Dual Cultivation System: My Cultivation Was Crippled, So I Rely on Intimacy to Level Up

Chapter 219: Golden Core Formed, Five Viscera Resonate

The Myriad Demon Mountain Range stood in eternal, desolate silence.

Zhou Kai stood before a sheer cliff face, his posture as straight and unyielding as a mountain pine. Deep within the rock lay the abandoned ancient teleportation array.

He had come here for one singular purpose: Golden Core formation and Viscera Refining.

While the Spirit Mountain possessed abundant Spirit Qi, it could not sustain two simultaneous breakthroughs of this magnitude. Shen Hanyi’s Sword Embryo and his own dual cultivation of Body and Technique were bottomless pits that would devour the local atmosphere dry.

Zhou Kai’s hands blurred as he formed seals, laying down layers of camouflage and early-warning arrays in an instant.

He tapped his toe against the ground. His physical form dissolved into a wisp of azure smoke, merging seamlessly into the stone.

Earth Evasion.

Deep inside the mountain’s belly, he located a colossal, dry limestone cavern.

Clatter!

A landslide of Spirit Stones poured from his storage, instantly flooding the cavern with blinding spiritual luminescence.

He skillfully deployed a Spirit Gathering Array and an Isolation Grand Array, turning this subterranean hollow into an absolute fortress for Secluded Cultivation.

Preparations complete, Zhou Kai sat cross-legged in the center.

With a thought, a light screen visible only to him manifested. Shen Hanyi’s status panel floated silently in the void.

She is 6,000 points short.

Zhou Kai glanced at his accumulated balance for the month: 7,500 points. More than enough.

“Inject all points into Shen Hanyi.”

“Breakthrough.”

Zhou Kai issued the command.

The instant his voice fell, ten thousand miles away, at the peak of the Spirit Mountain, a pillar of sword intent erupted from Shen Hanyi’s seclusion cave, piercing the clouds!

The sky changed color. Endless Spirit Qi collapsed into a visible vortex, funneling into her cave with the force of a tsunami.

Zhou Kai’s lips hooked upward.

System-assisted breakthroughs never followed the laws of physics.

However, the System still adhered to the laws of this realm. Shen Hanyi was younger; her breakthrough would be faster. He, being older and cultivating two opposing paths simultaneously, would require a longer gestation.

“When I emerge… I wonder if I can still suppress her in the same realm.”

Zhou Kai crushed the distracting thought. He closed his eyes, sinking his consciousness into the spiritual ocean of his Dantian.

He began to cycle the Lawless No Word Heavenly Scripture. His aura deepened, becoming as vast and distant as the abyss.

“System. Body and Technique paths. Simultaneous Breakthrough!”

BOOM!

The command was the spark. The Qi of the Foundation Establishment Ninth Layer within him, like boiling oil meeting water, instantly detonated!

His Spirit Sea churned violently. Under terrifying pressure, his Qi began to compress, folding over on itself, emitting the groaning sounds of a reality being crushed.

Simultaneously, the Body Cultivation breakthrough initiated.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

His skeletal structure emitted a dense, rapid-fire cacophony like frying beans, escalating into the roar of thunder.

His bone marrow ceased to be organic matter. It transmuted into a heavy, scorching fluid—liquid gold with the viscosity of mercury—surging through his bone cavities like a molten river.

The power of his Vitality was fully ignited.

For a Technique Cultivator, a breakthrough was “courtesy first, force later”—gentle internal changes followed by the violence of the Tribulation.

For a Body Cultivator, it was “force first.” The process began with excruciating agony.

Zhou Kai sat immobile, his face a mask of calm, but the blue veins bulging on his temples betrayed the horror he was enduring.

Time lost meaning. Deep within the center of his boiling Spirit Sea, a point of blinding golden light was born.

It was a singularity—the first ray of light at the creation of a universe.

The moment it appeared, it began to ravenously devour the compressed Qi. The golden light expanded, solidifying from the void, gradually revealing a spherical outline.

The Core Embryo!

An unstable, volatile protostar of energy.

Simultaneously, the Viscera Refining commenced.

The vast, oceanic golden Vitality shifted course. It transformed into savage, primordial beasts, charging straight at his fragile internal organs.

Pfft!

A mist of gold-red blood, rich with life force, sprayed from Zhou Kai’s nose and mouth.

He had successfully guided the Vitality to impact his viscera. Now came the tempering—the pain that defied language.

This was not the pain of flesh wounds; it was the tearing of life’s fundamental blueprint.

His Heart felt gripped by an iron hand, crushed and reformed with every beat. His Lungs felt filled with molten slag, every breath scorching his soul. His Liver and Gallbladder threatened to split; his Spleen and Kidneys were ground between millstones.

The screaming lament of his five organs nearly shredded his sanity.

But as the first resonance harmonized between the organs, the qualitative change began.

Every cycle of destruction and regeneration made his viscera tougher, while pushing him one step closer to total collapse.

