Chapter 554: Cocoon Breaks, Reforging Begins

“Cheep!”

Shadow, huddled in the corner, let out a frantic shriek. Her golden pupils flickered with restless light, and with a spread of her wings, she prepared to launch herself toward Su Ming.

“Don’t go over there!”

An invisible barrier of soul power materialized midair, forcibly blocking Shadow’s path.

Lin Yu’s Soul Body hovered behind the barrier, his eyes fixed on the young man drenched in blood on the meditation cushion.

“If you go over there now, you’ll only stir up the violent backlash of the medicinal power inside him. Both of you will die!” Lin Yu’s voice was low and urgent, laced with an unusual severity.

Shadow circled in the air twice before reluctantly landing back on the stone pillar, but her eyes remained locked on Su Ming, and a stifled whimper kept escaping her throat.

“This kid…” Lin Yu watched Su Ming’s gruesome state, his Soul Body darting back and forth rapidly in the air as he muttered curses under his breath. “He’s usually sly as a fox when scheming, but when it comes to himself, he throws all caution to the wind! This isn’t ‘mending heaven,’ this is ripping out his own tendons and peeling off his skin!”

Despite his sarcastic outburst, the tight clenching of his illusory hands betrayed the extreme anxiety churning inside him.

The second day.

The long, grueling refinement had entered its most critical phase.

Inside Su Ming, over half of the Kintsugi patterns had already melted away. The metallic remnants originally belonging to the force of the stars, under the tempering of the Heaven-Mending Law, were forcibly merged into that surging, jade-green torrent of medicinal power.

As the Dao foundation was torn wide open, the true effects of the Heaven-Mending Pill began to manifest.

Within the fissures of the shattered Dao foundation, wisps of nascent tissue radiating a jade-green light began to grow. Under the relentless scouring and heavy hammering of the medicinal energy tide, this new tissue continuously snapped and shattered, only to regenerate again and again.

Each regeneration was denser and tougher than the last.

Su Ming felt as if he were a piece of stubborn iron thrown into a blazing furnace, being relentlessly pounded thousands of times by an invisible, colossal hammer.

Inside the cave dwelling, the oil lamp used to mark time had already built up a thick layer of carbonized wick. On the ground, the sweat and blood dripping from Su Ming’s body had pooled into a small, dark red puddle.

“Don’t you dare fall asleep!”

Just as Su Ming’s consciousness teetered on the edge of plunging into complete darkness, a thunderous roar exploded within the depths of his Consciousness Sea.

Lin Yu had used a faint wisp of soul power as a shock, directly striking Su Ming’s Spiritual Platform.

“If you let your spiritual energy scatter now, your torn-open Dao foundation will be like a sieve! All the suffering you went through will be for nothing!”

Su Ming’s body shuddered violently.

Eyes caked with blood and grime snapped open into narrow slits.

“Disciple… isn’t sleeping…”

From his cracked, parched throat, he forced out a hoarse, nearly inaudible whisper.

Even with only a sliver of clarity left, he refused to allow himself to relinquish control over his spiritual energy. Gritting his teeth once more, he forcibly wove the almost-shattered threads of the *Like Water Art* back into a net, covering the surface of his nascent Dao foundation.

“This old man has never seen such a stubborn weed as you.”

Lin Yu stopped his pacing midair, staring at Su Ming’s stabilizing breath. The luster of his Soul Body dimmed faintly—a sign of fatigue from forcibly suppressing his own panicked heartbeat.

He lowered his gaze, sweeping over the faint jade-green halo glowing from Su Ming’s Dantian.

“This kind of life-vitality radiance, emanating from the inside out…” Lin Yu murmured to himself, his eyes growing deep and unfathomable. “I’ve only ever seen it on the core disciples of those ancient, unfathomably deep-rooted sects—the ones who were steeped in countless heavenly treasures and miraculous materials from childhood. The Heaven-Mending Pill… truly is a creation that steals the very essence of heaven and earth.”

The third day.

The most difficult stage of integration had passed.

Within the cave dwelling, the violent, near-air-ripping currents of spiritual energy had finally begun to calm.

The blood and sweat on Su Ming’s body had dried, forming a hard, dark red crust tightly encasing him. His breathing was faint but long, each inhale and exhale carrying a peculiar rhythm, as if subtly resonating with the five layers of arrays surrounding him.

Inside his ravaged body, a transformation worthy of being called a miracle was silently approaching its end.

The third day, dusk.

Outside the cave dwelling, a mountain breeze had sprung up, passing through the pine forest of Gazing Star Cliff and emitting a low, mournful sound.

Inside the cave, the deathly stillness that had persisted for three full days was finally broken.

Su Ming, still sitting cross-legged in the pool of blood, suddenly gave a slight tremor. Then, the dark red scabs encasing his body emitted a series of faint crackling sounds.

Webs of cracks spread across the surface of the scabs.

“Hummm—”

A crisp, clear chime, like the collision of two pieces of hard jade, echoed from the depths of Su Ming’s Dantian.

Though not loud, the sound carried a profound richness and purity that seemed to pierce the soul.

Su Ming’s eyes, closed for three days, snapped open at that moment.

Within the pitch-black depths of his pupils, a pure streak of golden light flashed like lightning, here and gone in an instant, illuminating the dim stone chamber for a brief second.

He did not immediately stand. Instead, he eagerly sank his divine sense into his Dantian.

Within the vision of *Perceiving the Minutest Detail*, a scene unfolded before his soul-shaking gaze.

The Dao foundation, once covered in dark golden Kintsugi cracks and as fragile as a candle flickering in the wind, had undergone a radical transformation.

Every single crack was gone.

The force of the stars, which had originally served as “filler,” had, under the terrifying refinement of the Heaven-Mending Law, become completely integrated into the Dao foundation’s very substance. The entire foundation now displayed a translucent, semi-jade-like hue of premium green jade. And deep within that jade color, faint golden motes of light swirled slowly.

Not only was it restored to wholeness, but its density and toughness were incomparably greater—several times stronger than when he had first entered the Foundation Establishment stage!

This was destruction before creation. This was the merit of mending heaven.

Su Ming slowly rose from the meditation cushion.

As he moved, the shattered scabs fell from his body like autumn leaves swept by the wind, revealing the fresh skin beneath.

He lowered his head, examining his hands.

The skin, once somewhat rough from years of labor and combat, now bore a thin, pearl-like luster. This was not the light effect of some spell, but the external manifestation of his Dao foundation reaching perfection and his blood and qi brimming to the absolute limit.

He gently clenched his fist.

Without using a single trace of spiritual energy, just the friction of bones and muscles produced a dull, explosive pop in the air. He had the illusion that, even without using arrays or spiritual energy, he could crush a mid-grade defensive magical implement with his bare physical strength.

A glimmer of azure light drifted over.

Lin Yu’s Soul Body circled Su Ming twice, sizing him up. He made no effort to hide the noticeably brighter luster of his own soul body.

“Not bad.”