Meng Lin opened her eyes back in the cave and allowed herself a small smile as she calcuted the amount added to her percentage.

  '22.3, that's the equivalent of dealing with that shadowy creature.'

  Her gaze lingered for a moment on the stone walls around her. Then, raising her hand, she focused on her spiritual consciousness.

  In a silent fsh of pale light, a second, naked Meng Lin appeared beside her, formed from a shard of her spiritual consciousness.

  The clone’s empty eyes briefly flickered with light, and Meng Lin couldn’t help but admire herself, though the stillness in its gaze left her wondering if that was how she looked to others.

  Without speaking, she reached into her inventory and pulled out a storage bag along with the jade token. She tossed them to the clone, which caught them with a slight smile and a nod.

  The clone moved efficiently—sliding into a dark violet robe taken from the storage bag and securing a belt around its waist before pulling its hair up into a knot.

  Meanwhile, Meng Lin got up and slowly walked out of the cave, the clone mirrored her movements, walking behind her as if an extension of her limb.

  The two figures, identical in form quickly emerged into the open air, and Meng Lin paused at the edge of the clearing, the faint shimmer of a seal glowing red on her forearm as she extended her hand.

  ‘Crimson Tortoise Dragon.’

  The glow on her forearm intensified, and a colossal creature burst out, coiling once in the air before touching down before her, an ancient eye glowing with intelligence and familiarity gazed back at Meng Lin.

  The Crimson Tortoise Dragon lowered its head with reverence. “Mistress,” it rumbled.

  Meng Lin pointed to the thick, foggy wild forest.

  “Scour the forest. Hunt everything that breathes."

  The second Meng Lin opened its mouth, speaking. "That's when I come in and take their souls," it said, raising a small jade pendant.

  The dragon hesitated; it didn't fully understand why its master wanted to eradicate all of the weak spirit beasts in the forest, but it still gave a single nod.

  “As you command, Mistress."

  The clone stepped forward, climbing effortlessly onto the dragon’s back, its violet robes fluttered as it settled into a seated position.

  Roar!!

  With a thunderous roar that cracked through the valley, the spirit seal unched upward, the dragon's silhouette vanishing behind a trail of fme and wind.

  Left alone at the cave’s entrance, Meng Lin watched the sky trail, then turned and walked back into the cold, quiet cave.

  She sat down once more on the stone floor, her breath steady, her body rexed as she contempted.

  'That should speed things up,' she thought. 'And it’ll give me enough time to finish the refinement process of the Six Lotus Rebirth Path.'

  With her clone and the Crimson Tortoise Dragon about to sweep through the forest, Meng Lin finally turned her focus onto the new cultivation technique she learned in the city.

  After learning the technique, her head was filled with the cultivation method the first four cycles, the system recognized that she was only able to reach the forth cycle with her current realm.

  Thus Meng Lin didn't think much about it as her body began to glow with a soft blue light while she circuted the Six Lotus Rebirth Technique.

  The light at first was faint and calm, like the surface of a still ke, but it deepened in hue as the technique began to draw her Qi.

  Her brows knit in focus. 'To master the first yer,' she murmured, "I must refine this body using the amount of Qi necessary for a Qi Condensation cultivator."

  Of course, the Qi she was using was still no small thing. For a Qi Condensation cultivator, it would have taken several months before it could amass such energy.

  But Meng Lin, now at the middle stage of the Soul Wandering Realm, could summon that amount of energy in a single breath.

  The cave walls around her began to tremble faintly, the slight dim glow increasing in brightness as a faint lotus shape bloomed under her skin.

  Meng Lin’s breath slowed, then stilled.

  Her heart stopped.

  And for a long moment, her presence in the world faded slightly.

  Then.

  Boom!

  With a soft crackle, the desiccated outer yer of her flesh fractured and peeled away, like bark from an old tree.

  A pinkish hue flickered along her fingers as Meng Lin raised her hand to observe.

  “Hm.”

  Other than feeling a little bit sturdier, Meng Lin couldn't feel that much of a difference, it seemed she would only be able to see the benefits after she reached the fourth cycle.

  She did not pause.

  She returned to her meditative posture. Her spiritual veins circuted the Six Lotus Rebirth Technique, and the blue light returned, pulsing.

  After going through the same process, Meng Lin once again opened her eyes to the outer yer of her skin peeling off, revealing a simir-looking skin underneath.

  "It's a good thing my skin disintegrates after peeling off," Meng Lin muttered as faint ash scattered from her fingers, vanishing into the air. "Otherwise, I don’t know what I’d even do with all that dead skin lying around."

  A strange tension coiled through her limbs—tight and estic, like a bowstring drawn to its limit.

  She stood slowly.

  Then, without any buildup, she threw a punch.

  Whoooom!

  The air inside the cave warped and twisted. The punch hadn’t touched anything solid, yet a force swept through the chamber as a gust of wind was blown away.

  Meng Lin’s eyes narrowed in faint surprise.

  That was… good.

  Very good.

  She could feel it clearly—her raw strength had increased by at least fifty percent. And that was only after completing the second cycle.

  Her previous body, already tempered by countless pills, had physical power on par with a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

  But now?

