A Mortal's Journey to Immortality: Starting as a Sword-Forging Servant and Ascending to Immorta

The purple jade hammer emitted a faint light in the sea of ​​consciousness, and abundant power surged within it.

Zhou Lingxuan felt a surge of warmth in his heart and subconsciously wanted to urge the small hammer to hit himself.

He had already raised his hand, but then he forcefully pressed it back down.

Don't rush.

He squatted down next to the box, forcing himself to calm down.

Today, I went straight from the second stage of Body Tempering to the eighth stage.

This speed is outrageous enough to be considered outrageous in the entire history of the Heavenly Sword Pavilion.

Although the abandoned hall is a remote place, the young man in charge and the old man who appeared out of nowhere are not good people.

It's normal for a body tempering realm to be in a ruined hall.

Eight out of ten manual laborers are at the Body Tempering Realm, and no one would give them a second glance.

But what if he suddenly jumps to the Qi Refining Realm?

A cultivator in the Qi Refining Realm will have fluctuations of spiritual energy on their body surface, which can be detected by anyone with a little cultivation.

When the young man in charge looked at him, Zhou Lingxuan felt as if he had been stripped naked.

Suddenly revealing a change in cultivation level in front of such a person is no different than walking into a knife's edge.

We need to find at least one way to conceal our cultivation level before considering breaking through to the next level.

Zhou Lingxuan suppressed this thought and turned to pondering another matter.

The Heaven-Forging Hammer can hammer both the realm and the sea of ​​consciousness; he has tried both.

Is there anything else?

Meridians? Bones? Flesh and blood?

He looked down at his arm.

Although his cultivation level had reached the eighth stage of Body Tempering, his blood and energy were many times more vigorous than before.

However, the wrinkles on his skin, the stiffness in his joints, and the overall resilience and endurance of his body are far inferior to those of young people at the same level.

To put it bluntly, their foundation was too weak.

Even if a person's cultivation level increases to over 100 years old, their physical body is still the same old body.

Zhou Lingxuan stood up, carried the box, and walked towards the fire pit.

After walking about ten steps, I stumbled.

My knees made a dull thud, and I almost fell to my knees.

Zhou Lingxuan steadied himself and looked down at his legs.

The blood and qi are sufficient, but the bones and muscles cannot withstand it.

The damage caused by a century of aging cannot be erased simply by improving one's spiritual level.

He stood there for a few moments, thinking.

The Heavenly Hammer can temper and refine all things.

Elixirs are objects, weapons are objects, but what about flesh and blood?

It's not about indirectly improving one's realm through hammering.

Instead, he directly channeled the power absorbed from the Heaven-Forging Hammer into his flesh, tempering his body like forging iron.

When this idea popped into Zhou Lingxuan's head, he himself felt it was a bit crazy.

But after ninety years of forging iron, he knew one thing best: to turn pig iron into good steel, heating alone is useless; it must be repeatedly forged to force out the impurities little by little.

His current physique is like a piece of scrap iron riddled with impurities.

Since the Heaven-Forging Hammer can even refine waste pills into top-grade ones, why not give it a try?

Without further hesitation, Zhou Lingxuan took three steps at a time and walked to the edge of the fire pit.

He dumped all the remaining waste and residue, drained of spiritual energy, from the box into the fire pit.

The dark green substance fell into the dark red fire, crackling and popping, and burned to ashes in a few breaths.

After finishing the work, he found a large rock, sat cross-legged, and took a deep breath.

With a thought, the purple jade hammer appeared in his palm from his sea of ​​consciousness.

"bring it on."

Zhou Lingxuan gritted his teeth, gripped the small hammer, and smashed it down on his own chest.

boom.

In that instant, Zhou Lingxuan felt that he had made the stupidest decision of his life.

It felt like his entire body had exploded.

That's not a repair.

It's tearing.

"hiss!"

Zhou Lingxuan was in so much pain that he sprang up from the rock. He opened his mouth to scream, but his throat was already torn.

pain.

He had felt pain the first two times he used the Forged Hammer, but compared to now, it was just a tickle.

Every muscle in the body was expanding, and after expanding to its limit, it burst open with a snap.

Then it regrows, expands again, and cracks open again.

The surroundings are endless and repetitive.

Zhou Lingxuan slid off the rock and curled up on the ground.

Fresh blood seeped from every pore on his body. It wasn't the black impurities from before; it was real blood.

The skin on my arm was cracked and split open, and dark red blood was flowing down the folds.

The temperature at the bottom of the valley was already high, and the blood that flowed out began to congeal before it even hit the ground, mixing with dust and gravel to form a hard, dark crust that stuck to the skin's surface.

Zhou Lingxuan lay on the ground, digging his ten fingers into the stone slab.

