My Clones Can Cultivate

Chapter 89

The training field where Li Feng was finally settled down became silent; the only sound that could be heard was the tortured groan coming from Li Feng’s mouth as he breathed in and out heavily.

His body was covered with many black bruises, a clear sign that he had suffered a rather troublesome beating. He removed the black cloth covering his eyes; his face was swollen almost shut, and he could no longer keep himself standing. He collapsed onto the ground with blood pouring from the corner of his mouth.

Li San looked at his son, his expression as calm as the surface of a still lake. He spoke, his voice reverberating across the entire training field: "You are still relying on your own instinct to try and overcome the obstacles. That is not what the Instinct Awakening Art is about. The Silent Ear helps you sharpen your hearing."

"The Heart Breathing enables you to steady your heartbeat, increasing your overall awareness while also monitoring your opponent’s breathing. The third form, Wind Perception, is related to sensing where the enemy is coming from. The fourth form, Killing Intent Sense, helps you analyze and read your opponent’s movements. And then there is the fifth form... Natural Response."

"This is something you can only use when you stop trying to do everything consciously on your own." He paused before asking, "Tell me, when you touch something hot like fire, do you stop to think before pulling your hand away?" Li Feng shook his head.

"That is natural. It is buried deep within human instinct. The fifth form helps unleash that degree of perception and movement that surpasses the normal limits of what you are capable of. Remember, you let your body guide your movements. Don’t try to force them."

"Let one movement flow naturally into another... smooth and perfectly synchronized. If you can achieve that, then you will finally understand just how much relying only on your eyes has been limiting you."

Li Feng absorbed every single word like a sponge. The first four forms, despite being extremely difficult to learn, had already given an insane boost to his overall combat prowess after he finally grasped them.

He couldn’t help but think that if he managed to master this fifth form as well, then he would truly reach a level he had never imagined before. Li Feng steeled his resolve; his body still ached as he stood up once again, blood still dripping from the side of his head.

He looked at his father before nodding, signaling that he was ready. Li San nodded in return before using his spirit sense to activate the array. A large octagram array lit up beneath Li Feng’s training field, and something truly strange began to happen: his injuries healed. No... they seemed to vanish entirely.

The pain ravaging his body disappeared in a mere instant, and he returned to exactly how he had looked before the slip-up. This was the special effect of the array. It accomplished something truly astonishing; it altered the flow of time on a particular target, and through the meticulous use of the array, it became the very reason why Li Feng could continue enduring such ridiculously brutal training.

Every time he was broken and pushed into a miserable state, the array would simply activate; the moment it did, his body would immediately return to the exact condition it had been in before the mistake that caused him to be barraged by the rock arrows.

The array locked onto the moment he slipped up and restored him to that precise point in time. If not for this array, he wouldn’t have been able to learn even the first form, let alone somehow master four of them already, and he would undoubtedly master the remaining forms as well.

Li Feng still found it rather amazing... almost impossible to believe... that such an array could actually exist. Based on his knowledge, time was one of the most overpowered and exceedingly rare elements in existence; for someone to be able to create something like this, they must possess, no matter how little, some affinity with the Time Element or something extremely similar.

Based on what he knew, the heiress of the Li Clan... Li Yu’s mother... was the one who had created this array, and she had done so while only being at the Bronze Core Realm.

That was something many people, including Li Feng himself, found extremely difficult to believe. The grade of this array was most definitely at least a Sky Grade Silver Rank; so how could someone in the Bronze Core Realm possibly create it? Well... maybe that was exactly why she had been hailed as the greatest genius to have ever existed within the Li Clan during her era, back when she was still alive.

Li Feng shifted his thoughts away from the jaw-dropping achievement of his deceased aunt and focused back on the task before him. The array was among the sole reasons... no, it was the main reason... he had managed to persevere for so long. But even the array had its own limitations; no, perhaps "limitation" wasn’t the right word.

It was simply that activating it consumed a tremendous amount of resources. The cost was relatively small over a short period of time, but the longer and more frequently it was used, the more resources it devoured. He couldn’t allow that to happen.

So this time, he would master Natural Response; no matter what, he would master it. He placed the black cloth back over his eyes and gripped his sword firmly with both hands; his stance steadied, and his breathing became sharp and controlled as he slowly exhaled.

Li San nodded when he saw the determination in his son’s posture. For some reason, he felt genuinely proud. His son was a genius; the fact that he had always stood in Li Yuexin’s shadow had caused many people to overlook just how talented he truly was.

But now, Li San could see it with his own eyes; this boy was far, far more talented than Li San himself had ever been. It had taken Li San more than two months just to grasp the five basic forms of Instinct Awakening, yet his son... his son might very well accomplish that within just a few days.

He believed that before the tournament arrived, Li Feng would surely master all five basic forms.

Li San nodded as he waved his hand and activated the monument once more. Several rocky arrows flew through the air at insane speed as they rushed toward Li Feng, who remained as calm as the surface of a still lake.

"Calm your heart... heighten your awareness... and let your body react instantly, not through force... but through flow." Li Feng breathed out before moving. His legs shifted naturally as he dodged many of the incoming arrows and struck down those he couldn’t avoid; his sword flashed repeatedly, knocking aside arrow after arrow.

But as time went by, more of them began to hit him once again. Still, he never remained in one place. The pain ravaged both his body and mind; he suppressed the tortured groans threatening to escape his mouth and continued moving.

