Chapter 247: Dragon Among Men

Li Yuan?

Before the Dragon Stele, a clamor erupted.

"Ninety-seven…"

"How could it be this fast?"

Gong Jiuchuan lowered his brows, glancing at Yu Xuanji; even the two of them felt stunned.

During the Dragon-Tiger Banquet, both had witnessed Li Yuan swiftly defeat Yan Xiong—his martial arts were already no less than those of the Dragon-Tiger Inner Sect's elite disciples.

Yet the Inner Sect's elite were numerous; countless youths from the various prefectures and commanderies possessed talents like Li Yuan's. Based on their estimates, making it into the top two hundred was already extraordinary.

Who could have imagined that in less than half a year since entering, without even formally taking a master or receiving the sect's ultimate teachings, he had stormed into the top one hundred of the Dragon List?!

"Four months, broke into the top one hundred!"

"How did he do it? He only smelts iron daily, yet his rank steadily rose—he never fights or spars with others, yet still made the top one hundred?"

"He hasn't even unblocked his meridians yet…"

…

Among the Dragon-Tiger disciples gathered beneath the Dragon Stele, murmurs swirled, their shock and confusion impossible to conceal.

Neither Gong Jiuchuan nor Yu Xuanji drew attention upon arrival; instead, they learned of recent events from the crowd's chatter.

"Five months ago, Li Yuan entered the sect. When he passed the Ancestral Tablet, the Azure Dragon's shadow appeared, and the Ancestor's will descended, bestowing upon him the Dragon Chan Golden Body Scripture?"

"More than four months ago, he forged iron atop Pure Gang Peak, repairing weapons for fellow disciples, and even crafted two top-grade named weapons and four named swords?"

"In these past days, his rank changed three times a day—from one hundred and forty-something, he surged straight into the top one hundred?!"

Listening to the murmurs, Gong Jiuchuan's expression shifted repeatedly—he never expected that merely delaying his return to the sect by half a year, he had missed such a monumental event.

"The Azure Dragon's shadow appeared!"

Yu Xuanji felt more shock today than in all her previous life combined.

The last disciple to summon the Azure Dragon's shadow was the current top true disciple, the Dragon-Tiger Daozi, Jiazi Wu Di Long Xinglie.

The one before him was Long Xi, before that, the Tiger Gate's Sect Master Nie Xianshan, and before that, the current Dao Master, Long Yingchan.

The fifth in two hundred years?

The master and disciple exchanged glances, preparing to head toward Pure Gang Gate, when a cry rose from behind:

"It's changing again!"

What?

Gong Jiuchuan turned—on the Dragon List, Li Yuan's name flickered with a faint glow, then leapt in an instant from ninety-seven to eighty.

Seventy… sixty—finally stabilizing at fifty-six.

From ninety-seven straight to fifty-six?!

A jump of forty-one ranks in one go?!

The area around the Dragon Stele fell utterly silent. Other Dragon-Tiger disciples passing by froze in place, stunned and terrified.

"Impossible!"

Yu Xuanji stared, dumbfounded, nearly convinced she had misjudged.

She instinctively rubbed her eyes, then looked again—the characters on the Dragon List blazed like Dou -sized lights, unmistakable.

"Dragon List Fifty-Six: Li Yuan, Yi Xing Completed!"

Yi Xing Completed—he had entered the ranks of Meridian Unblocked Completion, surpassing over a dozen Inner Sect elite disciples who had already achieved Meridian Unblocked Completion!

"Impossible!"

The brief silence shattered under a shrill cry.

The crowd turned—on the mountain path, Wang Xuan stood pale with shock, his body trembling as he rushed to the Dragon Stele, his heart plummeting as he saw his own rank drop.

When the Azure Dragon's shadow appeared at the mountain gate, he had already felt profound regret, foreseeing that this man's martial arts would surpass his own.

But how little time had passed…

"Fake? How could this be?"

"He's still only Yi Xing Completed—he hasn't even unblocked his meridians—how, how…?"

"Four months, climbed nearly a hundred ranks!"

But now, no one paid attention to the dazed Wang Xuan—the crowd erupted into a storm of murmurs.

"Didn't Senior Brother once do the same?"

Someone glanced toward the very top of the Dragon List—the murmurs only grew louder; disciples along the mountain path, hearing the commotion, rushed toward the stele.

