Douluo Continent: The True Body and Blood Soul, Starting from Blacksmithing

Chapter 98 Absorption, Encountering an Unexpected Incident (Five chapters combined, 10 words, the remaining chapter will be added tomorrow)

On the surface of Lin Yu's right leg bone, the golden patterns that were originally tightly wrapped to resist external impacts opened up without warning the moment the soul bone energy collided with it again.

The opening was extremely abrupt, with golden patterns at the edges curling up like living things, revealing the skeletal body beneath, its silver light flowing through it.

Immediately afterward, the orange-red energy carrying the remaining will of the three-headed Fiery Lion was swallowed whole by the newly opened golden crack before it could even react.

Without fusion or penetration, it was swallowed whole.

The soul bone energy that had been so aggressive in trying to merge with Lin Yu's leg bone was completely stunned at this moment.

It struggled and thrashed within the vesicle formed by the golden lines, its orange-red light flickering, yet it could not break free from that seemingly thin golden membrane.

Lin Yu was also stunned.

His consciousness was now deep within his bones, and he could clearly "see" the entire process of how his own silver robe and golden armor swallowed the right leg bone from the three-headed fire lion as if it were a snack.

While he was still in a daze, a scene that left him speechless yet all too familiar unfolded within his body: the soul bone began to truly fuse with his right leg bone.

It wasn't the kind of contact at the energy level as before, but rather the structure of the bones themselves interlocking. The bone material of the soul bone was like metal melted by high temperature, seeping into Lin Yu's original bones little by little. The texture of the bone trabeculae was rewoven at the microscopic level, emitting a faint crackling sound.

After fusion is complete, the newly formed bones begin to produce blood.

The sensation was extremely peculiar. First, a dense tremor came from deep within the bone marrow, as if countless tiny hands were gently tapping inside. Then, a warm torrent surged from the very center of the bone, seeping outwards along the gaps in the cancellous bone.

The newborn blood is darker and richer in color than normal blood, with a dark red luster similar to magma, and you can even feel its unusual temperature as it flows slowly through the blood vessels.

Lin Yu had experienced this scene before. When he absorbed the Blue Silver Emperor Soul Bone, the Soul Bone fused and began to produce new blood. In the same way, a consciousness with an independent will was born from the new blood.

However, that one time, the consciousness emanating from the Blue Silver Emperor almost gave him a hard time.

This time, however, the situation is completely different.

Lin Yu's entire consciousness had long been ingrained in his bones; this was his home turf.

Those newly formed, still chaotic fragments of consciousness had just emerged from the blood and hadn't even had a chance to coalesce before being pulverized by Lin Yu's main consciousness.

As the fragments of consciousness exploded, Lin Yu could feel subtle tremors entering her consciousness.

It felt like someone was tearing a thin piece of paper right next to his ear, each tearing sound clearly audible.

The shattered fragments of consciousness transformed into scattered pieces of memory, drifting into Lin Yu's consciousness.

Among those fragments are images of scorching magma slowly flowing underground, the tactile sensation of giant claws smashing rocks, the vibration deep in the throats of three heads roaring simultaneously, and a bizarre scene woven from three perspectives seen through three pairs of eyes.

These images are fragmented, silent, and without cause and effect, but each piece carries the real texture of the three-headed fire lion that once lived.

When the fusion of the soul bone and the right leg bone was completely completed, a consciousness entity far more powerful than the previous fragments of consciousness suddenly condensed and took shape within Lin Yu's body.

This consciousness displayed extraordinary aggression from the moment it appeared. It was enveloped in a layer of pale orange flames and surged wildly deep within the bone marrow of his right leg.

As it darted around, several thin silver lines lit up inside Lin Yu's body.

Those silver threads, as thin as gossamer, were as dense as a spider web, like a trap that had been laid long ago, and tightened suddenly the moment this consciousness was formed.

The consciousness was bound by silver threads into a fist-sized ball of light, and then pulled upwards by an irresistible force, passing through the abdominal cavity, over the diaphragm, and finally being confined within Lin Yu's heart.

