Having completed the cultivation of the Withered Wood Technique, He Yiming left openly to settle his accounts. Only then did he realize a full day and night had passed while he focused on this practice.

This was the longest duration he had ever spent cultivating a single technique, prompting a soft sigh in his heart.

However, if other cultivators knew of this, they would surely be struck with the notion of ending their own lives. A mere day and night. For the average practitioner, it was difficult enough merely to study the manual, let alone master a technique within such a short span.

Yet, He Yiming had managed to advance from the first layer to the peak of the tenth layer in this incredibly brief time… This was absolutely beyond the limits achievable by a human.

It was fortunate that no one knew of this achievement. If the truth were revealed, it would certainly ignite boundless curiosity and envy. Even with his considerable power, he might not escape the fate of being dissected. Of course, first, the discipline of anatomy would need to exist in this world.

After paying, He Yiming lingered not a moment but headed toward the deep mountains beyond the county town. With his current strength, going without food or drink for a day and night was hardly an issue; he could manage several days without sustenance.

Taicang County was dominated by rugged mountain ranges. While there were few truly towering peaks, a chain of mountains stretched from the distant East to the endless West, slicing across the entire county. This geography resulted in complex terrain and arduous roads. The count of decent official roads was pitifully small, which was the primary reason Taicang County lagged so far behind its neighboring counties.

For He Yiming, however, traversing the narrow mountain paths made little difference compared to a wide highway.

An hour later, he stopped in a secluded spot, far from any human trace. The forest was the best environment for cultivation. No matter how much damage he inflicted, the wilderness would slowly erase the evidence.

He Yiming recalled his grandfather mentioning distant environments like deserts and swamps—the perfect places for eliminating witnesses—but he had never seen them himself and therefore could not truly imagine them.

In the deep woods, certain of being unwatched, He Yiming let out a sharp cry, circulating his inner strength furiously. The tenth-layer Withered Wood Technique energy instantly erupted.

His mind was suddenly filled with a sense of profound quietude, as if nothing in the world mattered. It was as if he had transformed into a towering ancient tree, standing firm for millennia.

Almost simultaneously, his body underwent an extremely subtle transformation: his muscles began to visibly atrophy at a visible rate. This was not true decay, but rather a method by which a formidable defensive power manifested on his skin. He even felt that even if a blade struck him at that moment, it would fail to inflict the slightest damage. However, if his grandfather were to strike him with his great broadsword, he would certainly flee as far as possible.

Among the techniques he had mastered, the Withered Wood Technique was indeed unrivaled for defense. A thought suddenly crossed his mind: if he could find a top-tier Earth element inner strength technique to cultivate, how formidable would his defense become? Naturally, common Earth element techniques, like the trash stored in his family’s scripture pavilion, could hardly compare to the Withered Wood Technique.

His thoughts raced, but his movements remained swift. He took a stride forward and swung his arm toward a tree trunk as thick as a man’s torso.

Crack. A piercing sound erupted. The tree was not felled, but He Yiming’s entire arm passed straight through it.

His eyes brightened. The offensive power of the Withered Wood Technique was not insignificant, seemingly equal to the tenth-layer Primordial Force. Moreover, because his arm muscles had shrunk and his tendons and bones had condensed like iron, passing through the tree caused him no sensation whatsoever. It was as if he had passed through a sheet of paper rather than a thick log.

Pulling his arm back, he noticed a slight stiffness in his joints, particularly when trying to rotate them—a slight difficulty in control. But compared to the sheer power of the Withered Wood Technique, this minor flaw seemed insignificant.

Applying slight force with his feet, his knees remaining rigid, his body tense, the power originating only from his toes caused him to leap over a long distance into the air. Mid-air, feeling the wind rushing past, he spread his arms and descended like a wooden stake.

Upon landing, he found himself several meters away. This result surprised him somewhat. The speed under the Withered Wood Technique was certainly not slow; it was just that this method of leaping seemed antiquated. If someone saw him at night, they might associate him with some strange entity emerging from a long, rectangular box large enough to hold a man.

