Chapter 22: Breakthrough

Chapter 22: Chapter 22: Breakthrough

Chen Yuan stared silently at the system panel before him. His gaze ignored the other details and was fixed upon the final line.

[Reward: Peak Foundation Establishment Realm]

His eyes lingered on the words for several seconds. Then, surprisingly, his expression remained rather calm.

"Peak Foundation Establishment..."

Chen Yuan murmured the words softly, his tone carrying little excitement.

After all, Peak Foundation Establishment was only the realm immediately above Qi Condensation.

Although it was certainly stronger than his current cultivation, it was not something that should leave him overly shocked.

But as soon as those words left his mouth, Chen Yuan suddenly froze.

His eyes slowly widened.

"...Wait."

He stared at the system panel again.

[Reward: Peak Foundation Establishment Realm]

His lips twitched.

For some reason, he had completely overlooked the most important word in the entire reward.

Peak.

Peak?

Peak!

"Peak Foundation Establishment..."

He repeated the words, this time with a completely different tone.

Chen Yuan fell silent. The realization slowly settled into his mind, and his expression gradually became one of disbelief. Then, unable to contain himself any longer, he finally cursed out loud.

"Fuck!"

His voice echoed throughout the vast cave.

Chen Yuan stared at the system panel in utter shock.

"This is Peak Foundation Establishment?!"

"Am I seeing it right?"

He couldn’t wait anymore. He didn’t want to, and immediately chose to accept the reward.

Ding...

The moment his decision was made, the system panel before him flickered slightly before the line describing the reward vanished.

Almost at the same time, a strange memory of a random spiritual technique appeared inside his mind.

However, Chen Yuan didn’t have the time to pay attention to it.

He hurriedly lowered himself and sat cross-legged in mid-air, focusing entirely on the changes occurring within his body.

Almost immediately...

Boom!

A loud thump echoed out of nowhere.

Inside his body, a powerful surge of spiritual energy suddenly erupted.

Chen Yuan’s expression became solemn as the spiritual energy rapidly flooded through his meridians.

His cultivation, which was originally at the Early Foundation Establishment Realm, began advancing rapidly.

Boom!

Middle Foundation Establishment.

Boom!

Late Foundation Establishment.

The spiritual energy within his dantian grew increasingly dense and powerful with every increase in cultivation.

His aura also continued to climb, becoming far more profound than it had been moments earlier. Yet even after reaching the Late Foundation Establishment Realm, the surge showed no signs of stopping.

It continued pushing his cultivation upward until it finally reached the very peak of the realm.

Peak Foundation Establishment Realm.

The moment his cultivation stabilized, Chen Yuan’s body became completely still.

For several breaths, nothing happened.

Then, without him realizing it, a terrifying aura slowly seeped out from his body.

It was not intentional. He didn’t mean to release it. Chen Yuan had simply become too accustomed to concealing his cultivation over the years.

Now that his strength had suddenly increased by such a tremendous amount, he had yet to fully adjust to the power residing within him.

His spiritual pressure leaked outward, barely a negligible amount.

And the world immediately reacted.

Boom!

The air surrounding Chen Yuan suddenly trembled violently.

It was as though an invisible hand had seized the entire cave and twisted it around under immense coercion. The previously still air began to howl.

Streams of air tore through the cavern like countless invisible blades, slicing across the stone walls and leaving shallow marks behind.

Dust was swept from the ground and thrown into the air, while the thousands of Flaming Fireflies scattered wildly in every direction.

Rumble...

The entire cave began to shake.

The stone platform beneath the ancient sword trembled violently, and loose fragments of rock fell from the ceiling. Even the ancient sword itself seemed to respond to the sudden pressure.

Its blade gave a faint tremor.

Clang...

A clear metallic sound echoed throughout the cave.

Chen Yuan remained completely unaware of the commotion around him, his eyes still closed as he silently experienced his newfound strength.

Outside the cave, however, the disturbance was far from over.

The moment Chen Yuan’s aura escaped the ancestral grounds, the surrounding air seemed to become heavy.

A terrifying wave of pressure suddenly erupted from the center of the Chen Family’s ancestral grounds. It spread outward like an invisible storm.

The trees surrounding the ancestral grounds bent violently beneath the pressure. Their branches shook, and leaves were swept into the air, spiraling wildly before scattering across the ground.

Birds resting among the branches were startled into flight. A flock of birds burst from the forest all at once, flapping desperately as they fled into the distant sky.

