Longevity starts with choosing Hextech enhancement

Chapter 445 Body Tempering Technique - Body Refining Hall

"Unrivaled in fierceness, breaking through laws with force."

"A heart as firm as a rock will never waver."

Xiao Chen stared intently at the two lines of seal script, which were vigorous and powerful, resembling coiled dragons and snakes.

Each stroke contains a powerful force of qi and blood.

When you gaze at it closely, you can feel a powerful aura emanating from it.

It was as if, in the next instant, these large characters would break free from the stone tablet's restraints and transform into tangible fist intent that would break through the air!

"Wow! These characters alone are quite impressive!"

Upon seeing this, Xiao Chen couldn't help but think to himself: This kind of aura is definitely not something that an ordinary martial artist can leave behind.

If he wasn't mistaken, it must have been written by the Black Iron Venerable himself.

Because a portion of one's own will is infused into the writing, it possesses such power.

Then Xiao Chen's gaze shifted downwards, continuing to look at the small regular script at the bottom.

Although he was much smaller, every word he wrote was powerful and elegant: "I have wandered all my life and I feel that I have no other outstanding qualities."

"Only with a steadfast heart toward the Dao can one ultimately knock on the gates of Heaven with a mortal body. Breaking through the shackles, one attains the status of a deity."

"Now, in order to seek the Great Way and travel far, I do not wish for my learning to be interrupted, so I leave this mansion to await those who are destined to receive it."

"You may take whatever you need from within the mansion."

"I only hope that those who come after will uphold their integrity and forge ahead with determination."

After reading the message aloud, Xiao Chen was initially surprised: "Judging from this, he's actually a rogue cultivator?"

However, he quickly realized, "That's true. If one weren't a rogue cultivator, there would be no need to worry about their skills being lost."

The other party left a word of encouragement at the end.

Considering his earlier self-proclaimed virtues of having no other merits but a steadfast heart for the Dao, he should belong to the type of ascetic who focuses solely on cultivation.

"And these characters look rather new."

Xiao Chen approached the stone tablet and reached out to lightly touch the characters with his fingertips: "Even in the recessed areas, there is only a thin layer of dust."

"Plus the iron gate outside, which is almost completely untouched by rust, it doesn't seem like it's been that many years."

Although there was a faint, long-forgotten smell in the air.

However, judging from the details, it should only be a few tens of thousands or even ten or twenty thousand years since this place was built.

"A cave dwelling that was not built recently."

Xiao Chen's eyes lit up: "This is great news!"

The short timeframe implies two things.

Firstly, all the restrictions within are extremely well preserved, which basically eliminates the possibility of someone else getting there first.

Although this is a reward from Hextech, theoretically there shouldn't be any need to worry about this situation.

But now that this has been verified, I feel much more at ease.

Secondly, the short time frame means that the spiritual objects stored inside should also be relatively well preserved.

If the owner of the cave has left behind elixirs, spiritual fruits, or similar items, and has the means to preserve them, then the spiritual energy within may not have completely dissipated.

"Click!"

There was another soft sound from the side, and the token used to open the cave actually bounced up again.

"Oh, so it means it'll be useful later?"

Xiao Chen originally thought that the purpose of this thing was to open the cave entrance without breaking the restrictions.

Once it's placed on top, it should be fixed in place.

But now it seems that this thing might be used again in the future.

Although it was only a possibility, he still took the token back before walking around the stone tablet and heading towards the back.

The restrictions within this cave are quite powerful and comprehensive.

Perhaps because of the shorter duration, it was even better than most of the secret realms Xiao Chen had experienced before.

However, one thing is rather strange: the style is extremely rough.

At least the first half of the cave dwelling, apart from the gate and the stone tablet which were somewhat presentable, was simply indescribable.

After bypassing the stone tablet, Xiao Chen walked along the passage for several miles.

The environment throughout the passageway was exactly the same as before he entered the gate.