Lin Yu originally thought that this consciousness was just like the Blue Silver Emperor, a small thing that resided in his body and helped him with some odd jobs.

After the Blue Silver Emperor's consciousness was confined to his liver, it was indeed very quiet, and it would occasionally help him regulate his body.

But the moment that consciousness truly entered his heart, Lin Yu knew he was wrong.

A burst of orange-red flames suddenly erupted deep within my heart.

The flames were incredibly hot, and they spread outwards from the heart at an absurdly fast speed, covering the entire outer wall of the heart almost in the blink of an eye.

From the outside, Lin Yu's heart looked as if it were enveloped in a layer of flowing orange-red lava, with each beat causing ripples to spread across the surface of the flames.

The heat of the flames was conducted inward through the outer wall of the heart, but just as it was about to burn the heart muscle, it was suppressed by Lin Yu's own elemental control ability.

The power of the silver robe formed a thin, cicada-wing-like insulating layer on the surface of the heart. The heat of the flames was broken down, filtered, and tamed when it collided with this silver insulating layer, leaving only a strange warmth that penetrated into it.

This tamed, warm energy not only did not harm the heart, but instead began to activate the muscle groups of the heart wall.

Lin Yuneng could clearly feel that every muscle fiber in her heart was becoming stronger and more elastic under this warm soaking.

The sound of his heart contracting became deeper and more powerful with each contraction. The "thump, thump, thump" pumping sound spread throughout his body with the blood. He could even hear the walls of the blood vessels on the side of his neck buzzing from the impact of the blood flow.

The amount of blood pumped out with each heartbeat is at least 30% more than before.

Lin Yu took a deep breath, and the sensation of the air rushing into her lungs changed—it felt fuller and more abundant. Every alveolus was filled with blood and expanded, significantly improving the efficiency of oxygen exchange.

He could even feel the blood flowing faster in the capillaries of his fingertips, and a healthy blush appear on his skin.

The changes in her heart came so quickly and violently that Lin Yu involuntarily turned her attention to her liver.

The liver area was perfectly still. Since the Blue Silver Emperor's consciousness had been confined there, it hadn't caused any disturbance, so much so that Lin Yu hadn't paid much attention to this area before.

Upon closer inspection, he realized that there was indeed something different about his liver.

The structure of the liver lobules has been strengthened in an extremely precise way, with cells arranged more tightly and orderly, making their detoxification and metabolic efficiency far superior to that of ordinary soul masters.

More importantly, the surface of the liver faintly glows with a pale blue light, so faint that it is almost invisible, like moonlight shining through thin clouds onto the water.

She probably looks listless because she hasn't obtained a wood-attribute soul ring yet.

This discovery momentarily distracted Lin Yu.

At that very moment, something unexpected happened to him.

Three spirit rings appeared out of his body without warning—one yellow, one yellow, and one purple. According to the rules of spirit ring rank, the three spirit rings were arranged from the inside out and hovered around his body, slowly rotating.

The light from the spirit rings illuminated the walls of the training room, casting ripples of light and shadow.

The first and second yellow spirit rings lit up on their own without Lin Yu actively activating them.

Lin Yu was all too familiar with the feeling of activating a soul skill. The entire process of soul power being instantly drawn away, circulating along specific meridian routes, and finally condensing into a skill form outside the body was happening automatically within him at this moment.

But this was not the end—the soul skills activated by the two soul rings interacted in a way that Lin Yu had never seen before.

When the first spirit ring lit up, the fire element in the surrounding air seemed to be suddenly grasped by an invisible hand. All the fire element began to converge towards Lin Yu at the same time, leaving behind faint red trails visible to the naked eye in the air.

The second spirit ring followed immediately, and a deep vibration came from the heart. The vibration carried a certain frequency and traveled through the blood to the limbs and bones, causing Lin Yu's muscles to tremble slightly.

The fluctuations generated by the simultaneous activation of the two soul skills startled the consciousness of the three-headed fire lion, which had just settled in its heart.

