The nights in the Great Wilderness were exceptionally quiet.
At the entrance of the village, the Willow Deity emitted divine radiance only at night. Its willow branches shimmered with divine light, and a soft, greenish glow enveloped Shi Village, making it the only place on earth with light.
This was currently the only extraordinary sight that Shi Heng could see with his naked eyes.
"Big Brother Feijiao, what is it?"
"We're almost there, it's right in that room ahead, heh heh!" Shi Feijiao still chuckled with a sneaky expression.
This stone house was located near the edge of the village. It was built relatively large and differed from ordinary dwellings; from afar, a strong scent of medicinal herbs mixed with a bloody stench drifted over. Shi Heng suddenly understood in his heart—this was Old Chief Shi Yunfeng's secret experimental base.
"Let's go, let's head in together!"
Shi Heng then followed him into the house.
Old Chief Shi Yunfeng and several village elders were picking and choosing among earthenware jars nearby. In the center was a medicinal pool; it was not very large, just big enough to hold a few adults.
Shi Linhu, Shi Feijiao, and several other young and strong men from the village were all among those with the top combat strength in the village.
"Xiao Heng, you're here?"
Old Chief Shi Yunfeng called Shi Heng to walk aside and asked, "Xiao Heng, I wonder if you have heard of the cultivation realms?"
"I only know that what I am training in right now belongs to the Blood-Moving Realm. Anything beyond that, I am not clear about."
"Over the past half month, I have observed that your character is kind and you have nowhere else to go. I wonder if you are willing to join Shi Village now?"
Shi Heng was slightly stunned, then replied, "Thanks to the Chief taking me in back then, otherwise, with my frail little body, I'm afraid I would have long since perished in the forest! In my heart, I have long regarded myself as a member of Shi Village!"
With that, he bowed deeply to the Old Chief.
To the tribe, the elders were all elite survivors of the Great Wilderness who acted as seniors imparting knowledge and resolving doubts. A single minor piece of advice might save a hunter from danger on a hunting trip, so every young man held the elders in deep respect.
"Good! Good! Haha! My heart is well pleased!" The Old Chief patted Shi Heng's shoulder, then continued, "Since you are now a member of our tribe, I will not show favoritism to anyone. Do you see the medicinal pool in the center? Usually, we absorb vital energy from meat to temper our tendons and bones, but the results are minimal. If you want to make rapid progress, you must undergo persistent Medicinal Bath as assistance. However, everyone has different innate talents, and the effects vary. I see that you reached a three-hundred-jin arm strength in just half a month, so your talent must be quite exceptional. However, a Medicinal Bath brings a pain akin to a knife scraping through bones, which ordinary people cannot endure. Are you willing to give it a try?"
"As long as I can establish a foothold in this Great Wilderness, what is a little pain to be afraid of? Chief, I am willing!" Shi Heng was overjoyed in his heart. He had finally waited for the Medicinal Bath. Little Tot was a year and a half old, so the Old Chief's experiments were probably nearing perfection. It seemed he would soon be administering Medicinal Baths to the toddlers in the village.
So he would be the first to experience this wave of knife-scraping agony!
"Alright, go stand aside with Linhu and the others and wait. The elders and I are still preparing, it will be ready soon." With that, the Old Chief walked back to the pile of earthenware jars to pick and choose.
The room stored a large amount of medicinal herbs, secret insects, and Bone Artifacts that the Old Chief had accumulated bit by bit over ten years in Shi Village. After returning from the outside world with his foundation ruined, the Old Chief could no longer advance himself. However, based on ancient medicine formulas left behind by Shi Village and after studying pharmacology, he conducted experiments on the young men of Shi Village, and life in the village finally began to improve.
After a long while.
"You can go down now. Linhu, Feijiao, you few go down first. Heng boy goes down last; the first time, the medicinal potency is lower and easier to adapt to."
"Understood," several of them acknowledged.
"Heng boy, don't cry later, hey!" As soon as Shi Feijiao said this, the others burst into laughter. Immediately following that, Shi Linhu, Shi Feijiao, and the others successively entered the medicinal pool nearby. Each of them grinned and grimaced from the heat. The medicinal liquid in the pool was boiling, and Bone Inscriptions were carved on the surrounding pool walls, emitting a faint glow. This must have been the key to keeping the medicinal pool at a constant temperature.
