Chapter 194: Chapter 192: Breathing Technique Mastered "Really?" Shi Caifeng showed a dissatisfied expression on her face, "What’s the matter, you don’t trust me?" "Are you sure it’s the Nirvana Divine Flower and Earth Jade?" Lou Yi, feeling uneasy, confirmed once again. "Yes, yes." Shi Caifeng said impatiently, "With the great war imminent, the Top-grade Exchange Register of the Beast Hunting Bureau has temporarily lowered its threshold and opened up to us veteran Beast Hunter Guards. I took the liberty of checking for you, and I swept up the remaining stock of those things you wanted." "Great, great!" Lou Yi couldn’t say anything else. This is truly like receiving a pillow just as you start to feel sleepy. As for the process of acquiring these Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures, it certainly wasn’t as simple as Shi Caifeng made it sounds—it must have taken a lot of thought, silver, and contributions. "Fengfeng, thank you so much." Lou Yi grabbed Shi Caifeng’s hand, involuntarily caressing it. "Why be so formal with me?" Feeling taken advantage of, Shi Caifeng turned her head unnaturally, a hint of red flashing at the base of her ears. But she ultimately didn’t withdraw her hand. Lou Yi always worked quickly and decisively. Taking the opportunity of the beast tide pause, he hurried back to the Shi Family Pawnshop with Shi Caifeng. Upon arriving at the entrance, they heard faint shouting from inside. "Let me out, let me out!" Upon entering the inner room of the pawnshop, they found the pale and thin Shi Qingde bound to a stone pillar, missing one shoe. Within arm’s reach was a master’s chair, piled high with white buns, likely to prevent him from starving to death. "Brother Shu, you’re here, quickly unbind me, I want to kill monsters too!" Shi Qingde’s eyes lit up when he saw Lou Yi and he quickly shouted. Lou Yi glanced at him, his cultivation still at one blood level, showing no progress from a few months ago. At such a level, he’d be of little use on the city walls, with a high mortality rate. So he ignored him and asked Shi Caifeng, "Where are the items?" Seeing that Lou Yi was ignoring him, Shi Qingde became anxious: "Sister, help me untie!" "Follow me," Shi Caifeng also treated him as invisible, leading Lou Yi to a room filled with various antique porcelains, calligraphy paintings, and wood carvings... She took out a long redwood box, opened the lid, revealing it was lined with yellow silk cloth and divided into four equal compartments. The fourth compartment was empty, while the first three each held a small flower the size of a chicken egg. The outer ring consisted of a dozen translucent light purple petals. The center stamen was composed of seven or eight white crystalline filaments, seemingly wriggling subtly, as if alive. "This is the Nirvana Divine Flower," Shi Caifeng said, "Only the last three flowers are left in the Beast Hunting Bureau’s secret vault." "Here is the Earth Jade," Shi Caifeng retrieved a yellow jade stone the size of a fist from some corner. It looked no different from ordinary jade stones on the market, except its texture was soft, slightly harder than clay when squeezed. Then Shi Caifeng found Lou Yi a room to facilitate his retreat. She herself disappeared without a trace, off to do who knows what. Only Shi Qingde’s cries and howls showed no sign of weakening. Lou Yi sat cross-legged on the ground, hands resting on his knees, palms skyward, each holding a Nirvana Divine Flower. He looked at the Attribute Panel and found that a faint plus sign finally appeared next to the Yellow Extreme Breathing Technique. His energy had accumulated to over 1,300, and he spent 1,000 points to advance the Breathing Technique. Meanwhile, the Nirvana Divine Flowers in his hands turned into a puddle of light purple liquid, merging into his palms. Yellow Extreme Breathing Technique (Second Stage, Minor Achievement 0/1000 + 2 Nirvana Divine Flowers) → Yellow Extreme Breathing Technique (Second Stage, Major Achievement 0/10000 + 1 Spirit Tempering Flower) Strange memories appeared in his mind. "Kill, kill these invaders!" "Lu Village People will never be slaves!" In front of a large village, armored villagers clung to a broken wall and trenches, desperately shooting arrows and throwing stones to fend off a powerful foe. The enemies opposite were completely encased in black iron armor, riding black horses, wielding long spears, silent and as cold as ruthless killing machines. The disparity in strength between the villagers and them was considerable, but they had a powerful Clan Leader. He appeared to be around thirty, donned in bloodstained iron armor, with a heroic expression, wielding a giant axe continuously slashing. Although the black-armored men were powerful, in front of him, they were somewhat lacking—it often took a dozen of them to contend with him alone. "Surrender, you may be strong, but you can’t fight our Black Armor Army alone." An unpleasant, metallic scraping voice emerged from beneath the iron mask, trying to persuade this brave Clan Leader to surrender. The young Clan Leader ignored it, fighting the invaders with all his might, never relinquishing his resistance for a moment. After five years of such struggle, the black-armored men, unable to uproot this thorn, chose to give up. And as if exhausted of life, the young Clan Leader collapsed to the ground. "Save the Clan Leader!" "There’s no way, we’ll have to send him to the Scarlet Wizard!" "No, the Scarlet Wizard might use his body for her sinister experiments!" "There’s no other choice, dead horses are used as living horses!" The scene shifted. The young Clan Leader, naked with a severely scarred body, lay in a cold stone coffin. An old woman in a black robe, her face covered in wrinkles, continuously poured colorful liquids over his body, emitting a ’sizzling’ sound. "What a tenacious will!" The wrinkled crone couldn’t help but exclaim, "He is at the end of his rope, holding on by sheer will. Go back and let fate decide whether he survives or not." "Thank you, Wizard!" For the subsequent days, the witch occasionally checked on the young Clan Leader’s life status, from time to time adding new experimental fluids to the stone coffin. "Tsk tsk, truly persistent, still holding onto a breath, but how can human effort defy fate? No matter how he perseveres, it can’t change his impending fate." Until one day, the witch poured a cup of light purple liquid, which landed right on the scar on the young Clan Leader’s chest and was slowly absorbed. The witch indifferently left. What she didn’t expect was that the young Clan Leader’s body was undergoing a cataclysmic change! His previously shrunken and barely active lungs, after absorbing the purple liquid, were mutated internally, transforming from red to faint purple. Furthermore, they began to pulsate spontaneously, as if given life. And the young Clan Leader’s Breathing Technique, while he was unconscious, spontaneously activated, in harmony with the pulsing lungs, making Qi-Blood circulate within his body at an ever-increasing pace. ’Whoosh...whoosh...’ Until one day, the witch heard something akin to a blower’s hum and hurried over to check, her expression turning utterly horrified. "How is this possible!" The young Clan Leader’s eyes remained closed, clearly still unconscious, but his chest was heaving intensely, and his skin was so red it seemed to be glowing... In reality, Lou Yi opened his eyes. An immense, invisible energy entered his body, rapidly transforming Lou Yi’s lungs. He felt a burning sensation in his chest, with constant ’sizzling’ corrosive noises, and the pain gradually intensified, causing Lou Yi to clench his teeth tightly. In a place he couldn’t see. His lungs, just like in his memories, began to transform, becoming denser, changing from bright red to red with a purple tinge, seemingly emitting a faint glow. ...