Martial Arts: My talent multiplier increased

Talent Multiplication System.

Temporary increase in points: 17.

Fang Yuan drew five lines on the panel with his mind.

Root talent: 4 times → 9 times.

Five temporary amplification points were poured into the amplification slot of his Root Bone talent. Within the same heartbeat cycle, Fang Yuan felt a surge of intense heat throughout his body—like liquid iron being injected into his veins.

Nine times the root bone.

Fang Yuan's total Qi and blood volume surged to more than double its original amount in that instant. The flow of Qi and blood in his meridians accelerated dramatically. Every regular meridian, every extraordinary meridian, every collateral meridian, and every capillary meridian—all were filled with the surging Qi and blood.

The meridian wall emitted a low, taut groan.

Liu Ruyan's three-layered nested design demonstrated its value at this moment—the first layer widened the river channel. The second layer reinforced the embankment. Without these two layers of pretreatment, the ninefold increase in Qi and blood from her root bone would have been enough to rupture at least three of Fang Yuan's main meridians.

The second thing – the remaining 12 points – will continue to be allocated.

Talent in stance training: 9 times → 12 times.

Three points were struck. Fang Yuan's control over his body leaped to a new level in that instant. Not a gradual improvement, but a sudden change. He could feel the contraction of every muscle fiber in his body, the stress distribution of every bone, and the precise range of motion of every joint down to within one tenth of a degree.

Comprehension talent: 2x → 4x.

Two points. Fang Yuan's brain processing speed doubled. The Blood Bat King's body outline, blood energy fluctuation pattern, stance, center of gravity distribution, and possible attack methods hidden beneath his dark red robe—all this information was no longer linearly arranged in Fang Yuan's mind. It became a network. Each node processed simultaneously, outputting conclusions at the same time.

Divine Soul Talent: 2x → 4x.

Two dots.

Fang Yuan's spiritual perception range surged from twenty-five zhang to—he didn't have time to measure the exact number. But the cold blood barrier on the Blood Bat Dharma King's body, the barrier whose edges he previously had to "harden" to reach—

Broken.

It wasn't Fang Yuan who shattered it. It was the perception precision of four times that of the divine soul that directly penetrated the surface of the barrier.

Fang Yuan "saw" inside the Blood Bat Dharma King's body.

The meridians—not the normal meridian distribution of a martial artist. The twelve primary meridians are still there. But what flows in these meridians is not qi and blood. It is a dark red, corrosive, foreign essence blood. The flow rate of this essence blood is extremely fast, at least five times faster than that of a normal martial artist. The direction of flow is also wrong—normal qi and blood circulation follows the established routes of the twelve primary meridians. The foreign essence blood in the Blood Bat Dharma King's body is wandering erratically. It doesn't follow the primary meridians. It flows through the gaps between the primary meridians—the gaps between connective tissue, fascia, periosteum, and bone marrow.

It felt like countless dark red worms crawling inside his body.

Fang Yuan's fourfold comprehension extracted a piece of information from this scene—

The Blood Bat Dharma King's meridian system is no longer human.

The evil technique transformed his entire blood and qi circulation system into something else entirely. It was far more efficient. But the price was—Fang Yuan's fourfold comprehension gave a prediction within a fraction of a breath—irreversible. He couldn't go back. He couldn't return to the normal martial artist's cultivation system.

The third item—the third level of the Breakthrough Pill.

Core layer.

The energy of the beast god's essence blood.

The release of the third layer is not gradual; it's explosive.

The outer two layers of medicinal properties had already expanded and reinforced the meridians to their limits. Once the seal on the core was dissolved by the medicinal power of the first two layers—that dark golden, violent energy, like a caged beast that had been imprisoned for ten thousand years, exploded from the stomach and surged up and down along the Ren and Du meridians simultaneously.

Fang Yuan's body trembled violently at that moment.

It's not trembling. It's shaking.

Every muscle from his spine to his extremities was being eroded by the energy from the fragments of ancient ferocious beast's blood essence. The texture of that energy was completely different from Fang Yuan's own blood and qi—more intense. More savage. It carried a primal ferocity that Fang Yuan had only ever felt from the fifth-tier beasts deep within the Hundred Beast Cave secret realm.

