In a large training courtyard, a crowd of young men dressed in blue robes were gathered, watching the impending confrontation between two young men in the center of the training ground.
"Trial disciple Yang Kai, third stage of the tempered body!"
"Ordinary disciple Zhou Ding Jun, fifth stage of the tempered body!"
The opponents introduced themselves before adopting battle stances.
The first disciple, Yang Kai, began his attack with a fist technique which his opponent blocked with relative ease.
While executing his technique, Yang Kai suddenly left an opening that his opponent took advantage of without hesitation, landing a hard knee strike right in the stomach.
Yang Kai stepped back a couple of steps due to the pain before rejoining and glaring defiantly at his opponent.
With a feint, he managed to trick his opponent, causing him to leave an opening in his defenses.
Yang Kai raised his fist and was about to strike his opponent's ribs when he reacted at the last second, blocking the attack with a fist of his own.
Due to the force of the blow, Yang Kai went flying, falling straight to the ground, marking his defeat.
"His punches are faster than mine but his body is fragile, that's why I am able to damage him so easily. If we were on the same level I would have lost."
The young man made a fist salute by way of farewell, thinking that the fight was over.
"Again..."
Yang Kai got up from the ground and continued attacking.
Ten minutes later, his opponent became frustrated due to the fact that no matter how hard he hit him, the guy would get back up.
With a slash, he delivered an accurate blow to the back of Yang Kai's head, knocking him out.
"This madman... He wasn't planning to give up until he died?"
Shaking his head, the young man turned to leave.
The gathered crowd also moved away as they saw that the show was over.
At the top of a tree, a young woman with a veil over her face jotted down what had just happened in a notebook before jumping out of the tree.
She landed beside the sleeping Yang Kai and dragged him under the tree and placed a bottle of medicinal balm inside his robe before leaving as well.
While Yang Kai was still passed out, a portal suddenly opened next to him, from which a curious Noah emerged, inadvertently stepping on the young man as he didn't notice him under his feet.
Frowning, Noah looked at the young man in front of him more closely before taking a closer look at the clothes he wore, the hairstyle and the atmosphere around him.
"I think I know what world I'm in..."
As Noah pondered, he suddenly sensed a presence approaching.
Wasting no time, Noah cast a transformation spell, turning into a fly and hiding in the fainting young man's hair.
An old man with a long beard dressed in a blue robe jumped down from a rooftop and stood next to the fainted Yang Kai.
"How strange... Could it be that I felt bad? But I clearly felt a burst of energy over here..."
The old man touched Yang Kai's forehead with his two fingers and injected energy into him, examining the young man's body for abnormalities.
"Strange, there is nothing wrong with this disciple."
Shaking his head, the old man turned and left.
A couple of hours later, a confused Yang Kai woke up, looking from side to side not knowing how he got to that place.
As he tried to get up, he felt a sharp pain all over his body.
"Ugh!"
As he crawled towards his hut in pain, he suddenly felt an extra weight on his clothes.
Reaching inside his tunic, he found a small bottle of medicinal salve.
"Someone left this for me? I don't know who you are but thank you so much, I will never forget this favor."
Returning to his hut, Yang Kai took off his clothes and diluted the medicine in a tub of water.
Noah crept out from between Yang Kai's hair and headed straight for the straw bed on the other side of the hut.
Seeing the black brick on the bed, Noah's eyes lit up.
"The great demon god's inheritance..."
Making sure Yang Kai's back was to the bed, Noah summoned his magic gourd and sucked up the brick before turning around and looking at Yang Kai, who was relaxing in the tub of hot water.
"I need to understand the language of this world.
Chinese is spoken here and I have no idea how to speak or read Chinese."
Noah nullified his transformation before pulling out a Doppler potion.
Standing behind Yang Kai, Noah tapped him on the shoulder with a finger.
"What?"
Yang Kai instinctively turned around but when he turned around, Noah cast a stun spell on him that left him mesmerized.
Noah looked Yang Kai in the eyes and a mind wave shot out of them, penetrating Yang Kai's brain, copying all his memories before sending them into Noah's mind.
Noah repressed the transformation ability so that his appearance would not transform into Yang Kai's.
After reviewing the language-related memories, Noah snapped his fingers and turned into a fly that emerged from a hole in the hut's roof.
Yang Kai came out of his daze and put on his clothes as if nothing had happened.
He was ready to take a nap when he noticed that the stone brick he used as a pillow was gone.
"Sigh, looks like I'll have to go to the forest later to get another rock so I can sleep."
Sighing in frustration, Yang Kai used his arm as a pillow and fell asleep, thinking no more about the stone brick that would have changed his fate if not for the interference of a certain individual.
Sitting alone in a small cave within the forest, Noah pulled out the black brick and injected his consciousness into it.
A scene unfolded in front of him.
In the scene, he held a sword in his right hand and a saber in his left hand as he slaughtered countless enemies in what seemed to be an endless battlefield.
"I am the strongest! I am superior! I am invincible!"
The Noah of the scene raised his weapons proudly before launching himself at his foes, slaughtering every one he came across with his blade.
"A mere illusion! Break!"
