Chapter 37 - 35: Cowhide Realm

Chapter 37: Chapter 35: Cowhide Realm

The night was as black as ink, tightly enveloping the snow-covered town.

Xu Mo lay on the sofa, which was covered with a thick quilt, but he tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. Starting this evening, he had felt an indescribable sense of agitation.

This agitation had come without reason, yet it felt incredibly real. Xu Mo carefully reflected; his restlessness wasn’t due to the shock of discovering that diary during the day. That was an intellectual jolt, a matter of thought, and had no connection to his current agitation. What coiled in his heart now was an ineffable disquiet, originating from deep within his body.

At first, Xu Mo thought it was just the usual wintertime flare-up of internal heat, or perhaps fatigue accumulated from days of training. He tried to regulate his breathing and clear his mind, just as he usually did before falling asleep. Tonight, however, this method failed.

As Xu Mo adjusted his breathing, he found that his agitation, far from subsiding, blazed even stronger, like a suppressed wildfire. It wasn’t emotional anxiety, but more of a physiological "imbalance." His very lifeblood seemed to quicken, surging through his body faster than usual. A subtle, tingling itch, like ants crawling, spread across his skin, and from deep within his bones came a strange urge—a craving to be hammered, to be forged.

Xu Mo felt as if his body were a furnace, constantly building pressure with no release valve. Heat was accumulating, energy was surging, yet it was all held back by an invisible, resilient membrane, unable to break through the final barrier.

This stifling sensation made Xu Mo want to roar out loud.

"Urgh..."

Xu Mo let out a suppressed growl and shot up from the sofa. In the darkness, his eyes held a barely perceptible reddish glint. His heart pounded like a drum, clearly audible in the silent room. An uncontrollable urge to destroy something, or just to move violently, shot through his mind.

Xu Mo forcefully suppressed this strange, violent tendency. He took several deep breaths of the cold air, trying to cool his scorching lungs and fevered brain.

He stood up and walked, his steps somewhat unsteady, to the cast-iron stove in the center of the room. He picked up a few pieces of dry pinewood and stuffed them into the firebox, where embers still glowed. After poking it a few times with the fire tongs, orange flames leaped up again, greedily licking the new fuel and emitting a cheerful CRACKLE AND POP.

Xu Mo squatted before the stove, staring blankly at the dancing flames. The firelight flickered across his face, casting it in shifting light and shadow. The burning, releasing, incandescent form of energy seemed to strike a strange chord with the restless turmoil churning inside him.

In that instant, a profound and mysterious realization, like a bolt of lightning in the darkness, struck deep into Xu Mo’s mind.

His previous cultivation of the Thirteen Grand Protectors’ Cross Training was like treating his body as a piece of pig iron, repeatedly heating and hammering it over the fire of his own lifeblood. Over two months of arduous training had already heated this pig iron until it glowed red, hammering out all its impurities and compacting its structure. However, it was still missing the final step—Quenching! It lacked that single most crucial process that would cause a qualitative change in its internal structure, transforming it from common iron into refined steel.

Xu Mo had always thought his accumulation was insufficient, that the time wasn’t yet right. But now, looking at the fire, he understood. It wasn’t that the time wasn’t right; it was that he lacked the catalyst for "Quenching," the flash of insight needed for that final step.

Before, he was like something being roasted over a fire. The temperature kept rising, but it never reached the critical point needed to trigger a phase change. But this nameless agitation, this physical restlessness—this was the "internal pressure" naturally produced as his vital energy was pushed to its limit, as his body yearned for a breakthrough. This pressure was part of the breakthrough itself!

And that moment of insight was like an intangible yet incredibly precise "steel needle" that gently, yet decisively, pierced the invisible barrier that had been obstructing him, shackling his vital energy and strength.

’So that’s how it is. The bottleneck isn’t external, but internal. My ’intent’ had yet to arrive!’

The moment his thoughts cleared, inspiration struck Xu Mo, and he no longer hesitated. He shot to his feet and, right there beside the stove, in that room of intermingling darkness and light, he naturally fell into the most basic Pile Training stance of the Thirteen Grand Protectors’ Cross Training.

Feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent in a low squat, chest hollowed and back straightened, head held as if suspended from above, arms circled in an embrace... The movements were the same as always, but the feeling within was worlds apart.

The instant Xu Mo’s mind sank into the posture, the moment his intent became one with the Pile Training— "BOOM!!!"

It was as if a thunderclap from the highest heavens had detonated in the deepest recesses of Xu Mo’s mind, or as if a volcano, dormant for ten thousand years, had finally broken through its final layer of rock.

The thin membrane he had pierced with the "Mind Needle" shattered completely and dissipated.

The immense vital energy that had been bound and compressed within his body erupted like a bursting dam, like ignited dynamite. It was no longer a guided stream but had transformed into an out-of-control tidal wave, rampaging madly through his body with unprecedented speed and power.

"Hngh—"

A low, inhuman roar escaped Xu Mo’s throat. He felt his blood rushing through his veins like molten lava. Every inch of his muscle trembled and swelled uncontrollably, emitting an even clearer, more intense, "BUZZING" thunder. This rumbling was no longer muffled; it was as if countless great cowhide drums were being beaten simultaneously inside his body.