It extended a wisp of orange-red perception from the depths of its heart, a perception that resembled a tentacle extending from flames, and carefully touched the two glowing soul rings.

The next second, the two yellow spirit rings seemed to be pulled from the inside by something, and suddenly contracted towards Lin Yu's heart.

The spirit rings pierced his chest with incredible speed, giving Lin Yu almost no time to react. He only felt a heat in his chest before the two rings disappeared at the location of his heart.

Once the state of the soul ring leaving the body ends, the release of soul skills should also be interrupted at the same time—this is common sense that Lin Yu repeatedly verified when he studied the soul ring mechanism in his early years.

The moment the two spirit rings pierced his heart, the spirit skill that was only halfway through its activation indeed came to an abrupt halt.

The fire elements gathered in the air instantly lost control, dispersing into a pale red mist before quickly disappearing into the air.

The low-frequency vibrations of the heartbeat also stopped, and Lin Yu could feel his muscles suddenly return to calm after the trembling.

Common sense tells him that a spirit ring must be suspended outside the body to release a spirit skill, so spirit masters will display their spirit rings in normal combat.

He had tried this countless times back then when he wanted to learn by analogy from Liu Erlong's dragon transformation secret technique, and there were no exceptions.

However, the next moment, his common sense was completely overturned.

The soul skill was activated again.

The two spirit rings, which had clearly sunk into his heart, lit up again.

Lin Yu could sense two beams of light emanating from deep within his heart, one yellow and one yellow, which, after passing through the walls of his heart and chest cavity, became two blurry halos.

This time, however, the effect of the activated soul skill was completely different from before.

The first spirit ring's spirit skill became Blood Concentration. Lin Yu could clearly feel the blood in his body instantly become viscous, the water in the blood plasma was rapidly drawn away by some force, the volume of the blood shrank by nearly 30%, but the energy contained in the blood increased several times.

This concentrated blood carries a heavy, substantial feeling as it flows through the blood vessels, each pumped out of the heart with even greater momentum.

The soul skill of his second soul ring became Earth Element Control. Beneath the stone floor of the training room, the deeply buried earth elements began to surge restlessly, and fine dust rose from the cracks in the ground, gathering into wisps of grayish-brown smoke in the air, slowly swirling around his calves.

Lin Yu was stunned for a moment, then focused her senses on her heart.

Upon closer inspection, he realized that the one controlling the spirit rings was not himself, but the three-headed fire lion that had just settled down.

It had moved from somewhere deep inside the heart to the very center of the heart. Although the beast's appearance was just a blurry orange-red shadow, its outline was clearly discernible—three heads, one large and two small, a robust torso, four thick legs, and a swishing tail.

By the time Lin Yu's consciousness caught this scene, the three-headed Flame Lion had already done something unbelievable to him: it plunged its entire body into the second yellow spirit ring.

It wasn't that the spirit ring swallowed it; it crawled inside on its own.

Moreover, after it went inside, the aura of the three-headed fire lion not only did not disappear, but became more stable and clearer.

It established a connection with that yellow spirit ring that Lin Yu had never seen before.

It's not a master-servant relationship between the Soul Master and the Soul Ring, but a symbiotic relationship.

The spirit ring becomes more active because of its entry, and it also uses the structure of the spirit ring to firmly fix its own consciousness.

Three question marks quickly appeared above Lin Yu's head.

In his early years, he did attempt to study the internal structure of spirit rings. At that time, he relied on his Blood Spirit, which allowed him to fuse his consciousness and spirit power.

He had probed his consciousness into the soul ring more than once, following the soul power.

But the result was always the same: as soon as the consciousness entered the soul ring, it would be caught in a violent vortex of energy and then ground to dust like being thrown into a meat grinder.

He still vividly remembers the pain of having his consciousness torn to pieces, as if someone were stirring his brain with a red-hot iron skewer.

Later, he gained a cheat code in forging and never bothered with the inside of the spirit ring again. But he never forgot the terror inside the spirit ring.

