Chapter 154: The Exponential Expansion of the Fire Forging Art!
"Let's go, Yingjiang, time to go home."
Screech!
Within the Blacksmith Association, a Ziyun Mist Eagle circled down and landed smoothly, catching Jiang Lin mid-leap before soaring excitedly into the sky.
Over the past year, the Ziyun Mist Eagle had been particularly well cared for by the Jia Ma imperial family. Its feathers gleamed with a fresh sheen, and it now bore a special set of white imperial sigils granted by Jia Xingtian, the guardian of the Jia Ma Empire, to signify its status as a "Royal Eagle."
With this identity, the Ziyun Mist Eagle could move freely throughout the empire, and any faction with a functioning brain wouldn't dare harm it.
"You've been eating well, huh? Gained some weight. Mid-stage Tier 2 already? Damn... impressive. The royal family's beast-rearing methods aren't bad at all."
After circling the Holy City from above, the Ziyun Mist Eagle determined its direction, unfolded its bluish-purple wings, and whoosh—in the blink of an eye, it became a streak of light heading straight for Wu Tan City.
When the eagle first arrived in the Holy City, it was only at the early stage of Tier 2. Now, after a year under the royal family's care, it had reached peak mid-stage Tier 2. According to Jiang Lin's Spirit Sense, Yingjiang still had a lot of energy in its belly that hadn't been digested. Once absorbed, it would likely reach the late stage of Tier 2.
"Magical beasts really are built different. If a human ate like you, they'd have exploded and died ages ago."
Jiang Lin sat cross-legged on the eagle's back, laughing as towns and forests sped by beneath him.
Generally speaking, magical beasts cultivated slower than humans. To compensate, they had longer lifespans. However, the difference in training speed wasn't ridiculously exaggerated—it wasn't like ten thousand years for a beast equaled a hundred years for a human. With equal talent, the difference in average training speed was usually only two to five times.
For example, if Jiang Lin broke through a tier in one year, a magical beast with similar talent would need two. But once they gained human form, their training speed could rival top human geniuses, while keeping their superior lifespan—a true win-win.
Jiang Lin's own cultivation speed had been slightly dragged down by the Fire Forging Art. Meanwhile, Yingjiang had been juicing up on medicinal resources—allowing it to actually catch up with him.
"But still…"
While marveling at Yingjiang's sturdy body, Jiang Lin suddenly froze.
"Wait a second… my body's pretty sturdy too…"
If the Fire Forging Art could really temper his body to beast-level strength at the Great Dou Shi stage, didn't that mean he might be able to start consuming magic cores too?
"No, no—the thing slowing me down isn't Dou Qi supply. It's the terrifying proportion of body-tempering energy inside me."
Roughly 90% of the Dou Qi Jiang Lin absorbed was being diverted by the Fire Forging Art to temper his body. And that percentage seemed to be increasing exponentially.
Back during the Dou Zhi Qi stage, the energy split was 50-50: half for body tempering, half for refining and purifying his own Dou Qi.
At the Dou Zhe stage, the refining portion dropped to 25%. However, since stronger physiques absorb more energy, the total intake still grew. Thanks to his soul strength, physical talent, cultivation realm, and technique support, Jiang Lin managed to enjoy a fairly smooth Dou Zhe journey.
Then came the Dou Shi stage—his refining energy dropped again, from one-fourth to one-eighth. The fact he could still cultivate at all showed how monstrous his talent was. But it must be said—the body base provided by the Fire Forging Art was unmatched. With it, Jiang Lin's meridian endurance rivaled that of a Dou Ling, and his physical strength matched a Great Dou Shi. This indirectly boosted his cultivation speed.
Cultivation speed for a Dou Qi practitioner =
Dou Qi throughput (key factors: physique and realm) ×
Technique conversion efficiency ×
Dou Qi refining efficiency (influenced by soul strength)
Why did Jiang Lin say cultivation would get hard once he reached Great Dou Shi?
Because if the pattern continued, his technique conversion efficiency would shrink to one-sixteenth. Meaning everything else would need to double just to maintain his Dou Shi-level training speed. Using a Dou Shi's pace to cultivate at the Great Dou Shi realm?
On the graph Jiang Lin drew for himself, the Dou Zhe and Dou Shi stages were still in the realm of "positive returns." The Fire Forging Art caused a major burden, but the body benefits it brought could just barely offset the loss. Jiang Lin mainly relied on his soul realm's ridiculously high conversion rate to keep up. Without that, even with his bloodline talent, he would've been stuck at Dou Shi at best.
In a normal case, the Fire Forging Art only brought benefits until Great Dou Shi. Typically, cultivation ended at the Dou Zhe stage.
In slightly abnormal cases—those with stronger bloodline talent—it could be trained through the Dou Shi stage and still yield benefits up to Dou Wang.
As for someone like Jiang Lin, who braved overwhelming penalties and still stubbornly trained the Fire Forging Art through the Dou Shi stage... he wasn't necessarily the first in history, but definitely among the very few. And for those few, it usually wasn't even worth it.
Because people capable of charging through the Fire Forging Art at the Dou Shi stage… those people's bloodlines already awakened at the Dou Huang or Dou Zong level. The benefits of the Fire Forging Art meant nothing to them.
But Jiang Lin chose to train it because he realized he could still make progress. And for now, he hadn't found a body-tempering technique stronger than the Fire Forging Art.
If someday he reached a bottleneck and could no longer progress, you bet he'd consider switching.
The first time he had such thoughts was when his Dou Shi speed noticeably slowed. He eventually didn't switch because he realized the pace was still manageable.
Then, after mastering the Soul Refining Art and activating his soul potential, his speed picked up again—and he could accept it. He even began to have some hope for training through the Great Dou Shi stage. Still, if one day he really couldn't progress anymore, Jiang Lin would undoubtedly hesitate again over changing techniques.
But for now, at least up to Dou Ling, he could train without worry. By then, it might even be faster to just sit and passively absorb energy than to take pills.
Jiang Lin had come to realize how terrifyingly solid a foundation the Fire Forging Art was building. If he could push it just one realm further, he would. At the Dou Ling level—the fourth tier of the Fire Forging Art—it could lay the groundwork to reach Dou Zong, and with a bit of luck, maybe even Dou Zun. Continuing into the fifth tier, the ratio would drop to one-thirty-second. That was already inhuman.
And all of this... was being accomplished without taking a single pill.
(END CHAPTER)
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