Chapter 516: Blood-Swapping Great Completion

Hum~

Emptying his mind, Li Yuan stepped up onto the stairs.

Before this step, he had gazed at the mountain clouds before him, yet could not see the vista that encompassed them; the instant his foot touched the mountain path, that vista once again brutally seized his entire field of vision.

Immense pressure surged in from all directions, as if it would crush him whole, just as before, but Li Yuan keenly perceived the difference.

"The pressure isn't as strong as before."

Li the Daoist muttered to himself. He was in no hurry to climb the mountain; this path whose end he could not see at a glance—even a fool knew it couldn't be done in one go.

Therefore, he preferred to advance steadily and surely, using the resonance of the mountain's qi to temper himself and reap the greatest benefit.

"Comfortable!"

Li Yuan squinted his eyes, feeling the pressure from the first step. His tendons, bones, viscera, and every organ trembled ceaselessly within this grinding of qi; the trembling moved from outside to in, then from in to outside, and where they met, he felt himself rising and falling like waves, while his true qi and blood ceaselessly ground against each other in the process, growing purer.

The various impurities were expelled through the dilation of the pores all over his body—vastly superior to the bloodletting and blood-swapping method, by goodness knows how much.

Without Longhu Longhu Dadan, this process would surely have been agonizing, but with two Longhu Dadan in his belly, Li Yuan could fully transform the pressure into momentum to drive his Wu Gong cultivation forward!

"Hoo!"

After a long while, exhaustion resurfaced. Li Yuan did not force himself to endure; he withdrew in step with the moment, sat down, and entered visualization.

After that, he climbed the mountain once more.

Repeating this more than ten times, in the end Li Yuan could no longer feel any pressure from the first step, and even the little mother dragon had lost interest in watching.

Li Yuan withdrew once more to the foot of the mountain, sitting down cross-legged as before, but this time he did not visualize—instead, he entered deep meditation.

'……'

The little mother dragon shook her body and drifted to one side. A flicker of astonishment passed through her eyes as she looked at Li Yuan; she sensed an extremely intense fluctuation of qi and blood.

"This is?"

The little mother dragon calculated silently in her heart: "That's not right. He's only been swapping blood for a little over two months—h-he's about to reach Great Completion already?!"

She herself had never gone through the blood-swapping tribulation, but she was hardly unfamiliar with it.

As she knew, the human race called blood-swapping the "Hundred-Day Foundation Establishment," meaning that through this hundred-day metamorphosis, a human could shed all weakness and lay the foundation for entering the Dao.

But she also recalled that, though it was called Hundred-Day Foundation Establishment, in reality the vast majority of human martial artists needed several times that long to complete this tribulation.

One who could swap blood in a hundred days was already outstanding among the human race—this kid…

The little mother dragon beside him was startled and amazed by turns, while Li Yuan had already sunk into deep meditation.

"Blood-swapping, the Hundred-Day Tribulation!"

The "splash-splash" sound of flowing water coursed and echoed in Li Yuan's mind, like great rivers and great streams flowing into his limbs and bones, sketching out in his perception an incomparably intricate and wondrous diagram of the human body's meridians.

Li Yuan had long been able to look inward upon himself, but perceiving his entire body so clearly and completely was still a first.

The reason was simple: inner-vision required a medium, and no matter how complex the network of qi vessels, it could never compare to the body's own blood vessels and meridians.

At this moment, through the circulation of his new blood, Li Yuan's control over himself climbed another step.

"Splash-splash!"

His blood flowed like Jianghe.

Li Yuan listened quietly to the sound of his blood flowing, his mind like a bright mirror, reflecting clearly within and without.

For the vast majority of martial artists, Great Completion of blood-swapping was the final metamorphosis of the body. At this tribulation, all the Wu Gong learned and the forms altered must manifest upon the flesh.

The more forms a martial artist had altered, the greater the metamorphosis at this tribulation.