He had assumed that once the consciousness of the three-headed fire lion entered the spirit ring, it wouldn't be long before it was crushed into fragments by the violent energy inside the spirit ring and then spat out by the spirit ring like bone fragments.

However, he waited and waited, but the fragments of consciousness he had imagined did not appear.

Instead, a new wave of consciousness emanated from the depths of the soul ring.

The frequency of this wave of consciousness was very stable, carrying a tentative and cautious tone, as if someone gently knocked on the door in the dark and then whispered something.

"My lord——your lord?"

The voice wasn't heard through the ears, but appeared directly in Lin Yu's consciousness. The voice was dry and stiff, like someone who hadn't spoken in a long time being suddenly forced to speak, with obvious uncertainty and hesitation in the tone.

The one who spoke to him was the consciousness within his spirit ring.

Lin Yu felt a crack appear in his worldview at that moment. He stared intently at the orange-red light and shadow peeking out from the depths of his heart within the soul ring, remaining silent for a full three seconds, before the word "soul spirit" flashed through his mind.

Isn't this the thing Huo Yuhao created in Douluo Continent II? A Soul Spirit.

The guy who tried to possess me, the guy who never showed his face from beginning to end, actually managed to conjure up the concept of a soul based solely on his own ideas and understanding.

But the way this spirit was formed is too bizarre. Logically speaking, a spirit should be formed by the combination of a spirit beast's soul and a spirit master's spirit ring, but the consciousness of this three-headed fire lion came from the spirit bone. It was formed when the consciousness of the spirit beast entered the spirit ring while the spirit beast was absorbing the spirit bone.

Is this still a soul? Maybe we should just call it a bone spirit!

Lin Yu silently complained in his heart, but at the same time, a surge of curiosity welled up within him. He suppressed the various questions churning in his mind and transmitted a clear thought to the other party.

"Why do you call me 'Lord'?"

The three-headed Flame Lion in the spirit rings remained silent for a moment, seemingly organizing its thoughts. Lin Yu could feel its consciousness waves slowly fluctuating, like someone clumsily groping for strings on an unfamiliar instrument.

"My Lord, I was born with the help of your martial spirit, and I live with your soul rings, internal organs and blood."

,

Its voice was smoother than before, though still somewhat hesitant, but at least it was no longer stammering: "Everything I have comes from the Lord. Without the Lord, I cannot survive."

Born from one's own martial spirit? Lin Yu raised an eyebrow. That was a novel idea.

His martial soul is Golden Blood Silver Soul, but it excels at nourishing and cultivating the soul. He was able to successfully forge his spirit by relying on the characteristics of his martial soul.

However, the ability to transform the remnant consciousness within a soul bone into a soul spirit is something that would probably drive the entire soul master world mad if it were revealed.

"Do you still have any memories of your life before you died?"

Lin Yu asked the question that he cared about most.

"Reporting to the Lord," a hint of confusion was revealed in the fluctuations of the three-headed Flame Lion's consciousness.

"All I know is that I am a three-headed fire lion, skilled in multitasking, fire elemental control, mental pressure, and able to learn and activate the soul skills in my master's soul rings. As for my memories from my previous life—"

It paused, a sense of emptiness surfacing in its consciousness, "Nothing. Nothing at all."

She had no memory of her previous life. Lin Yu silently memorized this information.

The Blue Silver Emperor is able to have memories probably because she was directly taken from a living Blue Silver Grass, rather than from a dead soul bone.

Consciousness extracted from living beings retains memories, while consciousness extracted from inanimate objects like soul bones only retains instinctive skill recognition.

Looking at it this way, it's clear that the Blue Silver Emperor might indeed be hiding something different. But now is not the time to investigate that.

When the topic of soul skills came up, the Three-Headed Flame Lion suddenly stopped. Its consciousness became somewhat unstable, as if it was concentrating on perceiving something, and the orange-red light within its soul rings flickered several times.

After several seconds, it spoke again in a somewhat uncertain tone.

