At eleven o’clock that night, after the five thousand new Frost-Mane citizens had eaten their bellies full on Hot-Pot Street and moved happily into the newly built heated stone houses in the North Suburb, Pei Xuan walked over to the central Sweet-Spring Well with Old Guo.
On the iron winch cart sat a steaming, eight-hundred-pound Midnight Supreme Hot-Pot Cauldron.
Unlike the earlier pots, which had used ordinary desert sheep, tonight’s cauldron was packed with twenty freshly butchered White-Horn Snow-Sheep from the Frost-Mane Tribe’s herd!
Because those Snow-Sheep drank glacial meltwater and ate wild ice-ginseng grass on the northern steppes, their meat had zero gamey smell, marbled fat that looked like white snowflake jade, and three times the natural blood-vitality of regular mutton. Old Guo had simmered the snow-mutton in a half-and-half bath of bone marrow soup and fiery greenhouse Dragon-Tongue Chili oil, topped with a hundred pounds of emerald cabbage and Meat-Potatoes.
“Lower it down!” Pei Xuan signaled Old Wei at the winch and stepped into the small passenger basket beside the cauldron chain so he could go down and check on Ao Ming’s heating pipes himself.
Down in the twelve-hundred-foot cavern, Ao Ming didn’t even wait for the cauldron to touch the floor.
Coiled comfortably on his warm red-copper dragon bed, the two-hundred-foot silver Flood Dragon had already smelled the Snow-Sheep aroma when the pot was still halfway down the shaft!
“Wait—what kind of divine sheep is in tonight’s pot?!” Ao Ming sat up straight, his silver whiskers quivering with excitement as Pei Xuan unhooked the chains. “Why does the meat smell like Northern Ice-Ginseng and pure Yin-Yang marrow?!”
“A tribe of five thousand northern herders joined our town tonight and brought ten thousand White-Horn Snow-Sheep with them,” Pei Xuan smiled, stepping back onto the warm copper platform. “Old Guo made you a special late-night Snow-Sheep Hot-Pot. Go ahead and try it, Senior.”
SLUUUUUUURP—CHOMP!
Ao Ming picked up the eight-hundred-pound cauldron with both front claws and poured the bubbling snowflake-marbled mutton, emerald cabbage, and fiery chili broth straight into his mouth.
The moment the tender Snow-Sheep meat mixed with the spicy Yang chili oil on his tongue, Ao Ming’s giant golden eyes lit up like twin moons!
For a Flood Dragon—an aquatic and ice-affinity divine beast whose body was currently aching from both cold frost-chains and dry desert air—the combination of Cool Northern Snow-Sheep Marrow and Hot Dragon-Tongue Chili Oil was the ultimate Yin-Yang tonic!
As Ao Ming swallowed the last mouthful and licked the cast-iron cauldron until it squeaked, a loud CRACK-HUMMMM echoed from deep inside his silver spine!
Around his chained collarbones, two of the smaller purple rust-locks on the Upper-Realm chain actually cracked open half an inch under the surge of his restored vitality!
“Hahahaha! Marvelous! Simply marvelous!”
Ao Ming set the gleaming empty cauldron down, patted his round silver belly, and looked at Pei Xuan with shining golden eyes.
“Little friend Pei, this Old Dragon never takes advantage of a friend! Over the past two months, your Sweet-Spring water and your cook’s meals have brought half of my frozen bone marrow back to life. Watch closely—take out a jade bottle!”
Before Pei Xuan could ask why, Ao Ming thumped the center of his own silver chest with one giant claw—THUD!—and coughed softly.
A single drop of thick, glowing golden-silver liquid—the size of a pigeon’s egg, smelling like warm ocean thunder and radiating a terrifying aura of ancient bloodline power—floated out of Ao Ming’s mouth and hovered three feet in front of Pei Xuan!
Even though it was just one single drop of blood-marrow essence, the air around it twisted into tiny silver whirlwinds, and the stone walls of the cavern hummed in submission!
“This is a drop of my Rank 7 Ancient Flood-Dragon Marrow Essence,” Ao Ming said proudly. “Don’t try to swallow it raw, kid! Even though I sealed ninety percent of its violent energy so it won’t blow you up, a single raw drop would still burst the blood vessels of an ordinary Rank 3 human Grandmaster! Mix a tiny needle-tip of it into your bathwater every month, and within three years you will easily step into Rank 3!”
Wait three years to step into Rank 3 by diluting it in bathwater?
Pei Xuan caught the floating golden-silver drop inside a clean white-jade bottle and smiled. “Thank you for the generous tip, Senior Ao! With this drop of Dragon-Marrow Essence, I won’t need three years—I’ll be back down tomorrow morning at Rank 3!”
