BTTH : Wandering Soul

But Xiao Yan was oblivious to the external world. Initially the endless suffering was too much for him to handle. All these intense battles, and the dark void trying to break his consciousness, along with the fact that he was away from his home for the first time, made him suffer mentally as well as physically.

But as he got used to it, it became easier, not easy, just easier. And the fact that he could now increase his cultivation certainly contributed to it. But still it wasn't easy at all. Every time he'd face death, even when he knew that he wouldn't die, made him feel terror like never before. And every time that darkness tried to devour his consciousness, the terror he felt was lot worse than that. Every time he felt like this was it, now's the time I'm going to die.

Despite his increasing soul power and hence resisting power, it still kept dragging his will to live. Every time the monsters appeared, they were just at the level he could barely handle. Giving him false hope. And this world played with his mind, despite knowing that this struggle will keep going, he still kept having hopes to defeat these monsters and go home. And every time his hopes would be shattered, leading to his 'death'.

With each passing cycle, his mind was starting to crumble, his will to live starting to fade. It didn't matter if he was getting stronger, not when his mind could collapse at any time from the intense torture. Every time he'd tried something new, hoping to finally escape this hellish place, convincing himself that this is the last time, and I'd go home after this. And that was the only thing that kept him going. That barely managed to stop him from giving up, every time.

It felt like eons of suffering. Every time he felt like it couldn't be any worse than this, and every time he'd be wrong. He tried to reach the center countless times. But with each step he took towards the center, the scorching heat would go exponentially hotter and the frosty ice would go exponentially colder. And no matter how hard he tried, he felt like he was just step away to solving the words of that mysterious person.

But with all of these, something strange was happening inside his body. But he was too preoccupied to notice those little changes.

...

In a frosty white environment a young man was breathing heavily. Surrounded by three beasts. Despite being superior in number as well as strength, the beasts kept their distance. Their hesitation clearly emerging from the sight of six fallen comrades.

The beasts were all Frost-fang Wolves. Rank 2 magical beasts. Their strength equivalent to around cultivator of 2 star dou zhe. Their white fur was glistening, perfectly blending with icy blue environment.

The beasts attacked in perfect coordination. one lunged straight at Xiao Yan, while one remained at distance, while remaining one sneaked to side, trying to get to his blind spot. Xiao Yan quickly parried the head on strike. His body much stronger after relentless struggles, managed to push even the rank 2 beast back.

At the same time, the beast, which had distanced itself, used its horn to conjure an ice sphere the size of a human head. It launched the sphere with deadly precision, but Xiao Yan was prepared. With a swift, calculated strike, he effortlessly cleaved the sphere in two. His movement was sharp and precise, wasting no unnecessary energy.

However, the wolf on the side attacked simultaneously, catching Xiao Yan off guard. Its razor-sharp claws slashed toward his neck. At the last moment, Xiao Yan rolled sideways, narrowly avoiding a fatal strike. Though he escaped with his life, the claws raked across his back, cutting nearly half an inch deep into his flesh.

The cold burned like fire in his veins, each movement growing heavier, slower. Xiao Yan gritted his teeth as his vision blurred, the icy sting spreading from the wound on his back. A strange numbness crept into his limbs—poison. He staggered, barely deflecting the lunging wolf's snapping jaws, the force of the clash rattling his already unsteady footing.

Before he could recover, sharp fangs clamped down on his arm. His grip on the sword faltered as pain surged through him, white-hot and blinding. His thoughts scattered, his body sluggish, the world tilting with every step. A blur of gray fur and gleaming claws rushed him again, a searing strike raking across his chest. The impact sent him stumbling, blood spraying into the frozen air.

Then, in his final moment of clarity, a glimmer of icy light shot toward him—a frozen sphere. It struck with crushing force, and the world around him faded to black.

Xiao Yan's body laid motionless. With multiple wounds on his body. The space reverted to its original state. The cores from seven fallen wolves, emerged from their bodies. They floated in the air. The red flame emerged from the center and started burning the floating cores. Some medicinal plants from both scorching hot and freezing cold side floated towards the red flame as well. After refining process was completed, they all slowly entered Xiao Yan's body. Slowly healing all his wounds, until his body was reverted to normal condition.

Then the tampering process started. After what felt like an eternity, it finally ended. But in the silent space, suddenly dou qi began to gather around unconscious body of Xiao Yan. It automatically started to refine and condense before entering his body. The process went on for few moments.

Soon dou qi stopped gathering. As remaining condensed dou qi entered his body, a small energy explosion occurred as energy fluctuation originating from his body spread in all directions. He had advanced to dou zhe!

Even he didn't know, but Xiao Yan was using a dou qi method. And this was one of the unique dou qi methods in the world. But it could only be practiced by person having 'primordial Chaos body' physique. This physique was even rarer than the woeful poison body. Owners of this physique would have exceptionally strong physical body, even stronger than magical beasts if trained properly. The more person endured, the stronger his body would become.

The method Xiao Yan was using was unique, because it didn't need active actions from the user. But rather inflicting intense physical strain. More physical strain, better the effect. After that use various methods to tamper the body. In Xiao Yan's case heavenly flame was doing the tampering. And due to the nature of the flame having opposite extremes, increased effectiveness of this method exponentially. If Xiao Yan didn't have primordial chaos physique, he wouldn't have been able to endure such physical torture.

And one of the most unique feature of this method was that it could be practices even at dou zhi qi. That was one of the reasons Xiao Yan's cultivation increased so much despite Yao Lao absorbing his dou qi constantly.