"This… this… Master, he hasn't achieved Meridian Unblocking—no, even if he had, he shouldn't have leapt so many ranks at once…"

The shock was so great, Yu Xuanji even stammered.

She had joined the Dragon-Tiger Temple since birth; over two or three decades, she had seen countless prodigies—she had even seen those born with the Dragon Form, Great Dragon Form, and even the Thirteen Spirit Dragon Forms.

Yet outside of legends, this was the first time she had ever witnessed a disciple's rank surge so violently.

The forty disciples he had instantly surpassed—all possessed exceptional talent and roots, and were all famed Inner Sect prodigies with over twenty or thirty years of cultivation!

"This kind of situation…"

Gong Jiuchuan's white eyebrows twitched—his spirit was in turmoil.

He had witnessed a similar scene decades ago—even more terrifying than today's.

Long Xinglie had leapt from ninety-ninth to twenty-seventh in one bound, shaking the entire Dragon-Tiger Temple—but the reason behind it remains unknown to this day.

All that was known was that when Long Xinglie emerged from the secret realm, all three ultimate arts—the Eightfold Divine King Scripture, the Great Mighty Heavenly Dragon Form, and the Dragon Chan Golden Body Scripture—were fully perfected.

"Go!"

Yu Xuanji still wished to ask, but Gong Jiuchuan's feet touched the ground lightly, and he shot toward the Heaven-Thirteen Peaks like a hawk.

As Yu Xuanji hurried after him, the disciples beneath the Dragon Stele finally snapped out of their shock and surged toward Pure Gang Peak.

"This… this…"

Beneath the Dragon Stele, Wang Xuan regained his composure—his limbs felt icy. How could he have dared offend such a person over petty gains?

"Apologize… yes, apologize!"

Wang Xuan startled, took a few steps toward Heaven Peak, then abruptly halted and sprinted toward his quarters.

'Too close—I almost went empty-handed…'

…

Long Yin Peak, halfway up the mountain.

In a villa perched beside a cliff, Chu Xuankong stood with arms crossed, gazing down at the churning sea of clouds, watching clouds roll and fade, wind rise and fall.

"How difficult is it to master the forms of Heaven and Earth?"

After a long while, he sighed deeply, rubbing his aching eyes:

"To take Dragon and Tiger, Wind and Cloud as the core, while embracing a hundred forms—Dao Master, truly a celestial being!"

Among all forms, beast forms were easiest, spirit beasts next, yet still traceable—only Heaven and Earth forms, even with ancestral martial insights, required self-realization.

To unify all forms and condense them into Wind-Tiger Cloud-Dragon—just contemplating the difficulty weighed heavily upon his heart.

"Talent, talent…"

Watching the dissipating wind and clouds, Chu Xuankong sighed inwardly.

At less than a hundred years old, he had already completed Blood Transformation—he considered his own talent among the finest of his age, yet compared to those others, he paled in comparison.

The Wind and Cloud forms that had plagued him for over seventy years—Long Xinglie mastered in twenty-nine years; Dao Master Long Yingchan had done so in just eleven.

"Li Yue, Long Xinglie, Dou Yue, Xin Wenhua, Dan Hong, and Gong Jiuchuan."

Chu Xuankong's thoughts churned; after a long while, he calmed, letting go of his lingering resentment:

"Blood and Po are Yang, spirit and soul are Yin—when soul and Po unite, spirit and body intermingle—this is the path to Dao, also called Yin-Yang… perhaps it is time to release this obsession."

With this thought, he felt a lightness in his heart—even without achieving the ultimate form, he still possessed the foundation to challenge the Grand Master realm.

"Hmm?"

At that moment, footsteps approached—hurried and disordered.

Chu Xuankong frowned slightly, then saw his disciple sprinting over in panic: "What's the emergency?"

As he scolded, he instinctively fiddled with the copper coins in his sleeve—his expression froze.

"Master, the Dragon Stele has changed—Li Yuan surged from beyond one hundred straight to fifty-six!"

"What?!"

…

…

In a bamboo grove courtyard, autumn wind drifted gently, stirring yellow leaves.

On the treetop, a cub of a tiger nudged a yellow leaf toward Li Yuan, who sat cross-legged below—but before it could reach him, invisible force shattered it into dust.