“Hahaha, kids always love to brag!” Ao Ming chuckled indulgently, curling back up on his warm red-copper bed and blowing three dutiful blasts of golden Yang-fire up the brass heating funnel before closing his eyes for a nap. “Go on up and sleep, little Mayor. Don’t forget extra cabbage in tomorrow’s breakfast pot!”
Five minutes later, Pei Xuan stepped out of the well basket back inside his private walled courtyard behind the Town Hall.
He didn’t go to bed.
Instead, he had Old Wei bring out one hundred jin (ten large clay jars) of freshly brewed [Rank 2 Golden-Blood Wheat Wine], placed his own master copy of the [Iron-Anvil Body Art (Rank 1–2 Manual)] on the stone table, and held up the jade bottle containing [Ao Ming’s Ancient Dragon-Marrow Essence].
Pei Xuan opened his 3-Slot Fusion Cube!
Spend 20,000 LP! Fuse!
BOOOOOOOM!
Inside the Fusion Cube, a blinding pillar of golden-silver dragon light erupted!
The ten large clay jars of wheat wine shattered, and all one hundred jin of amber spirit liquor condensed in midair around the drop of Flood-Dragon Marrow, shrinking down into a single Three-Jin Jade Flagon of [Rank 3 Golden Dragon-Marrow Spirit Wine] that glowed like liquid sunlight!
Beside the jade flagon landed a thick, dark-gold metal-bound book stamped with the relief of a roaring Flood Dragon coiled around a blacksmith’s anvil:
Pei Xuan picked up the heavy gold-bound [Dragon-Blood Anvil Scripture] first.
The moment his fingers touched the cover, the fused system imprint flowed straight into his mind—every breathing rhythm, every blood-pumping pulse, and every meridian circuit of the Rank 3 Grandmaster path became as clear to him as the lines on his own palm.
Sitting cross-legged on the warm heated stone platform in the center of his courtyard, Pei Xuan unstoppered the jade flagon of [Golden Dragon-Marrow Breakthrough Wine] and drank the entire flagon down in three big gulps!
ROOOOOOOAR!
The wine didn’t taste burning or bitter—it tasted like sweet, warm golden honey mixed with summer thunder!
The instant the liquid hit Pei Xuan’s stomach, it transformed into a roaring, golden-silver river of pure Flood-Dragon Blood Vitality that surged outward into his limbs and bones!
Previously, when Pei Xuan had been framed and exiled from the Iron-Wolf Marquisate on Day 1, his stepmother’s poison had crippled his dantian and clogged forty of his body’s one hundred and eight martial meridians. Even though the Sweet-Spring water had washed away the poison and let him reach Rank 2 Peak, the last thirty-six hidden deep-marrow meridians leading to the Grandmaster realm were still narrow and stiff.
Now, pushed by the unstoppable tidal wave of fused Rank 7 Dragon-Marrow energy and guided by the [Dragon-Blood Anvil Scripture], Pei Xuan’s blood began to boil and roar inside his veins like an underground volcano!
CRACK! POP! POP! BOOM!
Thirty-six muffled thunderclaps echoed one after another inside Pei Xuan’s body!
Every single narrow meridian in his chest, spine, arms, and legs was blasted wide open and reinforced with tough, flexible golden-silver dragon-marrow fibers!
His Rank 2 iron bones turned a deep, lustrous dark gold. His blood thickened until every heartbeat sounded like a war-drum—THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!—and deep inside his lower abdomen, a swirling vortex of dazzling golden Rank 3 Grandmaster Internal Qi condensed and roared to life!
Outside Pei Xuan’s body, a thirty-foot phantom of a golden-silver Flood Dragon coiled around a blazing iron anvil rose automatically into the night air above the Town Hall courtyard!
Two streets away, on top of the warm roof of the west duck barn, Ye Guhan had just lain down with his arms behind his head after eating sixteen plates of lamb hot-pot.
Suddenly, feeling that domineering surge of Dragon-Blood Grandmaster Qi rising from the Town Hall, Ye Guhan sat bolt upright so fast he nearly rolled off the roof tiles!
“What?!” Ye Guhan stared toward the Town Hall with his mouth wide open. “Two months ago when that kid arrived in the desert, rumors said he had a crippled dantian and couldn’t even beat a village dog! Yesterday he was only Rank 2 Peak—and tonight he breaks through to Rank 3 Martial Grandmaster with an aura thicker than a Flood Dragon’s cub?! Even in the great sects of the Central Continent, body-tempering geniuses take ten years of soaking in spirit herbs to condense Dragon-Blood Internal Qi! What did he drink—liquid dragon marrow?!”
Before Ye Guhan could recover from his shock, General Tie Zhan, Chief Hulun, and Old Wei all rushed to the gate of the Town Hall courtyard to stand guard, their eyes shining with awe as they watched the golden dragon-anvil phantom sink back into Pei Xuan’s crown.
Inside the courtyard, Pei Xuan slowly opened his eyes.