The scene cracked like glass and Noah's consciousness returned to his body.
Suddenly, the brick in his hands trembled before transforming into a book as black as pitch.
Opening the first page, a golden text written in Chinese appeared on it, containing an ancient aura.
"Blood is required, the golden body descends.
Not a miracle, but a golden immortal!
Proud golden body, rule the boundary, indomitable spirit, will descend!"
Taking a deep breath, Noah bit his finger and let a few drops of blood fall on the golden words as he put a handkerchief over his mouth.
Pulling the magic staff out of his magic gourd, he embedded it in the ground beside him.
A swirl of purple mist formed over the book, from which a golden skeleton emerged, sitting in a lotus position.
The skeleton looked directly at Noah with its empty sockets, seeming to see through his soul.
Noah did not hesitate and placed both hands directly on the skeleton's skull, causing it to release a dazzling golden light before turning intangible and entering his body.
At the same time, Noah activated the magic staff's optimization ability so that it would assist in integrating the golden skeleton so that it would leave no flaws behind.
A pain he had never felt before coursed through his mind as his entire body began to reform.
At the same time, the magic staff released a beam of red light that covered Noah's body, aiding in the process.
Inside his body, a magnificent event was taking place.
His bones began to crack and turn to fine dust, revealing a golden interior.
Her magical vein system, which ran throughout her body and was responsible for circulating the chaos energy in her body, began to merge with a new meridian system that overlapped with them.
In his lower abdomen, a small golden dantian began to form.
As these three events were happening at the same time, an unprecedented agony assaulted Noah's mind.
Half an hour later, a semi-conscious Noah struggled up from the ground, feeling that the pain he had been subjected to a moment ago had disappeared and what was left in its place was a sense of exponential increase in his strength.
After sizing up his body for a while, he grabbed the black book from the floor and opened the second page, which lit up with golden words before a stream of information entered his mind.
"Tempered body record, a body tempering technique that could only be trained during the rising sun. In other words, I have half an hour a day to train.
I'll have to wait, in the meantime.... I guess I'll meditate."
With a thought, the black book entered his consciousness, floating next to the magic gourd.
Noah sat in the lotus position and waited until before dawn.
Rising from his meditation, Noah began to train in the technique according to his memories.
Ten minutes later, a feeling of nausea seemed to overwhelm him as he bent down and began to pump out a black liquid.
This liquid was made up of all the impurities that were in his body.
"Bleug! I guess I'm at the first stage of body tempering now."
After recomposing himself, he continued training and twenty minutes later, when the sun was about to rise completely, he began to vomit again.
"Second stage, not bad."
Getting up, Noah began to think about what he could do next.
"I guess I'll go collect the herbs I need to continue training."
On the third page of the black book was stored an incense burner that served to supplement the temperate body training, so if he wanted to continue training he would have to search for the required herbs.
"Lucky for me, I don't have to search blindly."
Casting a detection spell, he began to search through the various herbs in the area until he found a few green grass-like herbs.
"Good, now that I have the grass vetted all I'm missing is the three-leafed spirit flower."
Casting a detection spell again, he began to search the caves around the area until he found one with a spider web covering the entrance.
"Let's test my speed."
With incredible speed, Noah covered the distance of 500 meters in just a few seconds.
With a few flames, he burned away all the spider web that hindered his passage.
As he moved deeper into the cave, Noah noticed the pile of humanoid-shaped web cocoons to which he paid little attention.
Suddenly, a claw shot out toward his head.
With a quick draw, Noah severed the head of the massive six-foot spider that hung above him.
Ignoring the spider that fell dead behind his back, Noah moved deeper into the cave, until he came in front of a few flowers growing on a wall.
"This will do."
Stowing the flowers in his magic gourd, Noah returned to his cave.
He pulled out the black book and opened straight to the third page, causing a small golden incense burner to materialize.
Grabbing the incense burner, he placed a vetoed herb and a three-leafed spirit flower in it and burned them with a small flame.
A strange colored smoke began to spread through the cave.
Noah inhaled some of the smoke and immediately felt his physical and spiritual strength begin to weaken.
Lying down on the ground, he began to do push-ups, a basic workout he hadn't practiced in years.
At first he could barely get up a little to do the push-up but with each lowering, his strength increased and the push-ups became easier.
Two hours later, the incense burned out completely and Noah put the incense burner away in the book before sending it back to his consciousness.
"Such an interesting universe, it's a shame I don't have enough time to stay and take in all the good stuff.
I guess I'll be able to come back once I get Elder Blood."
The Martial Peak universe, or rather multiverse, was immense and if he wanted to explore it for comletely he would need hundreds of thousands of years, time he didn't have the luxury of wasting.
Deciding to stop thinking about it, Noah transformed himself into a bird and flew towards the high sky pavilion.
After a while, he arrived in front of a street establishment.
After searching through a pile of specimen stones, Noah swooped down and grabbed a small bean-sized seed from among the stones with his talons before flying away.
The half-asleep street stall attendant was startled and began cursing the bird that stole his seed.
Noah ignored the man and flew on until he returned to his cave.
Lighting the incense again, he continued training until the next day.