Shi Heng walked closer to the edge of the pool and poked his finger in. It was around fifty or sixty degrees, and a wave of panic gripped his heart.
He saw the elders carefully opening the earthenware jars one by one, which contained ferocious beast blood essence, various medicinal herbs, and poisonous insects. At the end, they even sprinkled several large handfuls of bone ash into it, and then tossed the ingredients into the medicinal pool one by one. The medicinal liquid inside turned pitch-black.
"Ah!!!" A roar came from the pool. Given how many times they had done this, the pain of the Medicinal Bath was still very hard for Shi Linhu and the others to endure.
Shi Heng had never seen such a spectacle. Although he was mentally prepared, the reactions of the few people in the medicinal pool were a bit too exaggerated.
Accompanied by these roars, half an hour later, the men in the medicinal pool crawled out of the pool as if completely drained of strength, sitting cross-legged nearby without leaving.
"Shi boy, it's your turn, get down here quickly! Your big brothers will guard the dharma for you!" Shi Feijiao said weakly as he sat on the ground.
"Get lost, get lost, get lost! You're grown men acting like toddlers, laughing at others when you looked like a bunch of clumsy bears just a moment ago!" An elder said this and prepared to walk over and kick them out. The few of them hurriedly scrambled and ran out of the room.
"Shi boy, don't hold it in, roar out loud! Your big brothers will wait outside—ouch! Second Grandpa, don't kick!"
"Alright, Xiao Heng, it's your turn. Remember to let every part of your body soak in it, it will only benefit you!" Seeing that Shi Heng was rather shy, Shi Yunfeng had the elder chase the others out.
"Yes!" Shi Heng replied, took off his animal-skin clothes, gritted his teeth, and jumped straight into the medicinal pool. At this moment, the medicinal liquid in the pool was less than two feet deep. If he wanted his whole body to be soaked, he had to lie flat. Not caring about anything else, Shi Heng jumped in and lay flat on his back, facing the sky.
The pain of a knife scraping through bones was not just talk. As this was Shi Heng's first Medicinal Bath, the sensation of pain suddenly rushed from all directions to his brain.
Buzz~! His brain sent out a violent signal.
"Ah!!!" The pain tortured Shi Heng's nerves every single second. At the same time, the medicinal power manifested. The tendons and bones, which had never been forged since childhood, were abruptly stimulated by the medicinal power and devoured it ravenously. It was like a patient recovering from a severe illness wanting to devour any food in sight; this was a craving from the genetic level, much like a giant tree in a desert encountering long-awaited dew.
One could only say that Shi Heng was both suffering and happy at the moment. He endured this hardship for half an hour until just as he was about to reach his limit.
The Purple Cloud in his mind trembled slightly. In a trance, Shi Heng felt the soft and majestic aura belonging to the Willow Deity in Shi Village wash over him—as bright as the moon and full of vitality. Beneath it, the roots emitted a faint green light that gradually spread out, winding downwards and densely extending deep into the underground, where the tip of the green light fiercely pierced into a ball of fiery red energy.
Could this be the God's skeleton deep underground?
At this moment, the Purple Cloud trembled once more, guiding Shi Heng's divine soul to plunge deep underground toward the God's skeleton.
'No!' Shi Heng was almost frightened out of his wits. There was immense terror between life and death. Shi Heng had never imagined such a situation would occur, and he instantly felt that his future prospects for survival had become exceptionally slim.
This was the Willow Deity, who was in the midst of absorbing the divine essence from the God's skeleton! He was merely an ant with a strength of three hundred jin, and if he provoked the Willow Deity now, the miserable outcome could well be imagined!
However, the Willow Deity showed no intention of attacking, allowing Shi Heng to drill straight into the God's skeleton.
Faintly, he saw the willow branches swaying in the underground vault, and a figure of peerless grace standing with her back to Shi Heng, delivering a soft and sacred voice: "Borrow your Dao, return your divine foundation."
That was it!
Since the Willow Deity was also in Shi Village, how could it not have been affected by the Purple Cloud halo? I should have thought of this earlier!
Before Shi Heng could react, the divine substance, guided by the Purple Cloud, emerged from the underground, penetrated his body, and surged inside him, continuously scouring Shi Heng's body and altering his foundation and tendons.
From this moment on, Shi Heng truly possessed the capital to contend for supremacy with the proud sons of heaven across the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths.