Chapter 40 (Part A) – A breakthrough

Later, Bi Fan sat on top of the Chimera’s back as the Chimera led him through the forest. Bi Fan couldn’t help enjoying the leisurely ride, feeling incredibly pleased with his position.

As the Chimera led him through the forest, Bi Fan came across several demons, but none of them were strong enough to attract Bi Fan’s attention.

The demons they came across were only ordinary; none of them were in the ‘brave’ layer, let alone any higher. Fighting with such opponents wasn’t going to bear him any results.

Unfortunately for Bi Fan, in this part of the devil’s territory, the number of demons that were in the ‘brave’ layer, or higher, was very low.

The Chimera made its way through the forest in a very smooth fashion, meaning that Bi Fan could concentrate on meditating and practicing while he rode the Chimera’s back. He needed to make every minute count.

Bi Fan’s strength had been growing stronger and stronger, but he wasn’t satisfied yet. On the contrary, he was becoming more assiduous towards it with every passing day.

He knew that he had started very late in life as compared to his competition, and hence needed to snatch every second and utilize it for practice.

Moreover, just recently, the Silhouette figure of Yan Yu Si had popped into Bi Fan’s head, and he couldn’t help, but wonder what she was up to.

Yan Yu Si was in charge of the Xuannv palace, and her strength was nothing short of tyrannical.

Bi Fan wanted his strength to transcend that of Yan Yu Si, so that his name could also be taken alongside a genius martial artist like her.

Bi Fan was willing to make any and all kinds of sacrifices to become a successful martial artist.

Recently, Bi Fan’s inner energy had already broken into the ‘brave’ layer and his physical strength was on a rise as well.

Once he breaks through to the next layer, his fighting capacity would see a massive rise. So much so that even if he ran into a whole group of ‘rising sun’ disciples, he need not worry about the consequences of the encounter.

Sometime later, Bi Fan asked the Chimera to stop, and asked him to guard Bi Fan.

Bi Fan settled against a tree and started to practice.

This time, Bi Fan decided to take a Dan pellet to help him make the breakthrough.

The Dan pellet was a very strong one, and as he swallowed it, a huge amount of aura surged throughout his body.

Holding such huge amounts of untamed aura inside one’s body can be very painful and Bi Fan clenched his teeth, as he tried to subdue the pain. He started practicing Quinyang longevity burst to absorb the aura that the Dan pellet was providing.

Quinyang longevity burst was a very low level method to absorb aura, so, the absorption rate was very slow and the he couldn’t utilize the entire Dan pellet.

Unfortunately, even though he was in the ‘spiritual intelligence’ layer, he couldn’t refine aura at the speed which he should be able to.

Even though he had only ingested a ‘brave’ layer Dan pellet, it took him about an hour to assimilate its aura.

In fact, he couldn’t harvest all of it, and almost half of the pellet went waste. Bi Fan could feel its effects, a significant rise in his inner energy, but not enough to break through to the next layer.

Bi Fan had sufficient Dan pellets to break through to the next layer, and since he needed his inner energy to breakthrough to the ‘brave’ layer, it only made sense to take a ‘brave’ layer Dan.

Once he was done absorbing the pellet, he decided to wait a while before ingesting another one.

Bi Fan started practicing his martial arts, and continued to practice till he had depleted all of his inner energy.

With the Chimera standing guard, watching his back, Bi Fan wasn’t worried about being harassed by demons or other humans and could easily continue his practice in peace.

After consuming up all his inner energy, Bi Fan started to restore it, and continued the process till his inner energy was fully restored.

He repeated this process several times, to maintain a form of purity, meaning, without taking Dan pellets. If one took too many Dan pellets to increase strength and break through to the next layer, it often ends up causing a heterogeneous mixture of inner energy inside a person, which tends to effect the future growth very negatively.

Bi Fan decided that it was time to take a second ‘brave’ layer Dan pellet. He ingested the pellet and began refining the aura.

This time, the refining happened at a much faster rate and he was able to harvest a significantly higher percentage of the pellet.

Bi Fan was not rushing into things, and he continued to practice as it was a necessity to have a strong base.

In the two days that passed, Bi Fan had already consumed about eight ‘brave’ layer Dan pellets. It takes time to process so many pellets and on top of that Bi Fan needed to practice as well, in order to maintain a pure energy structure in his body, so he only took the pellets to support his practice instead of using them as an alternate.

In these last two days, Bi Fan had accumulated enough inner energy to make the breakthrough and bottleneck to the next layer.

Bi Fan was preparing himself for the final practice, ready to make the breakthrough to the next layer.

“Chimera, no matter what happens; make sure that I shall not be disturbed.” Bi Fan issued very clear and strict orders.

A backlash is very dangerous. Once a person is on the verge of breaking into the ‘brave’ layer, they must be extremely careful. When the strength is higher, so is the risk; and when such is the case, a person shall not be disturbed. In fact, most people would never opt to do such a thing inside the wild due to the fear of a backlash.

Bi Fan was awfully bold, in fact, if he told people that he tried to break through the bottle neck to next layer inside the devil’s territory, then most people would simply refuse to believe him.

The Marten was also standing close to Bi Fan, guarding him.

With everything set and prepared for the final practice, Bi Fan started the practice for the breakthrough.

Quinyang longevity burst’s speed depends on the energy that surges out of the pubic region, and Bi Fan was careful that he didn’t lose his concentration in doing so.

Currents of energy charged through his body in a steady flow as he prepared to make the breakthrough. Things were going very smoothly, and it was only a matter of time before he would bottleneck to the next layer.

However, when a practitioner hits the bottleneck, the body suffers a huge amount of pain and the person in question must show a great amount of restrain to continue practicing through it.

It requires a great amount of will power, courage and a lot of strength to make such a breakthrough and even then, the task isn’t an easy one.

Bi Fan could tolerate the pain, so he tossed all these thoughts aside and concentrated solely on his practice.

He had been practicing nonstop for three and half hours and mid-way, several demons had tried to approach him, but the Chimera chased them all away.

The Chimera was strong enough to reside in the ‘spiritual intelligence’ layer, and was considered a hegemon, an absolute feudal chief, so ordinary demons wouldn’t dare to come anywhere near it.

“Boom!” his inner energy finally cleared the final checkpoint, bottle-necking to the next layer.