The imposing mountain ranges were shrouded in mist, hazy and lending an air of profound, inscrutable mystery.

The Jinlin Kingdom was one of the nations in the northwest, and Zheng Tong Commandery, positioned toward the western frontier, had a stretch of continuous high mountains just a few li outside its walls.

He Yiming had long since gauged the terrain. After effortlessly hefting the heavy Wenli stone bed, he immediately bolted toward the mountains.

The True Qi within him flowed ceaselessly, the profound mystery of the Dali Jue (Great Strength Art) pushed to its absolute limit at this moment. With every footfall upon the ground, he felt intrinsically connected to the entire earth, able to draw upon its power instantly to replenish the expenditure of his internal energy.

To lift a Wenli stone bed weighing several thousand jin high—even a peak Houtian master might attempt it, especially when their internal force was pushed to the extreme, enabling them to barely succeed.

But to maintain a swift pace while running, as He Yiming was doing, was utterly unattainable.

Yuan Chengzhi and the others absolutely could not fathom how He Yiming managed this feat, which led them to attribute it solely to his innate, heaven-granted divine strength.

However, He Quanxin and He Yitian shared an extraordinary connection with Yiming; in their memories, Yiming had never seemed like a man of such innate power, leading them to be filled with perpetual astonishment. Yet, no matter how much they suspected, they could never conceive that He Yiming had already stepped into the Xiantian realm.

Indeed, if He Yiming had not reached the Xiantian level at this moment, it would have been impossible for him to achieve what he was doing now.

The Xiantian realm, particularly with the Earth-element Dali Jue operating within him, forged a mystical link with the ground beneath his feet. His True Qi surged forth, inexhaustible and endless.

The Yuan Family Estate was already on the outskirts of the Commandery City, deliberately chosen during its construction for its defensible position against the mountainside—easy to guard and difficult to attack. Thus, while He Yiming carrying such a colossal stone bed was somewhat earth-shattering, he encountered few people until he had ventured deep into the mountain forest.

The only exception was when he smashed through two walls upon leaving the estate, terrifying the servants who witnessed the scene into utter fright.

Once inside the deep mountains, the viable paths gradually diminished, especially while burdened with the enormous Wenli stone bed; finding a clear route became increasingly difficult.

But this issue seemed incapable of causing He Yiming any trouble.

He strode through the forest terrain, not following any smooth, main road, yet by subtly shifting his body left and right, he managed to maneuver the stone bed past the towering, ancient trees.

It was as if a pair of eyes resided above him, taking in the entire surrounding environment and precisely calculating every single step he took.

He Yiming’s heart swelled with emotion; a subtle, ineffable smile touched his lips.

It turned out that when his True Qi was exerted to this degree, his connection with the external world was vastly enhanced, granting him the peculiar sensation of being able to command heaven and earth.

It seemed that everything, even what his eyes could not physically see, could form a complete map within his mind, allowing him to make all necessary, correct judgments beforehand.

Before today, he had felt similar sensations, but compared to this moment, the difference was immense.

The adage that pressure begets momentum proved absolutely true; if he hadn't been hauling such a massive stone bed through the wilderness, he might never have reached this level of perception.

Finally, He Yiming arrived at a relatively flat clearing. He turned in a circle, thoroughly satisfied with the topography of the area.

With a gentle toss, he set the stone bed down onto the ground.

His control over the force was subtly masterful to an unbelievable degree; although it appeared he had simply thrown the stone bed, when the behemoth landed, it settled perfectly still, showing no inclination to topple over.

Glancing at the stone bed one last time, He Yiming turned and departed. Without the burden of the stone now, his speed increased dramatically, covering the distance back to the Yuan Family Estate in mere moments.

Upon his return, he discovered the people of the Yuan household were still embroiled in heated discussion, and upon seeing him, nearly every face registered a flicker of dread.

A normal young man might inspire no fear, but when that young man could lift thousands of jin and sprint away like a galloping horse, it became deeply abnormal.

In these few short days, rumors had even begun circulating as to whether he was a demon reincarnated.

He Yiming’s hearing was extraordinarily sharp. Hearing these speculative whispers left him utterly speechless. Fortunately, those spreading the talk were merely ordinary servants ignorant of the truth; the martial artists who practiced internal arts dismissed the rumors with disdain.

However, these same martial artists were now filled with a near-fanatical worship for the strength He Yiming displayed.

Rubbing his scalp, He Yiming hadn't anticipated that merely lifting a Wenli stone bed would cause such a massive stir. He sighed softly, then sought out Yuan Chengzhi, requesting fuel capable of generating intense, sustained heat.

In Yuan Chengzhi’s estimation, He Yiming’s status had just skyrocketed like a rocket.

While he had guessed He Yiming was strong, he had never imagined his power was this unbelievably profound. Even setting aside everything else, the sheer strength required to lift and run with the stone bed was enough to make him feel inferior. Therefore, when He Yiming requested fuel, he readily agreed without hesitation and provided the finest charcoal available.

