Body Tempering Realm, Achieved!

Option C was as ridiculous as ever. Lu Ping didn't even look at it.

Lu Ping gave option B a closer look.

With Cost Reduction and Efficiency Enhancement and Artisan Spirit, forging a batch of superior ironware to sell to Zhou Mazi was feasible in theory.

But the problem was that Zhou Mazi was a local tyrant.

If Lu Ping used superior ironware to pay off Zhang Xiaoliu's debt, what would Zhou Mazi think?

A blacksmith who could forge superior ironware was worth ten thousand times more than a smithy.

In fact, Zhou Mazi had his eye on the blacksmith at the smithy all along.

And Lu Ping might have been their prey from the beginning.

Lu Ping chose A.

[You chose A.]

[That night, the bald, burly man drank with his men in the main room while Zhang Xiaoliu stood by the table, smiling ingratiatingly. No one noticed the activity in the back courtyard.]

[You fished the "Body Tempering Instruction" out from under the stove and tucked it into your robes. You pried the 113 copper coins you had saved over nine years out from under the bedboards and tied them around your waist. You put on the cloth shoes with their soles worn through and climbed over the low wall of the back courtyard.]

[As you left, you looked back at the smithy. The fire in the furnace had yet to die, and red light leaked through the cracks in the window, falling on the bluestone road.]

[You turned your head and strode toward the outskirts of town.]

A system notification popped up, framed by a cold gray border.

[Host detected to have left Zhangji Smithy (sole proprietorship). Automatic resignation process initiated.]

[Time until automatic resignation: 364 days.]

Another year.

The countdown lit up again, red numbers hanging in the very center of the white background, ticking down day by day.

Last time, he had escaped from the ruins of the Black Tiger Gang and made it to Qingliu Town in fifteen days on a few pieces of dry rations and half a flatbread.

This time, at least he had 113 copper coins in his pocket.

[Age 46. You found work as a porter in neighboring Liuhe Town. Employment successful. Length of service resumed.]

[Age 47. The porterage business went under. You lost your job. Countdown restarted.]

[You spent three months finding new work at a medicine shop in He'an Town. Odd-job worker at a medicine shop. Employment successful.]

[Age 48. The medicine shop owner dismissed you for being too old. Countdown restarted.]

[You traveled through two towns and became a night watchman at Baiyang Ferry. Employment successful.]

Each time he left a job, the countdown restarted. Each time he took one, it was canceled.

He bounced back and forth between the red numbers and the gray border, and the paper window separating him from the Body Tempering Realm grew thinner and thinner.

But he never managed to pierce it.

Traits kept appearing, but every year's batch was trash.

Year after year, Lu Ping didn't change them.

Artisan Spirit, Cost Reduction and Efficiency Enhancement, Salted Fish.

The iron triangle didn't budge.

[Age 58.]

[Winter.]

[You spent the night in a ruined temple on a desolate mountain.]

[You were old now. Your hair was streaked with gray, and your face was covered in wrinkles.]

[But your body was surprisingly sturdy.]

[More than a decade of physical enhancement from Fall Guy, nine years of smithing, and the cheap medicinal baths from Cost Reduction and Efficiency Enhancement had tempered your body far beyond that of an ordinary person.]

[You sat cross-legged in front of the ruined temple's clay Buddha, the battered "Body Tempering Instruction" spread open before you.]

[Every corner of its pages was curled, and they were covered with notes you had made in charcoal.]

[Outside, wind and snow raged. The ruined temple's roof had three holes, and snowflakes drifted through them, landing on your shoulders and melting into water.]

[You felt it.]

[That paper window would be pierced tonight.]

[Forty years.]

[From the time you found this battered book in the mine's kitchen at twenty to now, sitting on the floor of a ruined temple at fifty-eight, thirty-eight years had passed.]

[Options appeared.]

[A: Follow the conventional path of the "Body Tempering Instruction," slowly drawing in Qi and advancing steadily. Approximately a thirty percent chance of success.]

[B: Burn all your physical strength to force a breakthrough. A seventy percent chance of success, but if you succeed, your body will suffer severe backlash and your lifespan will be greatly reduced.]

[C: Give up cultivation, burn the "Body Tempering Instruction" for warmth, and sleep soundly. Leave it until tomorrow.]

Thirty percent and seventy percent.

Lu Ping didn't hesitate.

He was already fifty-eight.

How much of a mortal's lifespan could he have left?

Ten years? Twenty?

Even if the heavens showed him extraordinary mercy and let him live to eighty, that would leave only twenty-three years.

Wait another twenty-three years for a chance like "tonight"?

Impossible.

That feeling wouldn't come a second time.

Thirty percent was too low. He couldn't afford that gamble.

Seventy percent, at the cost of a greatly reduced lifespan.

But he didn't have much lifespan left to lose in the first place.

A fifty-eight-year-old vagrant had more hidden ailments than white hairs on his head.

Bet on the biggest chance.

Lu Ping chose B.

[You chose B.]

[Cost Reduction and Efficiency Enhancement activated.]

[Your physical exertion was greatly reduced.]

[Artisan Spirit activated.]

[The Qi-drawing method was executed to the utmost perfection.]

[The course of every meridian and the order in which every acupoint was activated were precise to the smallest fraction.]

[The bones throughout your body erupted in a rapid series of cracks.]

[One, two, ten, twenty...]

[Starting from your spine, the cracking spread along your ribs, collarbones, shoulder blades, and finger bones, one joint at a time, so rapid that no intervals could be heard.]

[An extremely faint wisp of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi descended through a crack in the ruined temple's drafty roof, brushed past your graying hair, and entered your battered meridians through the Baihui acupoint at the crown of your head.]

[It was thin, weak, and almost imperceptible. But it was flowing.]

[It traveled down your meridians, inch by inch.]

[Each time it passed a hidden injury, the Spiritual Qi would stall for a moment. Then the Cost Reduction and Efficiency Enhancement trait would reduce the cost and raise the efficiency, forcing it through.]

[Your Dantian was empty. It had been empty for fifty-eight years.]

[The moment the Spiritual Qi reached your Dantian, your body shuddered violently.]

[Drawing Qi into your body succeeded.]

[Body Tempering Realm, early stage.]

[Cost: lifespan greatly reduced. Hidden ailments accumulated over many years have erupted all at once. Your body is rapidly deteriorating.]

Lu Ping stared at this passage of experience, slightly stunned.

Thirty-eight years.

From the time he found that battered book in the mine's kitchen to the snowy night in this ruined temple, thirty-eight years.

It had taken him thirty-eight years to finally reach the threshold of cultivation.

Salted Fish activated.

Lu Ping's eyes dimmed slightly.

[You broke through.]

[But hidden ailments and backlash immediately descended, ravenously devouring your vitality.]

[You could feel your lifespan rapidly slipping away.]

[You recalled the cultivation method in the "Body Tempering Instruction" from beginning to end, engraving it in the deepest recesses of your memory.]

[The wind and snow grew fiercer.]

[You leaned against the clay Buddha and closed your eyes.]