Chapter 194: Just How Far Can You Go?

Chapter 194

While Liyu busied himself with trying to get himself some really good things and prepare himself to the best of his abilities, he couldn’t help but feel a faint sense of urgency settling deep within his heart, because after all, there was only one match left, and that final match was bound to be difficult.

If Shi Tian was anything like Haoran, then Liyu had to be more than prepared. No one needed to tell him that he had reached his limit, since he could feel it himself; his body might have been completely restored by the Restoration Pill.

His injuries might have vanished without leaving behind even the slightest trace, and his physical condition might have returned to its absolute peak, but that didn’t mean his body could simply ignore the massive strain Berserker had placed on it.

There was a difference between being completely healed and being capable of enduring the same overwhelming strain again, and Liyu understood that very well. If he tried to force his body to undergo that same transformation again today, the consequences would be dire... extremely dire.

Perhaps he would be able to use Berserker again another day once his body had enough time to recover from the hidden strain it had suffered, but using it again on the same day? No, that was simply too dangerous.

So, without having the Berserker skill to lean on anymore, Liyu was more than aware of one simple fact: he had to get his hands on some good tools, good weapons, good treasures, and anything that could increase his fighting chances against Shi Tian or give him an additional advantage.

And if possible... something that could help him one-shot the guy. He really wanted that. He wanted to end this selection tournament as quickly as possible, especially since the tournament had already dragged on long enough, and after everything he had gone through in this battle.

Liyu had absolutely no desire to experience another battle where his bones were broken one after another and he had to crawl back up from the ground every few minutes. No thanks, once was more than enough.

So while Liyu busied himself with that task, carefully going through his options and considering what would give him the greatest advantage in the final battle, Elder Ting arrived, his attention immediately drawn toward Haoran.

The young man was lying motionless as physicians surrounded him, desperately trying to stabilize his condition. However, the moment Elder Ting approached and began checking Haoran’s body himself, his gaze slowly changed... subtle at first, then becoming increasingly solemn.

"All of you, get away from the kid."

The physicians surrounding Haoran immediately froze, looking toward Elder Ting before quickly nodding. "Yes, Elder." One after another, they stepped back and left the area, giving Elder Ting enough space to personally examine Haoran.

Elder Ting slowly shook his head as he looked at Haoran’s pitiful state.

Who could have expected that the kid would actually lose, even after he had managed to step into one of the legendary states... the State of Overflow, a state that could push a cultivator’s power to an entirely different level?

After Haoran had reached that level of power, no mortal-stage cultivator should have been able to take him down. He had suppressed Liyu, he had crushed him, and he had dominated the match to the point where everyone had already believed the outcome was decided.

The entire arena had watched as Liyu was beaten down again and again, and even Elder Ting had believed that Haoran had already secured the victory. Yet who would have thought that after all of that... Haoran would still be the one knocked out?

And he wasn’t merely knocked out.

His body had been damaged beyond what was considered normal, every part of his being seeming to have been completely wrecked. Elder Ting’s expression became even more solemn, and in fact, he was certain that Haoran would have died if he had taken that final attack while in his normal state... no, he wouldn’t have merely died, he would have been erased.

That was how terrifying the power behind Liyu’s final attack had been. The fact that Haoran had only taken it while in his Overflow State was perhaps the only reason he was still alive right now, because if he had received that attack in his base state... Elder Ting didn’t even want to imagine the result.

"That kid..." Elder Ting shook his head once more before finally getting down to treatment. He raised one hand, and a golden glow immediately gathered around his palm, its golden qi condensing rapidly until it eventually took the shape of a massive golden hand that reached into Haoran’s body.

When it came back out, something followed it: a dark-red aura. The moment the aura emerged, a terrifying destructive force spread outward, the dark-red energy twisting violently and desperately attempting to break free from the golden hand that had captured it, seeming almost alive as it struggled and thrashed as though it wanted to return to Haoran’s body.

Elder Ting’s expression remained calm, and his fingers slowly clenched, making the golden hand clench alongside them. The dark-red aura struggled for another moment, and then... it vanished completely.

Elder Ting lowered his hand and continued examining Haoran’s body, letting a small sigh escape his mouth once more.

"The kid is truly wrecked..." His gaze became complicated. It wasn’t merely Haoran’s physical body that had suffered, for the damage had reached much deeper.

His dantian had been severely damaged as well, and his ten refined qi beads... they were all in terrible condition. Cracks ran along the surface of every single one of them, and the ten qi beads trembled faintly within his dantian, looking as if they could crumble into dust at any moment and completely vanish into thin air.

