Chapter Thirty-Four: The Final Battle Approaches, The Mastery of the Sunlight Finger Technique

“Do I look good?” Gao Lan twirled happily in front of Yan Tian, wearing a black mid-length trench coat she had personally chosen and Yan Tian had paid for.

Yan Tian propped his chin on his hand, smiling as he appraised her. He reached out to lift the collar, covering her pale neck, and said, “This looks even better.”

“Really?” Gao Lan glanced at the mirror on the wardrobe and smiled. “It does look cooler!” Then she looked back at Yan Tian and asked, “Is the color too dark?”

“No,” Yan Tian said, standing behind her, gazing at the girl in the mirror clad in a black leather bodysuit that accentuated her delicate curves, overlaid by the black trench coat. “Black is the color of the devil. You are filled with devilish allure from head to toe.”

The silver necklace gleamed against her jade neck, a teardrop-shaped crystal resting on her chest, contrasting with the black attire. At this moment, she looked like a blend of angel and demon.

Admiration shone in Yan Tian’s eyes. “Seeing you like this now, it’s hard to imagine you’ve been a killer who has taken many lives. At your age, you should be fully embracing your beauty, making those green-faced boys lose their minds over you.”

A flicker of sadness crossed Gao Lan’s eyes. “A Feng, do you think my hands are stained with blood?”

“No, of course not,” Yan Tian said, coming around to her. “The past is just the past; it doesn’t define the present or the future. I don’t care what you were before. You’re still a girl who deserves flowers and admiration. Only the cruelest beasts would make you pick up a gun and kill.”

“A Feng…” Gao Lan’s voice trembled, tears sparkling anew in her eyes. The cold heart beneath her ruthless demeanor was melting with warmth. The witch who killed without hesitation was still just a little girl. She reached back, caressing Yan Tian’s cheek. The stubble on his chin tickled her soft palm, a sensation that made her feel truly alive.

“We’ve been shopping all day; you must be tired. Rest early. I’m heading back to prepare for tomorrow night’s operation. Can you do me a favor? Don’t let anyone disturb me in my room before seven o’clock tomorrow evening.”

“Okay, I’ll guard your door all day tomorrow,” Gao Lan nodded earnestly.

“No need. Just let Leng Bingtong and the others know. I can’t bear to have you babysitting my door all day.” Yan Tian smiled and gently kissed her neck. “Good night, and sweet dreams.”

“Good night…” Gao Lan closed her eyes, savoring the warmth of his lips, murmuring softly.

Yan Tian smiled, releasing her in his embrace. He quietly left the room, gently closing the door behind him. In the corridor, the silver moonlight streaming through the window bathed the floor in an ethereal glow, like a dream.

With a light step, Yan Tian walked down the moonlit hallway, the scent of the girl lingering at his nose. He touched his nose and then placed his hand over his heart, where a note from Shi Kexin, left at parting, rested in his jacket pocket.

“Kexin, if I had pushed a little harder just now, she would have been mine to take… Ah, no way, I still can’t get past you…” He shook his head with some regret and entered his room, locking the door and closing the windows tightly. He sat down on the celestial jade fragment placed by his bed.

Tomorrow night would be the decisive battle against the Gao family at the abandoned chemical plant in the southern suburbs. Given the Gao family’s strength, there would likely be no fewer than a hundred marksmen. Although Yan Tian could dodge bullets when facing Gao Lan, Asia’s fastest gun, that was because it was only her. He could anticipate the direction of her gunfire before she pulled the trigger.

But in tomorrow’s battle, there would be no chance to observe every shooter’s moves, nor to dodge every bullet in advance.

Therefore, his only option now was to enhance his skills as much as possible and absorb the true energy from the celestial jade fragment.

Currently, Yan Tian had mastered two martial arts: the Xuanming Divine Palm and the One Yang Finger.

He had fully perfected the Xuanming Divine Palm, reaching the realm of “Xuanming True Energy” in palm power.

However, the One Yang Finger was still in its infancy, just recently practiced, with its finger energy able to strike no more than five meters away.

The Xuanming Divine Palm was domineering and powerful, with a wide range of attack through its remote palm energy. At its highest level, the remote palm energy could sweep everything within a twenty-meter radius. Yet, in tomorrow’s battle, if the Gao family all used guns, few would foolishly stand within twenty meters of him.

Hence, he needed to strengthen the One Yang Finger as much as possible.

Though the One Yang Finger was not an area-of-effect technique, it could strike far. At its peak, a single thread of finger energy could reach 150 meters. Yan Tian was now rich in true energy; disregarding consumption, firing ten fingers simultaneously could produce a machine-gun-like rapid-fire effect.

The only question was how far he could advance the finger energy’s range within a day and night.

Keep in mind, the Xuanming Divine Palm took him a full month to master with the aid of the celestial jade’s true energy reservoir. The One Yang Finger, however, had been practiced for less than a week. How far he could take it was still unknown.

Almost the moment he sat on the jade, Yan Tian entered a meditative state.

