Chapter 173

Chapter 173: Body Tempering

Back then, Chu Yao had said the living trained strength while the dead practiced qi refining, and cultivating both strength and qi only led to bad outcomes.

Maybe those who never cultivated qi were on the correct path.

Wang Jie cultivated lockforce, which had no upper limit. He also trained both strength and qi.

No matter how he looked at it, his future didn’t feel promising.

He let out a slow breath and glanced at the star compass.

A Roaming-Star Realm’s qi was approaching.

He watched as it drew near and finally stopped outside his shop, some distance away.

He pictured the nearby layout: this row of storefronts held restaurants, clothing shops, pill shops, and tool shops.

That qi had stopped in the alley beside the clothing shop.

Was it watching him?

Wang Jie looked out.

In the alley, he saw a familiar figure.

Gao Chi.

The Roaming-Star Realm cultivator who came again and again to buy gravity starstone—and the man the Forging Branch had sent to pressure him.

So the Forging Branch still hadn’t given up.

At the same time, the moment Wang Jie poured a large surge of qi into his star compass, somewhere far beyond the starry sky, an almost identical star compass began to tremble.

A figure picked it up and fed it a terrifying volume of qi. The star map inside shrank instantly, compressing farther and farther until it fixed on a precise location.

Four-Dao Star Cluster.

The figure tucked the compass away, stepped into the starry sky, and vanished.

Back in the Four-Dao Market, Gao Chi didn’t leave. He took a seat in a nearby restaurant and kept watching Wang Jie’s shop.

Wang Jie didn’t know what he planned. He only knew it was annoying.

But this was the Four-Dao Market—Gao Chi couldn’t act here. And Wang Jie didn’t know Gao Chi’s true battle strength.

Roaming-Star Realm ranged wildly. At minimum, 100,000 battle strength. At the peak, nearly 500,000.

The strongest Roaming-Star Realm Wang Jie had dealt with before was Wu Yun, around 170,000 or 180,000—certainly under 200,000.

Gao Chi? He couldn’t tell.

Wu Yun was a steward. Logically, she should be stronger than Gao Chi… but if he guessed wrong, he would be the one to die.

He calculated: he still needed time before he could safely move his Burststar Pills without drawing too many eyes.

Until then, he would cultivate.

If he pushed his Star-Breaking Realm strength to its extreme multiplier, his battle strength could rival a peak Roaming-Star Realm.

What he lacked was time.

In the meantime, he had Thunder-Seal Pill.

He sat cross-legged beside an entire bottle, took one pill, and crushed it.

Lightning tore through him.

Wang Jie felt his whole body go numb, his mind briefly blanking as scorching heat flashed across his skin and sank into his bones.

Only after a long moment did the sensation fade.

He looked down.

His clothes were shredded. His skin had blackened.

Had he really just been struck by lightning?

After he steadied his breathing, he crushed another.

Again. And again.

Lightning after lightning, tempering his body until his skin blackened, peeled, numbed, and recovered—over and over, a brutal cycle.

With Thunder-Seal Pill body tempering, after about one hundred pills, thunder pattern formed on the skin. It was the mark of repeated strikes.

Once thunder pattern formed, it could resist 10,000 destructive power—natural armor across the surface of the body.

At first, the thunder pattern was scorched black.

If someone endured one thousand lightning temperings, the thunder pattern turned brown. At that stage, it could resist 50,000 destructive power.

That was Wang Jie’s goal.

If he formed brown thunder pattern, then even against Wu Yun he might not be helpless.

Thunder pattern would absorb 50,000 destructive power first; he could endure the remainder himself.

Thunder-Seal Pill was one of the fastest ways to raise battle strength—but the value for money was abysmal.

One thousand pills cost 120 million starstones. Who could afford that?

And one hundred pills only gave 10,000 defense. Spending tens of millions for that was often worse than buying a chen artifact or other pills.

If you wanted to temper with Thunder-Seal Pill, you needed a lot.

Most people could only handle one pill a day.

Wang Jie was different. His body was monstrous—Ten Seals meant a hundredfold strength. He could take thirty a day.

In three days, scorched thunder pattern formed across his skin. At a glance, it looked like cracks splitting flesh.

He ran his fingers over it. It did feel tougher.

But thunder pattern didn’t last forever. Given time, it would shed and fade. To keep it, a cultivator had to temper again and again.

It was a cultivation method that burned money.

It was also the quickest way to strengthen his ability to survive.

In the nearby restaurant, Gao Chi watched without blinking.

Ji Zheng’s side had temporarily stopped targeting Wang Jie, but Gao Chi refused to let it go.

Wang Jie had gravity starstone. A lot of it.

Gao Chi needed it.

As for fortune-telling, backgrounds, and the rest?

He didn’t care.

He was already in too deep. What was there left to fear?