"My lord, the skills I can use—seem to be quite different from the skills you can use."

Lin Yu subconsciously wanted to ask what was different, but before he could ask the question, a violent burning sensation exploded and spread from his right leg.

It was a scalding energy gushing from the deepest part of the bone, centered on the right leg bone, spreading upwards along the medullary cavity.

Wherever the energy passes, the bone marrow inside the bones churns like boiling oil, making a bubbling sound as bubbles burst. Each burst pushes a wave of scorching heat against the surrounding bone walls.

Lin Yu's right leg, from the thigh to the knee, felt as if molten iron was being poured into it from the inside. It was hot, heavy, and accompanied by a throbbing pain as if the bone was about to burst from the inside.

"Do whatever makes you comfortable, don't bother me!"

Lin Yu hurriedly sent this thought to the three-headed Fiery Lion in his soul ring, suppressing all his previous questions and instantly focusing all his attention on his right leg.

The scene before him made his pupils shrink.

On the surface of his right leg, a distinct bulge rose beneath the skin. The bulge was extremely irregular in shape, with sharp angles, clearly the outline of a bone. A section of bone, remarkably similar to a human leg bone, was being pushed out bit by bit from the flesh of his right leg, densely wrapped and bound by countless gold and silver threads.

Six six six, this means it sucked up all the energy from the soul bone and then spat it out!

Gold threads were on top, and silver threads were on the bottom. The two colors of threads were interwoven to form a dense, two-tone net that completely wrapped the bone.

As the bones move outward, you can hear the faint tearing sound of flesh being stretched apart, as well as the teeth-grinding crunching sound of bones rubbing against each other.

Lin Yu was already used to this scene. He had long expected the silver robe and golden armor to have the ability to devour soul bones.

But to his utter surprise, the way the golden and silver threads fed back nutrients to the soul bone was so brutal. It wasn't like this when he absorbed the Blue Silver Emperor's right leg bone last time! Oh wait, that time his consciousness was locked within the bones and didn't participate in the energy absorption.

The scalding energy was injected directly into the depths of the bone marrow without any buffering or filtering.

It felt like someone was shoving a red-hot iron pipe into his bone marrow cavity and then pouring molten iron down the pipe all at once.

The moment the energy comes into contact with the bone marrow, it hisses and burns. The water in the bone marrow is vaporized by the high temperature, forming countless tiny bubbles that dart around in the bone marrow cavity.

hot.

It's so hot!

Lin Yu was burned so badly that she could smell the burnt odor emanating from her body—the smell of small amounts of protein and fat in her bone marrow being roasted by the high temperature, carried to her lungs through blood circulation, and then exhaled with her breath.

The burnt smell mingled in the air, carrying a sweet, pungent tang reminiscent of raw meat being roasted over a raging fire.

Even worse, he couldn't expel this energy. The high-temperature energy had been recognized as a "usable resource" by the silver-robed, golden-armored warrior, and once it entered his bone marrow, it formed a forced bond with his body.

A surge of hot air rose in his throat, and as his lips moved, visible heat even escaped from the corners of his mouth, but he was unable to truly expel the energy from his body.

Even more critically, if he doesn't quickly channel this scorching energy from his right leg to all parts of his body, the energy will become stagnant in his right leg.

Once a blockage forms, the bone marrow cavity will be continuously burned by high temperatures. At best, this will affect the future cultivation potential of the right leg bone; at worst, the bone marrow will be completely burned, rendering the entire right leg unusable.

It's just pain, it's not like you'll actually be burned to death.

Lin Yu gritted her teeth and forcefully probed her consciousness deep into her bone marrow, using her own will as a guide to transfer that scalding energy from the bone marrow of her right leg outward.

As it turned out, he had overestimated his patience.

Although the burning sensation on my right leg was intense, there were relatively few nerve endings in the bone marrow cavity, so the pain was confined to the area of ​​one thigh.

He gritted his teeth, held his breath, and the veins on his forehead bulged out; he had indeed withstood the test.

