Creating Dragon's Roar Iron Cloth Shirt and rising to first-rate!

In the blink of an eye, two months passed.

The locust tree in Qianchuan Hall sprouted new buds from its bare branches, only to lose its last leaf in a late spring cold snap. The wild grass on the courtyard wall turned from yellow to green, then from green to yellow again.

Aside from the old eunuch who regularly delivered his meals and the imperial guards who occasionally passed by while patrolling outside the courtyard wall, the place was as quiet as if the whole world had forgotten it.

By now, books were piled like mountains before Chen Du.

During those two months, he spent nearly every waking moment buried in old books, apart from eating and sleeping.

From the classics, histories, philosophical works, and literary collections to military treatises and battle strategies, from martial world miscellanies to internal cultivation methods, he had read through the books accumulated in Qianchuan Hall over hundreds of years.

He took the books one by one from shelves that had gathered dust for who knew how many years, read them, and put them back, wiping the shelves clean of dust.

His reading speed grew faster and faster. At first, a second-rate martial arts manual took him half a shichen to read; now he could finish one in a quarter of an hour.

His reading ability improved day by day. He only had to glance at any text for it to be automatically broken down, reorganized, and thoroughly understood.

The next moment, two familiar flashes of light appeared deep in his consciousness.

[Divine Revelation Reading · Martial Arts Creation experience +1]

[Divine Revelation Reading · Martial Arts Creation experience +1]

[Current progress: Martial Arts Creation Lv4 (15/16) → Martial Arts Creation Lv5 (1/32)]

[Martial Arts Creation has been upgraded to Lv5. Your comprehension when reading martial arts books has greatly improved, and your ability to create martial arts based on martial arts manuals has greatly improved.]

Chen Du put down the book in his hands and closed his eyes, sensing something deep in his consciousness awakening once more.

If his previous comprehension could be likened to a stream, then that stream had now widened into a rushing river.

Every variation of every martial arts move,

The true meaning of every line of every mnemonic,

The crucial points in every method of circulating true qi,

All were as clear to his eyes as black words on white paper. One glance was enough to see through them, one glance enough to grasp their essence.

Such heaven-defying comprehension could no longer be described as genius. No martial art held any secrets before him; he needed only time to master it.

He opened his eyes and drew a manual with a yellowed, fraying cover from the books at his side.

Now, the martial arts he was mastering had reached the first-rate level!

After all, a meal had to be eaten one mouthful at a time.

Three large, neatly printed characters stood on the cover... "Iron Cloth Shirt."

The name was utterly ordinary, sounding like a third-rate hard qigong that some escort agency scout might know a move or two of.

But after reading through a vast number of martial arts texts in Qianchuan Hall over the past two months, Chen Du had long since developed an eye for quality.

The martial art Iron Cloth Shirt was a supreme art seized from a Buddhist martial arts holy land that had been wiped out in the early days of the Great Sheng Dynasty. It was a superior hard-body cultivation art, a first-rate martial art.

Cultivated to mastery, it made the body as though cast from iron, impervious to blades and spears, untouched by water and fire. One could charge through an army of ten thousand without suffering a scratch.

But this martial art was extremely difficult to cultivate. It required one to temper the skin, flesh, sinews, and bones with true qi day and night. The process was agonizing, and the slightest mistake could cause the meridians to flow backward and the qi and blood to stagnate.

Countless people in the martial world had attempted to cultivate Iron Cloth Shirt, but even among hundreds, there might not be a single one who truly mastered it.

Even with a master's personal instruction and fellow disciples standing guard, it often took twenty or thirty years of hard work just to reach a respectable level.

But Chen Du had the [Divine Revelation Reading] talent, and he had already read this manual seven times.

Each reading brought new insights welling up in his mind, and those obscure routes of true qi circulation automatically broke themselves down in his head,

Those crucial points that would take decades of hard work to open could be dealt with in a flash of inspiration.

Today, his [Martial Arts Creation] had just risen to Lv5, and his comprehension had once again improved enormously.

He had a premonition that this reading would produce something different.