Although after cultivating the Dragon Demon Heart Sutra he had broken the limitation that the body could not be altered again after blood-swapping, this blood-swapping tribulation was still an extremely critical and tremendous metamorphosis for him.

The reason: a thousand forms!

Wooo~

A long while later, in Li Yuan's perception.

The last of the old blood, chased by the new, was forced out of his body.

"Blood-swapping, Great Completion!"

Li Yuan's heart jolted, and he suddenly opened his eyes.

"Eek!"

The little mother dragon, who had been watching intently, was so startled her whole body went rigid, but she quickly realized Li Yuan wasn't looking at her at all. Instead, he rose to his feet and began practicing his stance work.

His movements were not violent, yet every gesture stirred up rolling gusts of force, and what spread with them was that intensely concentrated qi and blood.

"He's really achieved Great Completion of blood-swapping."

The little mother dragon instinctively retreated several steps, forgot the three-zhang taboo, and with a wail was once again pressed flat to the ground.

When she raised her head again, she saw Li Yuan standing tall, slowly gathering his stance, yet that intensely concentrated qi and blood was pouring out of his body—wisp after wisp, stream after stream—spiraling together as it rose into the air.

In a daze, it was like a giant battle banner soaring dozens of zhang high!

The blood-qi battle banner fluttered in the wind. The little mother dragon felt no heat, but she saw the grass and trees within a radius of several zhang, then over a dozen zhang, visibly turning dark yellow.

The temperature all around climbed sharply!

Hum!

Under the little mother dragon's gaze, the blood-qi battle banner snapped and billowed, and soon transformed into a massive blazing furnace. The temperature surged once more, and within a radius of twenty zhang, the grass and trees actually showed signs of spontaneous combustion.

Yet the qi and blood emanating from Li Yuan kept rising endlessly into the air, as if inexhaustible!

"This qi and blood is no worse than mine back in the day!"

The little mother dragon was somewhat shocked, somewhat dumbfounded.

She naturally understood that this native human far surpassed her in talent—otherwise he could never have been guided here by the Eight Directions Temple.

But she was a descendant of the Dragon King's bloodline—she was a dragon!

Her true form was a full thirty zhang long; her qi and blood being overwhelmingly strong was only natural. But this kid wasn't even as big as her finger—how had he cultivated such intensely concentrated qi and blood?

No wonder the Laozu Sect wanted its clansmen to learn the human race's martial Dao; no wonder the human race was the foremost of all races beneath the Three Enclosures.

Watching the increasingly dazzling Qi-Blood Furnace, the little mother dragon was momentarily dazed, until a moment later, accompanied by a tremendous resonant hum, the furnace tilted, and the Qi-Blood, pure as if substantial, cascaded down like a waterfall, plunging back into Li Zhou's body.

Buzz—

The Qi-Blood burned like fire, radiating a blinding light.

Li Zhou stood tall, feeling the boiling combustion of his Qi-Blood, a surging, majestic force gathering from his limbs and bones through the Qi-Blood.

At this instant of change, Daoist Yu Hua himself was somewhat dazed; after achieving Great Completion of Blood Replacement, the metamorphosis of his physique was far stronger than he had estimated.

"Transforming form into blood—no, there's also the benefit of altering a thousand forms!"

Enlightenment rose in Li Zhou's heart, followed by a joy he could barely contain, making him unable to resist tilting his head back and letting out a long howl.

"Boom!"

Three zhang away, the little mother dragon, who had been sizing him up, felt as though a thunderbolt had exploded by her ear; as if struck by a heavy hammer, she crashed to the ground with a "poof."

"..."

The little mother dragon was completely dumbfounded, taking quite a while to come back to her senses.

And Li Zhou's long howl still echoed, lingering for a long time without dissipating.

"Sitting-Forgetting Heart Scripture!"

After that long howl, Li Zhou reined in the joy in his heart; he stretched out both arms, and the muscles, bones, and pores all over his body stretched along with them, then, as he swung his arms, emitted creaking sounds of bones and tendons grinding that set one's teeth on edge.