The energy travels upwards along the femur of the right leg, then flows through the pelvis, converging on the spine and left leg respectively.

When the scorching energy split into two streams at the pelvis, Lin Yu could even hear the cracking sound of the cartilage at the junction of her pelvis and bones being baked by the high temperature. The sound was like wood exploding in a fire, and each sound was accompanied by a sharp pain that seemed to be drilling out from between her bones.

The moment the burning sensation spread to his spine, Lin Yu's body suddenly arched.

The nervous system in the spine is so dense that the spinal cord, as the convergence point of all the body's nerves, amplifies the perception of any stimulus countless times.

The scalding energy was like being poured into a pipe full of wires, activating every nerve root simultaneously with the intense heat, sending pain signals to the brain in an explosive manner.

The intensity of the burning sensation is amplified a hundredfold within the spine.

What was originally just scalding energy in the leg bones transformed into thousands of red-hot steel needles in the spine, simultaneously piercing the center of each vertebra.

The pain wasn't a sharp, stabbing pain from the outside in, but a throbbing, burning pain radiating outward from the deepest part of his bone marrow, as if someone had disassembled his twenty-six vertebrae one by one, poured molten iron into them, and then pieced them back together.

Lin Yu's muscles spasmed all at once, the muscles in his back were as hard as stone, the muscle bundles on both sides of his spine twitched violently, and the traces of muscle twisting could be clearly seen under his skin.

Large beads of sweat poured from every pore on his body, evaporating into a white mist in the cool air of the training room. He opened his mouth wide to inhale, but found that his diaphragm was stiffened by the pain, making even the most basic action of breathing extremely difficult.

The training room was filled with the steam rising from his body, carrying a strong, sour and salty smell.

His clothes were soaked with sweat within seconds, the fabric clinging tightly to his body, outlining the contorted shape of his body due to excruciating pain.

Sweat dripped from his chin onto the ground, each drop leaving a small, dark, damp stain on the stone slab.

At this moment, Lin Yu desperately hoped for something to help him distract himself. Anything would do, even something that was also painful.

As long as he can focus all his consciousness on the burning heat in his spine.

"Jin Lei!" Lin Yu's voice was squeezed out through clenched teeth, his throat filled with heavy breathing.

"Where's Jin Lei? Is the lightning power ready? Give it to me now!"

Almost the instant his thought was transmitted, a bolt of purplish-gold lightning shot out from somewhere within his body, accompanied by a sharp crackling sound, and struck straight toward his spine.

The moment lightning struck the bones, a faint smell of ozone filled the air—the distinctive odor left behind after lightning ionizes the air.

Purple-gold arcs of electricity leaped and crawled across the surface of the bones, emitting dense crackling sounds. Each point where an arc exploded reflected a small patch of purple-gold light under Lin Yu's skin.

Jin Lei's bone tempering method is from the outside in; electrical energy penetrates from the surface of the bone into the interior, striking the bone layer by layer.

The flow of soul bone energy is from the inside out, spreading from the depths of the bone marrow to the surface of the bones.

The two energies, one internal and one external, and in opposite directions, did not clash at the moment the lightning struck; instead, they formed a delicate balance.

The external lightning strike pushes the heat inward, while the internal heat pushes the heat outward. The two forces partially cancel each other out when they meet in the middle layer of the bone.

Being struck by the golden lightning did alleviate the searing pain in his bone marrow considerably. Although his bones were still burning hot, at least he no longer felt the fear of being burned through at any moment.

The tingling sensation from the lightning strike spread up and down the spine, temporarily suppressing the burning pain signals.

Taking advantage of this lull, Lin Yu quickly adjusted the distribution of energy within his body. He divided his consciousness into several streams, simultaneously controlling the scalding energy in his bone marrow to flow towards the main bones of his limbs.

Time was too tight and energy too abundant; he simply didn't have the luxury of precisely directing energy to every finger bone and every toe bone. He could only choose the most efficient option: distributing energy along a few major skeletal lines.