He Yiming made three round trips, transporting nearly a thousand jin of charcoal up to the mountainside before deeming it sufficient.

With the fuel prepared, He Yiming took out the first segment of the Great Guandao, channeling his True Qi into it until a blade-light several cun long shot forth from the edge.

Under He Yiming’s precise control, this blade-light sank deeply into the Wenli stone bed.

He had observed the stone masons carving the stone furnace previously. Although he lacked their artistry, a Xiantian master carving out stone was far faster than those artisans. Without worrying about aesthetic beauty, hollowing out a large basin in the stone bed was relatively easy.

In the blink of an eye—a mere hour—He Yiming had fashioned a rudimentary stone furnace.

However, unlike the meticulously crafted furnace from the Xie family, this was a half-finished product, lacking even a lid. Its only commendable feature was its sheer size, perhaps more than double that of the Xie family’s furnace.

Having completed the work, He Yiming let out a long breath. Looking at this misshapen, bizarre furnace, a sense of shame washed over him. 'There is a specialty for every trade,' the saying went; compared to those artisans who dedicated their lives to stone carving, he possessed little more than brute strength.

The center of the stone furnace featured a large depression, two meters long and half a meter wide and deep. He Yiming took out the refined steel lodestone (jinggang cimǔ) and placed it inside, then began gradually igniting the charcoal.

He recalled how effortlessly the process seemed when he watched the others at the Xie family’s place, requiring seemingly little effort. But now, directing the entire operation himself, He Yiming realized it was far from easy.

The temperature required to melt the refined steel lodestone was actually much lower than that needed to forge common iron ore. A skilled blacksmith could complete the task easily, but under He Yiming’s management, it became somewhat clumsy. The primary reasons were the sheer size of the stone bed and his inexperience, leading to chaotic and wasteful stacking of firewood.

Nevertheless, after a prolonged period of effort, the temperature finally reached the standard, and the refined steel lodestone inside the stone bed began to melt slowly.

Once all the lodestone had turned into liquid, He Yiming inserted the other two steel rods of the Great Guandao into the molten substance.

Moments later, the liquid slowly permeated the steel rods, causing the color of the entire shafts to gradually change.

It took a full hour for the liquid to be completely absorbed. He Yiming dared not delay, extinguishing all the surrounding charcoal. Fortunately, it was winter; if this were high summer, even with the stone bed, he wouldn't dare build such a large fire in the dense woods.

He retrieved the two steel rods and placed them into the snow bank on the mountainside. Soon, the two scorching hot rods cooled down completely.

He Yiming inwardly congratulated himself; fortunately, the melting point of the refined steel lodestone was relatively low, otherwise, under these conditions, melting it would have been impossible.

He spared a few glances at the now very strange-looking stone bed, and a sudden interest in weapon forging ignited within him.

Without firsthand experience, one never truly knows the difficulty involved, but having tasted that difficulty, He Yiming’s curiosity was thoroughly piqued.

He made a firm decision: if opportunity arose in the future, he would seek instruction from the blacksmiths in the county to personally craft suitable weapons for himself.

The Great Guandao was excellent, but as Yuan Chengzhi had noted, with his strength now combined with True Qi, the 360 jin heavy weapon was beginning to feel slightly too light.

The Dali Jue, this Houtian core cultivation method focusing on Earth element, had begun undergoing subtle transformations as He Yiming reached Xiantian and continuously absorbed the vital energy of heaven and earth from the outside world. This caused his strength to increase incrementally every day, seemingly capable of infinite growth.

He Yiming understood that an ultimate limit to his strength must exist, but he was still a considerable distance from that ceiling.

Even so, this slowly increasing power made the Great Guandao feel somewhat light when he swung it.

If other Xiantian Masters were aware of this situation, they would surely be thunderstruck and utterly bewildered.

While Houtian internal arts were powerful, once a cultivator advanced to Xiantian, they generally became like useless remnants. For someone like He Yiming to continuously cultivate diligently and make a Houtian art exhibit Xiantian effects was an absolutely unprecedented occurrence.

A wisp of True Qi was carefully channeled into the two steel rods, and slowly, a faint reddish glow began to emerge on both shafts.

This was the result of the Liehuo Gong (Fierce Fire Art) being pushed to its extreme, allowing the True Qi to diffuse outward. Naturally, under He Yiming's control, the rod-light was not long, yet it was intensely concentrated.

Holding one steel rod in each hand, he swung them casually a few times, immediately carving deep furrows into the ground. The snow cover, in particular, seemed to have been subjected to intense sunlight all day, melting rapidly.

Satisfied, He Yiming put away the two steel rods, tapped his toe, and the head of the Great Guandao flew up into the air. He twisted his wrist, the two steel rods came together, and then he extended them toward the sky, the other end of the rods fitting precisely into the falling haft of the saber blade.

With a circulation of True Qi, a crisp, locking mechanism sound echoed, and the nearly four-meter-long Great Guandao was magically assembled in his hands.

