A week has passed since Zhu Furong ran away from the Unknown Ruins and lay unconscious inside this jungle adjacent to the Hanshu Peace Cemetery.

Another day passed.

Next day, near afternoon, when the sun was high above in the sky, the rays of the sun pierced through the dense thicket and fell on the unconscious Zhu Furong's eyes.

His eyeballs moved inside the closed eyelids in an irritated manner before he slowly opened his eyes.

Without speaking a single word he sat up. With his left elbow resting on his left raised knee, he gazed straight at the tree trunk in front of him with an expressionless face.

His eyes have turned back to normal with black iris and while sclera.

After about 10 minutes, he called in a soft voice, "Xingzuo".

He received no answer, so he tried again, "Xingzuo".

Still no answer.

Zhu Furong didn't call again and continued gazing at the tree trunk in front of him lost in thought.

Time passed by without noticing and soon it was evening.

"Ah, Big Brother, you are awake?" Zhu Xingzuo's surprised voice suddenly sounded.

He asked with worry, "How's your body? How are you feeling?"

Zhu Furong broke off his stupor. But rather than replying to Zhu Xingzuo, he asked. "Xingzuo, what's next?"

"Next?" Zhu Xingzuo asked, confused.

"Cultivation." Zhu Furong answered in a soft tone, still looking at the tree trunk in front of him.

On a closer look, one can see a line of ants climbing up the tree trunk with food and storing them inside their nest made on the tree trunk. Zhu Furong is probably observing these ants.

Looking at Zhu Furong's expression, Zhu Xingzuo understood that he is quite serious right now.

Zhu Xingzuo asked with concern. "Did you have a bad dream? You seemed to be in real pain before."

Zhu Furong shook his head in denial. "No. Not a bad dream... I was just... I was just reminded of my goal."

"Your goal? To transcend the heavens?" Zhu Xingzuo asked, somewhat confused.

"That goal is because heaven is unjust. But I am talking about my other goal, the goal for which I went through rebirth." Zhu Furong replied.

"Another goal?" Zhu Xingzuo inquired.

Zhu Furong looked above at the leaves rustling, "You know about my past."

Zhu Xingzuo indeed knows about Zhu Furong's past life. He was there when Zhu Furong shared his past with his masters.

Zhu Xingzuo didn't ask any further but answered Zhu Furong's question about Cultivation. "The next three stages or should I say, the last three stages of the  Body Transformation are the most important but also the most difficult ones to achieve. Calling them impossible to achieve would be more correct."

Zhu Xingzuo took a deep breath, "Just so you know, even your master Hei Hai didn't practice these 3 stages. It's not that he didn't but he failed. He almost lost his life during the process." "So I would suggest you to skip these three stages and move on to the next Cultivation rank. Your physical body right now is already better than what your masters expected."

Zhu Furong stayed silent for a moment before asking. "What will be the difference between if I complete the last three stages and if I didn't complete the last three stages?"

"Big Brother..." Zhu Xingzuo wanted to convince Zhu Furong to not think about it but looking at Zhu Furong's firm expression he gave up.

He spoke the truth. "The difference will be... Night and day..." Zhu Xingzuo spoke with hesitation.

Zhu Furong nodded slightly. "It's decided then."

He murmured, "I am done playing around. Even if I die again, I will die trying. Unlike before..." The last two words conveyed deep regret.

Zhu Xingzuo sighed.

Zhu Furong stood up and slowly walked towards the cemetery. On the way, he came across hundreds of spiritual beast corpses, ranging from rank 1 to rank 3.

"Did I do all this?" Zhu Furong asked nonchalantly.

"Yes. This time you really lost yourself. You not only butchered everything in this jungle, you also did the same to the jungle on the opposite side of the cemetery."

"Two jungles? It must be the Hanshu Peace Cemetery." Zhu Furong concluded.

He then asked, "So what are we going to the cemetery for? Don't tell me, did I dig up some graves when I lost control?— That's a sin." Zhu Furong looked disappointed in himself.

He doesn't remember anything from the moment when he was demonized.

"Don't worry, you did nothing of that sort." Zhu Xingzuo consoled.

"That's a relief. To dishonor the graves of loyal soldiers who gave up their lives for their country, I can't carry that sin." Zhu Furong sighed with relief.

