High Martial: I Grind Professions

Chapter 285: Chapter 171: Great Sun Realm

As the faint chimes of a midnight bell drifted from the distance, Li Wen rose to his feet.

”Dad, Mom,” he said, ”I have to get back. I can’t leave the city gate unattended for too long.”

Li Hong and Wang Juan quickly stood to see him off, walking him all the way to the courtyard gate.

”You have to be careful! Stay safe!” Wang Juan squeezed Li Wen’s hand tightly once more.

”I will. Don’t worry.” Li Wen nodded, giving his parents a reassuring look.

After leaving the courtyard, he didn’t immediately transform into a streak of light. Instead, he walked through the New Year’s Eve snow, slowly making his way out of the neighborhood.

Only when he reached a secluded spot did a purple streak of light erupt from the ground, piercing the night sky. He reached the familiar, deep-underground courtyard in an instant, his arrival almost perfectly timed with the New Year’s Eve fireworks blooming over the distant city gate.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Li Wen didn’t head directly into his meditation chamber to begin his breakthrough.

With a mere thought, a long, antique-style silver saber appeared in his hand—the very companion that had seen him through countless battles.

He ambled over to the spacious training ground in a corner of the courtyard.

Here, a peculiar spatial structure allowed fine, ”snow-like” motes of energy to drift down leisurely, even deep underground. The crystalline dust glittered faintly under the simulated daylight.

Li Wen stood silently in the center of the field, his eyes closed. His mind grew tranquil, settling like the drifting motes of energy.

His eyes snapped open. A flash of light from his saber!

This training session had none of the usual earth-shattering power, only a deep, restrained intent.

The blade sliced through the air, silent and traceless, yet it seemed to cleave the very motes of energy as they fell.

At times, his movements were as slow and deliberate as moving mountains or filling seas, each subtle shift stirring the air around him;

At others, they were as swift as a flash of lightning or a clap of thunder, yet even at such extreme speeds, he maintained precise control over every nuance of his power.

As his body twisted and turned, the currents of air he generated interacted wonderfully with the falling crystalline dust. It was as if the entire training ground was his partner in a silent, bladed symphony.

Flashes of the saber, motes of energy, and shifting shadows intertwined, painting a unique tableau of power and beauty, of motion and stillness.

An hour slipped by, lost in his state of complete, selfless immersion.

With a final flick, the saber’s light vanished. The swirling motes of energy settled slowly, following the rhythm of his breath.

Li Wen held the saber in one hand and slowly sheathed it.

Not a single bead of sweat dotted his brow. He was brimming with energy, his eyes as sharp as the nascent sun.

’Perfect condition!’ Li Wen thought with certainty, feeling the power within him stirred to its peak, surging and ready to erupt.

He took a single step, and his figure reappeared in the center of the meditation chamber.

He sat down cross-legged and, without the slightest hesitation, produced a lustrous jade bottle with a flip of his hand. He gently removed the stopper.

A pill the size of a longan, wreathed in a swirling mist of gold and crimson spiritual light, rolled into his palm.

Faint draconic shadows and runes seemed to drift across the pill’s surface within the glowing mist, emanating a majestic, heart-stopping energy. This was the Radiant Sun Breaking Pill, a supreme secret medicine for breaking through to the Great Sun Realm.

Li Wen tilted his head back and swallowed it.

The pill dissolved the moment it touched his tongue, transforming into an indescribably scorching torrent that instantly surged through his limbs, his bones, and into the sea of qi in his Dantian.

BOOM—!

It was as if a thunderclap had detonated within his sea of consciousness.

The bright moon at the core of his Dantian—a disc of condensed ice—began to spin furiously.

An invisible vortex began to pull madly at the ambient energy of the outside world. It drew in a vast amount of primordial qi—far more than when he had broken through to the Bright Moon Realm—which penetrated through layers of solid rock to converge on him.

This formed a tangible, golden storm of energy that poured frantically into Li Wen’s body.

If not for the powerful Array barrier protecting this vital part of the city gate, the commotion would have shaken the earth for miles around.

Li Wen pushed the Secret Technique of the ’Nine Heavens Divine Body, Ninth Layer: Completion’ to its absolute limit.

The thunder of the Nine Heavens roared through his meridians, guiding and refining the torrent of energy with tyrannical purity. This was power enough to cause an ordinary cultivator at the Peak of the Bright Moon Realm to simply explode.

Under the frantic infusion of energy, the sea of qi in his Dantian expanded rapidly, its resilience pushed to the absolute limit.

The rapidly spinning bright moon core began to shift in color, from silvery-white to a brilliant, dazzling gold.

Its surface was no longer a pristine, icy disc. Instead, violent ripples of energy appeared, and flares of light, like solar prominences, began to gestate and erupt from within.

’Condense!’ Li Wen roared inwardly. His entire spiritual will, all his insights into the way of the saber, and all his accumulated potential coalesced into an intangible seed of intent. He slammed it fiercely into the ceaselessly spinning, metamorphosing core.

VMMMM—!

A tremendous hum resonated from the very depths of his soul.

The bright moon core, having endured the absolute limit of power and teetering on the brink of a qualitative change, finally completed its transformation.

Dazzling golden radiance instantly replaced all the silver light. A nascent Great Sun—slightly unstable, yet blazing with immeasurable light and radiating scorching, majestic energy—had been born.

It now hung in the center of the sea of qi in his Dantian, which had expanded to several times its original size.

Its glorious divine might illuminated his entire inner world!

At the same time, his spiritual sea of consciousness expanded explosively!

Its original boundaries were torn asunder by some invisible, titanic force, expanding out into the vast, chaotic void. In an instant, it grew to several times its former size.

The once-abundant power of his Primordial Spirit now seemed much more dilute in the new, cavernous space.

However, the miniature Primordial Spirit floating in the center had absorbed the immense spiritual essence from the breakthrough. Its form was now more solid and distinct, and it radiated a pure, dazzling halo of soul-light.

The cells of his physical body seemed to sing, awash in the scorching energy, undergoing a far deeper evolutionary restructuring.

His muscles, bones, meridians, and organs all hummed imperceptibly. Their strength, resilience, and regenerative capabilities all leaped to a whole new level.

With every movement, an aura of life—as heavy as a mountain and as domineering as the rising Great Sun—naturally emanated from him. But his powerful Primordial Spirit swiftly reined it in, confining it to the meditation chamber.