When Li Chu returned to Virtuous Cloud Temple, he happened to see several aunties from nearby villages coming out through the gate, every one of them beaming and radiant.
When he received visitors himself, the aunties smiled too, but never with such wholehearted joy. They looked like crops nourished by spring rain.
It seemed the gap between himself and his master was still enormous.
With that thought, Li Chu entered the front hall full of admiration.
Yu Qi'an was sitting in the front hall, temporarily filling in for Li Chu. Seeing him return, he hurriedly stood up. "My disciple, you're finally back. Your master is exhausted. Take these things to the kitchen. Let's add another dish for lunch."
Around him sat two baskets of eggs, a bundle of scallions, a wild mountain chicken, and more. They had likely been gifts from those aunties just now.
The villagers did not have much money, so it was common for them to offer ingredients as incense donations. The Daoists were equally grateful; every vegetable and every meal was merit.
Yu Qi'an thumped his lower back as he headed to the backyard, while Li Chu picked up the goods and followed close behind.
After a hearty lunch with an extra dish of scrambled eggs and scallions, Li Chu returned to the front hall.
On a summer afternoon, the grass and trees lay at ease, and the air was steeped in a drowsy scent.
But Li Chu was full of energy. He took out that copy of Learn Iron Cloth in Thirty Days and began studying it seriously.
Upon closer examination, its principles were remarkably simple.
The first step was to gather all the Inner Strength in one spot, tense the muscles, and use that to withstand attacks. If one's force was strong enough, one could even resist sharp weapons.
Common street-performance acts such as Golden Spear Through Throat and Back Roll on Nail Board were all achieved through this sort of training.
Taking it a step further meant turning this resistance into a reflexive response. No matter when one was attacked, one could tense the muscles at the first instant without needing to build up strength beforehand.
The final step was to expand from a single point to the whole body, training every part to possess formidable defensive power.
That was how Iron Cloth was formed.
When practiced to its utmost limits, being impervious to blades and spears was no empty boast.
This sort of common martial art for self-defense could not possibly be too profound. But it was the only thing Li Chu could get his hands on, so he did not disdain it.
He had never practiced martial arts, so he possessed no Inner Strength. However, he had another kind of power that might be even stronger, which he would tentatively call spiritual power.
Li Chu thought about it and decided that using spiritual power to train might work just as well.
After all, they were both forms of energy. There should not be much difference.
No sooner said than done. At once, he mobilized his spiritual power and tried to concentrate it at a certain point on his body's surface.
This was his first time attempting such an operation. Previously, his spiritual power had flowed steadily within his body. Even when he drew his sword, he never concentrated it in large amounts—after all, merely leaking a trace of spiritual power was enough to erase an enemy.
Out of caution, he did not dare experiment on any important body part right away. Instead, he chose an expendable part of his lower body—
Something that was quite long, yet he thought entirely useless and somewhat ugly.
Something that, if anything went wrong, could be cut off at the root at any time.
That's right.
He gathered his spiritual power onto a single leg hair.
To his surprise, when he slowly concentrated fifty percent of his spiritual power onto that leg hair, it began to glow.
A glowing leg hair.
For some reason, the sight felt strangely familiar to Li Chu.
When the spiritual power reached sixty percent, it began to grow hot!
Like a red-hot iron wire.
Li Chu finally remembered why it felt familiar. When he was little, his family had still used Old-fashioned Light Bulbs...
He also had a premonition that if he continued pouring spiritual power into it, it might explode.
To avoid being injured before he had even mastered Iron Cloth, he temporarily stopped the experiment.
It seemed sixty percent spiritual power was the limit a leg hair could withstand. He wondered how skin would fare.
He pondered for a moment and frowned.
Every inch of his skin was flawless. He could not find anywhere suitable for an experiment...
In the end, he chose his palm.
He extended his left hand, palm up, as spiritual power slowly gathered.
This time, fifty percent spiritual power gathered quickly, but nothing happened.
