Chapter Thirty-Four: No Profit, No Early Rising

  In a dimly lit cave, under the faint light of the fire, on a rock, Li Chen sat cross-legged.

  A whirl of air slowly revolves on top, as time passes bit by bit, like a small whirlwind spinning, with flashes of airflow appearing.

  It was just strange that, except for the faint flash of dark red light when absorbing the demon core, there was no movement at all, so that Lei Chen, who was immersed in his cultivation, didn't notice anything unusual.

  The outside world was dark and alternating, from the morning when the green veins bulged out of his face, to the stable breathing, the whole body crackling with movement, after a full half-day had passed, the whirlwind on his head suddenly dispersed.

  "How could this be? I clearly felt that I had enough power to break through to the Refining Truth Realm, so why can't I release it externally? Heaven, how much longer will you confine me?"

  Slowly opening his eyes, Li Chen's face changed slightly, looking at his hands with some difficulty in acceptance.

  Trapped in this eagle's nest for nearly five months now, watching the outside world change from dark to light, Li Chen's heart has also become increasingly restless.

  It's not that he didn't want to leave, but rather that he understood that with his current cultivation at the ninth level of the Inner Breath Realm, going out now would be certain death. Even a casual encounter with a demonic beast could take his life.

  So, for this half year, every day I practice martial arts and use what I've gained to temper my inner breath.

  Although he deliberately slowed down his pace, his cultivation grew more and more intense, breaking through to the ninth layer of Inner Breath in just three months.

  After mastering the inner breath in the meridians and making thorough preparations, he used that Iron-backed Bear Demon Core to attempt a breakthrough to the Refining Reality Realm.

  What might disappoint him was that the internal energy circulating in his meridians, although several times thicker than before, showed no signs of turning into mist, clearly not having reached the level of breaking through to the True Qi external release stage.

  However, he could feel that his inner energy was much purer than before, only slightly weaker than the true energy he knew.

  Boom!

  His mind was in a state of turmoil, and at dawn he began to circulate his internal energy into his fist, then suddenly slammed it down onto the stone slab beneath him.

  "What is this?"

  As he watched more than half of his fist sink into the rock, a fleeting pale grey airflow flashed by, and a hint of doubt flickered in Li Chen's eyes. That sharp aura was clearly not caused by true energy.

  With a doubtful heart, he raised his fist again and struck heavily. Amidst the loud crash, a blue airflow appeared, but it did not show up.

  "Is it really impossible to succeed no matter how hard I try?"

  As soon as he thought of it, Li Chen got up and walked to the front of the rock wall, took a deep breath, mobilized all his internal energy, and punched out. There was a faint tiger's roar, and amidst the shock, a cyan-gray airflow reappeared, this time with his entire fist sinking into the rock wall.

  "This green-colored energy's attacking power is absolutely above true energy!"

  Exhaling a mouthful of turbid air, Li Chen clearly felt that the inner breath in his body seemed to have decreased by nearly a third, with a faint sense of fatigue flashing by, but towards this cyan-gray air flow, which obviously had extremely great lethality, he was completely unbothered.

  Whoosh!

  The crisp cry broke his meditation, and he turned to look, only to see the young eagle swooping into a stone cave, swallowing something.

  "Lei Peng, stealing food again and spitting it out!"

  Li Chen's face turned black, and he couldn't care about stabilizing his newly broken-through cultivation. He rushed over hastily, wanting to catch the young eagle, but it flapped its wings and flew straight up.

  Although its body size has not changed much, in just half a year, the young eagle has learned to fly.

  Watching the young eagle hovering at the top of the cave, proudly carrying the yuan stone in its beak, Li Chen secretly regretted that he shouldn't have trained it to fly so early.

  Yuanshi entered his body, and a faint golden light flashed around Leipeng's body as he fell to the ground. Fortunately, Lichun was quick-witted and swift-handed, and she swiftly hugged him in her arms.

  "Make you drool!"

  Li Chen severely smashed a Brain Blast on it, but unfortunately Leipeng was in a deep sleep cultivating the Yuan Stone and didn't feel anything.

  This demon beast was also quite bizarre and actually swallowed the yuan stone. Even if Li Chen himself could swallow the demon core, he didn't think of going to swallow a 'stone'.

