The morning after his breakthrough, Shadow's body still throbbed with raw Qi. Though fatigue clung to his bones like a second skin, he moved with a new kind of certainty. With his dantian reinforced and the storm within him quieter but deeper, he knew it was time for the next step.
He wrapped himself in a clean robe, his steps light yet firm as he made his way through the sect's inner roads. Disciples gave him space. Some nodded in respect. Others simply watched in silence.
He had changed.
But the path ahead had only grown more difficult.
He arrived at the Martial Arts Hall just as the gates opened. A slender elder in deep indigo robes stood by the threshold, waiting.
"Core disciple Shadow," the elder said with a respectful nod. "Your presence was expected. The Sect Master has approved your reward. Five breaths of insight with one of the sect's low-grade iron techniques. Please follow me."
Shadow followed him through a side corridor, into a hidden chamber far beneath the main hall. The walls here were ancient, etched with runes of restraint, endurance, and focus.
At the heart of the chamber, suspended in a golden matrix of floating jade, was a scroll glowing with sun-colored light.
> **Sun Balm.**
A technique said to merge the warmth of the sun into the cultivator's limbs—granting explosive power, defensive augmentation, and body-hardened resilience.
"Once you activate the array," the elder warned, "you will have only five breaths. Absorb what you can. Speak nothing. Touch nothing."
Shadow nodded.
He stepped forward.
With a pulse of Qi, the array flared.
The scroll unrolled in mid-air.
> One breath.
Golden diagrams blazed into view—muscle fibers interwoven with sunlight, Qi channels widened to absorb heat and redistribute it like molten veins through the limbs.
> Two breaths.
The technique demanded not just energy, but a nature of internal flame—a Yang core to resonate with the solar currents embedded in its flow.
> Three breaths.
Shadow's brow furrowed. His lightning-based meridians rejected the heat, attempting to repel the foreign essence.
> Four breaths.
He forced calm, studying the structural integrity of the technique. The compression methods, the burst amplification, the latent flame-forged resilience embedded in the user's skin.
> Five breaths.
The scroll snapped shut. The chamber dimmed. The jade array deactivated.
Shadow stepped back, his breathing even.
The elder looked curious. "Did you gain something?"
Shadow lowered his gaze. "I understood it. But I cannot cultivate it."
The elder raised a brow. "Because it conflicts with your element?"
Shadow turned, walking toward the exit. "Because I am something else entirely. My body won't follow traditional paths."
---
Rather than return to his quarters, Shadow made his way to the Grand Library.
Few disciples wandered its halls this early. Within the core disciple section, tucked behind polished granite shelves and walls humming with protective wards, he found what he sought: a collection of realm transition scrolls.
He pulled a thick tome from the highest shelf. The cover was aged, but the title shimmered faintly:
> *From Foundation to Flesh: The Pillars Beneath the Skin.*
He opened it slowly.
> "The Foundation Realm is named so for its purpose—to construct a spiritual skeleton, the pillars upon which all further growth rests. Each level refines core components: control, endurance, circulation, expansion. But the realm is internal. It is silent strength, invisible. A cultivator's power remains encased within their meridians."
Shadow continued, flipping through lines of cultivated wisdom.
> "To step beyond Foundation is to awaken the body itself. The Muscle and Skin Forging Realm begins with pain. The cultivator must take what once flowed invisibly within and force it into matter—into skin, into flesh, into bone."
> "The body becomes a fortress. Qi seeps into the skin, forging it into a defensive barrier that resists blades, heat, and corrosion. Skin that once bruised easily now flexes beneath a rain of steel. Muscles that once served only to move now pulse with spiritual reinforcement. They become reservoirs of power, coiled and waiting."
Then he paused at a highlighted section:
> "The Muscle and Skin Forging Realm is divided in progression. **From the 1st to the 5th layer**, the cultivator focuses entirely on **skin forging**—tempering and transforming the outer shell into a spiritual barrier. **From the 6th to the 9th layer**, the process turns inward toward **muscle forging**, empowering every movement, enhancing strength, and converting every strand of muscle into a Qi-conductive conduit."
> "At the very peak of this realm lies the **Great Perfection Stage**—a state beyond the ninth layer where skin and muscle become one, harmonized into a perfect fusion of defense and strength."
Shadow's eyes narrowed.
> "So the beginning of this realm is to become untouchable. The end is to become unstoppable."
He read further:
> "It is not merely training. It is a metamorphosis. A cultivator's body dies—and is reborn again and again. Muscles are torn and reforged. Skin is scorched by Qi and reknitted with spiritual threads. The cultivator must endure this countless times, until the body no longer remembers weakness."
He read on:
> "Cultivators in this realm gain vastly increased physical defense, resistance to toxins, environmental extremes, and can withstand spiritual backlash. The flesh becomes a battlefield of its own."
Shadow leaned back, closing the book slowly.
> "Then that's what I need to prepare for. A war inside my own body."
He placed the tome back onto the shelf and stood in the flickering candlelight.
Even if he could not walk the path others did, he would build his own. He would mold thunder into flesh.
He would forge storms beneath his skin.
---
**End of Chapter 78**