Zhou Kai’s spirit guarded his mind with an iron grip. While enduring the torture of Viscera Refining, he split his focus to stabilize the volatile Core Embryo, purging distracting thoughts and consolidating his Dao Heart, waiting for the moment the Core would set and the Lightning would fall.

In the darkness of the cave, there was no sun or moon.

While Zhou Kai forged his divinity, the wheel of time turned in the outside world.

He had been in Secluded Cultivation for nearly three years. The war between the Righteous and Demonic paths had raged for over a decade.

Calamity Abyss Valley, Taiji Peak.

Inside a luxurious cave mansion at the foot of the mountain, a woman in a black dress paced the floor, her movements erratic and irritable.

Her face, capable of toppling empires, was marred by confusion and thin anger.

It was Li Youci.

“Nearly nine years!”

She stopped abruptly, stomping her foot on the jade floor.

“Is that bastard Zhou Kai actually a turtle? Not a word? Not a single letter? Does he expect me to go find him?”

Since returning from her rotation at Crouching Tiger Mountain, she had remained in the Sect. She firmly believed that, given her status and charm, the man would come crawling back.

She waited one year. Two years.

She was the Eldest Miss of the Li Family. How could she lower herself to chase a man?

She held onto her pride.

But now, nine years later, her patience had evaporated. The man who occupied her thoughts—the man she had used the “Xia Min” persona to secure—had vanished from the face of the earth.

Is he dead? Or just ignoring me?

The more she thought, the angrier she became. She kicked a stone stool.

BOOM!

The stool disintegrated into dust.

“Preposterous! Absolutely preposterous!”

In her eyes, a wisp of black Netherfire intertwined with white Soulfire, reflecting the chaos in her heart.

But beneath the anger, a trace of worry surfaced—a worry she refused to acknowledge.

Could something have actually happened to him?

She crushed the thought immediately.

“Fine. Very well!”

Li Youci grit her silver teeth, her anger cooling into a dangerous sneer.

“Zhou Kai, you wait. If you won’t come to me, I will come to you. I want to see exactly what you’ve been doing for nine years!”

BOOM!

A final, muffled detonation erupted from Zhou Kai’s body, sounding like the creation of a new world.

The last barrier between his five organs dissolved.

The Heart sat as the Emperor. The Lungs as the Ministers. The Liver as the General. The Spleen as the Treasurer. The Kidneys as the Diplomats.

The Five Elements rotated, generating and restraining one another in a perfect loop, singing the Dao Song of the Source Origin.

The Core Embryo in his Dantian suddenly went still.

The violent energy collapsed inward. The golden light retracted, revealing a spherical pill the size of a longan fruit, inscribed with profound natural patterns.

In that instant of perfection, a supreme Aura Pressure from the Heavens descended.

Zhou Kai’s eyes snapped open, twin beams of golden light piercing the subterranean dark.

Heavenly Tribulation!

“Come!”

He rose. His joints popped like firecrackers. Three years of immobility had not stiffened him; instead, his body hummed with explosive power.

He took one step. Earth Evasion.

He emerged from the cliff face into the blinding daylight.

The sky, originally clear, was now strangled by endless leaden clouds. Black masses pressed down on the mountains, electric serpents dancing within. The aura of annihilation locked onto his soul.

Golden Core Heavenly Tribulation: The Three Births, Three Annihilations.

Three Births to test Essence, Qi, and Spirit. Three Annihilations to grind away Technique, Core, and Body.

He looked toward a distant peak.

Several graceful figures stood against the wind.

Shen Hanyi’s white dress snapped in the gale. Her expression was cool, but her knuckles were white as she gripped her sword.

Beside her, Chen Ziyi clasped her hands in silent prayer. Chen Ziqing hid behind her sister, peeking out with wide, watery eyes at the vortex of doom.

Further away, Lin Zhiwei held an Array Disc, her fingers flying as she calculated defensive formations. Wang Qiaoqiao stood with arms crossed, her eyes locked on the clouds, calculating odds and escape routes.

Zhou Kai smiled. A warm current flowed through his reinforced heart.

He nodded to them. I am here. Do not fear.

Then, he stomped the ground. His body shot upward like a divine arrow, defying the pressure, flying straight into the face of the storm.

“COME!”

A long roar shook the wilderness.

He hovered in the high sky, black hair dancing wildly.

Hum!

The Chaotic Sky Hammer, pitch-black and gleaming with dark red veins, materialized in his hand. Zhou Kai poured his oceanic Vitality and Qi into the weapon.

CRACK—!

From the zenith of the vortex, an arm-thick bolt of Azure Divine Lightning, shaped like a dragon’s claw, tore through the firmament and struck his skull!

First Strike: Life Qi Thunder (Wood).

It contained vast Wood-element life force, but it was overdosed to the point of poison. It would detonate the life force of a weak cultivator, turning them to dust.

Zhou Kai did not dodge. He didn’t even raise his hammer.

