Chapter Ninety-Three: The Mountain Lord’s Whistling-Wind Tiger Visage Diagram — The Secret of Divine Physiognomy

At this moment, while the White-Forehead Marquis laughed, he seemed to become young again, as if youth itself had returned to him in full force. The terrifying pressure of his blood and qi spread from his whole body like a long, swelling river.

Such formidable blood-qi, Bai Xuan thought.

His own was already fearsome, but now the White-Forehead Marquis’s was surging with a fresh vitality, as though his body were reviving from old age and climbing back toward its prime.

“Bai Xuan.”

The Marquis’s voice grew rough and unrestrained, like a tiger’s roar. In an instant he had restored his height to roughly one point nine meters, standing over Bai Xuan with eyes full of anticipation.

“Use your strongest strike and attack me!”

“My strongest blow?”

Bai Xuan’s eyes narrowed. His Subduing-Sea Spear lay to the side, and of course he did not reach for it.

In a heartbeat, black, pure stripes gathered over his entire body, and his form vanished from the place. At the same moment, the White-Forehead Marquis vanished as well.
In that instant, the room held only a faint twisted flicker; not even a ripple in the air seemed to move, as if every current of wind had been frozen in time.

A sharp rush.

After a few breaths, both figures reappeared. With a violent “whoosh,” the whole room filled with a gale that howled out through the eaves and broken doorway.

“Blood-cultivation,” the Marquis said, standing there and drawing in a deep breath. His mouth stretched to his ears like a tiger baring its teeth, though it was only laughter.
“A blood-forging grandmaster at sixteen…”

He laughed again, and again—wildly.

Bai Xuan only glanced at his own left shoulder. The crosswind had grazed it, and the clothing there was torn and ragged.

“The White-Forehead Marquis, uncle, is far faster than I am,” Bai Xuan thought.

He had practiced the Howling Wind Steps, and the Marquis had just used that footwork on purpose, clearly baiting him.

“But that was only blood-qi. If my body force of two hundred thousand jin were to erupt, even if I could not control the wind quite as perfectly, my speed would be greater—fast enough to catch him, perhaps to outpace him.”

“In any case, part of my strength is already exposed now… Starting from the White-Forehead Marquis, I can probably pull some resources from the clan.”

Bai Xuan Ji, though the one closest to him, did not yet have the standing or strength to command the clan with one word.

The White-Forehead Marquis, however, was different. As both teacher and master and as one of grandmaster level, he could negotiate within the Bai clan for Bai Xuan.

“Also, my power now is not what it was before I went to sea.”

Bai Xuan was calm within. “With Great-Whale blood in me, even if someone turns against me, I will not fear.”

When the Shuang River blood surged, combined with Bai Xuan’s own two hundred thousand jin of divine strength, with the Subduing-Sea Spear in hand, he had no visible weakness.

“Bai Xuan.”

The Marquis, though still smiling, suddenly stiffened, then spoke in a low tone, “You must never reveal the secret of your blood-forging level to any other person.”

“Yes.”

Bai Xuan fixed his gaze.
“You know, this blood-forging level marks a grandmaster. A sixteen-year-old grandmaster in East Sea history is not unknown, but it is exceptionally rare—perhaps one appears only every hundred years.”

The White-Forehead Marquis’s voice rumbled like an old tiger. “The most recent one, only a few years back, was the Star-Hunter Raiders’ Grand Chieftain, the East Sea’s foremost champion, Breaksea Abyss. He was a true genius. From breaking through blood-forging to complete perfection of blood-and-qi as the sea, he needed only nine years.”

“Before that, no one knew him as Breaksea Abyss. Only when his blood-and-qi reached its sea-like perfection and he emerged, sweeping the East Sea, did people realize that the many identities prowling those waters were all hidden names of the same invincible master. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” Bai Xuan replied, his voice low.

He had known this himself before sailing: before one becomes truly invincible, one must never casually expose one’s real power.

Even now he had exposed only the blood-forging level, revealing talent seen only in legends. But the copper-skin, iron-bone body, the innate divine strength—those were still hidden, not shown at all. Not to mention the Great-Whale blood that had not yet erupted.

“The power I have concealed is at least ten times what I truly show; at the least, it starts at twenty times.”

He heard the Marquis continue, “Do not tell even my elder brother Bai Yuenian. He runs the Bai family, and there are too many eyes around him; not all of them are safe to trust.”

There was endless expectancy in the Marquis’s gaze. “Let me secure what you need. What you require now most are the Yin-Yang True Blood Pills, to expand your blood-qi, and the Longevity Pill, to make your body grow again and multiply your strength.”

“Yin-Yang True Blood Pill, Longevity Pill?” Bai Xuan had never heard those names. “I just captured a giant whale, took down a horse-year beast—then tried to refine a Tai Sui blood-potion from it.”

“Tai Sui blood-potion is the most common of blood-qi medicines. It is far stronger than ordinary Snow-Lotus Pills or Ginseng-Replenishing Boluses. But if you want to step into a higher realm, Tai Sui alone is not enough.”

“Understand that blood-qi accumulation grows harder as it rises. In the end, ten Tai Sui pills only amount to the increase of one stream.”

“To increase blood-qi like this toward blood-as-sea… is that even possible?”

The Marquis shook his head. “Difficult. Very difficult. Yet at your current stage, Tai Sui pills can still suffice. In the clan, nearly every pill now is set aside as military stock, but if I petition for you, I should be able to bring in at least ten.”

“Ten the moment you spoke?” Bai Xuan understood.

If revealing his strength had been of no use, then all the trouble he had taken for a month at sea—bringing down Pei Luo’s head with all that effort—would have yielded only five.

