Chapter 33: The Tenth Layer of Qi Refining. The Causal Chains were still increasing at a rate of tens of thousands per day, and Zhou Ming could no longer keep count.

At first, he could still focus his mind and take a quick glance before going to sleep, roughly estimating a number—thirty thousand, fifty thousand, eighty thousand.

Later on, even estimating became impossible. The Causality Web between his brows was so dense that it looked like a full-pattern cloud motif embroidered on silk with the finest needle tip, layered and stacked to fill his entire range of perception.

Zhou Ming only knew one thing: the Causal Chains were still growing.

That night, Zhou Ming was sleeping soundly, playing chess with the Duke of Zhou in his dream.

The Duke of Zhou's chess skills weren't very good; he had lost three games in a row and was about to flip the board in frustration when Zhou Ming suddenly felt a warm current surge into his Dantian.

Zhou Ming snapped his eyes open and bolted upright in bed.

The room was pitch black, and the faint sound of the third watch night watchman's clapper drifted in from outside the window.

The warm current was still pouring into his Dantian. Without time to think, Zhou Ming quickly sat cross-legged and circulated the spiritual power in his body to guide it.

Zhou Ming was all too familiar with this warm current.

It was exactly the same as the previous three times.

Only this time, it came more fiercely, more urgently, and more irresistibly.

Immediately after, there was another stream, then another, and then hundreds and thousands of them.

The warm currents surged from the severed Causal Chains, flowing along an unseen channel into his Meridians, and then rushing all the way down his Meridians to pour into his Dantian.

After entering his Dantian, those warm currents did not hesitate at all, naturally merging into the existing vortexes within his Dantian.

It was as if this power had belonged to his body all along, merely going out for a spin before returning to where it belonged.

The vortexes within Zhou Ming's Dantian began to split.

The original two vortexes spun individually, and under the steady influx of the warm current, a third vortex condensed into shape from the gap between the two masses of air.

Then came the fourth, the fifth... the number of vortexes kept increasing. With each additional one, Zhou Ming could feel the upper limit of the spiritual power his Dantian could hold expand by another layer.

It was not until the tenth vortex was fully formed that the surging warm current finally came to a halt.

Sitting on the bed, he slowly opened his eyes.

The morning light shone through the hole in the window paper; a whole night had actually passed.

Zhou Ming tried to circulate the spiritual power in his body.

Ten vortexes spun simultaneously, and the spiritual power surged and roared through his Meridians, so fast that it almost struck sparks.

Zhou Ming could feel that with this level of power, he could no longer describe himself as a mere 'human'.

This was no illusion, even though he had no frame of reference, had never seen a Martial Artist above the Skin Refining Realm fight, and had never seen truly high-level Cultivators battle.

But the power contained within those ten vortexes in his Dantian was very real.

He extended his right hand and slowly clenched his fingers into a fist. His knuckles popped in a rapid succession, a sound crisper and denser than ever before, like a string of firecrackers exploding inside a bamboo tube.

Zhou Ming had an intuition that if he threw this punch, even if there was a mountain in front of him, he could shatter it to pieces.

Ten vortexes.

Applying his experience from reading cultivation novels in his past life, this should be the tenth layer of Qi Refining.

Zhou Ming did not know how many years it would take for a Cultivator in this world to reach the tenth layer of Qi Refining.

What kind of Heaven And Earth Treasures, sect Legacies, or Heaven-Defying Opportunities they would need.

He only knew that it had taken him a mere few hours to leap from the second layer of Qi Refining to the tenth layer of Qi Refining.

And the cost was the number of severed Causal Chains—several thousand of them.

Zhou Ming took a deep breath, sinking his consciousness between his brows to look at the Causality Web.

Then, he froze.

The Causality Web, which had originally been densely packed and filled his entire range of perception, was now beginning to thin out.

Except for that region which had always been neatly arranged and had turned from illusory to solid on the same day—which remained almost unchanged—the Causal Chains in other regions had become much sparser.

Those tens of thousands of Causal Chains that had appeared on the same day were still hanging there steadily, like soldiers lined up for review, completely motionless.

But those Causal Chains around them, which had appeared earlier and were scattered in various places, belonging to different periods and different spreaders...

Several thousand of them had already severed and vanished, leaving behind individual empty voids, like many holes pricked in white paper with a needle.

Someone had killed several thousand practitioners.

Overnight.

Zhou Ming sat in the dark, his back against the cold wall, silent for a long moment.

By all rights, he should have felt shocked, terrified, and angry.

Several thousand lives, just gone like that.

But as he sat there, he found that the greatest feeling in his heart was confusion.

To be able to slaughter those who cultivated the Dushi Sutra to this extent, what kind of terrifying power must the opponent possess?

Although they had only cultivated a sliver of spiritual power, they were still not comparable to ordinary people.

Without hesitation, without pause, wiping out thousands of practitioners with the strength of the first layer of Qi Refining in one breath.

This kind of efficiency, this kind of method—it shouldn't be something an ordinary army could achieve, right?

Zhou Ming did not know how strong the individual power of the army was; he was judging based on the shallow experience of his predecessor.

After thinking for a long time, Zhou Ming still couldn't figure it out. Perhaps the military power of this world was indeed very strong.

Dawn was approaching, and Zhou Ming had no intention of going back to sleep.

Arriving in the Kitchen as usual, Liu Sandao served him a bowl of steaming hot wontons with dried shrimp floating in the broth—this was a recipe he had recently learned.

Yes, he had learned it from Zhou Ming. Although Zhou Ming didn't know how to cook, he knew the general method.

After explaining it to this old chef who had been cooking for half his life, Liu Sandao studied it a bit and managed to make it.

As long as the ingredients weren't too complex, what Liu Sandao made was sometimes even more delicious than what Zhou Ming had eaten in his past life.

Zhou Ming took the bowl, buried his head in it to eat, and drank the very last drop of broth.

Putting down the bowl, Zhou Ming began to wander around the Kitchen and the courtyard.

In the words of his past life, this was called 'taking a hundred steps after a meal to live to ninety-nine.'

Of course, possessing the Dushi Sutra, how could Zhou Ming be content with living only to ninety-nine?

He also wanted to achieve eternal youth, achieve Immortal Ascension, and become a patriarch.

It wasn't until the sun was high in the sky that Zhou Ming returned to the Kitchen and sat on the stool in the corner of the Kitchen as usual.

Leaning his back against the wall, he closed his eyes and sank his consciousness between his brows.

Then, he suddenly snapped his eyes open.

Somewhat in disbelief, he looked at the crowd of people who were all busy with their own tasks, and once again sank his consciousness between his brows.

During the one or two hours after he finished eating—

Or rather, in the short span of just over an hour since he had looked at the Causality Web this morning—

The illusory shadows within the Causality Web had suddenly surged by over a hundred thousand.

Not ten or twenty thousand, but a solid hundred thousand plus newly born illusory shadows.

Appearing simultaneously within a span of just one or two hours, they were now arranged in the newly added areas of the Causality Web, turning from illusory to solid at a speed visible to the naked eye, gradually condensing into chains.

Sitting on the stool, Zhou Ming watched as these illusory shadows spread through the Causality Web like a stream thawing in spring, already refilling the gaps left by last night's severing, though they had not yet solidified.

What was going on?

Could someone be teaching the Dushi Sutra on a massive scale again?

Who could it be?

What was their purpose?

Zhou Ming felt that his understanding of this world was still far too shallow.

He was no longer the powerless Zhou Ming of before; it was time to go out and look around.

To understand this world better, so as to prepare for spreading the scripture in the future.