After being excited for a while, Zhao Xuan gradually calmed down.
"Right!"
He suddenly remembered something.
Turning his head, he scanned the entire treasury.
And then—
In a corner on the left side, he spotted the big golden mouse, hugging a cactus flower larger than its own body, wearing a look of pure intoxicated bliss.
"So that's it… so that's it!"
Seeing the massive cactus flower in its arms, Zhao Xuan suddenly understood.
"No wonder this guy was so excited and impatient this time. It had already sniffed out the presence of an Eighth-rank cactus flower inside this treasury!"
Realization spread across his face.
But immediately after, Zhao Xuan fell into deep thought.
He was considering whether he should use the Life Stones he had just obtained to temper his skull and directly break through into the Seventh-Rank Venerable realm.
The moment he imagined the massive leap in strength that would come with breaking through to the Seventh Rank, his heart began to pound with excitement.
The more he thought about it, the more tempted he became.
But in the end—
Zhao Xuan restrained himself.
The reason was simple.
Tempering the skull and advancing to the Seventh Rank required a huge amount of time.
From Fourth Rank to Fifth Rank, he only needed about half an hour.
But from Fifth Rank to Sixth Rank, it had taken nearly seven to eight hours.
And that was with prior experience.
The first time he advanced from Fifth Rank to Sixth Rank, it had taken nearly an entire day.
And tempering the skull was far more complicated.
Because the skull housed the brain.
Any mistake could cause irreversible damage.
So—
The time required to advance to the Seventh Rank would definitely not be short.
Zhao Xuan estimated it would take at least three to five days.
Under normal circumstances, that wouldn't be long.
But now was a special situation.
The Life City would reopen its gates in two days.
And if he failed to leave during the half-hour window when the gates opened—
He would be trapped inside forever.
That meant—
He only had two days.
And two days was simply not enough to temper the skull and break through.
"Since I don't have time to advance to Seventh Rank…"
"Why don't I just… rebuild myself again?"
"Rebuilding wastes a lot of Life energy, sure—but that's not a problem!"
"With what I took from Felimon's group, I have close to one trillion worth of Life energy now!"
"Besides…"
"Two days later, I can just block the city gate. With my strength, I can trap everyone inside. If they want to leave, they'll have to hand over all their Life Stones!"
"Isn't that an easy way to earn tens of trillions more?"
"So what if I waste some now?"
With that thought, Zhao Xuan's eyes became resolute.
No hesitation.
He reopened the relic space he used for cultivation and stepped inside.
Then he sat directly in the pile of Life Stones and began rebuilding himself once again.
First, he forcibly stripped the Life energy from his internal organs.
His physique immediately dropped by 800 points.
But he didn't stop there.
Next, he stripped the Life energy from his limbs.
Soon, the Life energy in his limbs was completely removed.
His aura dropped further.
Then—
He began greedily absorbing Life energy from the stones.
After inhaling nearly one hundred billion worth of Life energy, he began skillfully tempering his limbs again.
Temper! Strip! Temper! Strip!
Back and forth.
Seven times.
Until—
He suddenly stopped.
Because he realized something.
During the final tempering of his limbs, his physique no longer increased.
"So limbs can only be tempered twenty times in total?"
"What a pity. I wanted to do more to increase my punching power…"
"Well, if limbs are capped, time to rebuild the organs."
"If limbs can be done twenty times, then organs should be the same."
"I have about 95 billion Life energy left. At 5 billion per cycle, I can do 19 more. Adding the previous one makes exactly 20."
Muttering to himself, Zhao Xuan began tempering his internal organs again.
This was already his third time rebuilding them.
He was extremely familiar with the process.
The first cycle took just over three hours.
The second took two hours.
The third took one hour.
The fourth took half an hour.
From the fifth onward, each cycle stabilized at half an hour.
Once. Twice. Again and again.
Time passed quietly.
Seven hours later—
Zhao Xuan suddenly opened his eyes.
A terrifying, domineering aura erupted from his body.
All 19 rebuild cycles were complete.
Each rebuild of the internal organs permanently increased his physique by 200 points.
Nineteen times meant 3,800 points.
Plus the earlier six limb rebuilds, each adding 20 points—
That was another 120 points.
In total—
In just over ten hours—
Zhao Xuan's physique had increased by 3,920 points.
Nearly 4,000.
An explosive improvement.
His base physique now reached an astonishing 9,000 points.
Even without entering full Dragon-Man form—
Even with only partial draconic transformation—
His physique could reach an unbelievable 45,000 points.
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