Late at night, Qin Yu sat cross-legged on the back of Black Hawk, flying amidst the clouds and mist.
The cold wind howled like knives slashing at Qin Yu's face, yet he remained motionless, his body surrounded by a dense, smoke-like swirling of nature's spiritual energy that continuously permeated his entire being.
Following the mental method of the Ancestor Dragon Technique, the spiritual energy of nature transformed into Inner Strength and then permeated every part of the body; Qin Yu's muscle fibers and even his cells were constantly metamorphosing, undergoing changes incomprehensible to others.
This transformation had begun ever since that day on the rooftop of Prince Zhen Dong Mansion, after absorbing the warmth from the Meteor Tear...
Suddenly, Qin Yu's eyes snapped open, releasing two sharp beams, extremely startling.
"This sensation is truly wonderful," Qin Yu's eyes sparkled, experiencing an unprecedented feeling. He had been cultivating Outer Strength, always in pursuit of this sensation, yet now he felt it, "The whole body unified, flexibility, strength, sensitivity, and so on, everything... All merged into one. Everything was within my grasp!"
It was control that Qin Yu now felt.
No matter how well one's body is trained, how strong the strength, or how firm the bones, if they're not used well, they're useless. Qin Yu constantly trained his flexibility to control any action more easily. However, after that inexplicable transformation, Qin Yu now felt that his flexibility and firmness had reached what he considered the perfect state.
His body as one, when launching an attack, the strength of the whole body could gather at one point; his body control had reached a new step.
"Little Black, go down." Qin Yu suddenly smiled, and Black Hawk immediately dove down. Gradually, Qin Yu saw a huge city below, where he had once bought a house under a different identity.
Suddenly, Qin Yu's muscles began to move slowly, and the muscles on his face twitched slightly. In just a moment, Qin Yu changed from a robust, sunny young man of about 1.8 meters in height to a more cold and austere man about 1.75 meters tall.
Shape-shifting!
"Little Black, go play on your own, but don't reveal my identity, okay?" Qin Yu smiled and jumped down from hundreds of meters up in the air.
If it had been before, Qin Yu would not have dared to jump from such a height, but now he had full confidence in his body.
He closed his eyes, enjoying the wind of the rapid fall.
Suddenly, Qin Yu's body flitted and drifted like a falling leaf, and the terrifying speed of his descent suddenly decreased; with another flicker, his speed accelerated again, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Yet, Qin Yu's descent was completely silent.
Qin Yu, who had his eyes closed the whole time, suddenly opened them.
"Whoosh!"
Like a sharp arrow, Qin Yu shot straight down to the ground, in a total straight line, creating a sharp whistling sound in the air. At this moment, Qin Yu had not used any movement techniques, but when touching the ground, he landed as lightly as a civet, supporting himself on the ground with a single hand.
With mere flexing of the muscles in his legs and hand, he managed to dissipate all the force of the dive.
"Indeed, I can control every muscle in my body to the finest detail." Qin Yu looked at his palm, his face lit with joy. If Zhao Yunxing were here, he would fully understand how formidable this move was. It was the ideal limit of Outer Strength that Zhao Yunxing had always sought but never reached in his decades of practice.
With just the muscles of the feet and hands, to absorb such diving force was simply an ultimate level of muscle control.
"The feelings of the Innate Realm are indeed different." Qin Yu smiled faintly, then suddenly frowned slightly. He could clearly hear a thief coming at breakneck speed hundreds of meters away. Not wanting to encounter them, Qin Yu's figure flashed and disappeared into the night streets.
Innate Realm.
The day Qin Yu left the Prince Mansion, he guessed that his sudden change might be the threshold of the Innate Realm, but he couldn't be sure. Later, he thought of something that Innate Experts could do—Innate Fetal Breath.
Qin Yu immediately dived to the bottom of a lake and held his breath, not realizing he had only just reached the threshold. Holding his breath until he was red in the face and relying purely on willpower to endure, he became dizzy at the bottom of the lake... disoriented, he didn't know east from west. In a muddled state, his body suddenly trembled and every pore seemed to open wide, absorbing the spiritual energy of nature; Qin Yu finally stepped over that boundary.
Qin Yu didn't know that his soul had become incredibly powerful due to the cultivation of his limit-pushing Outer Strength and later, from the inexplicable entrance into the Kongming state, the miraculous Meteor Tear emitted a mysterious warm current of energy. His soul absorbed that energy and astonishingly underwent a rapid transformation.