The humerus, radius, and ulna of both arms. The femur, tibia, and fibula of both legs. Plus the pelvis and scapula.

The energy spreads rapidly through the main bones, and each bone that is infused with energy becomes scalding hot within seconds, then the temperature slowly drops until it stabilizes within a tolerable range.

This process creates a strange sense of weight, as if the bones were infused with liquid metal, becoming heavier and denser than before.

Soon, the main bones of the limbs and torso were filled with scorching energy. Now, only the head remained.

Just as Lin Yu was about to channel the energy into the skull in one go, something came to his chagrin.

"Master, Master," Jin Lei's voice rang in his mind, filled with obvious fatigue and weakness, "I can only do it one more time, or I won't be able to control my strength."

"What?!"

Lin Yu was completely devastated.

Jin Lei is usually quite resilient, isn't he? When he was tempering his bones before, he could still be lively and energetic even after being struck a dozen or twenty times. Why is he so weak after only a few strikes today?

It's important to understand that the lightning power within the Bone-Shattering Staff is anything but gentle. The reason Jin Lei can use it for bone tempering instead of killing is entirely due to his precise control over its force.

The intensity, duration, and angle of each lightning strike are precisely controlled by Jin Lei within the limits that the human body can withstand.

If controlled properly, it can be a powerful tool for tempering bones. If not controlled properly, given the level of lightning power within the Bone-Shattering Staff, it's no different from being struck by lightning, or even worse!

The most critical issue is that only the most crucial part—the head—remains to be tempered. The tempering of the spine has already driven him to the brink of collapse with pain, and the tempering of the skull will only be more grueling.

Because the nerve distribution in the skull is denser than in the spine, the brain inside the skull has absolutely no ability to buffer pain.

If he were to experience that burning sensation a hundred times stronger during the skull tempering process again, he would definitely faint on the spot.

At this moment, he had already forced his energy to the upper part of his spine, just one step away from the skull.

There's no turning back once the arrow is released; the energy has already been delivered to this point. If we stop now, the entire skull's tempering will have to be postponed until the next time.

The thought of experiencing that pain again sent chills down Lin Yu's spine.

"Master," Jin Lei's voice carried a hint of grievance, "it's not that I'm not durable enough. It's just that someone outside was probing my situation, and I blocked their probe, wasting a lot of my mental energy."

Is someone investigating Jin Lei's situation?

Lin Yu's mind raced. Xue Qinghe? How could he be so inconsiderate? They'd known each other for five years, and in those five years, Lin Yu had shielded him from countless troubles and resolved countless problems for him, all while Xue Qinghe had always acted so loyal and devoted. Now, at this crucial juncture in his cultivation, he'd actually let someone come and investigate?

Jin Lei quickly began to explain.

"Master, the person who examined me just now wasn't exactly offensive. He seemed to have originally wanted to help you clear the energy in your bones, but then you called me, so he examined my condition."

Want to help clear the energy in your bones? It seems I misunderstood the other person.

However, without Jin Lei's help, Lin Yu would absolutely not dare to rashly pour that scorching energy into his skull.

Unlike the bones of the limbs, problems with the skull at most affect mobility. The skull is closely connected to the brain, and if the energy gets out of control, it can cause anything from being in a coma for ten days to half a month to damaging the very source of consciousness, turning someone into an idiot.

Since the person outside wanted to help her, and her efforts had backfired, she decided to stop struggling and wait for him to offer assistance.

Just as Lin Yu gave up struggling, the person outside seemed to have sensed Lin Yu's thoughts.

"Young friend, I was rash. Don't resist. I will help you clear the obstruction in your body."

A large, strong, and gentle hand gently supported the back of his neck from behind.

The moment the palm touched her, Lin Yu felt a slight pressure under the skin of the back of her neck.

The hand was large, with its five fingers spread almost covering the entire back of his neck. The palm was dry and warm, and the fingers applied just the right amount of pressure to firmly support his cervical spine.

Before he could react, the ball of scalding energy that had been lodged at the top of his spine was precisely drawn away by an external force.

