Outside his house, he saw Shang Lin with a few of the same friends from before. He also saw another boy looking calmly at him, who seemed to be older than the rest of them.

“My brother, Shang Jin, is one of the top outer disciples, and he doesn’t even have a house this close to the wall to the inner sect. Why should you?”

Shang Lin sneered, clearly not caring about his house, just wanting to bully Bao Gang.

What Shang Lin did not know, is that Bao Gang hoped that this exact scenario would occur, which would give him battle experience. Clearly, Shang Lin had not yet learned his lesson. If beating him once did not suffice, he would need to beaten again(in the sense of being defeated, not actually punching him again)!

“Why should your brother have my house? I’m stronger than him!”

At this, the older boy had the calm look wiped off his face,

“Look here you snotty kid, I have already reached the stage of hardened bone and am also a genius. If we fight, we will have the same speed but I will have more endurance, better defense, and more explosiveness.”

The explosiveness refers to the ability to accelerate quickly, by virtue of the strengthened muscles and steel tendons. The better defense was a result of the hardened bone, and the increased endurance was a result of both the better tendons and bones.

“I have also cultivated the “Dragon’s Fist, Tiger’s Palm” to the intermediate realm. I can already make a small amount of noise when I hit!”

Of course, to Bao Gang, none of these things would be considered as giving away an advantage. Even if Shang Jin was one of the most monstrous geniuses to ever live, he would still pale in comparison to Bao Gang. In terms of bodily strength, Shang Jin was completely outclassed. Luckily for him, Bao Gang would not be able to expose it.

Secondly, not only had Bao Gang cultivated the “Dragon’s Fist, Tiger’s Palm” to the advanced level, meaning a small silhouette would form, but he also had ridiculous spiritual energy attunement, which essentially determines power in the body tempering realm, as all spells are cast using spiritual energy. After this realm, they would be cast using qi, the major difference being that qi would truly belong to the cultivator, allowing it to be saved up almost infinitely. In a fight at this level, spiritual energy attunement no longer plays a big part, but in the body tempering realm, the might of a spell is dependent only on comprehension and how fast spiritual energy can be gathered to be used in a battle skill.

After finding out that Shang Jin had not yet reached the realm of invigorated blood, Bao Gang no longer held any reservations about getting into a fight.

Bao Gang rushed at Shang Jin, throwing a punch at his face, the same as when he had hit Shang Lin, his brother.

Having been told about how his brother had been humiliated in one punch, Shang Jin had already decided to do the same to Bao Gang. He would first block the punch without moving, then return the exact same one to knock out Bao Gang in one hit!

Sadly, the fight in reality did not turn out the same as the fight in his head!

When Shang Jin raised his hand to block, his hand was pushed back from the punch, and hit his face, giving him a bloody nose.

As tears involuntarily began to leak out of his eyes and blood spurted down his face from his nose, he realized that once again, the Shang family had been humiliated by Bao Gang.

All the onlookers gasped,

“Bao Gang’s bodily strength is unreal! He was able to overcome Shang Jin in just one punch!”

Keep in mind though that strength at this cultivation is only dependent on the number of reconstructions in the strengthening muscle stage, at least until a cultivator reaches the stage of invigorated blood. Although Bao Gang was stronger, it did not show that he would win because the true advantage of the steel tendons and hardened bone realm is additional stamina and defense respectively.

Shang Jin kicked out at Bao Gang’s waist and Bao Gang beegan to draw in spiritual energy, casting “Dragon’s Fist, Tiger’s Palm.” The two attacks collided, and with a ripping sound, which was overshadowed by the roar of a tiger, Shang Jin’s shin was ripped to shreds.

Bao Gang knew that Shang Jin’s bones were stronger than his own, and thus would not be able to break Shang Jin’s leg with a punch. Most likely, the opposite would happen. For this reason, he decided to use the tiger’s palm, which would cause flesh wounds, avoiding the problem of having weaker bones.

Even more incensed, Shang Jin decided to just use his finishing move. Understanding why Bao Gang had used the Tiger’s palm rather than the Dragon’s fist, he decided to do the opposite, making use of his stronger bones in order to achieve a victory.

“roar”

A quiet roar seemed to shake the surroundings. In reality, it was the air being forced out of the way of Shang Jin’s punch which shook the surroundings. The roar itself was almost pathetic by comparison.

Flustered for the first time since arriving in the sect, Bao Gang hurriedly got out of the way, but didn’t quite make it. His quick acceleration had put him off balance, and he only had 1 foot on the ground at this point

Forced to retaliate or take a direct hit, he decided to retaliate in the hopes of forcing Shang JIn back. This time, Bao Gang released his suppression on spiritual energy attunement, and spiritual energy flooded his body. Forcing all of the spiritual energy along the circulation path of the battle skill, he began to feel pain. The spiritual pathways within his body began to stretch and,

“ROOOOOOAAAAR”

An earthshaking roar along with the silhouette of a tiger punctuated the palm which he sent towards the torso of Shang Jin. In comparison to Shang Jin’s punch, this one seemed much more terrifying.

Shang Jin looked in Bao Gang’s eyes with amusement. Even though it sounded impressive, how could Bao Gang out hit him while being off-balance and having lower cultivation?

Neither of them backed off, and the exchange ended in mutual defeat, Bao Gang’s shoulder had been clipped by Shang Jin’s punch, and his collarbone had been broken.

But in comparison to Shang Jin’s injuries, Bao Gang’s seemed almost trivial. Shang Jin’s shirt had been ripped to pieces and were no longer covering his upper body. His chest was a mess of torn flesh and his ribs and sternum could be seen, although undamaged. The real damage occurred on the lower half of the torso. Shang Jin’s internal organs were not protected by a rib cage, and were visibly torn to pieces.

