[Bei Chenguang has gone to hunt down the Otherworldly Demons. He will use his own unique "Essence Absorption Secret Technique," adapted from the Blood Essence Fusion Technique, to accelerate his leveling up and hunt down and kill the Otherworldly Demons.]

This method is the same type as the Hunyuan Technique that Zhu Baowen initially taught you, but it does not belong to "martial arts".

[And you remain in the cave, your martial arts techniques crumbling bit by bit.]

[A mere 75% boost to combat power will be more than compensated for once your base aptitude quadruples. Not to mention, once your aptitude is increased tenfold, you can discard this martial art and rebuild your martial arts style!]

[You think you can just take away the qualifications it's added to?]

[The martial arts style dissipates power extremely quickly. Less than half an hour after Bei Chenguang left, you began practicing the martial arts he adapted. He didn't leave a name, so you named it "True Essence Refining Technique."]

[Martial arts techniques that grant innate talent allow martial artists to undergo "Heavenly Origin Cleansing" ahead of time. Such methods are probably not very common even in the Upper Realm; otherwise, Zhu Baowen wouldn't have called you, who displayed five or six times the innate talent, a "dragon in the pond."]

"Hehehe... It's time to soar to the heavens!" you laugh wildly. Although the "True Essence Refining Technique" compensates for the loss of your martial arts style, you've still dropped to the level of a Grandmaster with combat power more than ten times your original strength.

[With their combat power reduced by a third, you doubt they could even last three rounds against these days' Otherworldly Demons, let alone ten moves!]

[But it's alright! Leave the demons to Bei Chenguang. Your most important task right now is to improve your aptitude... Before that, go back to the Three Kingdoms region and pass on the True Essence Refining Technique to Jiang Yueli and the others.]

Two days later, everything was resolved. The human and demonic forces in this world still existed in the desert, grassland, and giant island regions, but the numerous Grandmasters and above that your Demon Hunter Guild had hidden over the years were more than enough to deal with them.

[You've arrived at the ascension passage, and to your utter dismay, the mortal enemies, the Otherworldly Demon and Beichenguang, are only a dozen meters apart, separated by a pathetic, thick barrier.]

They were all frantically digging forward, sucking up air relentlessly, a race against time.

[This passage is approximately 50 meters long. The Otherworldly Demon has gone in about 35 meters, and has only 15 meters left to enter the Upper Realm. Beichenguang is at the 20th meter mark.]

[You hesitated for a moment, then chose to join the two of them, sitting cross-legged at the entrance to the lower realm and beginning to absorb large amounts of the primordial energy contained within the primordial crystal... You also began to delve deeper into the spatial passage.]

The "True Essence Refining Technique" causes the Yuan Crystal to collapse due to the absorption of Yuan Qi, resulting in damage that is even greater than the damage caused by your attacks!

Your aptitude is gradually increasing to 3 times, 3.5 times, 4 times that of an average person...

The scene resembled three mice crawling into a ventilation duct, one in front and two behind, then two in front and one behind...

"This crystal barrier of the ascension passage, besides serving as an immigration threshold, also has quite a few benefits," you remarked. "For example, it can be used as the first pot of gold for a newly born innate-level cultivator in the lower realm."

"So many Yuan Crystals are not only enough for a lower-level Innate Realm cultivator to quickly complete the Heavenly Yuan Cleansing, but also to advance significantly beyond the Innate Realm. I just wonder how much Yuan Crystals are worth in the Upper Realm."

Two days passed in the blink of an eye, and you even caught up with Bei Chenguang, following him through the unhealed passage he left behind.

[At this moment, your aptitude has reached seven times that of an ordinary person, making you a Grandmaster with 48 times the combat power. After catching up, you had a small spar with Bei Chenguang, and you have already surpassed him by a significant margin.]

[The increase in innate strength is inherently slow, but Bei Chenguang, through the Absorption of Yuan Secret Technique and his extraordinary physique, was able to increase his strength by another third in a short period, reaching the 40-fold combat power Grandmaster level, which is countless times faster than an ordinary innate master.]

[Especially after the reunion, Bei Chenguang claimed his strength had increased by more than a third, but by half. However, the problem is that as his body and internal energy undergo transformation, the boost from his martial arts style is weakening!]

The purpose of martial arts techniques is to adjust you to your most powerful stance and perfect physical form, and the innate realm serves the same function, with their effects directly offsetting each other!

You think to yourself that it's fortunate you won't encounter such a thing—because you're only a Grandmaster.

[Unfortunately, once your aptitude is improved, you won't be able to use the absorbed energy to enhance your martial arts cultivation. After all, the "True Essence Refining Technique" modified by Bei Chenguang was originally the "Blood Essence Fusion Technique," whose main purpose was to improve aptitude.]

[Martial arts cultivation below the Innate Realm doesn't have many requirements. You already know the methods for cultivating internal energy into the bones and forging marrow with internal strength. The Blood Essence Fusion Technique simply provides energy to accelerate the completion of all of this.]

[However, one must strengthen their body with their own vital energy... Like Bei Chenguang, you cannot sense the specifics of vital energy; you can only perceive it after absorbing it into your body.]

But his body will automatically upgrade for him, while yours won't.

[The Otherworldly Demon has already exited the spatial passage and returned to the Upper Realm. You two are now only one meter thick of elemental crystal wall away from exiting.]

[We have already seen the sights of the upper realm.]

[A cliff face, entwined with green vines, doesn't reveal anything particularly special at the moment. However, there seems to be a tornado-shaped object distorting the air at the entrance to the upper realm. One end of this tornado connects to the entrance, while the other end spreads upwards.]

[You saw this scene when you followed Zhu Baowen here last time, and you guessed then that it was a "vitality pump".]

The concentration of primordial energy in the upper realm was too high, so the lower realm desperately extracted it, forming a tornado-shaped surge of primordial energy into the tide. However, due to certain world rules, this primordial energy did not diffuse to the lower realm in a gaseous state, but instead condensed into primordial crystals in the ascension passage.

Only a thin layer of elemental crystal closest to the lower boundary opening leaked out of the seawater, filling the area with life.

[Tell Bei Chenguang to be careful and prevent the alien demons from lying in wait at the entrance. Once the Yuan Crystal Wall has been drained of its contents and reduced to powder, leaving only a very thin layer, retreat and then charge out simultaneously!]

[The barrier shatters. In that instant, you feel boundless energy rushing towards you like a tsunami (actually, towards the exit of the passage). Your body sinks slightly, and you pause.]

[It's gravity! The upper realm has applied multiple times the normal gravity to you!]

Fortunately, the gravity is only slightly more than twice that of the lower realm. While ordinary people couldn't withstand it, you'll only need a little time to adapt.

[You and Beichenguang, who rushed out after you, looked around. You were inside a valley. Looking up, you saw mountain walls tens of thousands of feet high, making you both appear as tiny as ants.]

The demon is not here; it appeared some time ago and has since disappeared.

[You all discuss this. Beichenguang will go explore the map, while you stay at the upper entrance of the passage to guard the base (to cleanse your senses and improve your aptitude).]

[A day and a half later, your aptitude reached 8.5 times that of an ordinary person. At the same time, you saw Bei Chenguang walk back with a complicated expression.]

"President, what is the truth?"