Time was like water, flowing by day by day. The beast corpses were like dead leaves, drifting down. In the blink of an eye, more than twenty days passed. Xu Qing was no longer in the same bay as before. He had changed islands five times. This was his sixth uninhabited island, and on this one, he had dug out a simple bay to use. During those twenty days, he had done only one thing other than change islands: focus on breaking open dharma apertures. He just opened his 10th.

Within the black iron skewer, Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior had spent the last half month in a state of absolute trepidation. By now, he was in somewhat of a daze, and was convinced he was in one of the ancient records he’d read in the past. With each dharma aperture that a cultivator opened, more soul power was needed, and the process became more difficult. Because of that, it had taken the patriarch eight years to open 10 dharma apertures. But Xu Qing had done the same thing in twenty days.

It was a rate of progress that left the patriarch gobsmacked. Based on what he knew, even in Seven Blood Eyes, it was common for disciples to take two years or so to open that many dharma apertures. The only...