Martial Peak

With Yang Kai’s order, the Stone Puppet immediately got up, pounded its two fists on its chest, then rushed over to the Divine Nullification Stone, clasping it in his hand and shoving it into its mouth.

The Stone Puppet’s mouth was not very big, but this bizarre thing was easily able to swallow the entire washbasin-sized Divine Nullification Stone, stunning Ye Xi Yun.

…..

An hour later, inside First Heavenly Palace, Yang Kai sat cross-legged with a happy look on his face as he observed the six materials in front of him.

There was a piece of wood with rich vitality that had lightning arcs jumping between its green leaves. This was the Thunder Wood Yang Kai had preserved for many years. This Thunder Wood was born from the vital essence and Monster Core of a fallen Tenth-Order Thunder Luan Monster Beast through a series of opportunities and coincidences. Its value was much greater than the Monster Core of a Tenth-Order Monster Beast, and although it also had Thunder and Lightning Attributes, it was still categorized as a Wood Attribute supreme treasure.

A piece of Profound Gold the size of a palm that he had won the Treasure Trove Pavilion auction for 70 million Saint Crystals emitted an incredibly strong Gold Attribute aura, to the point where Yang Kai could feel a stinging pain on his hand from it.

The dozen or so milk-white drops of Profound Yin Sunflower Water that Yang Kai had not yet used up exuded a profound chill from the bottle which held them.

A fiery-red, metallic sphere the size of a melon sat upon a large, pure, and flawless Ice Jade Pedestal. Both appeared rather plain, but one could freeze the Divine Sense of anyone who tried to examine it while the other alternately held a terrifying heat. They were the Ten Thousand Year Ice Jade Pedestal and Sun’s True Essence!

And now, in addition to these supreme treasures, there was a small pile of roughly a hundred gravel-like grains. These things looked no different from ordinary sand, but they were actually the Divine Nullification Sand grains that the Stone Puppet had extracted from the Divine Nullification Stone.

That piece of Divine Nullification Stone having formed so many grains of Divine Nullification Sand not only caused Yang Kai to rejoice, even Yang Yan was secretly shocked. She thought it would be quite good if there were twenty or thirty grains, but there ended up being several times that many in the end!

Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth; Yang Kai had gathered the supreme treasures from each of the five elements! There were even two treasures of the Water Attribute!

Each of these six materials was incredibly valuable and difficult to encounter over an entire lifetime, yet at this moment, they were all placed in front of Yang Kai. How could he not be happy?

With these, he could begin cultivating the Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art.

If these materials were judged purely on their monetary value, the Thunder Wood and Profound Gold would undoubtedly be the least valuable while the rarest and most precious would no doubt be the melon-sized Sun’s True Essence.

After all, Sun’s True Essence was an extraordinary product refined by legendary masters from the cores of Sun Stars. If all the energy contained in this seemingly small piece of Sun’s True Essence were to be unleashed all at once, destroying Shadowed Star would not be a problem.

Looking at the materials in front of him, Yang Kai took a deep breath, calmed his excitement, and sank into contemplation.

The Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art was a Secret Art dedicated to Body Tempering. A lot of time had passed since Yang Kai first obtained this Body Tempering Art, so he had naturally studied it thoroughly. Strictly speaking, this Secret Art was not very complicated, on the contrary, it was actually quite simple and easy to understand. What was difficult was acquiring the materials and meeting the requirements to begin cultivating this Secret Art.

Additionally, by using different materials to cultivate it, the end results would also differ. This was the most flexible aspect of the Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art. In simple terms, the higher the grade of materials one used, the better the effects would be.

While there were good and bad points to the other materials, the Sun’s True Essence could be regarded as a pinnacle material, absolutely unequalled!

The Profound Yin Sunflower Water and Divine Nullification Sand were also nearly legendary existences. As for the Thunder Wood and Profound Gold, they were definitely slightly inferior in rank but were still extremely rare.

By using these materials to cultivate this Body Tempering Art, Yang Kai’s foundation would be extremely robust. Yang Kai believed that even if some other cultivator elsewhere in the Star Field managed to obtain the Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art, they would not be able to match him when it came to cultivation materials.

Feeling excited, Yang Kai began arranging a certain Spirit Array around himself.

In order to cultivate the Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art, one needed to use a special Spirit Array. Regarding this, the Secret Art’s manual had explained in great detail.

Although Yang Kai wasn’t proficient in arranging Spirit Arrays, he had been together with Yang Yan for so long, observing her means and methods, that even if Spirit Arrays was not his speciality, it wasn’t difficult for him to arrange this simple Spirit Array.

Yang Kai first laid down a few Saint Crystal Sources in a specific pattern, then began arranging the Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth attribute supreme treasures appropriately.

Two days later, Yang Kai gave a satisfactorily nod as he looked down at the Five Elements Indestructible Array he had painstakingly arranged. After carefully inspecting it one last time to confirm that he had not made any mistakes, Yang Kai sat down cross-legged in the centre of the array.

Wiping his Space Ring, Yang Kai took out a few pills before popping them into his mouth, closing his eyes, and circulating the Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art.

Saint Qi began flowing freely around Yang Kai as the surrounding ground lit up in a complex and complicated pattern, many large and small patterns and runes flickering unpredictably and mysteriously.

With a loud humming noise, the Saint Crystal Sources placed in the Five Elements Indestructible Array emitted a dazzling brilliance as the rich, pure energy contained inside them began pouring out.