  He didn't think about it, letting a fierce bird eat raw meat for half a year, how cruel would that be? Not to mention stones, even if it were an iron lump, I reckon it could swallow it.

  "Never mind, even if I don't break through, with my current strength, there shouldn't be many Inner Breath Boundary warriors who can be my match. Wait another month, master the martial skills, and if I still can't break through to Refine Truth, then leave!"

  Lei Peng was put down, and Li Chen walked to the cave entrance that seemed to be specially carved on the rock wall, and his figure flashed as he jumped in.

  Looking at the pile of sparkling multicolored yuan stones in front of him, although he had seen them many times before, Li Chen's pupils still couldn't help but constrict.

  It was precisely by relying on the concentrated yuan energy gathered from these yuan stones that Li Chen could break through to the 9th layer in such a short period of time, and now he had strangely broken through another layer, yet without advancing to the Refining Truth Realm like normal warriors.

  Lei Peng also relied on swallowing these yuan stones and the cloud pear fruits outside to maintain his current stage, reaching a level of mid-first-class demon beast.

  The inferior yuan stones have all been swallowed up, and although the mid-grade yuan stone Lei Peng's demon body can withstand it, he will fall into a coma every time he secretly eats.

  Sometimes Li Chen envies Lei Peng, who can even increase his strength by sleeping.

  The giant eagle couple was a fourth-order demon beast, with extremely high spiritual intelligence, and they knew how to collect treasures. It wasn't anything strange, especially since the eaglet was waiting to be fed, clearly the giant eagle couple had prepared for it.

  He casually picked up the storage bag on the ground, which he had obtained in the Ironback Bear Cave. His clothes were already worn out after more than half a year, and even the fabric strips couldn't be counted as clothing anymore. Where could he possibly put this storage bag?

  "Can you open it with one move?"

  Li Chen's eyes narrowed slightly as he grasped the storage bag, channeling his inner energy into his hand.

  Hmph!

  What caught him off guard was that just as the inner breath reached his hand meridian, the storage bag on his body suddenly flashed a faint light, and the originally tightly closed bag mouth strings automatically loosened.

  Seeing this scene, Li Chen's heart was overjoyed, his internal energy slightly paused, and the rope suddenly tightened.

  "Could it be that his internal energy is insufficient?"

  Feeling a slight decrease in the internal energy of the meridians, Li Chen stabilized his mind and once again circulated his Qi, and the internal energy automatically flowed into the storage bag as before.

  This time, the rope button at the mouth of the bag was finally untied.

  Whoa!

  Turned over storage bag, fell out a few things.

  Without worrying about the nearly 10% internal consumption, Li Chen looked at the opened storage bag and found that there was only a space of half a meter in size inside, which could not hold many things.

  On the ground were a few changes of clothes, several jade bottles, and a few books, apparently some sort of martial arts or qigong manuals.

  Seeing the clothes, Li Chen's eyes lit up, and he hastily put them on without caring about anything else. For so long, he had been living a life of a wild man.

  "It's all mine!"

  Dressed neatly, Li Chen looked at a pile of yuan stones inside the cave, his eyes shining brightly, and a thread of saliva flowed out from the corner of his mouth uncontrollably.

  Every time he saw these treasures in the past half year, Li Chen couldn't help but stare blankly for a while.

  Unfortunately, Li Chenxiu's repair skills were insufficient, and he couldn't open the storage bag.

  Originally thought that breaking through to the Refining True Realm would allow him to store all the demon cores in his storage bag, but this time he didn't break through.

  Fortunately, the purity and quantity of his inner energy have improved significantly, allowing him to finally open his storage bag and fulfill his wish. Although he can't fit all the cave's yuan stones in it, he can at least not worry about cultivation resources for a while.

  "Uh... you two are also considered seniors, and I'm glad to have a connection with you both. Leave the kid to me, don't worry about it. Uh... consider these treasures as my reward... uh, I'll be able to protect the little guy because I'm capable, right? Besides, uh... I'll definitely take good care of Leipeng, by the way, Leipeng is the name I gave to the kid."

  I heard that the demon clan has a powerful demon beast called Kunpeng, which is the ancestor of the eagle family. Since both of you are Thunder Eagles, I took this name!

  Looking at the two eagles' corpses in the cave, Li Chen wiped his mouth and made a bow, then pointed to the treasure on the ground and spoke with feigned sincerity, a typical case of no gain without effort.