In the corner, a mouse poked its tiny head from its burrow, green eyes fixed on the man and the cat, watching as they alternated between lying still and rising to practice fist forms.

"Huh!"

Beneath the old tree, sweat on Li Yuan's body had not yet dried—his sinews and bones emitted faint "crack" sounds as his roots transformed.

Since entering the Dragon-Tiger Temple, Li Yuan had returned to his former state in the Divine Weapon Valley—daily, he forged iron, cultivated, and transformed his roots, leaving all other matters to Liu Zheng, Wang Peiyao, and others.

Though it seemed he moved daily between mountains, in truth, he was in seclusion.

After his Command of Arms Scroll advanced to seventh rank, the number of available commands increased, and the cooldown shortened—Li Yuan now switched commands with ease; under multiple command combinations, his hammer techniques, sword arts, hardening methods, and visualization practices all made great strides.

After several root transformations, he had now gathered thirty-nine forms.

Whooshing~

Li Yuan closed his eyes; his powerful perception allowed him to hear the rhythm of his internal organs, the surging, boiling blood coursing along a clearly visible path.

Qi and internal energy were violently consumed to fuel the transformation of his bone structure.

"Thirteen is the great dragon; at every such number, the bone structure undergoes a transformation…"

When he had completed twenty-six forms, Li Yuan had felt something similar before, but with only one instance, he could not be certain—yet now he could be utterly confident.

The changes within his body were intense, yet Li Yuan remained calm, swallowing the next elixir in sequence to nourish the bone transformation.

Simultaneously, in his mind, he practiced the visualization technique, focusing on two tasks at once.

Wuuu!

In the realm of spiritual light, he visualized his spiritual self wielding a hammer and dancing, like a furious ancient elephant swinging its long trunk—this was the Ancient Elephant Six-Form Hammer.

This middle-tier hammer art, famed for its difficulty to learn and master, had been pushed by Li Yuan to the threshold of perfection, even without the original diagram to guide him.

Just a thread's width away—he could add six more forms!

"Forty-five forms… Old Han only completed them in his seventies; I've already gathered them all, though the quality is still lacking."

After so many bone transformations, even with pain overwhelming him, Li Yuan could barely endure it without collapsing and pounding the ground as he once had.

But soon, his expression changed.

As the Ancient Elephant Six-Form Hammer broke through to perfection, an excruciating pain surged from deep within his bones.

"My hard-earned Wu Gong—shouldn't the bone transformation be gradual?"

Li Yuan grunted, sweat rolling down his brow; under the Diejia of two kinds of pain, he could not hold out long before he slammed his hammer into the ground.

Boom!

Like a heavy mallet striking a drum, the two stone tables in the courtyard trembled; the cub on the tree was jolted awake, glaring at Li Yuan with ill will, yet also a flicker of surprise.

"Still can't get used to it."

Li Yuan nearly bit his teeth to shards; only by relying on the Five-Step Spirit Snake Belt and other items to bolster his spirit did he stabilize his spiritual visualization.

Then, one by one, blades and swords materialized, piercing through his spiritual self.

He settled his stance and practiced the Ten Thousand Blades Spirit Dragon Body—this supreme art, though four months had passed, had still not reached proficiency, but he was very close.

"One more push!"

Large beads of sweat kept falling; Li Yuan endured the agony and numbness, gritting his teeth—after how long he could not tell, but suddenly his body felt light, all pain vanished.

A sensation of weightless transcendence surged through him; for a moment, he forgot where he was.

"The Ten Thousand Blades Spirit Dragon Body has reached proficiency!"

Joy surged in Li Yuan's heart—but before he could fully grasp the changes within himself after completing forty-five forms and achieving proficiency in the supreme hardening art, a faint, distant hum exploded at his ear.

"What is this?"

Li Yuan's heart jolted; it felt as if thick mist had suddenly surged around him, and in a daze, he saw two stone steles.

One was a deep azure like a dragon; the other, a silvery white like a tiger.

"Dragon Stele, Tiger Stele?"

Li Yuan snapped back to awareness—the Tiger Stele had vanished into the mist, and now the Dragon Stele grew steadily clearer in his vision.

"Li Yuan, Dragon List No. 56, Form Transformation Perfected, age twenty, talent: Dragon and Phoenix among men!"

"Admitted to the Nourishing Furnace!"