When sunlight fell across his skin one morning, Wang Jie looked down and exhaled.

Brown thunder pattern had formed.

Now it finally looked like something.

With this, he had real protection against Wu Yun. Even if he fought head-on, he might not lose.

He didn’t stop there.

“Now I’ll start the eighth set…”

He took out catastrophe materials to absorb while moving through the familiar exercises.

He needed more materials.

Reaching Full-Star Realm would be natural if he had enough—water flowing downhill.

The problem was that he needed too much. An absurd amount.

And he couldn’t rely on Suoxingjian forever. He was in the Zhi Academy now. He couldn’t interfere there as before.

Once he left, Zhi Qing would have countless ways to squeeze the people in Suoxingjian—especially with Wu Yun still there.

Another month passed.

Wang Jie left his shop and headed for the Star Vault Exchange.

Gao Chi saw him, eyes narrowing, but didn’t move. He watched Wang Jie walk away and waited for an opening.

Du Xian received Wang Jie personally and led him into a private room.

Wang Jie asked, “Has your side investigated me? There’s been no movement at all.”

Du Xian smiled. “I wouldn’t know. But if they had, you’d have heard a result by now.”

Wang Jie set bottle after bottle on the table. “Look.”

Du Xian recognized them instantly. “Burststar Pill?”

She arched a brow. “Guest really thinks I’ll buy back something I sold?”

“Open it,” Wang Jie said.

Du Xian opened a bottle and froze. “Huh?”

She took one pill out and sniffed it, gaze sharpening. “Bring me a scent bird.”

Wang Jie sat calmly, mind already turning over catastrophe materials and how to obtain them.

Du Xian studied the pills. Something was different.

One carried a scorching heat—like flame.

Burststar Pill shouldn’t feel like that.

She opened another bottle and took one out.

It was heavy. Several times heavier than it should be.

Gravity?

Soon, the scent bird arrived and sniffed the pills, chirping in response.

Du Xian turned slowly to Wang Jie. “Guest… what is this?”

“Star-refining,” Wang Jie said. “I raised the pills by one grade.”

Du Xian’s eyes widened. “You can star-refine pills?”

Wang Jie only tapped the bottles.

Du Xian stared at him for a long moment, then ordered a test. Someone swallowed a gravity Burststar Pill.

The result was unmistakable. The grade had risen. The function was unchanged—still Burststar Pill—but the tier was higher.

A blazing-flame Burststar Pill tested the same way.

Du Xian dismissed the testers and looked back at Wang Jie with open astonishment. “Guest keeps surprising me. I never imagined you could star-refine even pills.”

“No one tried before?” Wang Jie asked.

“Of course people tried,” Du Xian said. “Whether they succeeded… that’s beyond my level.”

Her gaze dropped to the bottles. “Why only this many?”

Wang Jie had brought exactly enough to recover what he’d spent buying Burststar Pills. “The rest will be sold in my shop.”

“I remember Guest bought three hundred Burststar Pills,” Du Xian said slowly. “Thirty four-mark, twenty five-mark.”

Her eyes lifted. “After star-refining, that means…”

“The five-mark didn’t become six-mark,” Wang Jie said with a calm smile.

Du Xian’s gaze flickered. “They didn’t?”

“How easy do you think six-mark is?” Wang Jie said lightly. “I can push four-mark to five-mark, but six-mark? Even a Pill Dao celestial master might fail.”

Du Xian didn’t answer that. She only said, “A five-mark Burststar Pill sells for seven million starstones. A six-mark pill—my Star Vault Exchange purchase price is thirty million each.”

“No,” Wang Jie said.

“Forty million.”

“No.”

“Fifty million,” Du Xian said, narrowing her eyes. “Guest, that’s my limit. That’s comparable to a Hundred-Star Realm pill.”

Fifty million each.

Twenty pills would be a billion.

Wang Jie almost sighed at the temptation. “I want money too. But I don’t have them. What do you want me to do?”

He glanced at her. “Like when you bought that strange planet. Didn’t I have no choice but to sell?”

Du Xian rolled her eyes and laughed. “So Guest still holds that grudge?”

She waved a hand. “The price I gave wasn’t low. Don’t listen to rumors. Sometimes the Star Vault Exchange is helpless too.”

Wang Jie didn’t indulge her. “Enough. Are you buying this batch or not?”

“Of course I’m buying,” Du Xian said at once. “Guest, wait a moment. I’ll have the starstones prepared.”

Wang Jie recovered his costs in one sweep. Only then did he feel secure again.

Du Xian wanted the entire batch, but Wang Jie refused. His shop couldn’t become nothing but starforce pills.

With money in hand, he went straight back into the market.

He swept up every Thunder-Seal Pill he could find.

He bought the Star Vault Exchange’s stock as well.