Chapter Sixty-Five: The Marrow Spirit Bone Flame

Late at night—

Qin Feng sat in his room, retrieving from his storage ring the volume his master had given him before he left Skywind City: “The Three Thousand Divine Dragon Force.”

The special paper felt smooth and comfortable in his hands. Raising his eyes, he was greeted by five grand, ancient characters, written in bold, soaring script across the cover.

The Three Thousand Divine Dragon Force!

This was the cultivation method created by the sole Divine Gang Realm expert of the Qin Clan’s ancient lineage. When Qin Feng departed, his master had said: this is a ladder, a heavenly ladder leading to the Divine Gang Realm! It was a manual that drove the entire Qin Clan to both frenzy and trembling awe! Such a reputation spoke volumes about its unparalleled power and uniqueness.

Qin Feng could feel his heart pounding in his chest.

Tonight, he would step through this gateway, ascending the heavenly ladder. Whatever he might achieve in the future would depend on his talent and perseverance.

He opened the book. Lines of neatly arranged, archaic script met his eyes.

This volume had been transcribed by his master himself; thus, the elegant and ancient handwriting was undoubtedly his.

The first page was a preface.

Though the content was somewhat obscure, after reading through it, Qin Feng grasped the general meaning—

Heaven’s favor bestowed the Qin Clan’s descendants with the Azure Dragon’s bloodline. At the age of eighteen, the soul of the bloodline awakens, becoming the essence and spirit residing in one’s flesh and blood. The Azure Dragon, foremost among the four sacred beasts, excels in strength! Though myriad techniques abound, none can match the dominance of overwhelming force! Before the Azure Dragon’s might, all else is but illusion. This method cultivates the power of the divine dragon; the strength of one dragon equals a million “gang” forces; only ten million dragon forces make up the power of a true Divine Dragon.

When the Divine Dragon emerges, even gods and spirits are struck with terror!

The Three Thousand Divine Dragon Force is enough to slaughter all things beneath the heavens!

Reading this preface, Qin Feng’s blood surged with excitement!

When the Divine Dragon emerges, gods and spirits tremble! The Three Thousand Divine Dragon Force can annihilate all beneath the heavens! What unrivaled dominance, what contempt for all creation!

According to the preface, the strength of one dragon equals one million units of gang force.

Ten million dragon forces equate to the force of a single Divine Dragon.

By that calculation, one Divine Dragon Force equaled ten trillion units of gang force! And if this martial art was trained to its highest levels, reaching the effect of Three Thousand Divine Dragon Forces—

Under a single punch, that would be—

Thirty quadrillion units of gang force!

A power vast enough to rend the heavens and shatter the earth!

And this was only the physical force of a single punch!

If he were to add the arts of hardening and force multiplication, could he not strike with a hundred quadrillion, perhaps even a quadrillion units of gang force?

A hundred quadrillion units! At present, even if he exerted all his might, Qin Feng could muster perhaps ten thousand units with a punch! He was still nine hundred ninety thousand short of a single dragon’s strength, to say nothing of the Divine Dragon’s power. The gap was truly immeasurable.

Yet precisely because of this, the extraordinary nature of this art was all the more apparent!

Overwhelming force crushes all techniques! A single strength breaks ten thousand methods!

The more Qin Feng thought, the more his heart raced. He hurriedly turned to the first chapter, the “Dragon Force” section, and began cultivating according to the method described.

He dared not even imagine yet the power of the Divine Dragon, but at the very least, he hoped to quickly attain the strength of a single dragon.

The cultivation method proved simple, especially since Qin Feng had already practiced the “Azure Dragon Gang Refinement.” These two arts were practically the same book, merely divided into different stages.

Thus, he could skip the step of converting his internal energy. With other methods, because of differing energy attributes, one would need to spend time converting existing gang force to the new art’s method before continuing. But with the “Three Thousand Divine Dragon Force,” this was unnecessary.

Qin Feng entered his first session of cultivation, which lasted over three days.

During these three days, he greatly enjoyed the sensation of his strength swelling. Yet most of the increase was in his physical power; his cultivation progress was much slower. This was not due to the method’s inadequacy—in fact, it was so powerful that his body simply could not absorb energy quickly enough!

Although his black soul had already evolved into a two-headed black python, its absorption speed was only about twice what it had been before his bloodline soul awoke.

Now Qin Feng understood why his master had delayed giving him this technique.

His bloodline soul had not yet evolved to a rank capable of quickly cultivating this art, thus progress was slow and difficult.

It seemed that if he wanted to advance faster, he would first need to raise the rank of his bloodline soul.

Or else—

Directly devour the essence of flesh and blood to cultivate!

In truth, these two were one and the same; devouring the essence of flesh and blood was an essential method for raising the bloodline soul.

His master’s intentions were truly profound. To even begin learning this art, one needed at least a Profound grade dragon soul. In his master’s eyes, only someone with an extraordinary bloodline soul like himself could hope to master the Three Thousand Divine Dragon Force.

Qin Feng shrugged and stopped cultivating.

One cannot grow fat with a single bite; patience was required.

He then put on a solemn expression and took from his storage bag a certain item—the Heavenly Demon Blood Qiyi Coffin, one of the Slaughtering Heaven Evil Treasures.

The massive coffin took up more than half of Qin Feng’s room.

He stared at it for a long time.

The coffin looked tattered and unremarkable, but it was precisely this unassuming appearance that highlighted its ancient and extraordinary nature. Without having weathered countless ages, it could never have gained such renown among cultivators, even being ranked among the seventy-nine most infamous Slaughtering Heaven Evil Artifacts.

It was anything but simple.

As the saying goes, great fame is never undeserved. Qin Feng had witnessed its might: a high-stage Heavenly Gang cultivator had been reduced to nothing inside it in an instant.

This time, Qin Feng had brought out the coffin for a particular object within.

He carefully pushed open the lid, always on guard for any changes.

With a sharp creak, the coffin opened a crack. Peering inside, Qin Feng couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.

Such a powerful Red Corpse Patriarch, and yet not even a trace was left—except for a single, bone-white, icy flame, floating at the coffin’s center.

Though the flame was weak, it still burned steadily.

“This is it!”

Seeing the flame, Qin Feng felt a surge of joy.

Truthfully, he didn’t care much for the coffin itself—in fact, he felt a strong aversion to it. Because of Zhan Bai, Qin Feng now yearned for righteousness and the path of virtue. The only reason he kept the coffin was for the sake of this wondrous flame within.

Back in the Qiyi Temple, within the Red Corpse Patriarch’s body, Qin Feng had sensed three mysterious powers—one from the Supreme Eight Extremes Sword, one from the Heavenly Demon Blood Qiyi Coffin, and the last from this mysterious white bone flame.

Qin Feng knew the origin of this white flame, for the Red Corpse Patriarch was once exceedingly famous in the Yunqi Kingdom—a thousand years ago, at least. The ancient records Qin Feng had read in the Divine Dragon Pavilion of Skywind City described it all.

A thousand years ago, the Red Corpse Patriarch was the Grand Elder of the Earth Corpse Sect!

His survival and dominance in Yunqi, indeed throughout the Azure East Domain, owed much to this very flame.

Its name was—

Marrow Spirit Bonefire!