STNS: Chapter 560 (Patreon)

Long ago, Wu Jian read The Legend of Jinhai - The Thunder-Forged Mortal. It was an old favorite from when he was little.

Jinhai was born frail, sickly, and untalented. Despite somehow managing to break into the Hunger Realm, he never rose beyond its first subrealm. In a world where talent meant status, where it meant everything, Jinhai was condemned to a life of obscurity. Wu Jian had often felt kinship with this man. This was back when he had still been weak, cowardly, and unable to take a step forward.

What Jinhai lacked in talent, however, he made up for in determination.

It was this unyielding determination that led him to step outside during a Qi Storm. While the other cultivators hid themselves in caves, he alone stood before the storm, ascending the tallest mountain he could find and baring his weak body to the heavens.

“If Heaven seeks to kill me, then let it strike me down,” he declared. “If I survive, I shall forge my own path.”

The storm answered.

Lightning struck him over and over, again and again. His bones shattered, his flesh burned, his meridians were torn asunder. He should have died a hundred times over, but his unyielding will kept him alive. Days turned into weeks, weeks to months. Yet he never once yielded. The lightning both tore through him and healed him.

And when at last the storm ended, Jinhai crawled from the mountain—skin blackened, body twisted, and eyes glowing like arcs of thunder. His cultivation had not risen at all. He was still only in the first subrealm of the Hunger Realm.

But his body… his body had been remade.

From then on, Jinhai fought with nothing but his flesh, and his flesh was stronger than steel. He crushed Anima Realm cultivators with a single blow. Asura Realm cultivators fell to his fists. Even those at the Human Limit Realm found themselves overpowered. Despite never once advancing beyond the Hunger Realm, his name had been etched into the annals of history as the man who forged his body through Heaven’s wrath.

Jinhai was eventually killed by a Deva Realm Cultivator. He had grown arrogant with his power and challenged someone he should not have, but the battle had been fierce and the Deva Realm Cultivator had suffered a crippling blow in exchange for taking Jinhai’s life.

If I can do what Jinhai did and forge my body in lightning, how much more powerful will I be?

This Qi Storm was the perfect chance for Wu Jian to forge his body anew. He believed that if he could do what Jinhai had done, his body would be reforged far stronger than what even that man had achieved. After all, he was already more powerful than Jinhai had been.

Those had been his thoughts when he allowed himself to be struck by lightning, and those remained his thoughts as he viciously fought against the overwhelming pain each time lightning struck his body. Wu Jian’s nervous system was the first thing to be overwhelmed. He had been knocked out cold, though only for a second, long enough for a second bolt to strike his unprepared body, which had caused him to seize up completely, so much so that even breathing became a struggle.

He dared not look down at his body. He’d already made that mistake once and seen what had become of it. Scorch marks had spread across his flesh in branching, tree-like patterns, black and disgusting. His hair had already been completely burnt off his head and his clothes had ignited, leaving him stark naked.

Another bolt of lightning fell upon him. It traveled along his blood vessels and nerves. He could actually feel it. Every nerve was lit ablaze, as though each vein and nerve had been set on fire all at once--a pain so total and all encompassing that his brain couldn’t even comprehend it. And that was to say nothing for the snapping, crackling, and popping of his bones. Like a blacksmith’s hammer smashing glass, his bones felt as though they were fracturing under the pressure.

But the worst part was his meridians and dantian. His meridians felt like molten rivers. Every channel was scorched as the lightning forced its way through, turning his qi sea into a sea of fire. The fact that he was still standing astonished even him, but maybe, the reason he hadn’t moved from that mountaintop was because his entire body had seized up.

Each strike of lightning was preceded by a sensation of numbness, which started from the place he had been struck--but as the nerves woke up, more pain came flooding back, over and over in a constant, repeated cycle. The taste of iron in his mouth as blood filled it was disgusting, but he could do little about it. His body shook uncontrollably and sounds had become muffled while his vision flickered in and out.

The pain went beyond his flesh. This was not normal lightning. It was the lightning of a Qi Storm, and the assault on his body was nothing compared to the assault on his soul. Wu Jian felt like his consciousness was constantly being ripped away, only to be forced awake again by the pain.

Yet past all that, past the pain, the agony, Wu Jian felt an odd strengthening weight. It was like each strike was chiseling his weakness away and leaving something harder, something sharper behind. So he endured. As the pain assaulted him, he endured. As his soul felt like it was being torn apart, he endured.

A day past. Night came.

He endured.

Another day. Another night.

He endured.

Time lost meaning. Wu Jian couldn’t tell how many days and nights had passed. All he knew was pain, and yet, he endured, until, at last, the clouds parted and the sun peaked through.

What remained after the storm was a barely alive pile of blackened, scorched flesh shaped like a man. Pain so vast that it eclipsed everything else had left his body weakened, and yet, behind it, a tiny seed of triumph emerged.

