Starforce Warriors-Chapter 879: Transforming Into A Dragon (1)

Stargate Base was now under reconstruction. Li Xiaofei had entered secluded cultivation. The relentless high-intensity battles had left him mentally exhausted. He needed time to sort through the gains from his recent fights.

Xiao Shi had offered him the best closed-door cultivation chamber she had, treating Li Xiaofei like the most honored guest, as if afraid he might leave at any moment.

Inside the quiet room, Li Xiaofei floated in midair, his upper body bare. His jade-like skin radiated a glow of gold and silver, shimmering softly in the stillness. Behind him, wings shaped like twin blades unfurled slowly, one golden, the other silver, lending him an aura of divine solemnity, as if he were a god descended.

"The Four Extremes Realm... I had cultivated up to the second level before." He reflected, "But after that battle, the Blood-Drinking Sword forcibly pushed me into the Five Dragons Realm. The three foundational aspects of essence, energy, and spirit were manageable... but the Intent stage is something I must comprehend on my own."

"The will that the Blood-Drinking Sword instilled in me... it wasn’t protection."

"It was..."

"Order?"

Li Xiaofei could clearly sense that after being infused with pure Immortal Force by the Blood-Drinking Sword, his energy had begun to carry a new quality, one it had never possessed before.

That quality... is order.

He carefully attuned himself to the power of the twin-colored sword wings, and as he did, a cascade of realizations began to dawn within him.

In the past, his guiding principle had always been to protect. Whether it was on the original Earth, or on Earth No. 1818, or in the city of Chongque... everywhere he had been, he had done everything in his power to protect his loved ones, his friends, and his fellow people.

When he first stepped into the Four Extremes Realm, a simple thought had formed in his heart. Once he completed the first three levels, he would set protection as the core of his fourth extreme. But now... he had been given the power of order, which was a concept that surpassed protection.

Everything in this vast universe operated according to the Heavenly Dao. All things followed their own natural laws and rhythms. As long as the Heavenly Dao and these laws remained unbroken, then the fate of all living beings would unfold naturally and peacefully.

To uphold order was, in essence, to protect one’s loved ones, friends, and people. Order stood above mere protection. Li Xiaofei closed his eyes in deep contemplation, and gradually, his thoughts became crystal clear.

At the same time, his spiritual energy surged upward as his will grew even more resolute. The four powers of the Extremes began to resonate and converge within him. At last, his own unique realm of the Four Extremes was truly complete.

Behind him, the sword-shaped wings suddenly expanded in full, stretching over fifty meters in length. They gleamed with radiant gold and silver, exuding an awe-inspiring, divine solemnity.

“It’s done.” A faint smile appeared on Li Xiaofei’s face.

The hardest part of achieving the Four Extremes Realm had always been the final step, the Intent Extreme. A person could carry countless obsessions throughout a lifetime. Different obsessions birthed different wills.

Ever since the five Immortal Emperors introduced the concept of Intent into the cultivation system of humankind, it had remained a mysterious and profound force. If one’s will was lofty, their potential would be equally vast.

If one’s will was narrow or shortsighted, then their potential would eventually reach its limit. To ascend to the highest realms of power, one needed a correspondingly exalted will.

Now that Li Xiaofei had forged his own will, his path in martial cultivation suddenly became wide open, as if the clouds had parted.

The energy within him surged through his Twelve Primary Meridians and the Eight Extraordinary Meridians with overwhelming momentum. It rushed like a great tidal river, washing through his physical body in powerful waves. The Immortal Force within him felt as boundless as the sea.

He had stepped fully into the Five Dragons Realm. The Five Dragons referred to five allegorical dragons. According to the martial cultivation realms revealed by the five Immortal Emperors, this realm focused on tempering the spinal column. The spine, also known as the backbone, was of vital importance to the human body.

In the world of martial arts, the spine was also known as the Great Dragon. Cultivating the Great Dragon was considered crucial for unlocking the hidden potential of the human body. From the lowest to the highest realms, martial cultivation often followed a cyclical pattern in its theoretical progression.

For instance, during Earth’s ancient martial arts era, martial masters had also emphasized the importance of refining the Great Dragon. They used breathing techniques, body-guiding methods, and other secret arts to temper their physical forms, placing special focus on the spine.

One of the key reasons ancient martial artists could unleash such overwhelming power was the exceptional strength of their spines. Force would be born from the lower limbs, pass through the reinforced Great Dragon, and then erupt outward through the upper body, flowing seamlessly from origin to strike.

One theory likened the Great Dragon to a bow within the human body. The stronger this internal bow, the greater the force of the arrow released from it. Even among cosmic-level lifeforms who cultivated the Immortal Martial Path, the importance of the spinal Great Dragon remained unchanged.

According to the theories set forth by the Five Immortal Emperors, the spine had to undergo five complete refinements to be considered fully cultivated. Each refinement involved reforging the twenty-six vertebrae of the Great Dragon using Immortal Force. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

A fully developed adult spine consisted of twenty-six bones. In the Immortal Martial system, these were referred to as Dragon Bones. Only after completing five such refinements could one claim to have truly mastered the Five Dragons Realm.

Once the five refinements were complete, the strength of the body could be amplified fivefold in battle, unleashing power that transcended mortal limits. This state was known as Embodying the Five Dragons.