Nine times the root bone played a decisive role at this moment.

If it's four times the root bone—Fang Yuan recalled Liu Ruyan's words in his mind—there's a 4% chance of permanent meridian damage.

With a foundation of nine times the strength of his physical constitution, Fang Yuan absorbed the energy of the Beast God's essence blood layer by layer. It wasn't resistance; it was absorption. Within ten breaths, Fang Yuan's blood energy concentration surged to a level he had never reached in either of his two lifetimes.

Refining bones.

Dirty.

Refining the marrow.

The barriers between the three major realms were pierced like paper under the impact of the Breakthrough Pill. The extent to which Fang Yuan's blood and qi surged in his meridians was beyond description as "flowing"—it was boiling.

Qi and Blood Realm.

They're getting closer.

A thin mist rose from Fang Yuan's body.

Extremely thin. Faintly visible. Its color isn't the normal milky white of condensed blood and qi—it has a hint of dark gold. The base color of a fragment of the Beast God's essence blood.

It's not qi and blood turning into mist.

Just a hair's breadth away.

He was just one step away—the final step from "blood and qi boiling within the body" to "blood and qi leaving the body and turning into mist." Fang Yuan's foundation wasn't strong enough. No matter how potent the Breakthrough Pill was, it could only push him to the threshold. What was needed to cross that threshold wasn't strength, but a qualitative change.

But the sense of oppression at the threshold is enough.

Blood Bat Dharma King's pupils contracted.

Fang Yuan stood in the moonlight. The edges of his gray-blue short-sleeved trousers were curled up by the dark gold mist on his skin. Smoke still rose from the charred tear in his left sleeve. The lining was visible through the cut on his right shoulder line, made by dark red fingernails. The shallow cut on his left ear had already scabbed over.

Starting from where he landed, cracks, each about the thickness of a hair, radiated outwards from the ball of his foot.

It wasn't that he stomped his feet. It was the pressure of the surging blood and qi in his body that seeped into the stone through the soles of his feet.

The Blood Bat Dharma King's mouth, which had split open to his ears, closed.

The curve of his lips changed from a smile to a flat one.

Then it cracked again.

This time the crack was larger than before. The dark red spikes gleamed wetly in the moonlight.

"That's interesting."

The way the two layers of sound are superimposed has changed. Before, the deep hum was at the bottom, and the sharp vibrato was on top. Now it's reversed—the sharp vibrato is pressed down to the bottom layer, and the hum has been pushed to the surface.

Fang Yuan's fourfold comprehension allowed him to glean a message from the change in sound.

interest.

It wasn't contempt. It wasn't vigilance.

It's that kind of—

The interest of diners when they suddenly discover a dish they've never seen before on a regular menu.

"I thought that only Xiao Zhennan, that half-dead rat, was worth my personal trip to Liangshui City."

The Blood Bat King's body moved away from Fang Ying's doorway. He took a step to the left. The hem of his robe dragged across the stone slab, leaving a damp stain—dark red. Like a snail's crawl, but the color of blood rust.

"I didn't expect there to be a little mouse too—"

His dark red pupils swept from Fang Yuan's feet to the top of his head. The scan was slow. It wasn't an assessment of combat strength; it was a "smell."

Fang Yuan's four times stronger divine sense detected the Blood Bat Dharma King's nostrils twitching.

He smelled the scent of Fang Yuan's blood and qi.

"Nine times the root strength."

Fang Yuan's heart skipped a beat.

The Blood Bat Dharma King revealed this number.

He could smell it.

The twelve-fold training made up for the missed heartbeat in the next cycle. Fang Yuan's expression remained unchanged. But his four-fold comprehension was operating at full speed—

How did he smell it?

The temporary boost alters the multiplier of one's talent. Externally, this manifests as an increase in the concentration and quality of one's Qi and Blood. A Qi and Blood Realm expert could theoretically deduce the talent multiplier by "smelling" the concentration of Qi and Blood. However, pinpointing the exact number "nine times"—

Fang Yuan's deduction was interrupted by the Blood Bat Dharma King's next sentence.

"wrong."