"By the way, you said that the last three stages of the Body Preparation rank are impossible to achieve, why is that?" Zhu Furong frowned.

Zhu Xingzuo explained, "Bone Reforging, Marrow Tempering and Muscle Altering all have the same three steps which you have to follow. Break, merge and reconstruct." 

"Break, well, you will be breaking your bones, grinding your marrow and shredding your muscles. Merge, you will merge each of them with a compatible material to enhance and improve their characteristics. And at last you will reconstruct them. How does it sound?" Zhu Xingzuo asked mockingly.

"Sounds painful— But this doesn't explain why it is impossible to achieve." Zhu Furong presented his doubts.

Zhu Xingzuo ridiculed, "It only sounds painful in theory. When the time comes you will be begging for death."

Hearing this Zhu Furong didn't make any expression, as if he didn't hear anything.

"The pain is one of the causes for the failure as many lose their sanity during the process or succumb to death. But the main cause is the materials required to undergo the merging." Zhu Xingzuo continued explaining, "The materials are the factor which will determine the final outcome. The better the materials the better the outcome. Also the fact that the materials have to be compatible is not to be forgotten."

Zhu Furong puckered his brows, "You mean to say, I have to merge my bones with something that will make it sturdier but the problem is finding a suitable or to say a compatible material? Also, the better the material I use, the sturdier my bones will become, right?"

"Right." Zhu Xingzuo confirmed.

"Can we even find such materials in this lower realm? You said my master failed... He couldn't find a suitable material, right?" Zhu Furong asked.

"Yes. According to him he found a heavenly treasure which would have doubled or may tripled his strength but it wasn't compatible with his body." Zhu Xingzuo replied.

Zhu Furong looked disappointed, it's as if he is considering taking Zhu Xingzuo's suggestion and skipping the last three stages.

Zhu Xingzuo read his thoughts, "We can hold till we find the proper materials. Till then we can skip to the next Cultivation rank."

"Next Cultivation rank? Is it possible to practice the last three stages of the Body Preparation rank after I jump to the next Cultivation rank?" Zhu Furong asked with surprise.

"Well, it wouldn't have been possible if the next Cultivation rank was Qi related. But fortunately it isn't." Zhu Xingzuo spoke with joy, "The next Cultivation rank is Nascent, it's soul related. What's more, after completing the Nascent rank, you can ascend to the Upper Realm."

"For real?" At last Zhu Furong smiled after staying almost expressionless since he woke up.

"Yes. But to ascend, you have to fill your dantian with Qi, if you do so..."  Zhu Xingzuo breathed out, "You have to complete the last three stages of Body Preparation rank, before establishing your Qi foundation, so if you can't, then it's better to give up on the last three stages and move on." Zhu Xingzuo suggested.

He then spoke sarcastically, "Though, it's a different story if you don't mind staying in the lower realm for a longer period of time."

Unlike before where Zhu Furong would scold or curse Zhu Xingzuo for making fun of him, this time he doesn't even seem irritated. Rather he looked thoughtful and somewhat worried.

This behavior of Zhu Furong made Zhu Xingzuo sigh inwards.

Zhu Xingzuo spoke softly, "I will sacrifice some of my Chaos Qi to keep the Spiritual Qi out of your body all the time after ascension. Though it will be tough to keep it up in the upper realm, it's the only way. So cheer up will you? How long are you going to keep that gloomy face of yours? It's quite irritating." Zhu Xingzuo scolded.

"How long has it been since the day we left the Unknown Ruins?" Zhu Furong asked.

"Counting today, eight days." Zhu Xingzuo replied.

Zhu Furong mumbled, "Eight days..." He checked his body.

"I was on the verge of death, to completely heal in eight days... You used your Chaos Qi didn't you? How much did you use? Healing wounds uses up a lot of Qi, no matter what type of Qi it is." Zhu Furong asked, somewhat sad.

Zhu Xingzuo snorted,"Why do you care? It's my Qi. I will use it as I want." 

Zhu Furong hung his head and didn't speak, he silently walked out of the jungle.

Even a word of sorry right now is useless. Zhu Furong and Zhu Xingzuo are related by blood. Unlike the Spiritual Bond formed between a human and a beast, Zhu Furong shares the same blood as Zhu Xingzuo. If you call them brothers from the same mother it won't be far from the truth.

Words don't matter between brothers, only action does.