As far as the eye can see, there are bare rocks, and in many places there are still traces of being cut by sharp tools.

Individually, they appear smooth and flat, but when combined as a whole, they look somewhat rough.

It's very much like a temporary passage that was artificially excavated in a rocky mountain using magic.

To put it nicely, this is called preserving the original appearance of the passageway.

In short, if it weren't for the intermittently appearing restrictions around us, and the fact that we had just seen a large gate, we would have been able to escape.

Xiao Chen had no idea that this was a place left behind by a dignified Nascent Soul cultivator.

Perhaps this extremely simple and unpretentious environment is related to the fact that Venerable Black Iron is a rogue cultivator.

Without disciples to help with the construction, he might be too lazy to deal with some less important details.

Fortunately, after continuing for a while, they were able to continue.

The situation suddenly changed.

The surrounding original mountain rocks have all been replaced with uniformly forged black iron.

And the further you go, the wider and higher the passage becomes.

Soon Xiao Chen saw a bright white light ahead, indicating that he had finally arrived inside the cave.

He immediately quickened his pace and walked out of the passage.

There were no lights in the sky, but a soft glow from an unknown source illuminated the entire cave as if it were daytime.

The area suddenly became very wide, about a thousand feet long and more than three hundred feet wide.

Even its height is over a hundred feet, making it appear grand and imposing. Standing inside, one doesn't feel cramped at all, but rather only a sense of vastness.

Right next to the entrance of the passage is a small square that is nearly 100 feet long.

After the small square, a magnificent palace complex finally appeared.

However, when Xiao Chen looked around, he found that the surrounding area was also different from other ruins, with many decorations.

Looking into the distance, both the walls on all sides and the palace complex standing in the center are still made of thick black iron, without a trace of impurity.

For a moment, he felt as if he had entered a steel jungle.

"Step! Step!... Step!"

A series of orderly footsteps suddenly rang out.

Immediately afterwards, a group of ten black iron puppets ran out from the central palace complex.

These puppets were nine feet tall, wearing helmets and armor, wielding swords, and exuding abundant spiritual power.

Judging from their aura alone, each of them was comparable to a Nascent Soul cultivator at the Great Perfection stage.

The lead puppet was several sizes larger than the others.

Standing over ten feet tall, wielding a three-foot-long broadsword, he was also the only puppet without a helmet, thus revealing his facial features.

At this moment, he was glaring angrily at Xiao Chen, seemingly regarding him as an intruder.

It even carried a trace of fifth-order pressure, almost no less than the Venerable One I had seen at Pudu Temple.

However, after Xiao Chen took off the token, he did not put it into his storage ring, but kept it in his hand.

This is practically common knowledge in the cultivation world.

When he visited the scripture pavilions of various sects before, he always used this method to avoid the internal formations and restrictions.

This approach proved to be very useful at that moment.

As the puppet leader looked over, a spiritual light immediately shone on the token.

After exchanging a few words, the other party seemed to recognize Xiao Chen's identity.

So he immediately stopped walking and stood up straight on the spot.

The nine puppet soldiers following behind it immediately stopped moving and stood still like statues.

As the inheritor who entered with the token, Xiao Chen naturally did not need to fight these guardian puppets.

Moreover, they bypassed them directly and entered the palace complex behind them without any problems.

Although it is called a palace complex, its internal structure is actually not complicated.

At the very front, besides the main gate and side gate, are the bell tower and drum tower.

Then there is a main road that leads from the main entrance to a circular plaza in the very center.

On both sides of the main road are some functional houses.

Examples include guest rooms, kitchens, armories, puppet halls, banquet halls, and so on.

Xiao Chen noticed that in one of the puppet halls, there was another team of ten guardian puppets, with a configuration almost identical to the team outside.

These places were not locked, nor were there any restrictions or prohibitions.

He didn't rush to the middle, but instead went in and took a look around along the way.

Unfortunately, most of the rooms didn't contain anything of value.