True energy from the celestial jade surged into his perineum, flowing into his dantian. He frantically circulated his cultivation method, channeling the absorbed true energy through the small and large meridian cycles before storing it in his dantian. Today, he was more aggressive than ever, absorbing true energy at three times his usual speed. Soon, his already broad and well-conditioned meridians began to ache slightly. Even his dantian felt a swelling pain.

Yan Tian knew this was a side effect from overloading his meridians and dantian with true energy, but there was no turning back. He pushed himself to compress the ball of true energy forming in his dantian—a dense core about the size of a yellow bean, swirling slowly like a galactic nebula.

The true energy pouring into the dantian converged like rivers flowing into the sea, melding into the nebula-like mass, forming new clouds of energy. Under Yan Tian’s intense compression, the nebula grew denser and more concentrated, spinning faster and attracting surrounding true energy more quickly.

Suddenly, Yan Tian heard a faint rumble within his dantian. The nebula-shaped true energy began collapsing from its core.

No, not collapsing. At the moment the rumble echoed deep within his soul, Yan Tian realized he had entered a wondrous realm—he could see everything happening inside his dantian!

It was a mysterious sensation, as if he had entered his own body, becoming an observer who clearly witnessed the true energy’s shifts within.

This was unlike before, when his understanding of meridians and dantian came only from sensing and imagining the flow of true energy. Today, he could see it with his own eyes!

“This is inner vision, the inner vision realm!” Yan Tian recalled the explanation inscribed on the jade. According to the jade’s records, once cultivation reaches the innate realm, one can enter the “pseudo-inner vision realm.” This “pseudo-inner vision” was his previous way of imagining and sensing his meridians and dantian through true energy circulation. Upon further cultivation to the “Dao One” realm, one could enter the true inner vision realm.

The “Dao One” realm, as recorded, represented the highest level of various martial arts. For instance, the Heavenly Sword realm corresponds to the Heavenly Dao, the Dominating Blade realm to the Overlord Dao.

Achieving the Dao One realm required profound internal cultivation. Yan Tian, enjoying the legacy of his ancestors and his relentless absorption of the jade’s true energy, had absorbed nearly twenty percent of the jade’s true energy in less than two months—a feat comparable to a prodigious martial artist in ancient times cultivating for nearly two centuries. Such deep internal cultivation was sufficient to step into the Dao One realm.

Of course, cultivation required matching spiritual refinement—mental and spiritual realms developed in tandem. If cultivation advanced without spiritual progress, the result could be deviation and loss of power at best, or bodily explosion and death at worst.

Yan Tian, blessed with the “Heavenly Eye” and “Dual Pupils” congenital heterochromia, possessed unparalleled spiritual talent. Combined with his naturally open-minded and broad-hearted nature, his spiritual realm could rise alongside his cultivation reaching Dao One.

Therefore, despite reaching the Dao One realm in less than two months—which countless ancient martial artists could not achieve in a lifetime—there was nothing amiss.

Through inner vision, Yan Tian saw the vast flow of true energy in his dantian nearing its limit, rushing toward the center where it thickened rapidly. Upon converging in the dantian’s center, the true energy transformed into a mercury-like viscous substance. All the true energy throughout his body was absorbed into that nebula-shaped, slowly rotating viscous mass, now shrunk to one-tenth its original size.

At this moment, what circulated inside Yan Tian was no longer true energy but “True Essence,” a superior form of energy derived from true energy upon reaching the Dao One realm.

True Essence was purer and more powerful than true energy but occupied less than a tenth of the space in the dantian and meridians. This allowed Yan Tian to continue absorbing more true energy from the jade and convert it into True Essence.

While absorbing more true energy, Yan Tian pondered: since the celestial jade was left by his Yan ancestors and the true energy was gradually infused by many of them, why was it only true energy, not True Essence?

Could it be that none of his elite ancestors ever attained the Dao One realm? If so, where did the Heavenly Dao’s Heavenly Sword, the Overlord Dao’s Dominating Blade, and the Mysterious Dao’s Overlord Emperor Order come from? Could they be mere fabrications?

Yan Tian was baffled and inwardly criticized his ancestors’ incompetence—so many masters, yet not a single one reached the Dao One realm, and their martial arts were mere imaginings.

Yet, he also entertained another thought: perhaps the ancestors only infused a fraction of their lifetime cultivation into the jade, converting some True Essence into true energy for infusion.

If that were true, the ancestors were stingy indeed. True Essence cultivation could not be taken in death, so why not leave all their power in the jade for their best descendants to use?

Just as he was musing, Yan Tian suddenly heard the alarm clock. Opening his eyes, he saw that it was already seven o’clock the next evening without him realizing the passage of time.

Within this seemingly timeless day and night, Yan Tian had absorbed over thirty percent of the jade’s true energy, all converted into True Essence!

Sitting on the jade, he casually pointed at a corner of the ceiling. Instantly, a round hole nearly ten meters away silently appeared.

Invisible, soundless, undetectable—the terrifying silence before a deadly strike.

One Yang Finger, perfected!