Chen Du opened Iron Cloth Shirt and read slowly from beginning to end, word by word, line by line.

The words in the manual flowed before his eyes, while his mind worked at an astonishing speed.

Suddenly, he slammed his palm against the floor tile before him.

Hum!

A deep, muffled sound spread through the hall. A ring of visible force rippled outward from his palm, shaking the thick dust on the floor into the air and forming an expanding circle.

The bluish veins on his arm bulged slightly, and a faint, dark golden sheen appeared on the surface of his skin, as though it had been coated in an exceedingly thin layer of metal.

Even more astonishingly, when that dark golden sheen appeared, a faint dragon's roar came from within his body.

It did not come from his throat, but arose naturally from deep within his sinews and bones, from the vibrations of his true qi.

It was as though a sleeping dragon had been awakened and rolled over inside him, letting out a deep breath.

Chen Du lowered his head and looked at his hand. The dark golden sheen was slowly fading, but the sensation of being cast from bronze and iron still lingered beneath his skin.

He clenched his fist and could clearly feel that the density of his sinews and bones had undergone an earth-shaking transformation in those few short breaths.

Deep in his consciousness, new lines of text appeared one after another:

[You have read the martial arts manual Iron Cloth Shirt. You have comprehended Dragon's Roar Iron Cloth Shirt!]

[Dragon's Roar Iron Cloth Shirt: Derived from the first-rate martial art Iron Cloth Shirt through heaven-defying comprehension. Its grade surpasses the original, placing it among the top hard-body cultivation arts.

It tempers the sinews, bones, skin, and flesh with true qi. Cultivated to mastery, it makes the body as though covered in dragon scales; ordinary blades and swords cannot harm it in the slightest.

When true qi circulates, the sinews and bones resonate together, producing the sound of a dragon's roar. It vibrates the qi and blood, cleanses the meridians, and wards off all evils.

Wherever the dragon's roar reaches, it can strike fear into enemies' hearts, making them afraid before battle even begins. Those who master this art can rank among the martial world's first-rate experts on the strength of their physical bodies alone.]

Chen Du slowly breathed out a turbid breath. In his hands, the first-rate martial art Iron Cloth Shirt had become the top-tier martial art Dragon's Roar Iron Cloth Shirt.

A martial artist of ordinary aptitude needed twenty or thirty years to master Iron Cloth Shirt, while he had spent less than half a month from first opening the manual to reading it for the eighth time today.

Moreover, the Dragon's Roar Iron Cloth Shirt he had created went a step beyond the original.

The original Iron Cloth Shirt had only passive defensive abilities, whereas Dragon's Roar Iron Cloth Shirt not only had stronger defenses but also possessed the active effect of the dragon's roar vibration. It could both temper his own qi, blood, and meridians and intimidate his enemies.

This was the heaven-defying comprehension granted by Martial Arts Creation Lv5!

Chen Du stood up and loosened his muscles and joints. He had read over a hundred martial arts manuals during these two months, but had not read a first-rate martial art.

Although Dragon's Roar Iron Cloth Shirt was not the only martial art he had created, when it came to defense, it was undoubtedly the strongest hard-body skill he currently possessed.

With this martial art as a foundation, his ability to survive in this world had risen by an entire level.

If he encountered Commander Zhou from before again, he could easily win.

After all, even among first-rate experts, some were stronger than others!

He had crossed the threshold into the ranks of first-rate experts.

Two months!

In two months, he had gone from a scholar too weak to truss a chicken to a top first-rate expert.

And all of this was merely the beginning.

Chen Du's gaze passed over the courtyard wall, toward the brightly lit depths of the imperial palace.

His eight brothers were locked in a fight to the death over the dragon throne.

No one cared about this useless son under house arrest in Qianchuan Hall. No one thought a scholar gnawing on old books in the library hall could make any waves.

That suited him perfectly!

He shut the window, turned back to the piles of books, and pulled a new manual from the shelf.

The candle flame flickered, casting its light on the mottled wall like a sword slowly being drawn from its sheath!