The ordinary beasts roaming nearby froze. Some raised their heads toward the ancestral grounds, their bodies instinctively trembling beneath an overwhelming sense of danger.

The pressure continued spreading.

It rolled across the surrounding land like an invisible tide, causing the atmosphere itself to feel strangely oppressive. Within the Chen Family’s residence, several clansmen suddenly stopped what they were doing.

Those with weaker cultivation immediately felt their legs grow weak.

Some looked toward the ancestral grounds with pale faces, while others instinctively released their spiritual senses, only to withdraw them immediately after feeling the terrifying aura.

"What... is that?"

"I don’t know, but it seems to be coming from the ancestral grounds."

"It must be the Ancestor’s doing. Don’t think too much about it."

Deep within the ancestral grounds, the pressure continued to surge.

At its center sat Chen Yuan. His robes fluttered wildly despite there being no ordinary wind within the cave.

His long hair swayed behind him, and the spiritual energy surrounding his body churned like an invisible storm. Only then did Chen Yuan slowly open his eyes.

"Peak Foundation Establishment, complete."

He muttered the words, still finding it somewhat unbelievable even after hearing his own voice.

Chen Yuan slowly clenched his fist.

The air around his fingers seemed to distort faintly under the force contained within them.

He could clearly feel the tremendous spiritual energy circulating through his body. Every meridian, every strand of spiritual energy, and even his physical body seemed to have undergone a profound transformation.

It was an entirely different level of strength compared to before.

"What a powerful feeling."

Curiosity soon took over his surprise.

Chen Yuan released his divine sense.

In the next instant, an invisible wave spread outward from his body.

It passed through the walls of the cavern without the slightest resistance and continued expanding beyond the ancestral grounds.

Ten kilometers.

Twenty kilometers.

Thirty kilometers.

The range continued increasing.

Soon, the entire surrounding area appeared within Chen Yuan’s perception, and his divine sense continued spreading until it reached nearly fifty kilometers in every direction.

Even Blue Cloud Mist City, which was located in the distance, fell within his perception.

Chen Yuan’s eyes widened slightly.

He could perceive countless things within that enormous range.

The movement of leaves.

The flight of birds.

The presence of beasts hidden within the forests.

Even the spiritual fluctuations of cultivators throughout Blue Cloud Mist City appeared faintly within his awareness. It was as though the entire region had suddenly become an extension of his own senses.

Chen Yuan silently sensed the presence of powerful cultivators in the city. But the strongest he felt was merely at the peak of Qi Condensation, which he assumed should be the city lord.

"The Zhao family..."

He murmured, remembering the current issue that the clan was facing. Compared to the smaller picture, Chen Yuan knew the actual threat wasn’t the Li Family.

For the current him, the Li Family was insignificant, capable of being destroyed with a simple wave of his hand.

But the Zhao family that the Li Family depended upon was another story.

"Rumors have it that the Royal Family possesses more than a dozen Foundation Establishment cultivators. There is even a rumor of a Half-Step Golden Core cultivator hiding behind the scenes."

But of course, these were just baseless rumors without any evidence. Chen Yuan would still take them seriously, though.

After all, throughout the past centuries, the Imperial Court had always been hostile and cold toward the unaffiliated cultivation families in the Great Yan Kingdom.

Chen Yuan doubted that the Li Family’s actions against them weren’t secretly being pushed by the Imperial Court.

"Whatever the case, once Chen Feng is manifested, my Chen Family can safely safeguard its own interests against these greedy dogs."

Throwing those thoughts away, Chen Yuan retracted his divine sense from the city and slowly clenched his fist.

He then turned his attention toward the strange memory that had appeared within his mind.

The information was surprisingly clear.

It was a spiritual technique.

Chen Yuan carefully went through its contents, and the more he understood it, the stranger his expression became.

The technique allowed its user to split their body and create multiple clones. But these were not ordinary clones made from spiritual energy.

Each clone possessed a genuine physical body of flesh and blood.

They could move, think, speak, and act independently of the main body. Even more absurdly, their appearance could be freely altered by Chen Yuan. He could make them look exactly like himself or completely different.

But that wasn’t even the most outrageous part.

Chen Yuan’s expression gradually turned blank as he reached the final part of the technique.

Each clone would possess the same cultivation realm as the main body.

Chen Yuan stared at the information in his mind, and then he read the name of the technique aloud.

"Myriad Flesh Avatar Technique."

Silence.

Chen Yuan’s mouth slowly opened.

