Chapter 25: Self-mutilating Cultivation
After a whole night of refining the desolate bones, Yi Yun could not absorb the energy within the desolate bones without inhibitions.
Yi Yun realized that there was a limit to his absorption before he felt a feeling of fullness. Just like when eating a meal, there would be a point where one couldn’t eat anymore.
If he carried on absorbing the energy, he would feel a turbulent flow of energy within his body, making his body feel numb.
At this point, Yi Yun felt full of strength, and needed to vent it.
He couldn’t wait to go up to the mountains to cultivate!
After arduously waiting till dawn, the day shift came to swap out Yi Yun. Yi Yun raced to the back mountains. He had originally jogged at a slow speed to the mountain entrance, but when there was no one around, he began to run like the wind!
He was like an agile antelope, a simple jump covered five to six meters.
A three-meter high boulder was bypassed with a leap, a five meter tree was crossed through the middle.
Yi Yun was not running, but flying while sticking to the ground! The mountain terrain was complex, but under Yi Yun’s keen senses, no terrain was an obstacle for Yi Yun.
He ran to the top of the mountain and descended from the other side down a valley to reach the back of the mountain.
During this period, Yi Yun had not rested once. While travelling, he maintained a constant deep breathing pace. His heart was beating at a constant frequency, slow, but strong!
After running for an hour, Yi Yun finally stopped. Even after such a long run, neither his face was red, nor was his heart beating fast! Running was also a form of cultivation. After running the distance, Yi Yun enjoyed the sweat on the run.
This location was the furthest away from the village and was safe. Any further, he would go beyond the protection of the wonderland, and could meet huge beasts and desolate beasts.
At Yi Yun’s present strength, he was doomed if he met a desolate beast.
The vegetation was not rich here. A few patches of black rocks littered the ground.
This was black ironstone. Black ironstone was as heavy as steel, and was several times stronger than normal rocks. Even the, moss which could break rocks, could not sprout on the black ironstone.
The place Yi Yun stood was a flat area below a cliff. It was about thirty meters in diameter.
Above the cliff was a waterfall. Numerous droplets of water danced and flew in the air currents, catching the sun and creating rainbows in the mist. This scenery would be a fascinating tourist attraction on Earth.
The waterfall was not considered wide, but the vertical drop was high. It was more than a hundred meters. The wild water flow continued its relentless assault downwards. It was a rumble that could be heard from a distance.
Yi Yun chose this cultivation location previously, precisely for the waterfall.
Yi Yun took a deep breath and circulated the energy within his body. His tough training was about to begin again.
In an isolated mountain wilderness without anyone in a ten-mile radius, Yi Yun practiced each “Dragon Rib Tiger Bone Fist” stance.
There was no lack of boulders at the back of the mountain. Yi Yun had specifically chosen a flat piece of ground with black ironstone.
Yi Yun stood in front of the black ironstone and started sending punches on to it!
How could mere fists made of flesh and blood break apart such lifeless black ironstone?
Yi Yun gritted his teeth, one punch, two punches, three punches…ten punches, twenty punches!
He used all his strength in every punch!
The first few punches resulted in bruised fists. The pain was heart-wrenching as his fists turned bloody. Finally, as the punches flew, his joints began to rattle.
The pain travelled from his fingers to his heart, it was an indescribable pain.
But Yi Yun gritted his teeth and endured through it. His face was drenched in sweat. His lips turned white as his face turned pale!
Only till the point where his fists’ surfaces were nearly bones instead of flesh that Yi Yun stopped.
Following that, he began kicking the boulder. He did so till his legs were covered in bruises. He could barely stand. After a breather, Yi Yun began hitting the boulder with his shoulders and back!
Yi Yun used every possible part he could use, but he was eventually still unable to do anything to the black ironstone; instead, his body was filled with cuts and bruises.
Pain!
Yi Yun rested on the ground. His body was out of strength, and even his vision had blurred.
He focused on his breath, and followed the theories of the “Dragon Rib Tiger Bone Fist” techniques to circulate his energies.