Fortunately, Xiao Chen didn't expect to have tea and food in the kitchen or banquet hall. He placed his hopes on the weapon pavilion from the beginning.

Inside, two weapon racks were arranged in an orderly fashion.

There were fourteen finished spiritual weapons on it, as well as twenty-four sword and knife blanks that had not yet been further forged.

"This is the good stuff!"

Xiao Chen didn't care about the spiritual weapons that had already been forged; instead, he went to check the unfinished products next to him one by one.

Just as he had expected, most of these embryos were crafted using fourth-order spirit ore.

Moreover, because they have only undergone preliminary processing, they have not yet been fully finalized.

Later, they can be sold to other cultivators so that they can forge more customized spiritual weapons that are more suitable for themselves.

Unlike finished products, which may seem more complete but are actually harder to find suitable buyers because they are already made, finished products are not.

Of course, none of these are the most important points.

Most importantly, after a careful search, Xiao Chen discovered that the finished spiritual weapons were all fourth-tier spiritual weapons, more like practice pieces.

However, among the blade blanks nearby, he successfully found a perfect fifth-tier blade blank!
Its main material is black iron, but it should contain a lot of fifth-order spiritual materials.

Although Xiao Chen was a complete novice when it came to weapon crafting and couldn't see anything specific about it.

However, judging solely from the faintly revealed fifth-order pressure and the spiritual energy concentration that is significantly higher than that of fourth-order spiritual materials.

It is still easy to determine that it is definitely a fifth-order blade blank. Theoretically, if it continues to be forged, it should be able to create at least a fifth-order spiritual weapon.

As for whether it can be further developed into a magic weapon, that's really hard to say.

After all, judging from the experience of the Ocean of Compassion, no new magical artifacts have been created in the last few hundred thousand years.

If it weren't for the occasional appearance of fragments of ancient magical artifacts, people would probably consider these artifacts as part of ancient mythology.

"In any case, this is a good thing that is enough to impress the other Nascent Soul Venerables."

Xiao Chen was already quite satisfied: "Just this fifth-tier sword blank, plus the guaranteed breakthrough spirit item, makes this trip worthwhile."

"Not to mention this is just the weapons hall."

"The two main halls behind here must be even better than this one."

Although there is no main hall in the very center, but instead a circular plaza, there is a magnificent side hall on each side of the plaza.

In other words, there are at least three other places here, all of which have a high probability of containing valuable items.

Xiao Chen unceremoniously packed up all the magical artifacts here and took them away, leaving not even the two weapon racks behind.

After all, he recognized at a glance that the two shelves were made of some kind of fourth-order spirit wood.

Although I don't recognize the specific variety, it should be worth quite a few spirit stones.

I stopped by the tea room next door on the way.

After failing to find anything, Xiao Chen headed straight for the central circular plaza.

Although this is a square, the overall layout is actually quite simple.

The boundaries of the square were simply marked by a layer of gold laid on the ground.

If an ordinary person were to accidentally wander into this place, they would probably be so excited by the tens of thousands of kilograms of real gold spread out on the ground that they would be unable to contain their excitement.

However, for a cultivator like Xiao Chen, it only has two advantages.

First, the ones that are entirely golden look better.

Secondly, it won't rust even after hundreds of thousands or millions of years.

As for its value, it is completely negligible.

Xiao Chen's gaze fell directly on the circular white jade wall that stood in the very center of the square, more than ten feet long and three feet high.

This thing stood out conspicuously among the surrounding pitch-black iron.

Even before you can see the gold on the plaza when you first enter the cave, you can immediately notice this conspicuous sign among the palace complex.

"Huh, there are no words, no pictures, and no carvings."

Xiao Chen walked over and took a look. At first glance, the white jade disc was just a simple jade disc with nothing on it.

It is so clean that the jade itself is pure white, neither translucent nor has any inherent texture.

"Logically speaking, such an important place should not have a blank wall."

After a quick analysis, Xiao Chen immediately deduced: "Could it be that Venerable Black Iron left some kind of test here?"