Qin Yu's soul was very powerful, even stronger than that of an ordinary Innate Expert. In theory, if he continued down this path, Qin Yu could have entered the Innate Realm after some time. However, Qin Yu was too anxious and forced himself to remain at the bottom of the lake, fortunately succeeding in the end.
Thus, Qin Yu became the first Innate External Power Expert in the history of the Hidden Dragon Continent.
How much strength does an Innate External Power Expert possess? At least the people of the Hidden Dragon Continent don't know, including Qin Yu's father, Qin De. Even at this moment, because of Zhao Yunxing's assessment, he still believes that Qin Yu is just an ordinary Martial Artist who could at most lift around three hundred catties with one hand.
Outer Strength Experts rely on muscular strength, and even Cultivators can't determine how strong one's muscles are, especially Qin Yu. His muscles absorbed Inner Strength and the miraculous clear flow of the Meteor Tear, making his power completely concealed. From appearances alone, one could only say that Qin Yu gave off the sense of power like a leopard.
Qin Yu stood outside a luxurious mansion, currently wearing a silver mask.
"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"...
After knocking a few times, someone opened the door shortly and, upon seeing Qin Yu with the silver mask, immediately stepped aside to let Qin Yu enter. This mansion was one of the more important branches of the top assassin organization 'Heavenly Net'.
"Such strong strength, five Innate Experts, and many Postnatal Masters." As soon as Qin Yu entered, he sensed some of the masters in the mansion.
Ever since his soul absorbed that mysterious power in the Prince Mansion, Qin Yu's Sensing Power had become much stronger than before, allowing him to sense anyone within a few hundred meters, unless their Sensing Power surpassed his.
Qin Yu didn't know that this miraculous Sensing Power was the 'Spiritual Sense' that only Cultivators possess.
'Heavenly Net's publicly known major branches, this was one of them, yet through the thousands of years from ancient times to the present, no one knew the location of Heavenly Net's headquarters. At this moment, with five great Innate Experts in just this important branch, Qin Yu could already imagine how powerful Heavenly Net was.
While Qin Yu was shocked at the strength of Heavenly Net, he had already walked into the small courtyard designated for receiving missions, and in the center of the courtyard stood a stunningly beautiful woman.
"Silver-level Killer, this is the list of missions. Which one do you wish to take?" Although the beautiful woman's voice was cold, she placed a mission list in front of Qin Yu, who immediately opened it.
As a Silver-level Killer, one could accept any 'Gold Medal Mission,' and success would mean becoming a Gold Medal Killer. Of course, ordinary Silver-level Killers wouldn't risk their lives thoughtlessly – Gold Medal Missions were those that Heavenly Net recognized as only achievable by Innate Experts.
Today, Qin Yu went directly to the 'Gold Medal Missions' section.
The Gold Medal Missions were not numerous, only thirteen, with only five of them being in the Chu Dynasty and just one in the Eastern Domain Three Prefectures—
"Zhen Xu!" Qin Yu's eyebrows twitched.
Qin Yu suddenly remembered the conversation he had inadvertently overheard between his big brother and his second brother; evidently, Zhen Xu was the Imperial Family Xiang's lead investigator in the Eastern Domain Three Prefectures. The information provided on this mission about Zhen Xu, however, was very sparse.
After reading the information about Zhen Xu, Qin Yu's brow furrowed slightly. This mission was indeed challenging. Logically, having just reached the Innate Realm, he should take on a simple mission first, but after a moment's thought, Qin Yu said coldly, "Gold Medal Mission number twelve."
The stunning woman heard this and her eyes lit up, then she smiled and said, "Please wait a moment. I'm sorry, I don't have the intelligence on Zhen Xu's whereabouts here." Almost as soon as the words left the beautiful woman's mouth, an elderly man suddenly appeared, took a glance at Qin Yu, and laid a letter in front of him.
"These are some places where Zhen Xu will be in the next few days. Tsk tsk... challenging a Gold Medal Mission. It's a pity; this is a very difficult task. Already one Gold Medal Killer has died. Are you thinking of giving up?" The elderly man stared at Qin Yu.
Qin Yu took the Secret Letter, gave the old man a cold look, and then turned and left.
The beautiful woman took out a black notebook with two characters on its surface — Liu Xing (Meteor)!
"November 8th, two-ten in the deep night, the assassin Liu Xing accepts the Gold Medal Mission—Kill Zhen Xu!" A line of beautiful small script appeared on the new page.