"Damn this An Zhi! No wonder he gave me the scroll," Mu Chen groaned, "he must have known I couldn't use it." He took out a blood-replenishing pill and swallowed it. As he recovered from the blood loss, Mu Chen guessed An Zh's intentions behind giving him the scroll.

The other barbarian tribes were coming. It was likely An Zhi would die and the scroll would fall into their hands. An Zhi couldn't let this happen, so he tempted Mu Chen. He knew Mu Chen wasn't qualified to use the scroll, so lending it to him was harmless. With this, other tribes wouldn't be able to get hold of the scroll and its secrets.

"Damn!" Mu Chen cursed. The more he thought, the more annoyed he became as he felt his conjecture was likely to be true. He wouldn't be surprised if the An Tribe had some way to track the scroll. Unwittingly, he had become a coolie for the An Tribe.

Mu Chen took several deep breaths to calm himself. Was there no way? He looked at the scroll and thought. An Zhi may have fooled him, but it didn't change the fact that the scroll was genuine. If it wasn't, An Zhi wouldn't have bothered to trick him.

Could it be that only barbarians could use the scroll? If this was the case, Mu Chen could only end his endeavor here. Mu Chen was quite disheartened with this prospect. But on second thought, Mu Chen realized something he had ignored: the scroll didn't repel his blood—it wasn't checking for the bloodline.

If it wasn't bloodline, what was the scroll checking for?

Mu Chen dripped another drop of blood and watched it disappear.

What happened to his blood? Where did it go?

"It was consumed." Mu Chen stared at the scroll in contemplation. The blood was consumed in an attempt to reveal the secret—that was the qualification.

When it came to blood, aside from bloodline, there was another thing that had the most significance.

Vitality.

"The baseline for qualification should be vitality," Mu Chen sighed.

All the barbarians had terrifying vitality and were qualified to use the scroll. Mu Chen, however, was just an ordinary human. Thanks to his physique, his vitality was greater than the average cultivator, but could it compare to barbarians?

"Should I bleed Xiao Xue?" Mu Chen looked at the tiny bundle beside him, then shook his head with a wry smile.

Even if he forced himself to bleed Xiao Xue, it would be her blood, not his. Maybe the scroll would reject monster blood. In case it didn't, it would be she who would be qualified, not him. Who knew if it might work?

If Xiao Xue was awake, he would have given it a try. But she was currently deep asleep, Mu Chen didn't want to disturb her.

He had to think of another way, Mu Chen thought as he caressed Xiao Xue. His eyes fell on his wrist. The wound had healed, but some blood remained.

Hold on. The red color reminded Mu Chen of something.

Wasn't it just vitality? Didn't he have plenty of it? Pure unadulterated vitality?

Mu Chen took out a bloodstone from his ring. He squeezed his thumb over the bloodstone forcing another drop of blood.

The drop of blood rolled over the bloodstone and as it did, it seemed to become darker. The drop of blood fell onto the scroll.

The drop disappeared into the scroll, but this time the entire scroll shone with a blood light. The blood light flickered and shot towards Mu Chen. Mu Chen was too close to dodge and the light disappeared into his body.

Mu Chen felt the blood in his body move in a certain rhythm. But before he could experience it in detail, the sensation disappeared.

"That's it?" Mu Chen frowned and didn't know whether he should rejoice or be disappointed. He could barely recall the feeling.

Mu Chen examined his body, but there were no changes. He dripped another drop, and the red light appeared once more. He was ready this time and focused all his attention on the changes within his body.

The feeling came and disappeared, but this time with Mu Chen's keen awareness, he detected something. His blood seemed to move from one acupoint to another.

Mu Chen suspected that if the concentration of vitality was stronger, the result would be better. The vitality in the drop of blood was being supplemented by the bloodstone. However, the amount that could be drawn by such a crude method was limited. But he didn't have a better way.

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Mu Chen didn't give up and kept trying. After over a dozen attempts and a depleted bloodstone, he figured it out.

"It's not that the blood is flowing—it's the vitality," Mu Chen gasped with a pale face, however, he was excited.

Cultivators relied on spiritual qi whereas body practitioners relied on the vitality in the blood. But controlling and utilizing the vitality was easier said than done—the difficulty and requirement was several times higher than those for spiritual qi.

This black scroll was a shortcut to mastering vitality aka internal qi. It served as a training tool. Mu Chen didn't know if it had any other functions, but this alone made it an invaluable tool for body practitioners.

Mu Chen took another blood replenishing pill and renewed his attempts. He didn't qualify for the scroll's standards, but the scroll was a dead object. It only operated according to a certain set of rules. Mu Chen had always been good at understanding rules and skirting around them.