Zhu Furong etched in his heart that he will take care of his little brother till his dying breath.

...

The sky is shining red, with fluffy clouds looking like cotton candy. The sun is about the set.

Zhu Furong is standing on the same spot where he laid unconscious going through bad dreams.

"Here?" Zhu Furong pointed at the ground.

"Yes. Dig here." Zhu Xingzuo replied.

Zhu Furong instantly got to work. After digging, 5 meters deep, Zhu Furong climbed out of the pit holding a pitch black, smoking statue of a masked devil. The statue is about 7 inches in height and is made up of some sort of metal.

"Yin Doll!" Zhu Furong's eyes widened.

"You know what this is?" Zhu Xingzuo asked.

"You don't know?" Zhu Furong asked back.

Zhu Xingzuo declined, "No. I only suspected that there is something buried here with concentrated Yin Qi mixed with malicious intent. I don't know anything about this Yin Doll you speak of, what is it?"

"Well I am also looking at it for the first time. Actually I read about it in one of the jade slips masters passed to me." Zhu Furong remembered the jade slip and took it out, re-reading it.

"It is used to set up an array which captures souls of the dead and stores them inside this Yin Doll from which later the Yin Qi can be extracted and used for Cultivation. Given how cruel this method is, it is forbidden to practice it, so it must be the work of some unorthodox Cultivator." Zhu Furong ground his teeth in anger.

The smoke permeating out of the Yin Doll is like an earthworm trying to drill into Zhu Furong's skin but is blocked by Zhu Xingzuo's Chaos Qi.

"Not only that, due to the soul being captured against their will, they have all turned into malicious spirits haunting this Yin Doll. It was these malicious intentions which caused you to have nightmares. If I didn't stop it on time, you may have lost your sanity." Zhu Xingzuo spoke with worry.

Zhu Furong frowned, "Isn't the Nirvana Life Seal protecting my Spiritual Body?"

"Thanks to that, the damage was kept to a minimum. Else with the amount of malice present in this Yin Doll, your soul would have been corrupted as soon as it touched it." Zhu Xingzuo replied.

Zhu Furong looked at the large cemetery and fumed with anger.

He then looked at the Yin Doll in his hand, "What to do with this?"

"Hmm, If you want I can purify the Yin Qi and you can use it for Cultivation. Aren't you learning the Demon Sword, Freezing Point sword art? Yin Qi will be quite help—ah, er, em, argh, cough, cough!" Zhu Xingzuo choked as he saw Zhu Furong glaring at his lower dantian.

After a while, Zhu Xingzuo spoke meekly, "If you infuse my Chaos Qi into a rank 2 sword artifact, it should be enough to break this doll. Though the souls are already corrupted and have lost their identity, you can still pray for their solace."

Zhu Furong spoke with a serious face, "Though they have lost their identity, it still affects my morals to use the souls of innocent people for Cultivation. Strength gained from others misfortune is never satisfactory."

"They did in battle didn't they? They must have killed quite a lot of people. How are they innocent?" Zhu Xingzuo asked, confused.

Zhu Furong shook his head taking out a rank 2 sword artifact, with Chaos Qi infused in it Zhu Furong turned the Yin Doll into dust. As soon as the doll was broken, an almost invisible ripple passed through the sky, notifying the deactivation of the array. A mist of dark black fog floated out of the doll and scattered into tiny pieces which slowly floated upwards towards the sky, vanishing with time.

Zhu Furong looked at the floating souls, "They didn't kill people because they wanted to. They killed because they had to. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made in order to protect something." Zhu Furong spoke with a wry smile.

Zhu Xingzuo spoke with great interest, "Even though I didn't interact much with others during my past lives, I have witnessed millions of creatures of different species. I have to say, I am quite intrigued by how every creature has their own set of principles they follow."

Zhu Furong nodded slightly, "Ethics make a person who they are. A person without ethics is a wild beast lost upon this world." After saying this Zhu Furong looked towards the east.

'According to the map, the Western Fort should be a few kilometers ahead.' With this thought and Zhu Da's face blooming in his mind, Zhu Furong bowed to the cemetery to pay respect to the dead soldiers.

After fixing his disguise of a 14 years old commoner boy, he marched towards the Western Fort. It's the face of the 10 years old Zuo Rong who have now turned 14. The soldiers will definitely be quite excited to see their junior return.