"I must unravel some secret in order to obtain the truth recorded on the white jade disc?"

Thinking of this, he subconsciously activated his divine sense to try to investigate the surrounding situation.

Then they discovered that this place was still restricted by the restrictions within the cave, and they were still unable to fly or use their divine sense.

"Oh, I see. So you're not allowed to use your divine sense and have to find clues yourself, right?"

Xiao Chen was not discouraged. With his intelligence, solving such a puzzle was a piece of cake.

He immediately set off to examine the unusual features of the square, starting from its edge.

Then, after walking a few steps, they discovered that behind the white jade disc, there were four stone tablets with inscriptions on them.

"Um...what do you mean?"

Xiao Chen was slightly taken aback.

Then I walked straight over to see what was written on it.

When he walked to the back, he discovered that the back of the white jade disc actually had words on it, and a large, densely packed one at that!

"No, wasn't it written backwards back then?"

Xiao Chen strongly suspected that the Black Iron Venerable might not have been able to distinguish the directions when he built the plaza.

He walked to the white jade wall and began to read the message on it.

The content here is not complicated.

First, there are some of the memories of the Black Iron Venerable himself.

It mainly recounts how he overcame numerous difficulties to embark on the path of spiritual cultivation.

Then came some reflections, which confirmed that he was indeed a rogue cultivator, and one who pursued the path of body refinement.

Later, he also studied the art of weapon crafting. In order to save costs, he painstakingly researched how to use black iron as the main material to forge most of the spiritual weapons.

He even earned the nickname "True Lord of the Mysterious Iron" because of this.

"So from this perspective, he should actually be called Venerable Xuan Tie, right?"

Xiao Chen felt that the name "Hextech Enhancement" seemed a little off.

However, the meanings are actually quite similar.

At the end of the white jade wall are some words of advice regarding this cave and its heritage.

Perhaps reflecting on something, the Black Iron Venerable wrote quite a lot of words here.

In short, he erected four stone tablets in the square.

Each one is engraved with a body-forging manual, which is a technique he summarized and passed down in the path of body forging.

If you want to inherit his mantle, then go and practice the Body Tempering Technique on the far left.

However, the Black Iron Venerable specifically instructed: This technique is extremely difficult and cannot be mastered by anyone without great perseverance.

If you aspire to body tempering but feel you lack the willpower, you can choose one of the two middle methods to acquire more means of combat.

If one is solely focused on cultivating the Dharma or is naturally weak in terms of vital energy and blood and cannot simultaneously cultivate the body, then one can cultivate the one on the far right, which is also the simplest.

It can at least improve blood circulation and have the effect of strengthening the body.

In the end, the Black Iron Venerable left a few words of advice.

The four stone tablets here each correspond to the concepts of Heaven and Earth, and the concepts of darkness and yellow.

However, it is not necessarily true that the higher the grade of a cultivation technique, the better it is.

Descendants must choose the appropriate method based on their own circumstances, and must not be reckless or fixated solely on the Heavenly-level inheritance.

In the end, they couldn't continue their cultivation and gave up halfway, wasting a lot of time and spiritual resources.

Furthermore, since these four cultivation methods originate from the same source, if one finds cultivating the Yellow or Profound level too easy, one can switch to cultivating a higher level midway.

Therefore, he suggested that unless one already has a foundation in body cultivation, it is best to start trying cultivation at the Yellow or Profound level.

"Kuro-Iron-senpai is right!"

Xiao Chen nodded in agreement: "We rogue cultivators should cultivate Yellow-level techniques."

"It's the seniors who came from the ranks of rogue cultivators who are more considerate and know how to take care of those juniors with average aptitude."

To be honest, he had received quite a few inheritances before.

However, those traditions never considered the life or death of cultivators with low-grade spiritual roots.

Cultivation techniques below the Earth level are never written in jade slips.

Objectively speaking, the primary task for cultivators with low-grade spiritual roots is to find a way to establish their foundation before the age of sixty.