He opened his chest and let the Azure Lightning slam into his body.

Zzzzap!

The electricity rampaged through his viscera, threatening to burst his meridians.

But his Liver trembled violently, erupting with green light. It transformed into a bottomless vortex, swallowing the domineering lightning whole!

The massive influx of Wood energy was instantly converted, nourishing his body and boosting his regeneration to god-like levels.

The wrath of Heaven was, to him, a nutrient supplement.

On the distant peak, the women exhaled.

Before the clouds could recharge, the second bolt fell.

Crimson as blood, scorching the void. A wave of dry, fierce Pure Yang heat washed over the mountains.

Second Strike: Yang Qi Thunder (Fire).

Zhou Kai laughed. His Heart beat like a war drum, spewing gold-red Vitality that took the form of a roaring beast. It charged upward, swallowing the Crimson Lightning.

Fire and Vitality merged, tempering his blood until it was pure and domineering.

BOOM!

Third Strike: Yin Qi Thunder (Water).

Pitch black. Bone-chillingly cold. It froze the light itself as it fell.

The Source Ocean of Zhou Kai’s Kidneys churned, forming a black vortex that drank the Yin-cold power dry.

Water and Fire aligned. Yin and Yang balanced.

The Three Births passed in moments.

Zhou Kai’s aura didn’t weaken; it climbed, becoming rounder and more complete.

But the pressure in the sky suddenly spiked tenfold.

The center of the black clouds began to glow with a heart-stopping silver-white light.

Fourth Strike: Dharma-Breaking Astral Thunder.

This lightning ignored the flesh. It ignored Vitality. It targeted the Dao Foundation, striking directly at the fragile Golden Core.

“Now it gets real.” Zhou Kai’s expression hardened. He gripped the hammer with both hands.

Sssss!

There was no thunderclap.

A silver thread, thin as a hair, shot from the clouds. It ignored space, appearing instantly inside Zhou Kai’s Dantian, stabbing at the newly formed Golden Core.

Fast!

“Suppress!”

Above the Golden Core, the phantom of the Five Emperors Prison Suppression Sutra manifested, draping down curtains of five-colored light.

Ding!

A sound like a needle hitting a diamond.

The silver lightning collided with the Divine Sense barrier. Zhou Kai’s body convulsed. A hairline crack appeared on the perfect Golden Core!

So domineering!

Before he could recover, the second Astral Thunder formed—brighter, solid.

“BREAK!”

Zhou Kai roared. He abandoned passive defense.

Merging Vitality, Qi, and Will into a single point, he raised the Chaotic Sky Hammer and smashed it directly into the incoming silver light.

One force to subdue ten!

BOOM!

This time, the sound was deafening. The hammer pulverized the lightning into a blinding shower of silver sparks. The shockwave tore a massive gash in the cloud layer.

Zhou Kai grunted, blood seeping from his grip, forced back a hundred zhang.

But the lightning was dust.

He barely stabilized when the clouds contracted violently, condensing into a single point of silver-white.

The Sixth and Final Strike.

Three Births, Three Annihilations combined.

The sky tore open. A pillar of silver lightning the thickness of a water bucket, wrapped in azure, crimson, and black arcs, crashed down with the will to erase his existence.

Unavoidable. Absolute judgment.

In the distance, Shen Hanyi’s heart stopped.

But in Zhou Kai’s eyes, a fire burned.

He roared at the Heavens. His five viscera resonated—Heart as Furnace, Lungs swallowing the sky, Liver overflowing with life, Spleen and Kidneys stabilizing the universe!

The Golden Core spun madly. A Dao Rhyme of “My Fate is My Own” soared upward.

“OPEN!”

He swung the hammer. It became a black sun, carrying every ounce of his essence, spirit, and defiance, smashing into the pillar of annihilation.

Silence returned to the world.

The lightning vanished. The clouds dispersed. A golden sun hung high in a cloudless sky.

A figure floated quietly in the ether.

Zhou Kai slowly opened his eyes.

The world looked different. He could see the wind’s trajectory, hear the mountain’s breath, feel the joy of the Spirit Qi.

He looked inward.

In his Dantian, a spinning Golden Core had replaced the embryo. It was inscribed with natural Dao patterns.

His Heart beat like the Heavenly Emperor’s drum, pumping heavy, mercury-like blood. His Lungs breathed eternity. His Liver flowed with enough life force to regrow limbs. His Kidneys held an ocean of essence.

Viscera Refined. Golden Core Formed.

Zhou Kai smiled. He looked at the distant peak.

One step.

He vanished from the high sky.

In the next instant, he appeared in front of his women. His charred clothes flaked away, revealing a perfect, forged physique.

He looked at Shen Hanyi’s white knuckles, at the tears in Chen Ziyi’s eyes, at the relief on every face.

He smiled, warm as the sun. He opened his arms.

“I am back.”

(My father told me to write the breakthrough scene on a grand scale…)