Using bloodstones as an aid, Mu Chen familiarized himself with the operation of internal qi.

An Zhi would've never even dreamed that someone would decipher the secret in the scroll in such a bizarre manner. After all, not everyone carried bloodstones with them.

Understanding the technique was one thing, practicing it was a different matter. Fortunately, Mu Chen had the black scroll and plenty of bloodstones. Mu Chen began to deduce the complete route of operation for internal qi.

In the beginning, the internal qi dispersed soon after flowing from one acupoint to another. As he practiced, Mu Chen became proficient and the number of acupoints the internal qi could pass through increased one by one.

When the internal qi flowed through all the acupoints and back to the origin acupoint, it no longer dispersed—that faint thread of internal qi lingered.

Once that thread of internal qi appeared, Mu Chen had a strange feeling. Intuition told him he could freely control that thread of internal qi and if he willed, he would be able to use it.

Mu Chen put aside the black scroll and the bloodstone and focused his attention on that thread of internal qi. He had already memorized the route for circulation of internal qi. He strived to control that thread of internal qi following the previous route.

"Huh?" To his surprise, Mu Chen discovered that his physical strength was consumed at a terrifying speed. In just a few breaths, he was exhausted as if he had run a dozen miles.

Mu Chen stopped and drank some of his wine to recover his strength.

"The thread of internal qi seemed to have become stronger," Mu Chen observed. Although it was stronger just by a tiny bit, Mu Chen was elated. "This should be the first revolution."

Although Mu Chen was tired, his spirit was unprecedented. He had touched the threshold. With this thread of internal qi as the foundation, he no longer needed to bleed or rely on the black scroll.

Mu Chen took a few sips of his wine and practiced again.

Second revolution…

Third revolution…

When he finished the tenth revolution, a sense of fatigue overwhelmed Mu Chen once again and he had to stop. But it was not without results—the thread of internal qi had become thicker than before.

"The amount of wine should have sufficed me for several days of intense physical activity," Mu Chen sensed the growth of internal qi and exclaimed. "Yet it could only grow the internal qi a little." Once he used this internal qi, wouldn't it be equivalent to exploding the strength that had been accumulated for several days?

The thought stimulated Mu Chen, and he jumped to his feet eager to test the power of internal qi. He was about to use his internal qi, but the next moment, he was startled.

The internal qi was dissipating.

"No no no!" Mu Chen yelled, startled. He desperately tried to control his internal qi, forcing it to stay, but to no avail. Like a bamboo basket that couldn't hold any water, his internal qi kept leaking through his body.

Soon all the internal qi Mu Chen had cultivated dissipated, leaving behind just a thread of internal qi.

"Shit," Mu Chen couldn't help but curse. At least he was still left with a thread of internal qi, otherwise Mu Chen could only cry in some corner of the cave.

"How could this happen?" Mu Chen racked his brain. After reflecting on the entire process, he found that there could be only one explanation: he cheated.

After cultivators refined the spiritual qi, they would store it in their dantian for future use. Internal qi was the same, it also required a vessel. This should have been his blood, as internal qi was derived from vitality which was rooted in blood. The dantian had a limit for storing spiritual qi, likewise the blood also had a limit for storing internal qi.

Mu Chen didn't have any special bloodline, the vitality his blood could store was not much. He borrowed vitality from the bloodstones and successfully cultivated some internal qi, but that was the limit. His ordinary blood couldn't hold the excess internal qi.

Once he figured out the root of the matter, Mu Chen felt gloomy. He had hit a dead end.

Mu Chen stared at the scroll in his hand.

Give up? Once he gave up, there might be no other chance in the future. If Mu Chen's guess was correct, the An Tribe would come after the scroll. There was no guarantee he would be able to keep the scroll with him unless he left the realm. Mu Chen still had unfinished business in this realm, he was reluctant to leave it so soon.

"Since I can cheat, I will cheat throughout," Mu Chen snorted. Since he wanted to uncover the secrets of the scroll, he could only take some risks. Mu Chen decided to forcefully complete this stage and jump to the next.

This was akin to building a castle in the air, even if he succeeded the prospects were limited. But Mu Chen couldn't care too much about it at this time. The other option was to give up—it wasn't like he could change his bloodline to lay a better foundation.

Mu Chen peered into his wine pouch and sighed. The bottom of the pouch was almost visible.

"I hope this much is enough." Mu Chen shook his head. He took several sips of wine and began his practice…

While Mu Chen cultivated internal qi, he remained unaware of the turmoil that the entire secret realm was about to enter.