When the spiritual power reached sixty percent, his palm began to glow. When it reached seventy percent, his palm began to feel hot.
It seemed skin could withstand a little more than hair.
With a palm that came with its own heating function...
Life would be much more comfortable...
Li Chu thought of traveling outside. He would inevitably have to eat dry provisions, but cold food was bad for the stomach, and there were often no conditions for heating it. With such a hand, he could save himself a great deal of trouble.
When he withdrew the spiritual power again, he suddenly noticed that the area where it had gathered looked somewhat different from the surrounding skin.
It was not too obvious on his palm, so he tried it on another spot.
Sure enough, any place where spiritual power had briefly gathered became fairer after the power dispersed.
His skin had already been pale, but now its rosy color had faded, replaced by the crystalline texture of White Porcelain. It looked especially dazzling and felt even smoother to the touch.
That was an unexpected change.
He quickly used spiritual power to transform his entire left hand, then began the most nerve-racking part.
His left hand gripped the Iron Sword and lightly stroked its edge.
With a hiss.
He felt no pain. Opening his hand, he saw only a faint white mark, which quickly vanished as well.
Impervious to blades and spears!
Li Chu smiled faintly.
He had succeeded even faster than he had imagined.
It seemed spiritual power might be a little stronger than Inner Strength.
Iron Cloth, which was originally supposed to take thirty days to learn, had taken him only moments to condense and complete.
Moreover, Iron Cloth had Weak Points. Some parts of the body could not exert force, and the areas Inner Strength could not cover were fatal weaknesses for practitioners.
Many stories also circulated through the martial world of Martial Artists whose Weak Points had been found, causing their techniques to be broken.
But Li Chu's spiritual power could gather anywhere. If he wanted, he could give every single strand of hair top-tier care.
In other words, his Iron Cloth had no weaknesses. It was Supreme Iron Cloth!
Still, Li Chu reminded himself not to become swollen with pride because of this.
After all, being impervious to blades and spears came with conditions.
That sword that slew demons and banished evil, without spiritual power to support it, was actually nothing more than ordinary Mundane Iron. One could buy one from the town's Blacksmith Shop for two taels of silver.
If a martial arts master wielded a Peerless Treasure Blade, or if an expert Sword Cultivator controlled a Magical Artifact Flying Sword...
They could surely enter his body with ease.
Thus, he had merely gained a little more capital for life preservation. He still needed to cultivate diligently.
At once, he embarked upon the path of painstaking enhancement.
Every inch of bone, flesh, and skin throughout his body was carefully refined through concentrated spiritual power.
After merely one afternoon, Li Chu felt as though he had been reborn. His entire body had become much lighter and more vigorous.
If he could look into a mirror at that moment, he would likely discover an even greater difference.
Now, when he sat still and steady, he looked exactly like a flawless piece of porcelain, save for the Divine Light shining from his eyes.
Even his appearance had improved by three points.
Do not underestimate those three points.
Li Chu, whose looks were already worth ten thousand points, would only reach ten thousand and three with those extra three points, perhaps not noticeably different. But if they were added to Zhou Dafu, whose looks were only worth five points, those three points would bring about a qualitative leap.
"Iron Cloth truly deserves its reputation as a famous technique," Li Chu exclaimed sincerely.
He had originally thought Iron Cloth was merely a Martial Arts Manual found everywhere, capable at most of increasing his damage resistance by a little. No matter how strong it was, it could not be that impressive.
But now that he had mastered it and examined himself more carefully, the enhancement this technique brought him was unexpectedly comprehensive. It was not merely imperviousness to blades and spears; it seemed even the impurities in his body had been cleansed away. It was practically Marrow Cleansing!
Our Iron Cloth was truly amazing!
Of course.
If the Founder of Iron Cloth heard those words, he might leap from his coffin and cry out, "How could I possibly deserve such praise?"
Other people's Iron Cloth was no good! Only your Iron Cloth was!
Before you continue