Achieving physical sainthood begins with the Iron Shirt technique!

The sky was still tinged with gray.

The heavy breathing of the second-tier iron rhinoceros carrying cargo echoed along the rugged dirt road into the dilapidated stronghold of the Seventh Mining Area. The heavy-duty bottom rack rolled over the gravel, producing a dull, grinding sound.

High up in the camp, several fires suddenly flickered.

The remaining inhabitants of Xiatu emerged from the abandoned mine shaft in unison. Upon seeing the supply convoy stretching for hundreds of meters, the deathly silent camp erupted into chaos. Frenzied roars and cries mingled together.

The one-armed old man, along with his seven old companions, went directly to the entrance of the stronghold.

The deformed bone plates that had just formed on the bodies of these eight veterans were burning hot and red. They paid no heed to their internal organs, which were about to be burned through by internal fire, and relied entirely on a fierce will to hold on with their mutilated limbs. The eight men stood in a row, stiff as eight black iron pillars rooted in the wasteland.

"Unload the truck!"

The white-haired old woman jumped down from under the vehicle, her withered old legs sinking into the mud, but her voice was deafening. She took direct control of the entire camp's medical coordination.

"Bring all the coarse salt down! Crush it!"

"Remove the roots from the foxtail grass! Wash it quickly!"

"Go fetch water from the underground river over there, and mix the Frost Well Mud and Bitter Leaf Vine Ash together!"

The able-bodied men moved with lightning speed under her command. Pickaxes pounded against the coarse salt blocks, making a loud thud. Huge black iron pots were set up, and a mixture of fine mud and cold grass was poured into them, filling the entire mining area with a pungent medicinal smell.

The one-armed old man leaned against a large rock, his belly swollen and shiny. He had swallowed a large amount of extremely cold clay to lower his body temperature, and now the clay was all accumulated in his stomach and intestines, reaching its limit. The dark red bony armor on his body was so hot it was almost smoking.

The old woman strode over, carrying a broken, rough earthenware bowl filled with a potent, dark broth that had just been brewed.

Without any hesitation, she grabbed the old man's chin and poured the bowl of potent medicine, which exuded an extremely cold and malevolent aura, directly into his mouth.

"Gulp!"

The old man coughed repeatedly, choked by the medicine. As the medicine entered his stomach, the domineering chill clashed violently with his internal heat. The clay lumps in his stomach began to dissolve rapidly.

The dark red, deformed bone plates on the body surface emitted a teeth-grinding "crackling" sound, and finally, under the neutralization of the extremely cold medicinal power, they cooled and took shape completely.

The old man wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, grinned with his yellow teeth, and chuckled at the old woman.

A loud "boom" came from the center of the camp.

Lu Chen strode over and slammed the 110,000-jin Zhentian Desolate Bone Primordial Fiend Tablet, which he was carrying in one hand, onto the muddy ground covered with slag.

The impact created a crater half a foot deep in the ground.

The residual force of the tenfold gravity field swept across the ground. Those rogue cultivators who had followed the convoy back, who had originally wanted to hide to the side to catch their breath, were so frightened by the terrifying gravity brushing past their ankles that their knees buckled and they almost knelt on the ground.

"Stop dawdling! Get to work!" a gaunt rogue cultivator shouted.

These cultivators, who were usually aloof and superior, were now working harder than laborers. They swung their arms to carry sacks full of coarse salt, fearing that Lu Chen might destroy their dantian if he displeased them.

In the dead of night in the wilderness, the cold wind howled eerily.

In the center of the open space, several large fires used for boiling medicine were blown about erratically by the strong wind, their flames leaping wildly. The firewood crackled and popped. With the fires out of control, the medicinal soup in the pots began to boil unevenly.

The old woman was so anxious that she kept slapping her thigh. If this life-saving medicine was ruined, all these young and strong men who couldn't handle the nourishment would perish here.

Lu Chen dropped the black iron chain in his hand and strode over in his black iron boots.

At this moment, he resembled an ancient Asura who had just crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood. His dark skin was covered with fragments of bones from the lackeys of the Azure Sky Sword Sect, and his thick fingers were filled with dried, blackened blood and mud. The fierce monument had just been set down, and the violent extreme aura emanating from his body had not yet completely subsided, causing the surrounding air to distort and groan.

But when he reached the large iron pot, his imposing, mountain-like body abruptly stopped.

Lu Chen carefully suppressed all his outward-released qi, suppressing the Supreme Blood Furnace in his chest cavity so that it dared not make a sound. His large, rough hands, which had just crushed the head of a Golden Core cultivator, even rubbed them hard against his tattered trousers, as if afraid that his rough fingertips would scratch the survivors who were adding firewood nearby.