That external force carried a quality that Lin Yu had never experienced before: heavy, gentle, yet irresistible.

It was like an invisible hand reaching into his body from the outside, grabbing the scorching energy that was about to go out of control, and then, at a speed that he didn't even have time to react, pouring the energy directly into his entire skull from the top of his spine.

The process was extremely fast, so fast that before Lin Yu's consciousness even generated the thought of "danger," the energy infusion was already mostly complete.

But that's not the most crucial point.

Most importantly, a layer of energy that was gentler than the energy of the soul bone appeared out of nowhere between his bones and soul bone energy.

This layer of energy possesses an incredible property, acting like a sophisticated filter that isolates the violent, almost bone-burning heat from the soul bone energy, allowing only beneficial nutrients and energy to permeate evenly into every tiny structure of the bone through the filter.

After the energy entered the skull, it did not wander around randomly as before, but was guided by that external force and spread evenly in every corner of the skull.

The frontal bone, parietal bone, occipital bone, and even the sphenoid and ethmoid bones—these complex small bones—each received an equal amount of energy.

The depth of energy penetration is also controlled perfectly: it reaches just the deepest layer of spongy bone, but does not touch the intracranial cavity.

It was as if a most experienced craftsman was guiding him through a delicate task.

Moreover, Lin Yu felt a strange warmth envelop his entire head. That warmth didn't just stay at the bone level, but penetrated deeper into his consciousness.

The feeling at that moment was extremely strange. My mind, which had been stretched to its limit by the intense pain, relaxed slightly under the warmth.

He even had the illusion that he saw light, a golden, soft, and non-glaring light that made him want to immerse himself in it.

The light carried a reassuring power, like standing in the afternoon sun, closing your eyes, and feeling the warm orange halo of sunlight falling on your retina through your eyelids.

In the training room, Lin Yu's face, which had been contorted with pain, gradually relaxed. His tightly furrowed brows loosened little by little, and his clenched teeth slowly loosened as well.

His taut back no longer resembled a fully drawn bow, and his shoulders gradually slumped down from their hunched position.

Lin Yu lingered in that gentle embrace for less than a second before snapping back to reality and decisively ordering, "Golden Lightning, strike me once."

Crack!

The purple-gold lightning struck his skull with pinpoint accuracy the moment he finished speaking.

The moment the lightning struck his skull, Lin Yu's hair stood on end, with tiny arcs of electricity crackling and popping between the tips.

The metallic smell of lightning mixed with the odor of ozone wafted into Lin Yu's nostrils, abruptly pulling her consciousness from that gentle immersion.

From the outside, his body trembled violently, his eyelids twitched a few times, and then his eyes snapped open.

The first thing he saw was a middle-aged man squatting beside him.

The distance was too close; Lin Yu could see the pattern of every thread on the other person's collar and smell the faint scent of fabric that smelled like it had been dried in the sun.

The other person was wearing a plain-colored robe of excellent quality, with a subtle pattern on the surface that flowed with the changing light. More importantly, one of the other person's hands was still supporting the back of his neck.

The hand was large and dry, with the skin on the knuckles showing the thin calluses of someone who had wielded a sword for many years. Under the skin on the back of the hand, several thick and powerful blue veins could be faintly seen.

The middle-aged man had a kind face and a gentle expression, but he seemed a little apologetic when he saw Lin Yu wake up.

The years haven't left deep marks on his face; only a few fine lines at the corners of his eyes and faint nasolabial folds on either side of his mouth. The direction of these lines gives him a kind and gentle air even when he's not smiling.

But what really caught Lin Yu's attention were the other person's eyes: those eyes were very deep, as deep as an ancient well with no bottom, containing too many things that Lin Yu could not understand.

That profoundness wasn't deliberate; it flowed naturally, a weight accumulated over the years and through experience, making Lin Yu instinctively want to look away.

Lin Yu glanced discreetly at Xue Qinghe on the other side of the training room and noticed that he was just standing there. She smiled at him somewhat embarrassedly.

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