At night, outside the Black Wood Forest Outpost.
By the cool light of the moon, Murphy carefully undid the Silver Button on his leather pouch.
The pale golden powder within the pouch glimred under the moonlight.
He dipped his fingertip in, taking a small amount of the powder. Recalling how he had secretly watched the followers take their dicine, he placed the powder under his tongue.
Then, Murphy gently pressed the tip of his tongue into the hollow behind his upper front teeth. In Breathing and Guiding, this was known as ’building the magpie bridge’.
The principle behind it was quite simple. Pressing the tongue against the roof of the mouth stimulates the salivary glands. The digestive enzys in the saliva could then begin breaking down the dicine’s components. At the sa ti, the posture allowed the blood vessels under the tongue to make better contact with the powder, accelerating the absorption of its active ingredients.
’Why use such a peculiar thod to take the dicine?’
It was, of course, because the absorption rate of the oral mucosa is far higher than that of the stomach and intestines, allowing the dicine to take effect faster and more efficiently.
Although the Knights and their followers might not have understood the profound pharmacology behind it, long-term practice had led them to discover the most effective thod of absorption through trial and error.
However, Rotton’s dying shriek of "Wizard!" led Murphy to a new speculation.
’Perhaps this thod wasn’t created by Knights at all, but originated with those mysterious Wizards?’
Soon, the slightly bitter powder began to slowly dissolve in his saliva.
At first, there was only a slight stinging, but in the next mont, a burning sensation erupted from beneath his tongue. It spread through his entire body with astonishing speed, carried by his microcirculation.
Murphy imdiately activated the Knight’s Breathing Technique—which he had modified with Breathing and Guiding—to direct this dicinal power and help his body absorb it.
But he was soon surprised to discover that the thing absorbing the heat-releasing dicinal power from his blood and bodily fluids wasn’t, as he had imagined, his cells.
It was the ridians!
To be precise, it was the Floating ridians that hadn’t yet been expanded to their limit.
Guided by the breathing technique, the Floating ridians that absorbed the dicinal power began to expand rapidly.
However, the expansion caused by the Knight’s Secret dicine was far too violent. It was like trying to inflate a hundred balloons at once. Only a few of the Floating ridians could withstand such a Rapid expansion; the more delicate ones were overwheld by the influx of dicinal power, feeling as if they were about to rupture.
He hurriedly altered the circulation thod of his Breathing and Guiding, attempting to regulate the violent dicinal power.
Under his guidance, the dicinal power began to circulate through the ridians in an orderly fashion.
But Murphy soon realized that even with the subtlety of Breathing and Guiding, he could not completely ta such ferocious dicinal power.
Forcibly absorbing all of it would inevitably cause irreversible damage to his Floating ridians.
Such damage might not be apparent in his youth, but it would disrupt the body’s internal balance.
It was just like those Martial Artists who practiced Hard Skills, who were often plagued with countless ailnts in their later years.
In contrast, if he used Breathing and Guiding to gradually and gently nourish all his Floating ridians until he reached the Realm of Perfection—where every ridian in his body was expanded to its limit—not only would it slow the decay of old age, but he could even live to be one hundred and twenty.
At that mont, a realization dawned on Murphy. ’So, the human bodies in this world have ridian systems too.’
’The Immortal Cultivation System hadn’t altered my body.’
’It makes sense. Even horses have ridians, which is why the knowledge from Horse Trainer works. How could humans not have them?’
The reason Knights and Knight’s Attendants could so rapidly improve their physical conditioning was precisely because they relied on the Knight’s Secret dicine to quickly expand their Twelve Main ridians and Eight Extraordinary ridians.
But because the Floating ridians were so fine and easily damaged by the dicinal impact, their improvent beca exceptionally slow after they reached a single-arm strength of one hundred kilograms.
’Perhaps those Knights who had supposedly condensed a Life Seed were simply born with special constitutions that allowed them to better withstand the dicinal impact, resulting in less damage to their Floating ridians and enabling them to reach such a realm.’
Murphy, of course, was unwilling to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. As a future Cultivator, he pursued longevity and immortality; he absolutely could not sacrifice his future for a mont of power.
Just as he was preparing to abandon so of the dicinal power, sothing unexpected happened.
The Black Light Energy lying dormant within his spirit suddenly awoke. Like a starving predator, it pounced on the dicinal power he was about to discard.
