Jiang Mang was meditating in his cultivation room and absorbing qi at a frantic rate. He was having a breakthrough at the moment and was about to enter a new realm. He kept absorbing the surrounding qi until all of the qi in his dantian which had liquefied started to condense into two different cores. One was filled with the green life qi while the other was filled by the dark death qi. These two cores were mutually repulsing and attracting each other until a strong and stable balance was created where they circled each other. Besides the two cores, there were also two profound spirits inside the dantian. Those had completely materialized and were now being baptized by the new qi and undergoing an evolution.
These were Jiang Mang's flute of life and death zither. These two profound spirits were capable of both mental and physical attacks and had the defensive capability to resist all profound spirits in the same realm making them unable to even leave a scratch.
Jiang Mang had just broken through to the saint realm after almost five years of grueling training. His two qis had now condensed into two cores which allowed him to control his qi with a simple thought instead of forcing control over it. His sensitivity to qi had also grown together with his upgraded profound spirits.
He had broken through at the age of 16 just a month after his birthday. Through an epiphany, he gained while observing his surroundings when he played a zither piece, had he attained the state of one with the world, which was the biggest barrier blocking people from reaching the saint realm. This allowed him to immediately breakthrough after having been at the peak of the manifestation realm for six months.
He thought back to his last four and a half years of training to reach this goal. He managed to reach the manifestation realm at the age of 13, which was also the year he first experienced the jianghu. He became a well-known assassin in the jianghu who had never failed a taken mission. He had only killed tyrants and bloodthirsty killers, but these were also the most dangerous targets. His main way of killing was through hidden weapons, but if he so required, he also utilized illusions before finishing the target with a dagger.
He was one of the highest sought after assassin on the bounty board and was many times almost caught or killed. Unfortunately for his pursuers, he was extremely versatile and slippery, which allowed him to survive many near-death experiences, one of which was an escape from a saint realm cultivator.
During those four and a half years, he had spent most of his time in the royal palace for training, which allowed him to perfectly master his inheritance skills to the peak Xuan tier while also mastering three hidden weapon techniques to perfection. These three skills were the shooting leaf technique, yin daggers, and one from the chu empire called penetration needle. All of these techniques were at the peak of the Xuan tier as only those at the saint realm were capable of learning Di tier techniques.
Unfortunately, there was no Di tier hidden weapon techniques in the Chu empire, which will diminish Jiang Mang's combat power. He had to also retrain all of his inheritance techniques to the Di tier before the recruitment at the minimum. This meant that he had to achieve great accomplishment in his eye techniques and Charming voice, mastery over stronger illusions through music, and learning how to attack with Illusion paradise and charm with Charming dance. He had to also train his Charm body to the third stage of flexible tendons, which would allow him to increase his body's agility and explosive power while his already trained jade skin and supple muscles provide him a moderate defense against cuts and the force behind attacks. His body would then be able to withstand most saint realm attacks on his own, and the user should only worry about the remaining impact on his or her bones and organs.
He had to first train in his physical techniques as they are the most important aspect of his survival in his experience through the jianghu.
He was still blind and incapable of sight, but all of his heightened senses allowed him to already perceive the world and persons around him, while his inner vision allowed him to look at the world when playing music in a radius of 30 meters when he was at the peak Manifestation stage. This range should have increased with his breakthrough, which would further increase his survivability as he can foresee attackers and assassins without them noticing as long as he is playing music. This is rather similar to the ability of King realm cultivators who can see through walls and the ground and perceive everything in a radius of a thousand meters with only their consciousness this ability is also called divine sense but Jiang Mang's inner vision stems from the sound waves he produces when he plays music and not from his consciousness power.
The biggest part of his training over almost five years was his team training with Chu Lingxin, with who he had become extremely close. They were now able to perceive the intentions of each other by only moving their bodies when they cooperated. Jiang Mang's supportive abilities allowed Chu Lingxin to always perform her sword arts at maximum performance while Jiang Mang was also capable of teaming up in close combat against stronger opponents through the usage of his mystical footwork and claw attack while also utilizing his trained body.
The two techniques Fox dance and Fox claws can be performed to perfection by Jiang Mang through his possession of the Nine-tailed fox bloodline, which had altered his body to be able to perform all of the inherited skills to perfection.
Jiang Mang had over his training transformed from a pretty boy to a teenage guy with skin as white as snow and muscles toned to the point of beauty. His stature had also grown with his age to that of a beautiful tall figure. To sum it up, he looks like a thin and frail but tall scholar with impeccable snow-white skin of which women are jealous. However, this weak-looking body is capable of explosive power and extreme speed while having the defensive capabilities to not be hurt by qi attacks below the saint realm.
Unfortunately despite his strength, he was often teased about his looks by Chu Lingxin, who had told him that he would make for a fine woman. He was however not discouraged as his beauty increased the potency of his charm techniques, which also its only good point for him.
After recollecting the last few years and all the changes he had undergone while planning for the recruitment test, he went to sleep to challenge the next day.