Sword Immortal Wine and the other two exchanged glances. Then they very tacitly stepped onto three of the remaining five vacant paths. This way, seven people were already challenging the nine Heart Tempering Paths. After some more time passed. The stone figure seemed to encounter some more outsiders, and two more people were teleported in. They stepped onto the other two Heart Tempering Paths. At this point, all nine refinement paths had challengers. Sima Nan genuinely wanted to take action and clear all these people out, but their strength wasn't weak either, and he alone truly couldn't manage it. So Sima Nan transmitted his voice to Zhuge Tao: "Zhuge Tao, what if you and I join forces to clear out this trash?" Zhuge Tao replied: "Do you consider them your competitors?" Sima Nan snorted coldly: "Of course not, these people aren't worthy of being my opponents at all, they're just somewhat annoying to look at!" Zhuge Tao shook his head: "Clearing others out is useless, the most crucial thing is dealing with that Great Luo early-stage cultivator - he's the real competitor!" Sima Nan's expression turned unpleasant: "Then why didn't you take action earlier?" "Didn't you already make your move?" "Then after I made my move and couldn't defeat him, why didn't you act?" "Didn't you test out his peerless defense? Further action would be meaningless!" "You..." "Moreover, you're also my competitor. You losing your favored weapon benefits me too!" Zhuge Tao smiled faintly. "If you had acted, we might have joined forces to break through his defense together!" Sima Nan said discontentedly. "You'll regret this later!" Zhuge Tao raised his eyebrows slightly and also glanced imperceptibly at Su Yuan. Then he froze. At this moment, Su Yuan's progress had almost caught up to him! The entire Heart Tempering Path currently stretched ten thousand miles. Right now, he was still at the three hundred mile position enduring the heart-scorching tempering, but Su Yuan had already reached the two hundred seventy mile point, only slightly behind him! "His speed isn't right!" Zhuge Tao frowned. "Now you're getting anxious?" Sima Nan mocked. Zhuge Tao glanced at him, then accelerated on the spot. His speed suddenly increased about fivefold. He immediately widened the gap between himself and Sima Nan. Zhuge Tao's face clearly showed pain, but his eyes showed no ripples at all, as if the person suffering wasn't him. Sima Nan's expression completely changed this time. He stared dumbfounded at the accelerating Zhuge Tao. This speed... could it mean his mental cultivation had already reached the Mixed-origin Great Luo Golden Immortal level? Sima Nan gritted his teeth and accelerated, but his speed only increased by twenty percent. Compared to Zhuge Tao's speed, it was practically like a turtle's pace. "Bastard, this old fox has hidden himself too deeply!" Sima Nan was furious to the extreme. After all this, was he the only clown? Sima Nan immediately launched attacks without hesitation, sending sword qi slashing directly toward Zhuge Tao. Zhuge Tao took out his feather fan with a backhand motion and blew out violent hurricanes that collided with the sword qi. Miraculously, the battle between two Mixed-origin Great Luo Golden Immortals actually didn't affect other challengers on the Heart Tempering Paths. And because of their mutual attacks, both their speeds slowed down considerably. Zhuge Tao's speed decreased by half, but it was still about 2.5 times his original speed, maintaining his leading position. Sima Nan's speed also plummeted, his forward pace suddenly becoming the slowest among everyone. Soon, Sima Nan realized something was wrong and immediately stopped attacking. But at this point, Zhuge Tao instead refused to stop and continued attacking Sima Nan. Sima Nan shouted sharply: "Zhuge Tao, what do you mean by this?" "Ridiculous, we're both thousand-year-old foxes - what do you think I mean?" Zhuge Tao said calmly. Sima Nan was so angry he had no choice but to admit he'd lifted a rock only to drop it on his own foot again. So Sima Nan had a sudden inspiration and simultaneously shouted to the others: "Aren't you all going to act? This guy holds such a huge advantage - later we'll only be able to watch him seize this level's opportunity!" Everyone's expressions shifted slightly upon hearing this. They all could see Zhuge Tao's tremendous advantage, and in this situation, naturally no one wanted benefits taken away by others. So Nai Luo Demon Emperor, Sword Immortal Wine, Feng Ling, and White Soldier - four cultivators - exchanged glances and all launched attacks against Zhuge Tao. Various attacks traced arcs through the air as they assaulted Zhuge Tao. This time Zhuge Tao's expression darkened. He had to spend more energy blocking these cultivators' combined attacks. His speed consequently slowed down again, dropping to less than eighty percent of his original speed. And the four attackers - Nai Luo and others - also discovered their own speeds had decreased. Some dropped by ten percent, others by fifteen percent. Clearly they weren't being attacked, yet their speeds still decreased. Now they completely understood - these nine Heart Tempering Paths weren't as simple as imagined, with special rules governing them. Seeing this situation, Su Yuan's expression turned somewhat strange. He hadn't expected the Heart Tempering Path itself to be difficult enough, yet there were additional combat rules involved. Was this testing