Several more days passed. Wu Jian’s consciousness soon emerged. He had been only half-conscious for the days after the storm’s passing. Now he rose. His body still ached with the phantom pain of lightning, but he was alive, and he luxuriated in the knowledge that he had survived.

He shifted, black ash and scorched flesh falling away, flaking off his body to reveal pink skin. It was still young, fresh, and not wholly ready to be presented to the sun. He hissed as a stinging sensation traveled across his body, but he forced himself to move, traveling down the mountain, into a cave on the mountainside. There, he sat. While his clothes had ignited, his storage ring had survived. He summoned several healing pills and popped them into his mouth one by one. Then he closed his eyes and meditated.

His meditation was closer to sleep than true meditation. Though he had been knocked unconscious by the storm, he had not truly slept for however long he had stood on that mountaintop. His body and mind were exhausted, battered. While he slept, the pills went to work, restoring his body, mending his flesh. Wu Jian awoke some time later to find that the skin on his arms had been restored--no, they were better than restored. His skin glistened as though time had been rewound. Even the scars that had once littered his body were gone.

I wish I had a mirror…

He patted his head and winced when he felt nothing there.

Maybe it’s better that I don’t have a mirror, actually. I don’t want to see what I look like without hair.

Because Wu Jian didn’t want to meet up with everyone when his hair was gone, he waited until his hair grew out. He needed time to repair the rest of his body anyway. He also wanted to feel the differences in his body.

The lightning tempering had indeed been a success. Wu Jian could tell that his body had become stronger than ever. He picked up a rock and crushed it, watching the fine grains of powder fall. Crushing rocks like this was something he had already been capable of, but it was far easier now, and the powder it produced much finer. Standing up, he went over to the cavern wall and threw a casual punch. His fist went through the rock. He watched, tilting his head, to follow the cracks that his casual attack had created. They spread from the wall to the floor and ceiling. Even without qi, his attack had done incredible damage, and if he actually infused his attacks with qi, then…

So this is what a lightning-tempered body is like… incredible.

Wu Jian had already been strong. He had trained his body every day since he was eight, and his strengthening exercises had gotten progressively more insane as time passed. By the end of his training, just before he became a cultivator, Wu Jian had been doing pull-ups from a fifteen mǎ above ground with boulders attached to his feet. He had reached a point where no amount of training would increase his strength. He had plateaued, in other words.

Now he had finally managed to increase his physical strength, but it wasn’t just his body that had become sturdier. While his cultivation hadn’t increased at all, his meridians and dantian were also stronger. He could tell. Even without testing it, he just knew that he was capable of pumping more qi through his meridians than before.

“Now,” he said with a breath. “It’s time to meet back up with the others.”

Summoning some clothes from his storage ring, he donned them, then traveled down the mountain. He flew instead of walked or climbed. His eyes were sharper than they had been, and he blinked a little to adjust to the sudden increased clarity of vision. Thanks to those eyes, he spotted Wu Meiying and the others shortly after he began flying. They were walking in the direction of the mountain he had done his training on. With a smile, Wu Jian descended.

“I’m back!”

“Master!”

Youmei pounced on him. She felt as light as a feather despite plowing into him with all her strength. He laughed and lifted her onto his shoulder as the others walked over to him.

“Welcome back,” Wu Meiying said with a smile.

“Unbelievable,” Töri Qiang muttered in shock. “I can’t believe he survived. What kind of monster is he?”

Nobody paid him any mind.

“Jian… You look… different,” Hou Jingshu said as she studied him.

“I feel different,” Wu Jian said as Zhou Lihua quickly wandered over to him and began to poke and prod his body.

“Hmm… I don’t see any injuries on you… that’s good… but oh… what’s this… your body is much firmer than before, and yet, somehow, it also feels very soft,” Zhou Lihua said. She had seemed worried at first, but that soon turned to intrigue as she went from poking him to check for injuries to stroking him to check out his muscles.

“That… tickles a little,” Wu Jian confessed, trying not to squirm.

“Oh?” Zhou Lihua mumbled, her eyes gleaming. “It tickles, you say? Even though I’m barely touching you… I wonder…”

“Don’t you dare,” Wu Jian said, backing off. “I will fight back.”

“Hmmmm…” Zhou Lihua looked like she wanted to test that, but she chose to back down.

“Master is much stronger now! I can feel it! That’s incredible, Master!” Youmei said. She was still on his shoulders. Wrapping her legs around him to stay balanced, she leaned over until her face was right in front of his, but upside down. Her long hair almost trailed to the ground as she grinned at him. “I want to fight you! Can we fight? I’d like to see how strong you’ve become!”

“Well…”

He looked at Wu Meiying, who shrugged and smiled.

“We’ve got time,” she said simply.

He nodded and smiled at Youmei. “All right, I’ll spar with you.”

“Yay!” Youmei cheered.

She hopped off him and they found a nice clearing to spar in.

Wu Jian defeated her within a few strikes, without having to use even a single technique.