Suddenly, a childish impulse struck him, and he began bounding wildly through the dense woods in this manner. With his tenth-layer internal energy as the base, even with unbent knees and stationary arms, his feet acted as if spring-loaded, rocketing him forward.

Along his path, small animals fled, and even a pack of wolves turned tail and ran. After all, such a bizarre creature had never before appeared in the great forest. Though this being emitted no sharp aura, its ability to jump at least two meters high and several meters forward with every bound was enough to strike terror into most beasts.

Half a day later, He Yiming finally tired of playing and stopped. He circulated his inner energy, allowing the Rippling Force to flow through every meridian. In a short moment, his body returned completely to normal.

A smile of excitement bloomed on his face, accompanied by an irrepressible joy, like a child who had received a delightful new toy and couldn't bear to put it down.

Slowly, he calmed himself. At that moment, he felt a strange sense of bewilderment. How long had it been since he experienced such a feeling? It seemed that ever since that night when he obtained something in the lake, this sensation had vanished. After that day, his heart became heavy, and the joy of childhood seemed to drift far away from him.

For two years, he had not felt such unrestrained, carefree happiness. Looking at his arms, now restored to their strong, vigorous state, a question suddenly surfaced. The Withered Wood Technique could quiet the mind, but what had quieted just now seemed not to be his true self, but a facade he had been desperately suppressing. Once this veneer shed, what was revealed was his genuine nature.

He gazed silently at his hands, like an inert statue, as countless thoughts flooded his mind. After a long, long pause…

He looked up at the sky, his eyes now clear. "With great power comes great responsibility"—these were the words his father often repeated. Having gained the miraculous encounter in the lake meant he was destined to lose something. If he could choose again, if he could return to that night, he would still dive into the water without hesitation. But this time, he would not be lost; he would be resolute, accepting a hundred deaths without regret.

In this instant, every small detail of the past two years surfaced. His heart seemed to undergo an elevation, a metamorphosis akin to a chrysalis shedding its shell. His eyes held no trace of hesitation or confusion anymore.

With a slight wave of his sleeve, his internal energy continued to flow ceaselessly. But this time, he was not employing just one inner strength technique; he was using the four main techniques he practiced, circulating them alternately within his body. First, the Metal element Primordial Force, followed by the Water element Rippling Force, then the Wood element Withered Wood Technique, and finally the Fire element Blazing Fire Technique. After one complete cycle, the energy returned to the Primordial Force. Thus, the cycle repeated, seemingly endless.

Moments later, He Yiming perceived clearly. As the inner strength transitioned and flowed, his body felt light, almost ethereal. It seemed his abilities had increased tremendously in an instant, accompanied by a powerful confidence, a sense of mastering all things. This confidence also manifested in his control over his inner strength; he felt capable of instantly recreating the feeling of cleaving the Golden Crown Python in half with a single strike. He seemed able to control the four different inner strength techniques simultaneously and unleash them instantly.

However, this was merely a feeling, and it slowly began to fade. Because when his inner strength transitioned from the Blazing Fire Technique back to the Primordial Force, he encountered a strong sense of obstruction. This sensation was intensely uncomfortable, completely shattering the unified feeling. Furthermore, as this uncomfortable feeling intensified, the conversion between these main techniques became unsustainable. It was like a precision machine where a fatal flaw in one component halts the entire mechanism.

With a long sigh, He Yiming finally and dejectedly gave up. Yet, he now understood the root cause and the solution: cultivating one more Earth element technique should resolve the issue. But his desire to do so was not strong. At his current level, ordinary techniques held no appeal. After all, with his present strength, below the Thirty-Six Forms of Mountain Splitting, even his grandfather or Xu Yinjie might not be his match. Moreover, even if he solved the problem, the consequence of collapsing into unconsciousness after a full-power strike was like a fly mixed into soup, making him reluctant to touch it lightly.

Shaking his head slightly, He Yiming looked at the fading sunset painting the horizon and quickened his pace toward his ancestral home.

Ps: White Crane apologizes; I was out today and just returned! Posting late, please forgive me, brothers and sisters. White Crane flaps his wings and vanishes for now…