Without saying a word, he chose a spot in the wind, bent his legs, and sat cross-legged on the cold mud.

Its broad and majestic spine transformed into an unshakeable black iron wall.

The biting cold wind lashed against his back, instantly stabilizing the fire that was boiling medicine, and the flames shot straight up.

Several young men who were brewing medicine watched Lu Chen's retreating figure, their eyes instantly turning red, and they gripped the firewood in their hands tightly.

Not long after.

A little girl staggered over from the thatched hut. She had just recovered from her fever, her face was still pale, and she was carrying a chipped, broken porcelain bowl.

The little girl was not afraid of this fierce-looking man. She walked up to Lu Chen, stubbornly raised her hands, and handed the chipped porcelain bowl to Lu Chen's chin.

In the porcelain bowl, there was only half a bowl of still steaming black soup.

Lu Chen looked down. He could see clearly that the girl's mouth was still covered with bits of herbal medicine that she hadn't licked clean. She stared at the medicine in the bowl, her throat visibly twitching as she swallowed. This half-bowl of life-saving medicine was something she had secretly saved from between her teeth, forcing herself to swallow it while enduring the deep-seated thirst of a survivor of the Great Wilderness.

"Master Lu, you should drink too." The little girl's voice was childish, her thin arms trembling slightly from holding it up for so long, but her tone was surprisingly stubborn, "If you drink it, the black blood will stop flowing."

Lu Chen, a madman capable of withstanding heavenly lightning with his spine and tearing flying swords apart with his bare hands, stared at the chipped, broken porcelain bowl, his rugged eyes twitching twice. The piece of turbid bone in his left lung was still frantically rubbing against his lung lobe, each breath bringing excruciating pain. But he did not refuse.

A large, thick, black iron hand reached out and gently picked up the small bowl, which was about to be crushed, with two fingers. He tilted his head back and drank it all in one gulp.

The scalding medicinal soup entered his throat, along with a large mouthful of foul-smelling, poisonous blood that had just surged up in his throat. Lu Chen's Adam's apple bobbed violently, and he forcefully swallowed the mouthful of thick blood mixed with rotten lung poison, along with the bitter medicinal soup, back into his stomach.

He raised his arm and wiped the medicine residue from the corner of his mouth with his filthy sleeve. A wild, gruff laugh erupted from his chest.

"Damn, this is so sweet!" Lu Chen grinned, revealing his gleaming white teeth, and his voice boomed, "I've never tasted such delicious medicine in my entire life!"

Not far away, the thin boy who had followed Lu Chen back from the Supply Immortal City was carefully holding the tattered account book he had stolen. He walked up to the one-armed old man and handed the account book over with both hands.

The old man took the ledger, his only remaining arm flipping through the densely packed route maps and city defense weaknesses. He then glanced at the poisoned wound on the boy's shoulder, grazed by a flying sword. The old man's withered, tree-bark-like face suddenly hardened, and he raised his voice.

"Listen up, all of you! From today onwards, our Seventh Mining District is establishing a 'Medicine Gathering Team'!" The old man slapped the boy's thin shoulder, his face fierce. "From now on, this kid will be in charge of all survival routes in the Great Wilderness!"

The morning fog grew thicker. The white-haired old woman finished brewing a large pot of medicine and wiped her hands on her tattered apron. She slowly walked to the vent behind Lu Chen, her eyes fixed on his withered and cracked left arm. Her voice was extremely low and heavy.

"The bone stones in your lungs won't last much longer." The old woman saw through the burly man's act of stubbornness at a glance, and her tone was blunt. "If you overwork yourself again, the stale air will completely dissolve into your alveoli, and even a god couldn't save you."

Lu Chen slowly stood up, carrying the 110,000-jin (approximately 65,000 kg) Primordial Fiend Tablet of the Heaven-Suppressing Desolate Bone in one hand. His large black iron boots crushed a piece of slag. He did not lower his head; his eyes, burning with pure Yang blood fire, pierced through the layers of morning mist outside the Seventh Mining Area.

In the far distance, amidst the withered grass, the concealment artifacts of the Immortal Alliance's Enforcement Hall were gleaming coldly. Like a pack of wolves drawn by the scent of blood, they lurked at a distance, waiting for Lu Chen to succumb to the poison and collapse.

"I have no intention of relying on gods." Lu Chen smirked, his voice carrying extreme ferocity in the cold wind. "Those who are delivering good fortune are already on their way."