Focused and Dedicated

2024-07-31

Focused and Dedicated

At night, the candlelight in the room flickered, brightening and dimming.

Song Changming, who was not on duty tonight, was examining the parchment he had acquired.

The Old Man in the Ring had an unknown origin. Whether he was good or evil, the risk was impossible to determine.

What if some great devil beyond his comprehension was hidden inside, deceiving him all along and harboring designs on him? Keeping it would be a true disaster.

Moreover, his secret of immortality did not allow him to carry an Old Man in the Ring around by his side.

Thus, he did not find it a pity to discard the ring.

The martial arts recorded on this parchment, however, were worth a closer look.

If they were real, there was no reason he could not try practicing them.

In truth, he had long considered Practicing Martial Arts.

He could not remain a lowly Night Watchman forever. If he wanted to improve his life, he had to keep climbing upward.

Every year, the Patrol Guard Headquarters of the city's various streets had openings for patrol guards, whether to fill vacancies or expand their ranks.

And the most basic requirement for becoming a patrol guard was possessing a certain level of martial skill.

Simply put, one had to be a martial artist who had practiced martial arts.

After all, this was an armed unit responsible for maintaining public order. Even those who muddled through within it needed to have a few tricks up their sleeves.

Therefore, Practicing Martial Arts was something Song Changming had to pursue.

Not only to become a patrol guard, but also so that he would be able to protect himself in the future and emerge unscathed when facing danger.

Originally, he had planned to find a martial arts school in the city and enroll.

Unfortunately, joining any decent martial arts school required paying expensive tuition upfront. He did not have that money at the moment and would need to save for a while longer.

And he had heard that the subsequent costs of martial arts training were also extremely high. Money was needed everywhere; the path of Practicing Martial Arts was not easy to walk.

For now, since he could not enter a martial arts school, the martial arts on these parchments were the only things he could study.

Even if he ultimately failed to master them, perhaps they could still offer some reference.

The two folded sheets of parchment were both quite large when spread open. Together, they covered half a square table.

They were densely packed with writing, the handwriting sloppy, along with several diagrams. Yet it was clear that the person who copied them was not skilled at drawing either, and some of them were crooked.

Song Changming stared at them like an old man looking at a phone on the subway, struggling terribly.

"Soul Severing Saber, a martial art of the Ghost Blade Faction. Its saber winds are sinister, strange, and vicious, specializing in throat-cutting and decapitation. Upon reaching the Minor Accomplishment stage, one may cultivate a wisp of Ghostly Saber Momentum—invisible and traceless, elusive and unpredictable."

After reading through it once, Song Changming only felt as though he were lost in the clouds and mist. Much of the excerpted content was completely incomprehensible to him.

The several diagrams of saber momentum were also unclear. He had to add his own understanding and slowly ponder their essential points.

"It would be absurd if anyone could actually master this." Song Changming shook his head helplessly and turned to the second sheet of parchment.

"Great Strength Bull Demon Art, a body-tempering martial art focused on bone forging. Every month, consume one twenty-year wild mountain ginseng. Take a medicinal bath once every half month. Consume one dose of Bone Tempering Powder every five days. Eat at least two catties of meat every day, with lamb and veal being best. Practice it to completion, and one may gain the strength of nine oxen!"

Reading the complicated requirements, he finally understood why Practicing Martial Arts was so costly.

So many medicinal ingredients and foods were needed for nourishment, and they were all so precious. How could an ordinary commoner's family afford them?

"Practicing Martial Arts truly isn't something everyone can do."

The little food allowance silver he received each month as a Night Watchman was nowhere near enough.

Forget twenty-year wild mountain ginseng—even two catties of meat every day was already enough to stump him.

"What kind of family can eat meat every day?" Song Changming sighed inwardly.

At any rate, there were very few such families on Baiyi Street.

Fortunately, Song Changming was not discouraged. Having no foundation in martial arts, he had not expected to master these two unexpectedly acquired martial arts manuals in a single attempt.

This was a completely new field to him. He only needed to ponder and study it slowly. As night deepened, the rain outside fell harder and harder, seeming ready to pour down in sheets. After dinner, Song Changming remained immersed in exploring the two martial arts manuals.

Combining the illustrations with the few annotations, he pondered their meaning word by word, sentence by sentence.

Compared to the body-tempering martial art on the second parchment, the Soul Severing Saber clearly had a better chance of yielding results for him.

At least practicing the saber did not have all kinds of precious items as mandatory conditions for cultivation.

"Let's try it."

After studying for a long time, Song Changming finally drew the Official Saber issued by the Patrol Guard Headquarters and began practicing according to the contents of the parchment.

Though he had never systematically practiced martial arts, he had mastered the basic handling of a saber—chopping, slashing, lifting, and thrusting. The Official Saber in his hands was not merely decoration.

He practiced until late into the night.

The result was meager.

Until—

[Today's Evaluation: A moderately meaningful day. Lifespan +3. Obtained limited-time status: 'Focused and Dedicated']

Focused and Dedicated: Single-minded and fully absorbed, doing things with one's spirit intensely focused.

"Finally, the status effect has changed. I hope it helps."

Hearing the prompt, Song Changming set down his saber, wiped the sweat from his face, and let out a long breath.

Every midnight, his panel ability evaluated his performance over the day. Besides awarding Lifespan, it also granted him a limited-time status that lasted for one day.

For example, his previous limited-time status had been 'Muddling Through'.

Muddling Through: Slacking off and coasting, lying flat in mediocrity, accomplishing nothing.

Under this status, his efficiency at doing things was not high. For martial arts practice and cultivation, it had an especially severe negative impact.

It would have been stranger if he had managed to achieve anything while in that lying-flat state.

The reason he had still been doing this seemingly useless work, burying his head in hard practice, was only so that he could refresh away this negative status at midnight.

The 'Focused and Dedicated' status he had received now was a good one, able to positively boost his cultivation efficiency.

It was equivalent to activating a small cheat.

With the thought that a small cheat did not count as cheating, Song Changming threw himself into saber practice with even greater focus.

This time, the results were indeed different.

Some principles behind drawing the saber that he had never been able to comprehend suddenly clicked into place, as though the clouds had parted and the sun shone through.

He even felt that his former self had been far too foolish to fail to learn something so basic.

Gradually, he found that the Soul Severing Saber was not actually difficult to grasp.

Just as the ring had said before, this saber art was indeed highly suitable for someone like him who had never encountered martial arts before.

The mysterious concepts in exquisite martial arts that could only be understood but not put into words were not common on this parchment. Most of the saber techniques and artistic conceptions were easy to understand.

And once Song Changming gradually got the hang of this saber art, everything began to fall naturally into place.

He did not know how much time had passed when new information suddenly appeared on his panel.

Name: Song Changming

Lifespan: 36,002

Spirit: 7

Root: 10

Related Constitution: Hydrophobia (Gray)

Martial Arts: [Soul Severing Saber: Not Initiated (0/100)]

A smile slowly appeared on Song Changming's face as he looked at the additional information on his panel.

(End of Chapter)