This was a self-mutilating cultivation method that Yi Yun did not dare to try previously.
However, a few hours ago, Yi Yun had eaten his fill of the Frost Python’s desolate bones energy.
The energy contained within the desolate bones was called the Power of Desolates; it was a great gift to any cultivator!
Compared to the Power of Desolates, the herbal essence in the Lian Clan Herb Mountain was trivial.
Even a hundred-year-old herb would be lacking.
With the support from the Power of Desolates, only then did Yi Yun dare to proceed with such self-mutilating practice.
This practice was recorded as the Dragon Rib Tiger Bone Fist’s “Tiger Claws Smite Rocks”, a method to train the bones.
Using the boulder to smite his bones was a tremendously painful and hard process. It was impossible without strong perseverance.
Even with perseverance, he had to have the resources to support it.
If not, one could end up disabled instead of having the bones trained.
Because of limited resources, the members of the warrior preparation camp did not dare to attempt Tiger Claws Smite Rocks.
Only the gifted in the large tribes could withstand such injuries through the consumption of desolate beast meat and soaking in desolate beast blood.
The Power of Desolates rapidly circulated within Yi Yun’s body. His wounds began to itch, indicating the recovery of his wounds.
The desolate bones were indeed top notch, together with the Purple Crystal’s purification; the energy used to heal his body was at a tremendous speed, visible to the naked eye!
The method used by “Dragon Rib Tiger Bone Fist” to train one’s bones, letting the Power of Desolates to heal those wounds was a cultivation method similar to iron forging.
The method of forging swords was to repeatedly hit a steel sword when hot to forge a peerless sword!
Yi Yun’s current practice was similar to the forging of a sword.
He treated his body as the raw steel and the black ironstone as the anvil. Through repeated hits, he forged his body as a form of cultivation!
After resting for six hours, Yi Yun felt that he had recovered. There were scabs on his hands, so it did not affect his movements.
Yi Yun wrapped his wounds with cloth, and without any hesitation dived into the waterfalls!
“Splash!”
The water smashed into his body, like a thousand pound jackhammer!
Under the waterfall was a deep plunge basin!
From the perennial impact from the waterfall, the plunge basin was of an unknown depth. From land, the plunge basin was emerald green with no obvious bottom.
This was the deepest water body Yi Yun could find in the vicinity of the Lian tribal clan grounds.
Yi Yun was practicing another stance of the “Dragon Rib Tiger Bone Fist”–”Dragon Dancing in Vast Water”!
In actual fact, “Dragon Dancing in Vast Water” was not cultivated this way. The vast water referred to the ocean, but there was no ocean in the vast wilderness. Yi Yun could only use the plunge basin of a waterfall.
“Dragon Dancing in Vast Water” was a technique to train a body’s internal organs.
The more Yi Yun practiced “Dragon Rib Tiger Bone Fist”, the more he understood its subtleties.
A warrior’s strength and energy was easily cultivated. But it was much harder to cultivate the tendons, bones and internal organs.
In the stances of the “Dragon Rib Tiger Bone Fist”, a warrior could cultivate his tendons through “Fierce Tiger Descends the Mountain” by pulling his tendons like a bowstring, strengthening them tremendously.
Using “Tiger Claws Smite Rocks”, he could train the bones like steel being forged repeatedly.
As for the cultivation of organs, it was even harder. Organs were incomparable to tendons, as a warrior could not easily control his organs for training.
So the creator of “Dragon Rib Tiger Bone Fist” had came up with the method of “Dragon Dancing in Vast Water”.
“Dragon Dancing in Vast Water” required a practitioner to jump into the ocean and reach a depth of two hundred meters with one breath. The pressure at that depth was extremely high, enough to burst the eardrums and the organs of people!
The water pressure would exert itself on a person’s organs. Under prolonged periods of such pressure, a person’s organs would become even tougher!
Yi Yun took a deep breath and jumped down into the deep depths of the plunge basin while grabbing a heavy rock!