Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Chapter 182: Tempered Will

Blood gushed into the air as the firework dazzled the skies!

As the countless students watched that firework streak upward, their hearts sank.

The mission was complete!

Everyone had become like wooden chickens, not daring to believe their eyes.

The clamorous battlefield and the spells that everyone was still in the middle of casting were instantly frozen in time, as if someone had pressed the pause button for the entire world.

Looking at the firework in the sky, Tang Jie laughed.

He said in a raspy voice, “Anyone else?”

Nobody answered.

A pointless battle!

A foolish battle!

A greedy battle!

Greed and desire made far too many people lose their rationality, lose their judgment, and lose the virtue and ethics that had been taught to them. It was only when the firework shot into the sky that everyone realized what was going on.

At the same time, they were also stunned by Tang Jie’s strength, savagery, and resolve. He had somehow managed to withstand the attack of several hundred people and even kill Lu Fei?

Was this the strength of a second-year?

Could even Bei Canghai do better?

Everyone stared at Tang Jie with fear in their eyes.

No one understood just how much strength Tang Jie had exhausted in this battle.

If not for his incredible recovery ability, if not for the Wuwang Character, if not for his stubborn and unbending will to fight, he might have already fallen.

But in these circumstances, he had still managed to persevere.

Coldly glancing at the crowd, Tang Jie strode forward, and with that, this meaningless battle came to an end.

As Tang Jie walked forward, the crowd automatically parted for him.

He strode forward, leaving bloody footprints in the mud as he made his way to the ferry.

At the shore, the ship had anchored.

Tang Jie slowly boarded the ship.

A student saw that there was nothing left to do here, so he wanted to follow him onto the boat.

Tang Jie shot him a glance, and the student trembled and drew his foot back.

The ship set off to the opposite shore with Tang Jie alone.

Long Dao didn’t dare to believe everything that had happened.

He looked at Tang Jie standing at the prow of the ship, looking back at him with mocking and scornful eyes. Unable to hold himself back, he shouted, “Tang Jie, this isn’t over! You killed Lu Fei!”

Tang Jie raised his head, pointing his chin at Long Dao and fully exhibiting the disdain in his eyes.

“Ba-bastard!” Long Dao wanted nothing more than to crush the bow in his hand.

The ship sailed forward and was soon in the middle of the waters.

Tang Jie only went below the deck once the people on the shore had faded out of sight.

He got down on one knee and vomited blood.

His eyes went dizzy as exhaustion, weakness, and pain swept over his body, and the powerful recovery ability he had relied on all this time seemed ineffective. As time went on, Tang Jie felt himself getting weaker and weaker.

Was this the limit of the Parting Classic’s body refining? Or was it because he had overdrawn more strength than his current cultivation could handle, resulting in a backlash of weakness?

Yes, a human body was still human. How could it possibly recover endlessly? All of this strength was ultimately another expression of energy. When the energy ran out, even the most powerful body would become weak and powerless, right?

“Good kid, I didn’t expect you to grow to such an absurd level after only a year.” A deep voice rang out in his ears.

Tang Jie forced open his eyes and saw the blurry figure of a muscular man standing in front of him. It was none other than the fiend carp, Li Yu.

“Senior…” Tang Jie struggled to speak.

“Don’t move! You used Tempered Will just now and need to take a powerful restorative. Here; drink this!”

“‘Tempered Will’?” Tang Jie said in surprise.

“What? Have you forgotten your lessons so quickly?” Li Yu laughed as he raised the wine jar and began to pour wine into Tang Jie’s mouth.

Large amounts of wine rushed into Tang Jie’s body, serving as a wellspring of energy. Tang Jie instantly felt as if all the cells in his body were purring in unison.

This was an extreme thirst being satisfied, a deep desire his body and heart had for spiritual power.

An irresistible hunger surged up from the depths of his heart, and Tang Jie grabbed the wine jar and began to drink from it greedily.

The wine entered his stomach and traveled through his meridians. Rather than intoxicating Tang Jie with its high alcohol content, it actually made his muddled mind grow clearer and clearer.

Tempered Will… So he had inadvertently entered the Tempered Will state in the middle of battle.

In the process of cultivation, cultivators would accumulate spiritual power and cast spells, during which the entire body would get stronger as it was steeped in spiritual energy, creating an unusually powerful body. When this steeping reached a certain point, one could modify the body. These were known as Hundred Refinement and Nine Revolutions.

Thus, even Spirit Platform Realm students who had never practiced body-refining spell arts would still have bodies much stronger than average, and that was why they could have their throat cut and still not die. So long as it wasn’t a fatal strike, there was always a chance to recover.

At Nine Revolutions, like Gu Changqing, one could even survive one’s heart being torn apart. Only cutting off the head could kill them.

As for Celestial Heart, so long as the Celestial Heart was not destroyed, one could survive having one’s head cut off.

And when one opened the Violet Palace, one would truly break free from the shackles of the physical, and they would be able to come back even if their body were turned to dust.

This was also why cultivators had blood energy. Blood energy was actually when spiritual energy entered the blood and began to alter one’s entire physical body.

Tempered Will was actually the stimulation of all of one’s blood energy, brought upon by a cultivator’s intense will to fight.

At this moment, the will would gain form and guide the body into triggering all of its hidden strength, allowing the user to explode with several times their combat power. Cultivators called this “Tempered Will” because the will was guiding the spiritual power into a massive explosion.

Tempered Will was both good and bad for cultivators.

It was good because it could offer them a temporary boost in power to defeat a powerful foe.