"...What?"

He carefully went through the information again.

He hadn’t misunderstood it.

The clones were real physical bodies.

They could be given different appearances.

And most importantly...

They possessed the same cultivation realm as him.

Chen Yuan’s expression slowly became one of disbelief.

"That’s absurd."

He couldn’t help but mutter.

If he created one clone, then there would effectively be two Peak Foundation Establishment cultivators.

Two clones?

Three.

Ten?

Eleven Peak Foundation Establishment cultivators?

And that was assuming the technique had no limitations, which Chen Yuan doubted would be the case.

Chen Yuan’s breathing gradually became heavier.

He had originally thought that reaching 100% credibility would merely allow him to eventually manifest Chen Feng.

But the rewards he had received were becoming increasingly ridiculous.

A Peak Foundation Establishment cultivation.

And now, a technique capable of creating multiple flesh-and-blood clones that shared his cultivation. Even if he could create one clone, that alone was more than powerful enough to be called almost too perverted.

Just how perverted were the rewards for fulfilling the credibility requirement?

Chen Yuan couldn’t help but laugh.

"This system..."

He shook his head, still unable to fully comprehend what he had obtained. But there was no reason to merely think about it.

He wanted to see it for himself. Chen Yuan immediately circulated his spiritual energy according to the technique’s instructions.

His spiritual energy began flowing through his meridians in a peculiar pattern. He focused his mind and attempted to separate a portion of his body according to the technique.

However.

Ding!

A familiar notification suddenly rang inside his ears.

Chen Yuan’s movements stopped.

The excitement on his face was replaced by confusion as he stared at the translucent system panel that slowly appeared before his eyes.

[Character Panel’s Requirement Unlocked.]

"What is this?"

Before he could even process what was happening, a strange, unfamiliar panel appeared before his eyes.

[Character Panel]

[Name: Chen Yuan]

[Age: 90]

[Lifespan: 500 Years]

[Realm: Peak Foundation Establishment]

[Techniques: [Myriad Flesh Avatar Technique, Entry], [Flaming Fireflies, Transcendent], [Breath Concealment Technique, Mastered], [Spiritual Energy Manipulation, Mastered], [Body Tempering Technique, Mastered], [Wind-Stepping Technique, Mastered], [Spiritual Shield, Mastered], [Soul Suppression Technique, Proficient], [Formation Recognition, Mastered], [Flying Sword Technique, Proficient], [+]

"So... It’s just a summarization of me?"

Chen Yuan stared at the character panel with a strange expression.

He had initially thought that the system had suddenly unlocked some new function, but after examining it carefully, he realized that the panel was simply displaying information about himself.

His name, his age, and his current realm.

Most prominently, it displayed the techniques he had learned throughout his long life.

Chen Yuan’s gaze eventually settled on the final symbol.

[+]

He hesitated briefly before reaching out with his consciousness and tapping it.

The character panel immediately expanded.

Chen Yuan’s eyes widened.

"...So many?"

The list continued far beyond what he had expected.

There were techniques he had learned during his youth, techniques he had acquired through chance encounters, techniques he had exchanged with other cultivators, and techniques he had once practiced simply because they happened to be useful at the time.

Some were ordinary techniques that he had almost completely forgotten about. Others were considerably more profound.

There were even several secret techniques that Chen Yuan had never taught to anyone within the family. His expression gradually became more complicated as he browsed through the enormous list.

He had lived for ninety years.

Although he had never considered himself particularly obsessed with collecting techniques, it seemed that the accumulated results of nearly a century of cultivation were far more substantial than he had realized.

Then Chen Yuan’s gaze stopped.

A few of the techniques listed further down were completely different from the others.

They were marked with descriptions that immediately caught his attention.

Taboo Technique.

Secret Technique.

Some of them could forcibly increase one’s cultivation for a short period. Others could unleash power far beyond what the user’s normal cultivation should allow.

But there was a price.

A particularly dangerous group of techniques required the user to burn their own life force in exchange for temporary strength. Chen Yuan’s expression became slightly strange.

He had actually practiced these?

He continued scrolling through the list, increasingly amazed by the things he had accumulated over the years.

Some techniques were so obscure that he could barely remember where he had obtained them. Others were techniques he had deliberately kept hidden because of their dangerous nature.

After looking through the enormous list for some time, Chen Yuan finally withdrew his attention.

"So I’ve actually learned this many techniques over the years..."

He shook his head with a faint smile.