However, there are always a few special cases like Xiao Chen.

In contrast, the Black Iron Venerable was much more considerate, preparing four different versions and earnestly advising the visitors not to be reckless.

There's not much to say, just two words—touched!
With profound respect, Xiao Chen memorized all four techniques.

Although he doesn't intend to cultivate a Heaven-level technique, he can still use them for comparison.

Anyway, since we're already here, let's memorize it first, regardless of whether we'll need it later.

In addition, it is also mentioned on the white jade disc.

To the left of the square is the Body Tempering Hall, and behind the Body Tempering Hall is a miscellaneous storage hall.

To the right is the Blood Burning Hall, and behind the Blood Burning Hall, there is a cave storehouse.

Behind it, there is a stele forest, on which are inscribed the true meaning of Black Iron Venerable's martial arts and the martial arts techniques he created.

Cultivators who are interested can also visit those places.

However, remember to act within your capabilities and never push yourself too hard.

"Hmm? Act within your means?"

Xiao Chen seemed to sense a hidden danger from those four words.

Could there be some dangerous place inside this cave?
However, he certainly wouldn't give up the exploration just because of this warning.

Firstly, he has now advanced to the mid-stage of the Nascent Soul realm, greatly increasing his strength once again.

Secondly, the Black Iron Venerable wrote that one should act according to one's ability, which means that as long as one is cautious, there should not be any major problems.

Where should we go first?

Xiao Chen thought for a moment and said, "How about we go around from left to right, one circle at a time?"

Since he's already here, he's bound to visit every place.

And since there are no competitors, there's no need to worry about the order of priority.

So after leaving the square, Xiao Chen headed straight for the Body Tempering Hall on the left.

Although both were cast from black iron, these two side halls finally had some patterns as decoration.

This includes intricate cloud patterns on the walls, and eaves and brackets made of pure iron.

Above the central hall gate hangs a vertical plaque with three large characters: "Tempering Hall".

Just hearing the name, Xiao Chen felt that this place must be a good place.

He immediately pushed the door open and entered, and as soon as he opened the door, he felt a powerful pressure rushing towards him.

The air even carried a fishy stench, as if many ferocious demonic beasts were hiding inside the palace.

However, upon closer inspection, Xiao Chen saw that there were only two rows of thick iron pillars in front of him.

Within the iron pillar stands a huge bronze cauldron and a small stone tablet.

There is nothing else besides that.

That unsettling pressure came from the giant cauldron in the center of the hall.

"Wow, what a huge cauldron!"

Xiao Chen estimated that the side hall was over six zhang tall, but it almost couldn't contain the giant cauldron, which was also nearly six zhang tall.

There were hardly any items inside the entire hall.

However, it appears somewhat crowded, or even bloated.

What does this mean?

Xiao Chen curiously approached the cauldron and examined the stone tablet, which, despite being six feet long, appeared remarkably small.

Only then did they learn that this giant cauldron was actually the Hundred Demon Cauldron used for tempering the body.

The cauldron is divided into three layers: upper, middle, and lower, containing the essence blood of thirty, sixty, and ninety demon beasts, respectively.

Visitors can choose a suitable level to enter based on their own cultivation progress.

If they can hold out for half an hour, the cauldron will automatically send them out of the outside world.

The restrictions inside the hall will record the aura of each cultivator, and each person has two opportunities to enter.

Therefore, it's best to get a feel for the intensity of the top level before deciding whether to go to the middle or the bottom level.

In addition, a warning was specially written on the stone tablet in red cinnabar.

To ensure the effectiveness of the body-forging process, once inside the cauldron, one must stay for at least half an hour before emerging.

If you have no foundation in physical training, you must consciously avoid this cauldron and never enter it without permission, otherwise your life or death will be uncertain.

"Oh, is it that scary?"

Xiao Chen was a little unsure: "Should I be considered to have a foundation, or not?"

(End of this chapter)