Elder Ting’s brows furrowed. This was a serious injury... an extremely serious one. He slowly shook his head before beginning the treatment, letting golden light gradually spread from his palm and enter Haoran’s body to nourish his damaged flesh, repair his shattered muscles, and restore the vitality that had almost completely drained from him, while his spirit was also reinvigorated.

Those two things were within Elder Ting’s ability: his physical body could be healed, and his spirit could be nourished. But the cracked qi beads and damaged dantian... that was different.

Elder Ting couldn’t simply restore them to their peak condition; at best, he could nourish them, strengthen them slightly, stabilize the cracks, and prevent the damage from becoming worse while accelerating their natural recovery. It was still possible to recover, but it would take time... a lot of time.

"Several weeks..." Elder Ting muttered quietly, then paused. "...perhaps even months." His gaze remained fixed on Haoran, knowing it would ultimately depend on the kid’s talent, his body’s tolerance, his ability to recover, and whether there were any additional complications during the healing process. Either way... it would take a while for Haoran to recover from this.

Elder Ting slowly exhaled. The kid had fought brilliantly, pushed himself beyond his limits, and even stepped into the legendary State of Overflow, but in the end, he had still encountered someone even more abnormal... someone who had endured everything he threw at him... and then answered with a single punch that nearly erased him from existence.

Elder Ting looked at the kid and shook his head once more. Either way he looked at it, the kid would be scarred from this, making him the second person who had suffered injuries like this from Liyu’s attack.

Actually, there were many of them who had suffered from Liyu’s attacks throughout the tournament, but Haoran was only the second person whose condition had reached the point where his cultivation itself was on the verge of regressing, and that was a far more serious problem.

If the cracked qi beads and damaged dantian weren’t taken care of to the best of their abilities, then the consequences wouldn’t be good at all.

A cultivator’s foundation was everything: the dantian was the place where their qi gathered and circulated, while the refined qi beads represented the accumulation and refinement of that power.

If either was damaged beyond what the body could naturally recover from, then the cultivator’s cultivation could regress, and if the damage became permanent... then it could potentially affect Haoran for the rest of his life.

Elder Ting heaved another sigh, realizing he was sighing far too much today. "Sincerely..." Even he was shocked by what had happened, because he, as well as many others present, had already been convinced that there was no way Liyu was winning that battle... none.

They had watched Haoran enter the State of Overflow, watched his strength soar to an entirely different level, and at that point, even those who had initially believed Liyu might have some hidden trump card had gradually abandoned that thought.

Haoran had completely suppressed him, broken Liyu’s bones, crushed him over and over again, and left him battered, bloody, and barely standing. Yet that kid had still shocked all of them, and somehow... he had won anyway.

Elder Ting’s gaze became complicated as he looked toward Liyu. "I need to speak with that kid after this tournament ends."

The elder nodded to himself, knowing he needed to question the kid personally to understand how exactly Liyu had become so freakish... what kind of secret was hidden within that body, how someone at the first stage of Qi Gathering could possess such terrifying strength, how he could endure that kind of punishment and still stand, and most importantly... how he had produced that final attack?

There were simply too many questions.

With that thought, Elder Ting vanished from where he stood, appearing the next instant back at his seat in the top echelon where all the various clan leaders sat. The atmosphere there was completely different from the excitement and chaos spreading throughout the arena.

At the seat of the leaders, Guan Ju’s face was darker than anything else, and he was in a terrible mood, to say the least... how could he not be? One could say that the Guan Clan had lost; no, they had indeed lost, since Guan Haoran had been their last hope in this tournament, and he too had been defeated by Liyu.

But that wasn’t even what was angering Guan Ju the most. No, the thing that truly made his fury boil was the fact that Haoran had been defeated in that state... the State of Overflow.

Guan Ju had been more than certain that the fight was already won the moment Haoran stepped into that state; if someone had asked him to bet his life on Haoran winning after he entered the State of Overflow, Guan Ju would have easily bet his life without even the slightest hesitation.

That was how confident he had been in the state Guan Haoran had stepped into, believing no one he knew below the Core Stage was supposed to be capable of standing against Haoran in that state, much less actually beating him.

Yet Liyu had done exactly that, taking Haoran out just like that and ending the battle... with a single punch.

Guan Ju’s hands clenched tightly, his fury and sorrow so intense that the veins all across his skin rose visibly beneath it. He wanted to kill that Liyu kid, needed to kill him so badly, yet he was unable to do so... not here, not now.

There were too many powerful people watching, and Elder Ting had already made it clear through his actions that Liyu’s life would not be casually taken. So Guan Ju could only suppress his killing intent and stand back with twitching eyes, closing them after a while because he didn’t want to watch anymore.