  Now she was certain.

  With just her physical body, no Qi enhancements, no techniques, she could thrash any ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator with brute force alone.

  A smirk tugged at her lips.

  She quickly returned to her position with an eager face, cycling through the technique once again. The lotus bloomed beneath her.

  Its light shimmered with an intense blue as once again, the outer skin peeled, crumbled, and dissolved.

  She opened her eyes, exhaled, and unched another strike while seated.

  This time.

  BOOM!

  The stone wall ahead burst with a thunderous crack. A deep dent caved in where her fist had aimed, dust and pebbles flying away from the impact zone.

  Meng Lin tilted her head, her lips curling into a faint smirk. “Ten times stronger,” she murmured.

  Her skin felt unnaturally firm—resilient; her durability had increased to a terrifying level; it was the amount of strength she felt when she utilized her Bck Tortoise Essence Art.

  Curious, she pulled a small, middle-grade dagger from her sleeve and pressed its bde against her arm.

  Clink—crack!

  Puchi!!

  Sparks flew at the moment of contact; however, after swiping with the dagger, Meng Lin paused, gncing down at her arm.

  A thin gash had opened—no wider than a finger, but vivid against her otherwise fwless skin. She hadn’t expected the bde to cut so easily.

  Even with the resilience she’d gained, a middle-grade dagger had still managed to bite through.

  “It seems I took it a little too far,” she muttered, half amused.

  But just as she was about to reach to wipe the blood, something unexpected happened.

  The bleeding slowed, then stopped.

  Before her eyes, the skin began to draw itself back together. Slowly at first, like the curling of flower petals, after a few seconds, the wound was sealed shut.

  The pain still lingered beneath the surface, a dull sting throbbing faintly, but the damage was already gone.

  Meng Lin lifted her arm to the light, examining the skin where the injury had been. A faint red mark remained, but even that was fading by the second.

  “…Impressive,” she breathed. “So this is what the Six Lotus Rebirth Path can do.”

  Regeneration.

  Her body has naturally powerful healing; however, that requires her Qi. If she runs out of it, then she would be done for, but this is different.

  Still seated, she stashed away the dagger and let her sleeve fall, her expression unreadable.

  She has 90 percent of her Qi remaining, so she immediately settled back into her meditative pose and closed her eyes again, the blue lotus shining once again.

  Spiritual energy threaded through her spiritual veins, drawn inward with a pulsating flow. The warmth spread gradually, like soaking in a hot spring rather than being scalded.

  Her flesh tingled.

  Not painfully, but with a buzzing pressure, as though her muscles were being gently kneaded and refined from within.

  This time, she could feel it more clearly. Her flesh tingled, then buzzed with pressure, firmer than before. Her muscles tightened beneath her skin, and her bones subtly pulsed with growing density.

  Then it began.

  Her skin cracked, dried, and peeled away in sheets. Unlike before, it happened fast—almost violently—as if her body had outgrown its shell in an instant. Fkes turned to ash before they even hit the ground, dissolving in the swirling energy around her.

  Meng Lin opened her eyes and slowly looked down at her arms. Her fingers flexed, and the movement felt effortless.

  Her body felt incredibly heavy yet easy to move; a rush of blood coursed throughout her body, and she felt a steep rise in her body temperature; even her heartbeat was like a drum echoing in her ears.

  A small smile tugged at her lips, and she stood up, drawing her fist back—and struck.

  BOOM!

  The moment her fist was released, a deafening bst tore through the small stone chamber, the cave walls shattered like brittle gss, rupturing in every direction.

  The hills behind the cave cracked open with a thunderous noise, jagged boulders unching into the air as if hurled by an unseen force.

  A shockwave surged through the forest, sweeping across the trees a hundred meters away, for several seconds, the only sound was the wind screaming past the trees.

  Then, from the heart of the dust and ruin, Meng Lin jumped out, her feet touched down lightly on a cracked stone, unfazed by the molten edges and crumbling earth beneath her.

  She looked down at her hand.

  Her knuckles were unmarked. Not even the faintest redness.

  She flexed her fingers once, slowly. Her body felt like it had been rebuilt—each muscle wrapped tight over bone, every joint fluid and strong. The burn in her blood was gone, repced with a steady hum of power circuting through her limbs.

  'This one is a hundred times multiplier' she thought calmly.

  Her mind, sharpened by the recent refinement, calcuted the possibilities with crity. 'If the third cycle brought ten times the power of the second cycle, and the fourth cycle brought a hundred times the power of the third cycle, what would the fifth cycle bring?

  A thousand times?

  Her pulse didn’t quicken. She didn’t tremble with anticipation. Instead, there was a cool, composed silence in her thoughts. Not because the idea wasn’t staggering but because she was already thinking about the sixth cycle.

  She had entered the fourth cycle with about eighty percent of her Qi, which meant to enter the fifth cycle, she would need ten times more.

  “I wonder when...” she murmured, then paused, a system panel flickered over her eyes, its glow casting a faint reflection in her eyes.

  [Congratutions for conquering a Small Forest for the first time]

  [You have exerted dominant force over an uncimed cultivation zone. Location Identified: Hollow Silent Forest.]