The silence that gripped the central square of Aurora City remained unbroken until Lucien Novar stepped off the blood-stained arena tiles.
As he returned to the David Clan’s viewing booth, the entire family was frozen in stunned disbelief.
Eldest Uncle John stared at his nephew as if seeing an immortal descended from the clouds.
Reiner’s mouth hung wide open, while Rovman and Isabella looked at Lucien with wide, bewildered eyes.
Even Patriarch Lucas David stood with his fingers paused in his dark beard, his powerhouse senses completely scrambled.
To every spiritual probe swept across Lucien’s frame, his aura was crystal clear: a youth standing at the 7th level of the Body Tempering Realm.
Yet an ordinary 7th-level mortal body had just crossed twenty paces in a microsecond and pulverized a peak 9th-level Bone Forging genius with a single, casual bare-knuckle punch.
“Lucien… what just happened?” Reiner stammered, gripping Lucien’s shoulders and checking his hands as if looking for hidden iron gauntlets.
“How are you suddenly this terrifying? How did you knock out a peak Bone Forging monster with one hit?!”
“Little brother, what kind of miracle did you encounter during your three days out?” Uncle Miller pressed, his face flushed with adrenaline.
Lucien offered an easy, enigmatic smile, brushing a speck of dust from his sleeve.
“Things are not always what we can see,” he said smoothly.
The family members exchanged bewildered glances, each interpreting the cryptic answer in their own way.
Young Inoha giggled, assuming her cousin was making a witty joke.
Uncle John nodded thoughtfully, convinced Lucien had found an ancient Qi-concealing relic during his walks that masked his true cultivation realm from prying eyes.
Lucas simply smiled with profound pride, believing his grandson was deliberately keeping his cards close to his chest to protect the family’s secrets from the Kingdom Official and the City Lord.
Regardless of their theories, one fact reigned supreme: the David Clan had won.
The Lewis family had been thoroughly humiliated, forfeiting half their spirit-vein mines and prime commercial avenues.
That evening, festive lanterns illuminated the David estate as the family gathered for a private celebration banquet.
Roasts were carved, vintage wines flowed, and the younger generation toasted Lucien repeatedly, their previous pity completely replaced by genuine reverence.
Midway through the feast, Lucien quietly excused himself and slipped into the inner courtyards.
He made his way to his mother’s quarters, knocking gently on the familiar cedar door.
“Enter,” Leona’s serene voice called out.
Lucien stepped inside.
Leona was seated near the window, gazing out at the starlit courtyard.
When she turned and saw him, her luminous blue eyes softened with tender, protective warmth.
“Mother,” Lucien began softly, taking a seat beside her.
“I have decided to leave tomorrow to travel.”
Leona’s delicate hand paused over her teacup.
A flicker of reluctance crossed her gaze.
“Tomorrow? The decree states you must report to the Royal Capital in one month, Lucien. The roads outside Aurora City are plagued by bandits and rogue cultivators.”
“I know, Mother,” Lucien said, his tone resolute and calm.
“Staying confined within the estate will not sharpen my edge. I plan to journey across the western territories first, heading directly to the Royal Capital when the month concludes. After the expedition into the Secret Realm, I promise I will return home safely.”
The fragile boy who had spent five years confined to sickbeds was gone.
Standing before her was a young dragon ready to spread its wings.
With a soft, loving sigh, she reached out, gently smoothing his snowy hair.
“A soaring eagle cannot be kept in a garden,” Leona murmured with a proud smile.
“Be careful, Lucien. Return to me whole.”
Leaving her pavilion, Lucien headed directly to Patriarch Lucas’s study to request formal permission.
Lucas, having witnessed Lucien’s unshakeable composure on the arena stage, did not hold him back.
The old patriarch granted him full clearance, handing him a generous purse of high-grade silver and merchant tokens.
Before taking his leave, Lucien asked the question that had lingered on his mind since his greatsword shattered:
“Grandfather, if one seeks the finest weapon forging in the entire Triad Kingdom, which city should they seek?”
Lucas answered without hesitation.
“Kerak City. Situated along the volcanic fault lines of the western border, it is known across the kingdom as the City of Iron. The kingdom’s most skilled blacksmiths and forging masters gather there to harness the subterranean earth fire. If a weapon can withstand the heavens, it is forged in Kerak.”