It was bad because it was essentially draining the pond to get at the fish. The entire body was emptied of spiritual energy, even the spiritual energy that nourished the organs. This would cause the body to rapidly deteriorate, and in serious situations, one might even fall to a mortal level.

Tang Jie didn’t know what stage of Tempered Will he had reached, but he truly had entered the Tempered Will state. This was precisely why his recovery ability had failed to work.

And it was also why his entire body was in a weakened state.

But he was certain that he wouldn’t be like other people and become stuck in this weakened state. The power of the Parting Classic would ensure that this weakness would only be temporary.

But Li Yu clearly didn’t know this, which was why he continued to give him spirit wine. “Tempered Will is a trap, but it’s also an opportunity. After Tempered Will, the body is empty of spirit, like a white sheet of paper. Taking a restorative at this time can widen the blood vessels. So long as enough nutrition is provided, the body can be strengthened in a way akin to a single Hundred Refinement. Some extremists rely on this to refine their bodies, but entering the Tempered Will state is easier said than done. It requires a powerful will in desperate straits, and such situations can only be encountered, not created. Trying to enter Tempered Will will only lead one down the wrong path, and ultimately, it will be harder to reach the state even as the situation becomes more dire, causing one to die a violent death. When I saw you fighting just now, I was originally intending to help, but when I saw that you were getting stronger the more you fought, I knew that you might enter the Tempered Will state, so I waited. I didn’t think that you would really do it… wonderful, wonderful, hahaha!”

He heartily laughed.

Only now did Tang Jie realize that Li Yu had been watching his battle the entire time.

But this fellow didn’t feel any duty to save him. When he had seen that Tang Jie might enter Tempered Will, he had decided to just sit back and watch the show.

Tang Jie felt speechless.

Tempered Will had always been dangerous. Just as Li Yu had said, only when someone was in desperate straits but refused to concede, when they struggled to survive while clinging to one final hope, did it have a chance of appearing.

Tang Jie had been able to enter Tempered Will mostly because of the Parting Classic. This had given him a constitution far stronger than his peers and had filled his organs with spiritual energy.

This was akin to mining. One would always stand to extract more ore from a high-grade ore vein than a low-grade ore vein, Thus, Tang Jie found it easier to enter Tempered Will and also suffered lesser side effects.

The fiend carp had actually not saved him for the sake of that minuscule chance, choosing instead to just watch. He really didn’t know if this guy cared about him or not.

But regardless, at least Li Yu was generously pouring jar after jar of spirit wine down Tang Jie’s mouth.

Tang Jie couldn’t even guess how much spirit wine he had consumed, but he could feel that his stomach couldn’t take any more. Li Yu placed a palm on Tang Jie’s body and said, “Absorb the spiritual energy and discharge the remainder. Hurry; absorb the spiritual energy! This is the perfect time to refine your body!”

Tang Jie did as ordered and began to absorb the medicinal power of the spirit wine.

When he had first drunk spirit wine, he had yet to cultivate, so he could only allow the medicinal powers of the wine to work on their own, causing half of it to be wasted. This time, however, he could absorb the wine on his own, so the effects were very different.

He absorbed all the spiritual power while expelling the alcohol through his pores. In a flash, he was utterly drenched in sweat.

Li Yu didn’t seem to care. He instantly pulled out a large slab of meat and shouted, “This is the meat of a hundred-year-old red shark. Eat it! Hurry!”

Upon seeing this meat, Tang Jie felt incredibly hungry and immediately began to tear into the meat. It was only a few bites before the red shark meat was all gone.

Li Yu had already magically produced the meat of various other fiend beasts he had hunted, and he gave it all to Tang Jie while shouting, “Hurry, hurry, eat! Eating right now will have a much better effect, and after this battle, your body is certain to grow a lot! I can tell that you already have an excellent constitution, and it will be even better in the future. Moreover, you’re already showing rare signs of spirit-blood fusion. Not bad, not bad! You have a bright future ahead of you! Hahaha!”

He once more heartily laughed.

As his laughter reached hysterical levels, he suddenly said, “All right! Let me give you something else nice.”

Suddenly, he tore something red from his body and thrust it, still dripping with blood, at Tang Jie. “Hurry! Eat this!”

“What is this?” Tang Jie was startled. The food he had eaten before this had all at least been prepared. Where had this meat that was still dripping with blood come from? He hadn’t seen Li Yu go hunting.

Li Yu laughed. “This is the best restorative food, the meat of a three-thousand-year-old golden carp! Other people can’t even hope to get their hands on it!”

“A three-thousand-year-old golden carp?” Tang Jie was dazzled at first, but then he shuddered and pointed at Li Yu with a trembling finger. “That’s… Isn’t that your…”

“Correct! It’s my meat!” Li Yu laughed.

Tang Jie was almost scared witless by his madness.

The essence of a three-thousand-year-old golden carp truly wasn’t something that just anyone could hope to eat.

Hunting would always outpace reproduction. Once humans reached the peak of the cultivation forest, the fiend beasts were bound to face calamity. Thus, without even considering whether one could beat these fiend beasts or not, one would have to find them first!

While the marketplace had many kinds of spirit foods and spirit meats, most of them were from plants and beasts that were a few years or ten-some years old.

Twenty years was already a top-quality product, fifty years was a treasure, and one hundred years could only be found among wild fiend beasts.

As for thousand-year fiend beasts, nobody dared to even consider such a prospect. Not even Celestial Heart Realm cultivators could eat those whenever they pleased.

Tang Jie had never imagined that a piece of meat from a three-thousand-year-old golden carp would appear in front of him, and he instantly felt dizzy.

He was used to getting everything for himself rather than having gifts delivered to his door.

But sometimes, things just happened that way.