His mind made up, Tang Yan wasted no time. He stripped off his clothes, leaped down, and came to a stop beside the waterfall.

He reached a hand into the falling water to test it. The force struck like solid stone, and his heart gave a jolt. Good heavens. With a current this strong hammering down, wouldn't it pound a man stupid?

He drew a deep breath and stepped forward. The pouring waterfall crashed onto him like a mountain dropping out of the sky. His body sank at once, his footing slipped, and he nearly toppled to the ground.

He unleashed the full strength of Yellow Rank Seventh Grade. The Vortex Dantian spun like mad, pouring out Spiritual Qi in an endless stream, and he barely held himself upright.

He tried shifting beneath the cascade, moving from one edge of the waterfall toward the other. It was only about ten meters across, yet by the time he reached the far side his body was on the verge of giving out.

Exhausted as he was, Tang Yan did not give up. He gritted his teeth and held on, trying to recover his strength right there beneath the torrent.

"Haa-" After a quarter of an hour, he could endure no more and stepped back out of the falls.

The instant he left the water, the pressure on his body fell away. Even his Dantian turned more smoothly than before.

A bright light flickered in his eyes. He had already marked this place as a treasured ground for cultivation. After resting on the bank a short while, he walked back into the waterfall.

"Haa-" Twenty minutes later, he let out another long breath and pulled himself free of the cascade.

On it went, over and over. By the time the sun sank behind the western peaks, Tang Yan could hold his ground beneath the waterfall for a full two hours. Under the relentless churn of True Qi, his Dantian slowly grew broader. Faintly, he sensed his strength brushing the very peak of Yellow Rank Seventh Grade.

Leaving the falls, he gathered his things, threw together a rough meal in the wild, then shut his eyes to settle his breathing and ready himself for the night's fight.

When darkness fell, Tang Yan, restored to his peak, slowly opened his eyes.

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. His figure moved, treading Phantom Step through the night as he set out to find the wolf pack.

The pack was simply too large, and the howls that drifted now and then through the dark kept marking the direction it lay in.

It did not take long before he found them.

He made no effort to hide. Soon enough, the wolves caught his scent.

"Awoo-" A warning cry rang out, and the whole pack fell silent at once, fixing him with predatory eyes.

"Awoo!" Another long howl rose, and the pack launched into its rolling wave assault once more, wolves surging at him batch after batch like a tide.

With the lesson of last time behind him, Tang Yan still could not wipe out the pack, but he had shed his earlier panic. He lifted his True Qi, threw out a fist, and charged in to meet them.

Using the pack as a whetstone drove his strength up at a furious pace, but the danger of it was more than any ordinary man could bear.

One careless moment, and he would end up in a wolf's belly, paying with his life.

Yet the strong must pass through a baptism of blood before they truly earned the right to reach for the summit of the Martial Dao.

Fists and martial techniques flowed one into another, shifting swiftly amid the pack.

First-order wolves, second-order wolves, all sent flying beneath his fists.

His punches came faster and faster!

His dodges turned ever more nimble!

His angles of attack grew ever more cunning!

His offensive force grew ever fiercer!

But the wounds on his body multiplied with every passing moment of the fight...

Blood ran freely over his skin, and under the wolves' frenzied assault his strength bled away little by little.

"Scram!" With a furious roar, his fist slammed down onto a wolf, and then, just as last time, he trod Phantom Step and tore away from the scene.

Both times had ended in flight, yet this fight had run nearly an hour longer than the last!

Defeated again and again, fighting on after every defeat, until victory!

Dragging his weary body back to his temporary shelter, he washed the blood from his skin and sank into cultivation...

Seven days slipped by.

Amid spiritual herbs, the waterfall, and ceaseless fighting, Tang Yan's strength climbed from Yellow Rank Seventh Grade into Yellow Rank Eighth Grade.

Feeling the power swelling within him, his heart filled with ever greater fighting spirit.

Through those grueling days, the suffocating weight beneath the waterfall no longer crushed him. Now he could even practice his martial techniques down within the torrent.

"Crack-crack-crack-crack!" Four muffled booms sounded one after another, and in that instant a gap was punched clean through the falling water. The break sealed over almost at once, the sound swallowed by the waterfall's roar, but Tang Yan had truly forced out four booms of Thousand Mountains Fist under the cascade's crushing weight.

Under pressure like this he could still draw four booms. On dry land, how terrifying would the power he unleashed be?

Another three days passed.

Having entered Yellow Rank Eighth Grade, Tang Yan had firmed up his foundation.

In last night's clash with the pack, he had felt clearly that fighting no longer cost him so dearly.

After more than ten days of feeling them out, the Wolf King's tactics were utterly clear to him. First the first-order wolves were thrown out as cover, then the second-order wolves moved in to deal real harm.

The pack was large, but most were only first-order; the second-order wolves were few. Counting those he had wounded or killed over these days, the pack's fighting strength as a whole had been worn down considerably.

And after so many days of bloody battle, Tang Yan could now shift freely between martial techniques and bare brawling, the change coming as easily as drawing breath.

To fight the pack again held little meaning now-unless the Wolf King came out himself.

He had watched that Wolf King. Its strength was third-order at the least, and judging by how it commanded the pack, its cunning ran deep. With his present strength, contending against it would be no easy thing.

Knowing his own measure, Tang Yan only pressed his training harder.

Under his ceaseless practice, Thousand Mountains Fist grew ever more refined. Yet beneath the waterfall's pressure, forcing out a fifth strike remained brutally hard.

Half a month flew by like the snap of a finger.

Day and night Tang Yan drilled Thousand Mountains Fist beneath the falls. Those rolling booms echoed without pause through the mountains.

On dry land, he could surely land the fifth strike. But in the water, the boundless cascade pounded down on him like a heavy mallet. The fourth strike alone drained no small share of his strength, and when he reached for the fifth, he always came up short by that final surge of force.

Tang Yan himself had lost count of how many blows he had thrown beneath that waterfall.

But this time, as the fourth strike landed, the Dantian within him suddenly swelled, and True Qi welled up endlessly inside it.

He froze for a heartbeat, then a rush of joy seized him. He was about to break through!

No more hesitation. His body whirled, a roar tore from his throat, and the True Qi newly born in his Dantian surged madly toward his fist.

"Burst!" His fist swung forward with savage force, and a fierce, overbearing aura erupted beneath the waterfall.

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