vertical and horizontal alliances? Su Yuan oddly discovered that his current forward speed was actually the fastest among everyone! While the others were hesitating, Su Yuan had already caught up to Sima Nan's progress and overtaken him to take second place. Seeing this, Sima Nan immediately launched attacks against Su Yuan. Su Yuan's body released his [Great Being's Form] technique, mitigating Sima Nan's attacks. Then Su Yuan discovered his speed wasn't much affected - it seemed the damage-ignoring effect of [Great Being's Form] was working. However, Su Yuan pretended to be affected, his speed suddenly decreasing dramatically. A cold smile appeared at the corner of Sima Nan's mouth, apparently pleased with his own actions. Su Yuan silently observed Sima Nan. He didn't believe a dignified Mixed-origin Golden Immortal expert would display such low intelligence, like an ordinary villain from the mortal realm. If he really was as he appeared, how had this guy resisted the heart-scorching of the Heart Tempering Path? Definitely an old schemer! Now everyone's speeds had each decreased. Whoever moved faster would receive focused attacks from others, thereby slowing them down. The situation reached a stalemate. Su Yuan silently contemplated the process of his soul will being tempered. His mental cultivation was rising at a slow but steady pace, while Su Yuan's talent and comprehension were rapidly increasing. Regarding talent, various aptitudes were improving, including physical talent, soul talent, law talent, etc. Most importantly was law talent - that was the clarity of comprehension toward various laws. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦 When he first started cultivating, his comprehension efficiency for metal attribute spiritual energy was highest. After his descriptions transformed, his comprehension efficiency for Star Laws gradually improved. Now with enhanced talent, it wasn't starting from his strongest Star Law talent, but rather all law comprehension talents were synchronously enhancing! If talent could be quantified: ordinary law talent was 1, Metal Law talent was 100, Star Law talent was 1,000,000. Now with talent improvement, all talents simultaneously increased by 1! Thus, the weaker the law's clarity talent, the greater the improvement magnitude. This greatly delighted Su Yuan - excellence in one area wasn't true strength;excellence in all areas was real strength! As for comprehension, needless to say, every point of improvement would be amplified billion-fold under various description effects, with extremely noticeable results. Su Yuan began enjoying the tempering process of the Heart Tempering Path. At Su Yuan's main body location, he was still in the [Balanced Work and Rest] cultivation state, mainly contemplating sword dao. This Primordial Isle was clearly connected to sword dao, so Su Yuan took this opportunity to intensify his comprehension of sword dao. Everything proceeded methodically. Nobody knew Su Yuan was progressing at an astonishing rate. Sima Nan, Zhuge Tao, and their ilk were still engaged in petty scheming, playing quite happily. Time blinked and ten years passed. Ten years meant nothing to Sima Nan and others - completely calm and uneventful. The fastest, Zhuge Tao, had now reached the three thousand mile position. At this point, he had to pause for quite a while with each step. Second-ranked Sima Nan was stuck at the two thousand five hundred mile position, slower than a turtle, with no mental energy left to affect others. Third-ranked was Su Yuan, who had reached the two thousand four hundred mile point, subtly threatening Sima Nan's position. Fourth-ranked was Nai Luo Demon Emperor, who had surprisingly only reached two thousand one hundred miles. He frequently glanced at Su Yuan with an expression of questioning his own existence. Sword Immortal Wine, Feng Ling, and White Soldier ranked fifth to seventh respectively. The remaining two cultivators looked miserable. They hadn't been attacked or affected throughout, yet their progress still hovered around one thousand miles - truly too weak in strength, though both were still great supernatural power users at late-stage Mixed-origin Golden Immortal realm, actually not weak at all. After ten years of tempering, Su Yuan's mental cultivation had successively broken through bottlenecks, reaching Mixed-origin Golden Immortal peak. "I want to break through to Mixed-origin Great Luo Golden Immortal mental cultivation!" Su Yuan hadn't expected his mental cultivation to already reach the level approaching Mixed-origin breakthrough. This was the true value of [Tempering Heart in Mortal Dust] - this description suited him too perfectly! Su Yuan gazed at the Heart Tempering Path ahead. Wisps of flame seeped from the ground, then drilled into his body, scorching his mental will. He took a deep breath, then strode forward boldly. The ground beneath his feet immediately emitted massive flames that wildly drilled into Su Yuan's soul. Su Yuan's face immediately twisted in pain. Whether Su Yuan's main body or his clone, they simultaneously felt the soul scorching. All souls were controlled by the same consciousness, naturally sharing this tempering effect. "More! Give me even more!" With the scorching effect distributed, Su Yuan felt considerably relieved, so he took even larger steps! Breakthrough - he wanted to break through the shackles on his mental will, reaching the flawless eternal level of Mixed-origin.