With the Saint Crystal Sources supplying energy to it, the Five Elements Indestructible Array arranged around Yang Kai instantly activated.

An indescribable feeling permeated Yang Kai’s body as a profound and desolate aura flooded the entire First Heavenly Palace. It was almost as if, at this moment, Yang Kai had returned to a long-forgotten ancient era.

With a great whooshing sound, the Profound Gold, Thunder Wood, Profound Yin Sunflower Water, Sun’s True Essence, and Divine Nullification Sand seemed to be stimulated by some kind of invisible force and began leaking out the pure energy contained within them. The energy was then channelled towards the centre of the Five Elements Indestructible Array.

Naturally, at the centre of this array was where Yang Kai sat.

First Heavenly Palace suddenly became filled with five coloured light.

A green light came from the Thunder Wood, gold light from the Profound Gold, white light from the Profound Yin Sunflower Water, red light from the Sun’s True Essence, and yellow light from the Divine Nullification Sand… all of which seemed to possess some kind of spirituality as they drilled towards Yang Kai’s body.

In the next instant, Yang Kai trembled violently and his closed eyes shot open as he released a terrible roar from his throat, like a wounded beast which had just had its injuries set on fire.

An intense, unimaginable pain suddenly wracked Yang Kai’s body, making him feel like his bones were slowly being crushed. The pain suffered from injuries he had sustained in battle with others was incomparable to this as it seemed to be penetrating all the way to his Soul.

In a flash, Yang Kai understood why the requirements for a cultivator’s physique were so. They were necessary to even begin cultivating the Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art.

If one’s physique was not intrepid enough, the pure elemental attribute energies from these five supreme treasures would cause their body to explode the instant they began pouring into their body! There was no need to even think about being able to cultivate this Body Tempering Art if this initial requirement could not be met.

Additionally, if the strength of one’s Soul wasn’t high enough, they would be unable to withstand this kind of pain and be driven mad sooner or later, ultimately resulting in cultivation deviation swiftly followed by death.

Yang Kai felt that he had more than met the requirements to cultivate this Body Tempering Art, but upon really cultivating it, he realized that he had greatly overestimated himself. The firm and resolute will he had honed over many years was nearly broken in an instant.

Of course, this was also due to the fact that the materials he had chosen were too high-grade. If they had all been replaced by materials on par with the Thunder Wood, for example, the pain would not have been so intense.

However, this also stimulated Yang Kai pride. Since embarking on the path of cultivation, he had wandered the line between life and death many times, suffered many tribulations, and faced many desperate situations, but had ultimately overcome all of them.

If he were to fail here, all those years of hard work would have been in vain.

Forget everything else, when he first obtained the Wordless Black Book back in High Heaven Pavilion, it was his perseverance alone that allowed Yang Kai to make this life-altering treasure submit to him, allowing him to obtain the Unyielding Golden Skeleton.

At that time, Yang Kai had obtained his mysterious Unyielding Will Martial Skill, and although as his strength had grown to the point this Martial Skill had gradually become useless, it was something he managed to comprehend from the Unyielding Golden Skeleton itself, after all.

That was his self created Martial Skill!

Yang Kai’s comprehension of this Martial Skill also had a lot to do with Su Yan. It was she who had frozen him into a block of ice for several days, which helped him fully understand Unyielding Will.

All sorts of miscellaneous thoughts flashed across Yang Kai’s mind, resulting in him unconsciously using Unyielding Will which, to his surprise, actually caused the pain he felt to weaken a little. It was nothing that would affect his overall situation, but was something positive nonetheless.

Yang Kai’s brow twitched as he immediately sent his consciousness into his Knowledge Sea to stabilize his Soul while no longer paying attention to the changes his body was experiencing in the outside world.

Crackling sounds rang out in a great chorus that filled First Heavenly Palace. Yang Kai’s skin split apart and pale golden blood oozed out, thoroughly soaking his robes within a few breaths of time.

Not only did his body tremble and his skin crack, but even Yang Kai’s meridians were unable to bear the destructive power of the pure five-element energy, causing them to fray and burst.

Yang Kai’s Golden Blood’s incredible restorative power was vividly illustrated at this moment.

His cracked skin, torn muscles, and broken meridians were completely repaired in a short period of time only to be immediately ripped asunder again, thus beginning a seemingly endless cycle of destruction and restoration.

As time passed and this process continued, Yang Kai’s body gradually became stronger to an obvious degree. Not only that, but the Saint Qi inside his body seemed to become purer and richer. Even his Spiritual Energy was quenched to a certain extent.

Although the Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art was a Secret Art dedicated to Body Tempering, it seemed to bring benefits to one’s Saint Qi and Spiritual energy as well, a small side benefit.

Terrible roars filled First Heavenly Palace, but fortunately, there were layers upon layers of barriers protecting and isolating it, so these horrific sounds did not leak out. If this were not the case, they would have attracted all of High Heaven Sect’s attention.

Time passed slowly as all of Shadowed Star prepared to enter the Emperor Garden. Each Emperor Jade represented a single entry quota, and each great force only managed to obtain a few of these Emperor Jades. Deciding who would be assigned these Emperor Jades was also a difficult task, and as a result, many great forces began holding competitions between their most talented disciples for the right to enter the Emperor Garden.

High Heaven Sect was also remarkably busy. High Heaven Sect only needed three Emperor Jades and didn’t need to go through any kind of selection process, but it still had many things to prepare. Only Yang Kai had completely disappeared after he entered retreat inside First Heavenly Palace.