"Ah!"

The little mother dragon suddenly let out a shriek.

But she saw that amidst the swirling Qi-Blood, Li Zhou's body first swelled, then rapidly collapsed, and after repeating this several times, he swung his arms once more.

And what struck the air with an explosive sound was a long-nosed elephant trunk!

"Trumpet!"

Like a dragon's cry, like an elephant's bellow, accompanied by the sound of rending silk.

The little mother dragon instinctively tensed her body; within that blood-light, Li Zhou's figure was no longer to be seen, replaced by a white elephant tilting its head back in a long cry, stamping its feet and swinging its trunk!

Not Qi transforming into form, but the physical body transforming into form!

Boom!

Li Zhou stamped his foot, dust rising on all sides.

"One form merged into blood, and the Sitting-Forgetting Heart Scripture has also been mastered!"

Swinging his arms and stamping his feet, joy filled Li Zhou's heart.

Once, when he heard Han Han Chuijun speak of warriors who had achieved Great Completion of Blood Replacement being able to transform their bodies into spirit-beasts, he had been shocked and filled with longing.

And at this moment, he could already do it.

The transformation arts from the legends of his previous life!

Daoist Yu Hua's heart trembled beyond words; in his previous life, this would have been transformation, a Daoist art, a Gu Gu Shentong.

"This is only the beginning; once I merge Yi Bai Xing, a thousand forms into my blood, that will be boundless transformations!"

His body trembled, Li Zhou dispersed the elephant form, took out a Daoist robe and draped it over himself, still finding it hard to express the excitement in his heart; touching the wonder of legends, for him, was still greater than the metamorphosis and growth of his physique.

This made him feel that he had taken another step closer to the Daoist Yu Hua ascending to immortality that his patriarchs had pursued.

"What a place of creation!"

After a long while, Li Zhou calmed his spirit, and looking again at the Gaoshan before him, his gaze burned with incomparable fervor.

By now, he had only climbed one flight of stairs.

"Your Qi-Blood."

The little mother dragon drew close, looking him up and down: "Wh-what Wu Gong did you learn?"

"Want to learn it?"

Li Zhou glanced at her.

"I want to learn."

"You can't learn it."

Grabbing the Mirage Dragon Belt and wrapping it around his waist, Li Zhou grinned: "You don't even have a flesh-and-blood body anymore, what martial arts would you learn?"

"I..."

The little mother dragon was as if struck by lightning; she had been gradually forgetting the fact that she was now merely a belt, and being reminded of it by Li Zhou at this moment made her feel utterly wretched.

Right, no wonder I didn't get any benefits—does the Eight Directions Temple also treat me as just a belt?

Thinking this, the little mother dragon instantly felt her heart sink into despair.

"Tell me, in this mountain, could there be any spirit-beasts or divine-beasts or the like, for instance, the Star-Rated Azure Dragon you mentioned?"

Li Zhou looked toward the distant mountains; his eyesight was extremely good, and he could see birds and beasts circling within the mountains, among which were quite a few spirit-beasts he could not recognize.

"Hmm?"

The little mother dragon raised her head, hope rising in her heart: "Th-there should be, right?"

If there were, that would be for the best, but the mountains were likely somewhat dangerous...

Li Zhou narrowed his eyes.

The reason he suddenly mentioned the distant mountains was that just now, when he had broken through, he had faintly sensed that something in the mountains seemed to have been startled by him.

"Qi transforming..."

The little mother dragon began speaking, then closed her mouth.

Transformation exploration would have to wait until after entering the Dao.

Li Zhou let out a long breath; having achieved Great Completion of Blood Replacement in one go, his heart was excited, but he was indeed somewhat weary; visualization could substitute for sleep to a certain extent.

But for now, he still could not completely replace it.

"Should we head back to Star-Plucking Tower?"

Li Yuan fished out that token, hesitating somewhat.