A grandmaster is not a cabbage one can pull from the field. A few more times and his name would spread across the islands, and everyone would know where it came from.

“As for the Tai Sui you obtained…”

The Marquis sighed. “On Qianshan Island, we once had a profoundly powerful Immortal who had ties with our ancestors. But he has not appeared for years—perhaps a decade or more. I fear he may have already died of old age.”

“The immortals we now cooperate with for alchemy are mediocre at best. Your ship captain broke through blood-forging without touching the clan’s medicines; likely he has another outside connection. If you like, you can ask him yourself.”

“Brother Bai Xuanji has broken through blood-forging?”

Bai Xuan asked. It was good news.

“He is thirty-five. If he cannot break through before forty, his blood declines and he becomes a bottomless pit.”

The Marquis said loosely, as if it were nothing. “At old age, every grandmaster must sustain his blood-qi with a flood of pills. A clan with one grandmaster is not a blessing—it can consume everything.”

“Had I not mastered part of the Earth-Storehouse Immovable Turtle Diagram in youth, and not learned to lock my own blood-qi away for lack of necessity, Bai family would have been swallowed by the two of us long ago.”

With a sharp sound, the Marquis shrank, returning to that thin old form again. His blood-qi contracted fully inward, showing no sign at all.

“You are only sixteen. Before twenty-five your blood-qi will only grow, never decay. In this stage, progress can be a thousand miles in a day. This is the peak of a genius.”

He looked at Bai Xuan with expectation. “How did you kill Pei Luo?”

He hated Pei Luo. That half-step grandmaster, though weaker than the Marquis, had once used throwing knives and killed one of his friends. His deceit had been terrifying.

“He got careless and came too close. When the crossbows were loosed in volley, he dodged, and in that instant I fired once. One shot ended him.”

Bai Xuan said evenly. What he said was the truth; Pei Luo had been blasted apart into blood mist, with no bones left.

“Good! What a fool! He thought he could challenge a far stronger foe with just the cleverness of a Stunning Swan Slash, yet in his hands that move was only chicken-bone stuff. What could it kill?”

The Marquis paced once around the room, then finally bent, picked up the shattered warped throwing knife, and in one flick tossed it outside the door, as if throwing out refuse.

“Bai Xuan, I’ll go get your pills right now. Be careful and keep everything hidden.”

His eyes held pleasure and expectation; this peerless prodigy was his own disciple, and the Tiger-Pounce Steps had been taught to him from the very beginning by himself.

“When you first entered my academy, I already knew… your strength and talent were astonishing. Back then, because you could not yet seal your blood-qi, I could see it clearly.”

“Still, three blood-forging breakthroughs by sixteen, though dazzling, are not enough to call one incomparable across the seas. I thought better not to over-nurture you, not to help too much and cause you to wither. If you had asked, I could have taught you the Howling Wind Step Diagram anyway. I never imagined you had such terrifying talent.”

“Ha! Even I, the White-Forehead Marquis, have such an extraordinary disciple.”

He seemed content.

“Your elder companion disciple Bai Luo was too proud. He believed he could defeat Pei Luo and never considered what might happen if the other man chose not to fight at all. Fortunately, my elder brother Yuenian has obtained a Rebirth Flesh-and-Bone Pill from an Immortal; it can even restore his broken leg.”

Otherwise he would have gone away in rage long ago, and would never now be trapped within this training hall.

As the Marquis was about to turn and leave, Bai Xuan spoke.

“Master.”

“I heard you also possess a visualization diagram different from the Four-Seas Azure-Sky Serpent Diagram. Why did you not teach it to me?”

“Visualization Diagram?”

The Marquis turned back, his eyes carrying both expectation and fondness. “You have already cultivated the Four-Seas Azure-Sky Serpent Diagram—that I can feel.”

“Cultivating both diagrams during the Blood-as-River stage brings no benefit. Blood is limited then; only one form can truly manifest with force.”

“Only after reaching blood-as-sea can the two forms’ combined might be shown. And when one attains the Divine Image, that is when real transformation comes.”

“Yet the Divine Image in the East Sea now is no more than legend; no one has ever been known to reach it. Our Bai ancestors recorded that, in the Divine-Image realm, blood-qi is as vast as the Great Abyss—one gesture could seize a Great Whale, tear mountains apart, split lakes. Not only across the East Sea, but even above the lands of the continents, one would be counted among the strongest.”

“Even now, in the East Sea, who could possibly break into Divine Image? Perhaps only you, and a peerless talent like Breaksea Abyss.”

“Yet even so, this path is long. If you divide your cultivation between two diagrams, you may very well delay your martial progression.”

“I say this seriously,” the Marquis went on. “Though no one has inherited my Tiger-Image Diagram, the visualization diagram will still pass down until another Bai heir reforms this practice. If you let your cultivation slip, the cost will be far greater than any gain.”

“I understand.”

“Then teach me the Tiger-Image Diagram.”

Bai Xuan answered.

In his heart he knew the reason.

“I have the Xuanflower gift. While hunting the seas, my blood-qi need not truly reach that level. As long as I continue to hunt sea-beasts, I can already unleash terrible power.”

“Twofold force?”

Bai Xuan’s heart stirred with expectation. If, with Xuanflower, he hunted a few more sea creatures carrying strong blood aptitude, and layered their vigor into himself, he might well gain the power of blood-as-sea ahead of time. Then when he mastered both diagrams and the azure serpent and mountain lord manifested, the result would far exceed all imagination.

He completed today’s fourteen-thousand-word update; tomorrow I’ll do ten thousand more. Thank you to the brothers who supported me with votes and rewards—you spur me to write in full force.

End of chapter.