“Kerak City,” Lucien committed the name to memory, bowing respectfully before retiring to his courtyard.
Midnight settled over the estate.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor of his room, Lucien emptied his satchel.
Before the banquet, he had quietly used the silver won from the tournament to purchase thirty portions of high-grade body-tempering spirit herbs from the city’s eastern apothecary.
With Lumi resting lazily across the foot of the bed, her silver eyes watching with keen interest, Lucien extended both hands.
Fwump.
Using Genesis Elemental Control, the hollow furnace of crimson flame materialized in the air.
Guided by the sovereign techniques of the
Genesis Alchemy Scripture, Lucien refined the herbs with flawless precision.
Within an hour, thirty dark-gold Stellar Body Tempering Pills dropped into his palms, radiating a pristine, celestial fragrance completely devoid of toxins.
Steeling his resolve, Lucien opened his mouth and ingested all thirty pills at once.
BOOM!
A cataclysmic torrent of liquid starlight detonated inside his lower abdomen!
The miniature star core in his dantian expanded into an incandescent sun, spinning with terrifying gravitational fury.
The red planet encircling it roared, shedding trails of divine crimson fire that flooded straight into his meridians, bone marrow, and muscle tissue.
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
A chorus of crystalline snaps echoed through his flesh. Get faster updates on g.com.
Twenty-seven cycles of stellar fire ripped through his body in an unstoppable cascade of pure celestial power!
Level 8!
Level 9!
Then, with an earth-shattering boom that shook his very soul, the final mortal ceiling shattered into oblivion!
10th level of the Stellar Body Realm!
Ten levels.
Nine temperings per level.
Lucien had achieved an unprecedented, reality-defying 90 total temperings of his physical vessel!
He slowly opened his eyes, where twin beams of starlight pierced the darkness of his room before receding into his deep blue irises.
Lucien slowly clenched his fist, and the air in the room warped under an invisible, crushing pressure.
In the first realm of cultivation, through the sheer kinetic mass and density of ninety stellar temperings alone—without invoking a single drop of Qi—his raw physical might was fully equal to a 3rd-level Blood Quenching Realm master, the absolute pinnacle of power in Aurora City!
Yet, what thrilled Lucien even more was the next horizon waiting within the scripture: the Bone Forging Realm. bone forging was strictly divided into four mortal and legendary tiers:
Iron Bone Forging: The path of ordinary cultivators, hardening the skeleton against common blades.
Jade Bone Forging: The mark of prominent clan geniuses, granting bones resilience and smooth spiritual conductivity.
Diamond Bone Forging: An ultra-rare state achieved only by peerless prodigies across the cosmos, rendering the skeleton nearly indestructible.
Innate Primordial Bone Forging: A legendary sovereign constitution possessed exclusively by Primordial Divine Beasts and their direct bloodlines.
Yet the Primordial Genesis Art rejected all four.
Slumbering within the scripture was a fifth, absolute tier that no mortal or god could comprehend:
Harmonic Bone Forging.
To achieve Harmonic Bones, the practitioner’s skeleton had to be forged through the absolute equilibrium of Heaven and Earth and the perfect unity of Yin and Yang. this was a fundamental impossibility.
Even if an extraordinary master managed to balance the opposing forces of Yin and Yang within their body, mortal flesh could never contain the boundless weight of Heaven and Earth.
Only a cultivator walking the Primordial Genesis Art—someone whose dantian was a living, breathing cosmos—possessed the internal cosmic architecture capable of cradling Heaven and Earth.
According to the scripture, Harmonic Bones were not merely superior; they were ten times stronger than all four preceding bone types combined.
A dangerous, untamed anticipation burned in Lucien’s chest.
Kerak City first.
Then, the Harmonic Bones.
The following morning, as the first rays of dawn touched the mountain peaks, Lucien slipped quietly through the eastern gates of the David estate.
He carried a sturdy travel satchel packed with rations, maps, and silver.
Resting comfortably across his shoulders was Lumi, her snowy fur rustling in the crisp morning breeze, her silver eyes looking out eagerly at the sprawling road ahead.
With the open wilderness before him and the vast continent waiting on the horizon, Lucien stepped forward, his silhouette fading into the morning mist as he began his journey toward Kerak City.