No matter what, he would master the five basic forms; he would make his father proud; and he would win the tournament. "Calm your heart... heighten your awareness... and let your body react instantly, not through force... but through flow..."

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Meanwhile, at the end of the seventh day, Li Xie came out of his cultivation chamber, radiating a far more powerful aura than before. His gaze was calm, and a small, proud smile rested on his face as he looked at his hand.

He felt far stronger than he had just a few days ago; he had finally broken through to the seventh stage of the Qi Gathering Realm. Sincerely, it wasn’t surprising at all that he had managed to break through after seven days; after all, he and his brother Jie had both been extremely close to reaching the seventh stage of the Qi Gathering Realm.

The feeling of having his spirit core filled with another powerful qi cluster was incredibly revitalizing and invigorating. The surge of strength coursing through his body was something even he hadn’t expected to feel so vividly.

One had to know that unlike Li Feng, who possessed a Sky Grade spirit root, Jie and Xie both possessed Earth Grade spirit roots. But if their talent were to be properly evaluated.... well, in truth, they already had been evaluated. And the result was precisely why they were known as the Anomaly Brothers.

If spirit roots possessed ranks just like cultivation techniques and the other treasures of the world, then Xie was more than certain that he and his brother would either possess Emerald Rank Earth Grade spirit roots... or perhaps even Obsidian Rank Earth Grade spirit roots.

A normal Earth Grade cultivator usually needed to form only three to five qi beads before condensing a qi cluster, but he and his brother needed to form ten qi beads before a qi cluster would finally take shape.

Every single breakthrough granted them a surge of power far greater than what cultivators of the same realm normally received, and this breakthrough was no different. Li Xie took in a deep breath before slowly exhaling, his breath lingering in the air.

"I should fill my stomach first... then train my combat art," he muttered to himself. The tournament was now only three days away, and then the great day would finally arrive. Li Xie entered the dining hall and was a little surprised to find his brother already stuffing himself with food.

He didn’t even need to ask why Jie was eating so much; he could already sense it from his aura. His brother had also broken through to the seventh stage of the Qi Gathering Realm, and just like what Li Xie experienced after every breakthrough, Jie was suffering from the same overwhelming spike in hunger that always accompanied their advancement.

Xie sat beside his brother and ordered his own large serving of spirit food. The food was soon brought over; looking at the enormous amount before him, he wasn’t intimidated in the slightest. Instead, he immediately began eating. He was so thoroughly starving that he genuinely believed he could devour every last bit of it.

The two brothers soon finished the massive amount of food that had been served before them; yet the waiters weren’t shocked. In fact, none of them looked surprised at all; and that was because they had already experienced a far greater shock before, making this seem like nothing more than a smaller version of an already terrifying food monster.

That monster was, of course, none other than the heir of the Li Clan. Li Yu’s ordinary daily meals were still larger than the combined amount the two brothers had just eaten.

One could now understand why the waiters didn’t seem to care that the two brothers consumed so much food. Soon, Xie and Jie finished eating and left the dining hall. Not long afterward, they arrived at one of the many training fields within the Li Manor.

Both of them were dressed in their training attire, and in their hands were their real weapons. Jie held his dual rapiers; Xie held his long sword. "Big bro... I have decided. I will win this one," Xie said, clearly meaning that he would win the spar. Jie smiled as he shook his head.

"Give it your best, and let’s see if you can really defeat me." Both brothers gathered large amounts of qi around their bodies, then they launched at each other with astonishing speed. The sound of swords clashing echoed in rapid bursts. The wind howled. The ground trembled.

The sheer force generated by their battle made the surrounding air ripple, proving that the two brothers, who normally hated fighting, were truly going all out against one another. Sincerely, it simply couldn’t be helped.

The two brothers, just like every other candidate, knew that the upcoming tournament wouldn’t be an easy one. Simply breaking through to the seventh stage of the Qi Gathering Realm wasn’t enough to guarantee victory; because of that, they had to sharpen their skills to the very best of their abilities.

After all, every single one of them wanted to win the tournament; lazing around simply wouldn’t cut it, so they had to keep pushing themselves beyond their limits.

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Meanwhile, back inside Yuexin’s cultivation chamber, which possessed a rather unique design, her cultivation seat was placed right amidst a small pond of spirit water located within the chamber itself. Cooling waves of spiritual qi constantly filled the entire room.

Li Yuexin slowly opened her eyes, a conflicted expression appearing on her face. "If things continue like this... then I will never be able to reach the Qi Refining Realm. I can’t keep going like this. Something needs to change."

Yuexin spoke calmly as she looked down at her hand. She simply had too many qi beads within her qi clusters; she had to focus on breaking them apart one by one before reforming them again, and because of that, her progress had become painfully slow. If she truly wanted to reach the Qi Refining Realm before the tournament finally arrived, then she would have no choice but to take a gamble... a very dangerous gamble.

Yuexin slowly let out a breath before her blue eyes gradually hardened with determination. She then focused her consciousness inward toward one of her qi clusters. Within it, a few of the more than one hundred qi beads were slowly breaking apart little by little; out of the total one hundred and twenty qi beads, only fifteen had completely deconstructed.

Li Yuexin sighed once more. "This is definitely going to hurt..." No... "Hurt" was a complete understatement. She took in a deep breath before steeling her heart. After that, she did something that anyone and everyone would consider the very peak of madness.

She shattered the remaining one hundred and five qi beads... all at once.