He had already lost, and whosoever wanted to win should win; he didn’t care anymore.

Meanwhile, Shi Gubing, who was sitting right beside him, had a completely different thought from Guan Ju. *That kid is dangerous.* Shi Gubing’s expression was solemn as he rubbed his chin slightly while staring toward Liyu.

That final move Liyu had used against Guan Haoran... no one below the Core Stage should be able to survive that kind of attack, and yet that kid had been able to unleash an attack of that level while standing at the very first stage of Qi Gathering.

He was only at the second realm of the Mortal Stage, and yet he had been able to unleash an attack capable of taking down someone at the peak of the fourth realm of the Mortal Stage. That was simply too much to stomach.

Shi Gubing’s gaze darkened. "That kid..." His lips pressed into a thin line. "The kid has to die. He must die." His voice was barely audible.

The feeling of danger that Liyu gave him was something that even Li San himself didn’t give him, and that was saying something, because Li San was vastly superior to Shi Gubing, and Shi Gubing was vastly superior to Liyu.

Yet somehow... Liyu gave him a far greater sense of danger than Li San ever had, and that realization alone was enough to make Shi Gubing’s heart grow cold.

With his lips pressed into a thin line, Shi Gubing forced himself to calm down, knowing he was going to kill Liyu soon, but needing for now to see how the tournament would end.

If this had been before the semifinal match and its conclusion, Shi Gubing would have been one hundred percent certain that his son, Shi Tian, would be more than capable of winning the tournament, but after seeing everything that had happened... especially that final attack... Shi Gubing was starting to have another thought: there was a real chance that Shi Tian... would not win.

"You brat..." Shi Gubing’s fingers tightened slightly. "You need to win that match." His gaze remained fixed on Liyu. "Even if it means using your killing moves, you need to win." If Shi Tian got serious from the beginning, then defeating Liyu should be a piece of cake... at least, that was what Shi Gubing believed.

But if Shi Tian gave that freak time to adapt... then things might get out of hand, because after all, that kid had been breaking all of their plans, shattering them to dust.

Every time they thought they had figured him out, he would reveal something even more ridiculous, and every time they thought he had reached his limit, he would somehow push beyond it. That kid must not be allowed to win, because if he did... and became a disciple of the Gold Valley Sect... then everything would become troublesome... very troublesome.

Shi Gubing shook his head, not even wanting to think about that possibility, figuring surely his son should be more than smart enough to see that Liyu was dangerous... really dangerous.

Even so... Shi Tian wouldn’t joke around; he would get serious immediately, at least hopefully. Shi Gubing’s gaze remained dark, not much different from Guan Ju’s as both clan leaders stared toward Liyu with complicated, heavy expressions, their minds filled with different calculations, concerns, and killing intent.

But the gaze of Li San was completely different from that of the two clan lords, being entirely calm with a small smile playing across his lips. Like the rest of them, he was also terrified by just how powerful Liyu was as a first-stage Qi Gathering cultivator, but unlike Guan Ju and Shi Gubing, his fear was mixed with something else: excitement and anticipation.

If Liyu possessed this much insane power while standing only at the first stage of Qi Gathering... then what would happen when he reached the peak? What would happen when he crossed into the Qi Refining Realm? What would happen when he reached the Foundation Realm? What would happen if he broke through completely from the Mortal Stage and stepped into the Core Stage?

Li San’s eyes was filled with complicated emotions. Just thinking about it was enough to make his heart tremble, and the thought alone terrified him, yet strangely... it also filled him with excitement and anticipation for the future, a future where he could finally witness just how far this monster of a young man could go. Li San’s smile deepened slightly.

"Liyu..." He murmured quietly. "Just how far will you go?"

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Author’s Note:

The Mortal Stage is the very beginning of the cultivation journey—the first step on the long and dangerous path toward becoming powerful.

The Mortal Stage consists of four realms, with each realm further divided into ten stages.

Those four realms are:

1. Body Refinement Realm

The first step of cultivation, where cultivators temper and strengthen their physical bodies.

2. Qi Gathering Realm

The stage where cultivators begin gathering and refining the spiritual Qi within their bodies.

3. Qi Refining Realm

A higher level of cultivation where the gathered Qi is further refined, allowing cultivators to possess far greater power.

4. Foundation Establishment Realm (Foundation Realm)

The final realm of the Mortal Stage, where cultivators establish a solid foundation for the greater cultivation realms that come afterward.

So, in simple terms:

Mortal Stage → 4 Realms → 10 Stages in each Realm.

This is only the beginning. The cultivation path ahead is still very, very long. 👀

— Your gentle author, Ultra