Two three-inch beams of golden lightning flashed across his pupils in the dark.
He stood up effortlessly, feeling as if his body weighed nothing at all while holding the strength of ten wild mammoths in every finger.
To test his new realm, Pei Xuan walked over to a ten-thousand-pound block of raw black iron-stone sitting in the corner of the courtyard (which four Scorpion Trucks had dragged back from the salt mine for the blacksmiths).
Without even using both hands, Pei Xuan hooked three fingers of his right hand under the bottom edge of the ten-thousand-pound boulder and lifted it straight up over his head like an empty bamboo basket!
Then, tossing the five-ton boulder three feet into the air, Pei Xuan flicked his left index finger lightly in a slashing motion.
SHIIIIIIING—SLASH!
A fifty-foot crescent blade-wave of solid golden Dragon-Anvil Internal Qi shot from his fingertip with a sharp dragon’s whistle, slicing the ten-thousand-pound iron boulder in midair into two mirror-smooth halves before vanishing into the snowy sky and splitting the falling black clouds for half a mile!
THUD! THUD!
The two five-thousand-pound halves of the iron boulder hit the courtyard stones cleanly on either side of Pei Xuan without kicking up a single speck of dust.
“Congratulations on stepping into the Grandmaster Realm, My Lord!”
General Tie Zhan, Chief Hulun, and Old Wei dropped to one knee at the courtyard gate, their voices booming with pride. Even Chief Hulun—who was a Rank 3 Early Grandmaster himself—looked at the two mirror-smooth halves of the five-ton iron rock and realized with a shiver of respect that if he sparred with his young lord right now, Pei Xuan could beat him with one hand tied behind his back!
“Get up, all three of you,” Pei Xuan smiled, walking over and tossing the gold-bound [Dragon-Blood Anvil Scripture] and the last few drops left at the bottom of the jade wine flagon to Old Wei. “Old Wei, take the remaining drops of Dragon-Marrow Wine and mix them into a hundred-gallon vat of hot Sweet-Spring water at the Martial Yard tonight. Starting tomorrow, you, General Tie, Chief Hulun, and our top twenty Rank 2 Peak guard captains can begin cultivating the first chapter of the Dragon-Blood Anvil Scripture!”
Old Wei caught the heavy gold-bound manual with his mechanical left hand and his real right hand, his scarred face flushing red with excitement. “Young Master... this is a Rank 3 Grandmaster manual infused with True Dragon bloodline techniques! Even in the Iron-Wolf Marquisate, your father Marquis Pei Zhan guards his third-rate Wolf-Fang Grandmaster scroll inside an iron vault and never lets a single family guard touch it! You’re letting twenty guard captains and former nomads study this openly?!”
“A manual locked inside an iron vault is just waste paper,” Pei Xuan laughed, patting Old Wei’s shoulder. “The stronger you and the guards become, the more points our town makes—and the faster I can fuse even better manuals for everyone!”
Right above Old Wei, General Tie, and Chief Hulun, their Loyalty bars glowed with blinding golden light:
* Old Wei: [Loyalty: 100/100 (Die-Hard) — Ready to break through to Rank 2 Peak / Rank 3 soon!]
* General Tie Zhan: [Loyalty: 100/100 (Die-Hard) — "With this Dragon-Blood manual, my old leg injuries aren't just healed—I'll hit Rank 3 Mid before next month!"]
* Chief Hulun: [Loyalty: 96 -> 99/100! — "He didn't even treat me like an outsider on my first night here! He's letting me read his core Grandmaster Scripture!"]
Up on the roof of the west duck barn two streets away, Ye Guhan slowly pulled his jaw back up and lay back down on the warm roof tiles, pulling a straw hat over his face.
“Crazy... this whole desert town is completely crazy,” Ye Guhan muttered to himself under the straw hat. “A Rank 3 Dragon-Blood Grandmaster body scripture tossed to twenty gate guards like cabbage leaves... Good thing I am a proud Rank 5 Sword Immortal who walks the path of pure Sword Qi, or even I would be tempted to go ask him for a cup of that golden wine!”
Just as Pei Xuan smiled and turned back toward the courtyard table, however—
RUMBLE-CRUNCH-SCREEEEECH!
Fifty yards east of the Town Hall, coming from directly underneath the fifty acres of [Dragon-Heated Glass Greenhouses], the frozen sub-earth three hundred feet down suddenly shook violently!
A piercing red alarm flashed across Pei Xuan’s RTS screen:
Pei Xuan’s smile turned into a dangerous grin as he cracked his golden-boned knuckles with a sound like iron hammers clashing.
“Right on time,” Pei Xuan said to General Tie and Chief Hulun. “I just broke through to Rank 3 and needed a giant sandbag to test my fists—let’s go save our cabbages and catch ourselves an underground tunnel-digger!”