He didn't feel it when two of his fingernails broke off.

Only one thought remained in my mind: hold on.

Ninety years ago, a blacksmith shop hammered out a million pieces of ironware.

The calluses on my hands wear off and grow back, then I wear them off again.

He suffered burns and scalds countless times.

Those past pains are nothing compared to what I'm going through now.

But the will is the same.

He gritted his teeth and endured it, second by second.

I don't know how much time has passed.

It could be a quarter of an hour, or it could be half an hour.

The pain began to subside.

The tearing sensation gradually turned into a tingling numbness, as if the broken pieces were being reconnected, and the fragile parts were being reinforced.

Zhou Lingxuan lay on the ground, panting heavily.

He needed a full half-incense stick's time to regain his strength before he could move.

When I sat up, supporting myself on the ground, the black, bloody crust on my arm peeled off with a crackling sound.

Zhou Lingxuan looked down at himself.

My arms have gotten thicker.

It's not the kind of puffy, unhealthy swelling; it's real muscle.

He clenched his fist.

When the fingers close, the knuckles make a cracking sound.

It was completely different from the old, crackling sound of before; it was a powerful sound.

Zhou Lingxuan stretched his shoulders and took two steps forward.

With lighter steps, better body coordination, and smoother power transmission, the body's strength has improved.

It was like a carriage that was about to fall apart being disassembled and reassembled, with every part replaced with a new one.

Of course, it's still the same old face.

Her hair was still gray-black with streaks of white.

The wrinkles haven't completely disappeared.

But overall, he has transformed from a frail old man into a vigorous one.

The most obvious change is in one's spirit and energy.

He used to be hunched over with sunken eyes; one look at him and you could tell he wouldn't live more than a few years.

Now, with his broad shoulders and muscular build, he at least looks like an old hunter who can still go up the mountain.

"OK."

Zhou Lingxuan clenched his fist, and the corners of his mouth couldn't help but turn up.

The Heavenly Hammer can indeed directly temper flesh and blood.

Unlike advancing in cultivation level, this tempering does not change the cultivation level and does not cause changes in spiritual energy fluctuations.

It's simply about making the body stronger, tougher, and more resilient.

This is exactly what he needs right now.

Suppress your current state of mind for now and focus on strengthening your physical foundation.

We'll wait until we've thoroughly figured out how this place works and are sure it's safe before making a breakthrough.

Zhou Lingxuan stood up from the ground and patted the rubble and blood off his body.

The clothes were beyond repair, covered in tears and bloodstains, as if they had crawled back from a battlefield.

He was tidying himself up when footsteps and shouts came from the stone steps in the distance.

"Hey, hold on tight—"

The four servants came again.

The box they were carrying this time was a size bigger than the last one. The four of them were swaying and panting heavily as they walked.

Zhou Lingxuan didn't have time to deal with his disheveled state; he only had time to retract the Heaven-Forging Hammer into his sea of ​​consciousness.

As the four of them rounded the stone wall, the one in the lead immediately spotted Zhou Lingxuan standing there.

Then he stopped in his tracks.

The three behind almost crashed into us.

"What the hell are you stopping for...?"

The short, stout servant peeked out from the side, and froze halfway through his sentence.

All four of them stared at Zhou Lingxuan.

His entire body was covered in black blood, his clothes were tattered like a beggar's, his hair was a mess and stuck together, and there were still traces of blood on his face that hadn't been wiped clean.

It looked like it had been roasted in a fire pit but hadn't quite died.

The short, stout servant swallowed hard.

"Brother... what's wrong with you?"

Zhou Lingxuan looked down at himself, then looked up at the four of them with their wide-open eyes.

"fine."

"I was too close to the fire pit, so I got a few sparks, but I'm thick-skinned and won't get burned."

The four people looked at each other.

The lead servant opened his mouth as if to say something, but then swallowed it back.

Because he discovered something.

The old man looked miserable, but something was wrong with his mental state.

When we arrived, the old man said he was fine, but he still walked with the slow pace typical of the elderly.

What now?

He stood there straight, shoulders open, chest out, and casually rubbed the blood off his face with one hand.

The muscles in those arms look different from when they came, don't they?

"Just leave the things here, I'll take care of it."

Zhou Lingxuan waved to them.

The four of them quickly put the box on the ground.

The movements were even more swift than the first time; they released the item and left immediately, not wanting to linger for even a moment longer.

On the way back, the short, fat servant couldn't hold back any longer and leaned close to the ear of the leader.

"Don't you think there's something off about this old Deng?"

The one in the lead didn't say anything, but quickened his pace.

The short, stout servant turned his head and glanced back again.

The figure covered in blood had already crouched down next to the new box in the distance, moving with incredible speed.

"You looked so sickly after being burned, how come you seem even more energetic than before?"