Li Xiaofei possessed seventeen cultivation manuals for the Five Dragons Realm, all of which had been gifted to him by Xiao Shi. He carefully opened each one, reading them with meticulous attention and pondering their contents deeply.

With each page turned, his understanding of this realm advanced swiftly.

Time slipped quietly by.

Crack. Crack.

A series of low, muffled cracking sounds echoed from within his body. Waves of sharp pain surged forth.

Li Xiaofei felt as if he had completely lost control over his body. This was the first step, bone shattering. After the bones shattered, they would be reforged anew. That was the process of the Great Dragon’s rebirth.

Most martial cultivators, upon reaching this stage, proceeded with extreme caution, refining one dragon bone at a time. They would first shatter a single vertebra, then reforge it before moving on to the next. They would then advance step by painstaking step.

This method of Great Dragon Rebirth significantly reduced the risk. But Li Xiaofei had chosen a different path. He shattered all twenty-six of his dragon bones in a single breath.

His aura plunged into weakness in an instant, and parts of his body began to fall out of his control. Yet he remained calm. He began circulating the Immortal Force within his body, using it to scour the shattered bones and wash away the lingering dust of impurity.

Ordinary cultivators could never attempt such a feat. But the pure Immortal Force within Li Xiaofei was unimaginably vast. The Blood-Drinking Sword had nearly burst his meridians from the sheer amount it had force-fed him.

He far surpassed not only those in the Five Dragons Realm, but even those in the Six Gods Realm or the Seven Transformation Realm in terms of the raw richness and power of his immortal energy.

Li Xiaofei’s cultivation could now be described as top-down compatibility. His foundation was so powerful that lower realms posed no real restriction. Thus, he could walk a path that others dared not tread.

The shattered bones in his body were like jagged stones submerged in a raging river as they endured the flow of Immortal Force. Their sharp edges were gradually ground smooth and their surfaces polished to a jade-like luster.

One by one, they began to bear glowing immortal inscriptions, mystical marks of transformation born from the Dao itself.

The process continued for ten full days and nights. Finally, the twenty-six dragon bones of Li Xiaofei’s spine reached the level of natural perfection as they began resonating faintly with the music of the Great Dao.

What followed was the second step, reshaping. Those twenty-six polished, flawless dragon bones now needed to be restructured, reconnected, and reforged into a single, seamless Spinal Great Dragon.

However, this was no simple reassembly. The new sequence had to follow the Dao inscriptions etched upon each dragon bone, with each inscription determining the proper order of placement.

Time passed once again. This time, Li Xiaofei entered the Secret Time Pavilion. There, he spent a full three months and ten days. At the end of that long retreat, he finally succeeded in linking all twenty-six dragon bones together. The inscriptions upon them aligned and harmonized, forming a complete and living structure of his Great Dragon Spine.

A thunderous dragon’s roar echoed from within his body. Each of the twenty-six dragon bones radiated blinding brilliance, glowing with sacred light.

It was done. The first refinement of the Great Dragon, the first turn of the Five Dragons Realm, had been completed. Li Xiaofei was completely immersed in this cultivation process. He didn’t even pause to test the newfound strength of his body after completing the first turn.

Instead, he plunged directly into the second refinement. On the surface, the five turns of the Five Dragons Realm might appear repetitive. But in truth, each was fundamentally different.

The greatest distinction lay in the Dao inscriptions that formed on the dragon bones after they were shattered and cleansed with Immortal Force. These inscriptions were not crafted by human effort.

They emerged naturally, shaped by the interplay between the cultivator’s Immortal Force, its inherent qualities and intensity, and the nature of their soul and spirit. Some powerful cultivators even believed the complexity and profundity of these inscriptions were deeply tied to the Will Extreme, the fourth and final power of the Four Extremes Realm.

In the end, a thousand people had a thousand destinies, and ten thousand variations of Dao inscriptions. The Great Dao markings across the twenty-six dragon bones differed from one cultivator to the next, and their sequence determined the power and nature of the final form.

Each instance of the Great Dragon Rebirth was, in truth, an incredibly complex problem of permutations and combinations. The demands this placed on a cultivator’s comprehension and aptitude were extraordinarily high.

The more deeply a cultivator understood the Great Dao, the more efficiently they could arrange the dragon bones, and the more powerful the final result would be. As such, countless manuals and secret techniques existed across the human world for this very process.

Major sects, ancient clans, military corps, all possessed their own treasured methods for Awakening the Dragon. But Li Xiaofei had no need for any of them. He relied entirely on his own intuition to determine the arrangement. No matter how brilliant another’s methods were, they weren’t guaranteed to suit him best.

Time slipped by once more. Before long, another three months had passed.

“Roar!” A second dragon’s cry echoed from within Li Xiaofei’s body.

The second refinement of the Great Dragon was complete. He had succeeded! For most martial cultivators, no matter how confident they were, it was customary to pause after completing each refinement. They would take time to acclimate to the changes, recover, and rebuild their energy reserves before daring to attempt the next turn of the Five Dragons Realm.

But Li Xiaofei was now fully immersed in the process. Without hesitation, he dove directly into the third refinement of the Great Dragon.