After seeing the damage, Shang Jin himself had fainted.

Quickly running up to his brother, Shang Lin yelled,

“Bao Gang! My father will kill you for injuring my brother!”

Then, Shang Lin and his friends quickly carried Shang Jin away from Bao Gang, as if scared he would fight them.

Nursing his broken collarbone, Bao Gang sighed. He had not expected his last hit to be so terrifying! Before, he had never fully formed a silhouette of a tiger, only a partial, transparent one, but under the pressure of the fight, he had a moment of enlightenment in which he gained comprehension of the battle skill, which led to this disastrous outcome.

Knowing the sect would no longer be a safe place for him, he ran out of the sect, not paying attention to which direction he went, only wanting to get far away from the sect.

Good thing he did too, because a few minutes after Bao Gang had disappeared from sight over the horizon, a roar of anger could be heard from the elder court and an earthquake rushed down the mountain and threw a punch at Bao Gang’s house.

The entire house shattered from the might of this ferocious punch.

Far away, Bao Gang had just killed a demonic wolf, and while running away from the sect, was also roasting it using a fire condensed from spiritual energy, according to one of the alchemy manuals from the library.

Demonic beast meat was not only nourishing, but also very tough. Using a flame condensed from spiritual energy would make the meat more tender, as well as getting rid of some impurities.

Having not been used to using this type of flame, the meat ended up being burnt on the outside, but was the most delicious meat he had ever eaten. There is something special about cooking something yourself which makes it more delicious.

The mysterious force in his blood stole the spiritual energy released from the cauldron in his stomach and became more powerful. As it did, the rate of healing in his shoulder increased.

At this point, Bao Gang now had 2 new goals. #1 would be to learn a movement technique in order to have better agility, and #2 would be strengthening the mysterious force in his blood. Imagine if he could eventually heal himself as he got injured during a battle! He would never have to worry about battles of endurance!

Keeping these goals in mind, Bao Gang killed and ate any animal which he saw in his path, and began to practice one of the movement techniques from the library, “Flight of the Hummingbird.”

While a hummingbird is not an impressive species overall, its ability to fly is unmatched. Using a combination of small wings and rapid flapping, the hummingbird has unmatched flight control.

The reason why Bao Gang chose this specific agility technique is because it would allow him to fly at a high level of comprehension. Even xiantian realm cultivators could not do this!

With this technique, he would be safe from all harm, except for flying demonic beasts.

After sprinting away from the sect for 5 hours straight, Bao Gang was too tired to continue. Keep in mind, Bao Gang could run faster than an invigorated blood stage cultivator, and after 5 hours was over 4000 miles away from the sect.

This world filled with fire laws was hotter than the Earth, and sweat poured off of him in buckets.

Luckily, he had also learned a technique to condense water from spiritual energy, and would not have to worry about dehydration.

He jumped into a tree for cultivation and did not move for 48 hours, continuously drawing in spiritual energy. He held himself back, not allowing himself to absorb the spiritual energy of the entire planet, just in a radius of 2000 miles.

Over the 48 hours, Bao Gang had broken through from entry hardened bone all the way through peak invigorated blood. While he was cultivating in the invigorated blood stage, the mysterious force in his blood continuously got stronger, absorbing the spiritual energy which he was using to reconstruct his blood. He also noticed that his spiritual energy attunement increased as the mysterious force in his blood did. Although, he did not allow his consumption of spiritual energy to increase.

Wanting to run away from the sect again, in case they sent out an organized search, he began to use his newfound agility technique.

If the sect even tried to search for him, they would not believe him to be able to run more than 2000 miles without needing to rest and recover, solely due to weak tendons and bones. Thus, during this time, he would be safe as long as he did not draw attention by absorbing spiritual energy from inside that 2000 mile zone around the sect, but afterwards, the sect might be able to fully search the area, or scouts might be sent ahead to look at terrain. Not wanting to draw attention due to his absorption of spiritual energy, he was forced to run further.

Earlier, he was just trying to run away as fast as possible, but now wanted to practice the technique as well.

He had long left the plains and entered into a forest, and he began to zip in and out of the trees as a form of agility training, Over 30 minutes, he sped up, from his original speed of 10 miles per hour to a speed of 100 miles per hour.

Capitalizing on the hummingbirds ability to change direction, the agility technique required the use of numerous footsteps, seemingly more than necessary in order to achieve maximum agility.

The second level of the technique would condense wings from qi and flap them rapidly to achieve the same thing in the air.

A cultivator would be agile in the air, but with their big body, they would never reach the agility of a hummingbird.

On the ground however, this is a different story, because they can use their legs to switch direction as well, and this is where the agility of a hummingbird is achieved.

Before forming the wings, the agility technique would have agility, but would be slower than maximum running speed. However, while flying in the air, it would be faster, but more tiring, and on the ground with the wings formed, it would be even faster, but also even more tiring.

Even though he had not yet formed qi, Bao Gang wanted to try and form the wings with spiritual energy, hopefully using his ridiculous spiritual energy attunement to be able to manipulate the spiritual energy like xiantian cultivators could with qi.

He began to suck in spiritual energy, and moved the spiritual energy along the circulation path detailed by, “Flight of the Hummingbird.”

He tried to condense it with spiritual energy, but failed multiple times before giving up.

However, he had a nagging feeling that he would be able to do so after the mysterious force in his blood had strengthened, which would increase his spiritual energy attunement.