Murphy could clearly sense the Black Light growing stronger as it devoured the dicinal power.
Although the growth was infinitesimal, he could feel the Black Light becoming denser, as if it had received so form of nourishnt.
The entire process lasted for about an hour.
When the last trace of dicinal power was absorbed, Murphy slowly opened his eyes. He felt a surge of power throughout his body, and so of his Floating ridians had clearly widened from the dicinal impact.
Simply put, the Secret dicine boosted his Cultivation efficiency by 300%.
The original estimate to fully cultivate his Floating ridians was sixty years. Combined with the previous 100% boost from the Black Light, he would now only need twelve years to reach Perfection.
Even allowing for so margin of error, this pace was drastically faster than before.
Of course, for the mont, Murphy couldn’t continue the Cultivation of his Floating ridians. Like an overstuffed stomach, they needed ti to digest and recover.
TAP! TAP!
Murphy carefully weighed the leather pouch in his hand. ’This much will last a month at most,’ he thought.
He shook his head, refastened the pouch, and gazed south in the direction of the Baron’s Castle.
’Perhaps it’s ti to make a move.’
...
After returning silently to the stables, Murphy watched Allen sleeping soundly on a pile of hay.
A mont later, a dim Black Light suffused his body as his bones and skin began to undergo a bizarre transformation.
In the blink of an eye, his appearance had beco identical to Allen’s. Even Allen’s rough, dark, and spot-covered skin—the skin of a man no longer young—was perfectly replicated.
This could no longer be explained by any martial art, such as the Bone Shrinking Skill.
This was a Supernatural Power, one called Thousand-Faced Illusion "Initial Glimpse".
...
The next morning, Murphy found Allen, who was idling with nothing to do. "I went hunting alone in the woods to the north yesterday," he proposed. "I swear I saw plenty of rabbits, but I didn’t catch a single one. I can’t let it go. Why don’t we go together? There are definitely a lot of them over there."
Allen’s eyes lit up. "Let’s go, let’s go! When I went hunting by myself before, I didn’t even have anyone to talk to. It was so boring."
Carrying simple bows and hunting knives, the two chatted and laughed as they entered the dense forest north of the outpost.
The early sumr forest was vibrant with life. Sunlight filtered through the dense canopy, casting dappled patterns of light and shadow on the leaf-strewn ground.
Just as they were tracking a rabbit, an unusual sound ca from the bushes up ahead.
Allen was about to step forward to investigate when a massive tiger burst from the brush, its amber eyes fixed on the two n.
"Run!" Murphy yelled, grabbing Allen and turning to flee.
The tiger was in hot pursuit, its heavy panting growing ever closer.
As they burst through a thicket of bushes, Murphy suddenly stumbled as if he’d been tripped by a root, and he fell heavily to the ground.
"Murphy!" Allen cried out. He instinctively turned back to help, only to see the tiger was just a few ters away, its ferocious eyes locked on the fallen Murphy.
Allen’s face went deathly pale. In the end, his fear won out.
He gritted his teeth and turned, fleeing desperately toward the outpost. He didn’t dare look back for even a mont, terrified that the slightest hesitation would seal his fate as well.
From behind him ca Murphy’s screams and the tiger’s low roar, each sound making him run a little faster.
When a panicked and disheveled Allen stumbled back to the outpost, he imdiately drew the attention of the sentries.
"What happened?" the sentry captain asked, steadying the gasping Allen.
"A... a tiger..." Allen gasped, out of breath. "Murphy... He’s..."
As the other soldiers rushed over to see what was happening, Allen, with a sob in his voice, recounted the tiger encounter. "We were just chasing a rabbit when we ran right into it... the tiger... Murphy tripped... I wanted to help him, but..." At this, he clutched his head in anguish. "That beast... it was just too terrifying..."
The outpost commander’s expression was grave. Since the incident involved a groom for the followers, he imdiately dispatched a small team to search the area.
However, when the soldiers arrived at the scene, they found nothing but a pool of blood on the ground and a few tufts of tiger fur. There was no trace of Murphy.
"He’s most likely dead," the captain sighed upon his return.
Allen stood frozen at the outpost gate, staring toward the dense forest. His face was a mask of self-reproach, grief, and a faint trace of relief.
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