Qian Feng sat in his new residence in Reun Arena in the lotus position, breathing in slow, even breaths. The aura of a ninth level Martial Warrior emanated from him, vigorous Force Qi creating a suffocating air inside the room.
Slowly, his aura began to climb, mounting further and further as Qian Feng's face became strained. His body trembled as the Qi multiplied, reaching the peak around four minutes after.
Then, a mysterious energy began to seep into the Force Qi, transforming it. The aura, originally several meters large, began to retract again. Despite this, the amount of power it held only increased. Finally, Qian Feng's aura reached only a few centimeters above his skin, but contained a vast and unfathomable power.
It began swirling around him in a perfect sphere, bolstering his movements.
Qian Feng had broken through.
After three weeks, Qian Feng had broken through to become a Martial King with his Force affinity, and had successfully formed a domain.
His cultivation technique determined the type and strength of the domain that would be condensed, and since his cultivation technique was at a peak level, unable to be found on the continent, his domain was similarly powerful.
His Force domain had the ability to sense anything in its area, to harden and form a shield anywhere inside its space, and the ultimate ability of Force Qi - manipulate force. That meant that when an attack entered his domain, he could effectively siphon the power it had behind it, stealing it for his own use. Similarly, he could increase the force behind his own attacks at spontaneous moments, throwing his opponent off and catching them off-guard.
Of course, since he had just broken through to the Martial King realm, that ability was not easy for him to use, and was, in battle, essentially limited to buffing himself by small amounts. But that would certainly change.
He spent the rest of the day and night reinforcing and grounding his cultivation base, tempering his foundation and stabilizing it at the first level of the Martial King realm.
After that, he broke through to the Martial King realm in his Earth and Life affinity, granting him the power of the superposition of three already incredibly powerful domains, each with their own unique abilities.
All three could sense what was in their area, and combined, his detection ability was unparalleled in his cultivation realm. But that paled in comparison to the full manifestation of his triple-affinity advantage. The Force affinity domain would strengthen his own attacks and weaken his enemy's, the Earth affinity domain would bolster his defenses and lend his strikes even more weight, while the Life affinity domain passively increased his regeneration capabilities and, in very small amounts, siphoning life away from the enemy who entered the domain. That last ability was especially terrifying, but unfortunately, until his cultivation advanced significantly, he would only be able to steal insignificant portions.
Now that his cultivation had greatly advanced into the Martial King stage, his foundation, while still stable, was no longer at its peak.
See, a foundation relied upon the effective combination of three things: cultivation base, body and soul strength, and Dao heart. The first factor, cultivation base, determined just how advanced the other two aspects had to be for a good foundation. At the Martial King realm, Qian Feng, who sought the perfect foundation, had to reach the Proficiency stage in both the Tian Mountain Technique and the Overbearing General Tactic. Luckily, his Life affinity didn't require much body strength for its foundation, and relied mainly upon a powerful soul. Qian Feng's soul strength, having gone through a full soul cycle and then some, was well beyond that of the ordinary cultivator, so that would be no issue until perhaps the fourth realm, the Martial Emperor realm.
The final factor, Dao heart, referred to the experience and willpower of an individual. Qian Feng, having gone through three years in a battlefield, contantly experiencing death and strife, had no issues there and was remarkably advanced for his level, but that was only for the ninth level Martial Warrior stage. The difference between the Martial Warrior and the Martial King stage was great, so great that while a Martial Warrior might be any reasonably-experienced warrior in a great kingdom, a Martial King would undoubtedly have extraordinary martial experience and willpower, unles they came from an influential clan and relied upon outside methods to break through.
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That meant that if he wanted to fully solidify his perfect foundation, after tempering his body, Qian Feng should return to the battlefield in the Ancient Cosmos Pearl and fight significantly more.
Not wanting to go back outside until he was completely ready, and at his peak condition, Qian Feng remained in his room until he finished everything he wanted to.
Qian Feng found that the Overbearing General Tactic was best to practice first, since strong muscles would provide a good backboard for the rest of the body to be tempered.
Returning to the awfully famililar waterfall, Qian Feng narrowed his eyes. No matter how much his cultivation or his body advanced, he always seemed to be challenged by the waterfall. Yes, now that he thought about it, if the current Qian Feng was under the waterfall he initially encountered, he would barely even notice it... Did that mean that it automatically strengthened as its owner did, maintaining its usefulness even as he advanced? As expected from a treasure as great as the Ancient Cosmos Pearl, he supposed.
Putting that out of his mind, Qian Feng resumed his training, straining his muscles while circulating his Qi in the method detailed by the Overbearing General Tactic.
As his cultivation advanced, his progress in body-tempering techniques would also hasten, allowing the boy to reach the Knowledge stage in a little under three full days.
After the Knowledge stage, the Overbearing General Tactic changed a bit, moving from refining solely the muscles to refining the muscles along with the blood and organs, allowing the body to bring forth even more power.
In a week and a half, Qian Feng broke through to the Proficiency stage, where his body became strong enough to shatter a small hill with a punch. His blood, when Qian Feng was in a fully activated state(when one's body reached a certain point, it was possible to control one's strength enough to enter a sort of slumber mode, where the full potential of the body was not unleashed for the sake of conserving energy), could be heard rumbling through his veins, and his vigorous heartbeat could be felt through the air.
After that, he switched to the Tian Mountain Technique and raised that to the Proficiency stage, allowing his body to withstand impacts that would shatter any Grade 4 weapons. While Qian Feng didn't have much experience with weapon qualities, he was pretty sure that Grade 4 made a weapon valuable, since he had previously gone wandering in the market looking at weapons, and the highest quality weapon he could find, Grade 3, cost the amount of money he gained from clearing the fourth floor.
Anyways, done with tempering his body, Qian Feng entered the other room, the battlefield, to train. It seemed like the accelerated time part still remained in the Ancient Cosmos Pearl, allowing Qian Feng to gain experience at a rate several times faster than other warriors.
When the battles were eventually scaled up in difficulty to Qian Feng's level, all that could be seen of Qian Feng's guan dao was a resplendent blur traveling through the air, slicing at all angles.
These battles allowed the boy to grow accustomed to his new strength, which had dramatically increased from the breakthrough to the Martial King stage and then his body's refinement. He also grew accustomed to the proficient use of his recently-acquired domains, allowing him to use them smoothly in battle.
As he fought, Qian Feng's heartbeat began to slow, the agitated pulse becoming calmer and calmer.
If an expert were to witness this, they would immediately recognize the entry of Qian Feng into the first realm of fighting expertise, Calm Movements. This meant that he was learning how to fight with an undisturbed heart, to calculate his movements with a rational mind even as a blade streaked towards his neck. While it may seem underwhelming that he had only reached the first stage, countless Martial Kings, and even a few Martial Emperors has yet to even enter that scale.
The value of a rational mind in a fight was not to be underestimated. It could allow for warriors to take calculated risks in the middle of battle, to calmly ascertain the best direction to dodge instead of just jerking in a random direction in panic.
His killing intent was also refined, growing stronger and, in its growth, more useful. Even against enemies as strong as he was, Qian Feng gained the ability to release all of the killing intent at once, startling his enemy and causing them to hesitate for even a slight moment.
Thanks to the time dilation, Qian Feng managed to fight over ten thousand battles in the span of two days, sharpening his edge even further.
Finally, he was satisfied with his progress and left the room, looking around with his seasoned eyes and catching them on the door in the middle. Cosmos Advancement.
While Qian Feng had no idea what it was, he certainly wanted to find out and was now confident enough to survive whatever the room put him through.
Excited and anxious, Qian Feng entered Cosmos Advancement.