Even He Wude, who had wielded the Great Guandao for decades, would have been full of praise upon seeing this maneuver, grateful that he had not chosen the wrong successor.

To assemble the Great Guandao with such acrobatic precision and speed demonstrated that He Yiming's understanding of the weapon had reached an astonishing level; without that profound grasp, this feat would have been impossible.

One hand grasped the tail end of the Guandao lightly but firmly, holding the weapon high above his head.

He Yiming’s eyes held an unconcealed excitement. After tempering the blade head, he had been contemplating the issue of the remaining two steel rods. He had assumed it would take perhaps ten years of effort to gather enough refined steel lodestone. Yet, unexpectedly, this desire had been fulfilled inadvertently in such a short time.

Now, holding the fully assembled Great Guandao aloft, He Yiming’s heart brimmed with a powerful, world-overlooking confidence.

He slowly lowered his stance slightly. He Yiming suddenly threw his eyes wide open and unleashed a roar like clashing thunder and cracking lightning.

Following this explosive shout, the sword strike He Yiming held high above his head finally cleaved down fiercely.

This was not his ultimate technique, the Kaishan Sanshiliu Shi (Mountain Splitting Thirty-Six Forms), but a casual slash. This strike carried the imposing might of an avalanche, whipping up a gale as it struck the snowy surface.

Yet, at the very instant the blade edge approached the snow, all the power seemingly vanished from the weapon.

The 360-jin Great Guandao felt as light as thin paper at this moment; the tip gently touched the snow, not even disturbing a single snowflake.

He Yiming leaped up, darting across the snow like a nimble wildcat, while the Great Guandao in his hands was as gentle as a lover's palm, devoid of any fierce, sharp momentum.

Mian Zhang (Soft Palm)—the Water element Battle Skill.

The sword technique He Yiming was executing now was derived from the Mian Zhang.

Around him, a soft, effortlessness vortex slowly expanded. The snowflakes began to drift, and the dried leaves, small pebbles, and debris buried in the snow were drawn into this vortex, as if a magical force radiated outward from He Yiming, pulling these objects to circle around him in mid-air.

He Yiming’s movements grew faster, but no matter how quick his pace, everything remained orderly. As his movements accelerated, the objects within the vortex spun faster and faster.

Finally, when He Yiming’s True Qi reached its zenith, his body suddenly stopped, like a high-speed machine jamming abruptly.

The snow clumps and debris in the air paused for an instant, then, unable to withstand such an immense change in momentum, instantly exploded.

In that moment, a sky-filling rain of snow and rock erupted around He Yiming.

However, around He Yiming, there seemed to be an invisible field that repelled everything outward.

His feet stood planted in a wide stance, his two hands gripping the haft, one hand level with his eyebrow, the other held high above his head, the Great Guandao raised high above him.

Powerful True Qi circulated ceaselessly within his body: starting with Hunyuan Jin (Primal Force), followed by Bowengong (Ripple Force), Kumu Gong (Withered Wood Art), Liehuo Gong, Dali Jue, and finally looping back to Hunyuan Jin.

The Five Element True Qi flowed in a cycle of mutual generation; with the circulation of each element, the internal True Qi strengthened slightly, the blade-light above his head intensified by a measure, and his imposing aura grew fiercer, as if oil were being poured on fire.

After one complete circulation of True Qi, his body was suffused with a vast power that defied verbal description. The magnitude of this force was so immense that even his Xiantian body struggled slightly to contain it.

A faint, pale-golden blade-light slowly extended, stabilizing at just over half a meter. The pale-gold color deepened until the blade-light appeared almost solid, dazzling to a heart-stopping degree.

Suddenly, He Yiming’s body trembled slightly, and the Great Guandao held high above his head flashed down like lightning.

Kaishan Sanshiliu Shi, the Sixteenth Form.

A straightforward strike, devoid of any fancy trickery, plummeted downward.

The immense True Qi instantly condensed into a single point, rushing forward like a shooting star chasing the moon.

“Hoo…”

A sharp sound of cutting wind erupted. A centuries-old tree directly in front of him suddenly exploded. A gigantic sword gash seemed to descend from the heavens, sweeping away everything in its path along the road below.

The whistling sound was incessant, and the ground erupted in a tremendous shower of snow and debris—the sheer magnitude of the impact was a hundred times more terrifying than the previous explosion of snow clumps.

After a long while, when everything settled back into calm, He Yiming looked ahead, and even he felt a prickle of lingering dread.

Before him lay a barren strip of land, thirty meters long and about five meters wide.

Everything that stood within that straight line had been utterly annihilated.

Even the ground bore an indelible mark—a deep fissure extended from his feet forward, as if it had been scoured by explosives, chilling to the bone.

He Yiming drew deep breaths, his heart surging with excitement, rendering him speechless.

He had finally succeeded.

That stunning, earth-shattering strike from the past had finally been recreated successfully through his hands…

Ps: Finally logged in after ten minutes. Will post the next chapter immediately, sigh… I have no words for this luck!