huge mosaic below your waist.

The amount of true qi at Bone Tempering was not comparable to Skin Refining.

You felt you could slap to death dozens of Skin Refining peak versions of yourself.

“Taking pills really speeds things up!”

After reaching Bone Tempering, you could now release true qi onto the surface of objects you directly touched.

You drew out the Cry of the Swan Goose saber, attaching true qi to it, and swung.

The decades-old locust tree in the courtyard fell with a crash; it had done no harm to anyone.

This strike’s power had increased more than tenfold.

“Whoa! Enchanting really makes a difference!”

Having reached Bone Tempering, you could now open a school and take disciples.

Wang Kun, the master of the Golden Saber Martial Arts School, was at early-stage Bone Tempering.

You could now be considered an expert.

After breaking through to Bone Tempering, you rarely gave yourself a day off, but this time you did.

You lay in your courtyard all day.

You thought about nothing and did nothing.

You emptied your mind completely and quietly watched the clouds drift in the sky.

After resting for a day, you threw yourself back into your great cultivation journey.

That day, after finishing cultivation, you planned to go buy materials to refine Blood Qi Pills.

You opened the courtyard door and found an injured woman covered in blood, barely conscious, lying at your doorstep.

“Miss Hua? Yo-yes~”