Cultivation

The Martial Disciples bowed one after another. The noise gradually rose, carrying excitement and discussion.

At last, Jiang Qinghe felt as though clouds had parted and the sun had broken through.

Zhao Guangyi's clear, thorough explanation had completely opened the gates of martial cultivation for him.

Before this, he had merely possessed brute strength, yet suffered from having no one to guide him.

He knew nothing of the divisions of martial realms or the essentials of cultivation methods and techniques.

Now, Wanping Martial Academy had finally pointed him in the right direction.

After studying the Iron Shirt Skill and Rock Crushing Palm manuals he had received several times, Jiang Qinghe walked to a relatively secluded corner of the training ground.

At times, he attempted to circulate the Iron Shirt Skill's basic breathing method and sense the flow of his blood and qi. At other times, he imitated the Rock Crushing Palm movements Zhao Guangyi had demonstrated earlier, practicing both in earnest.

The sun gradually climbed higher, and noon drew near.

Martial training was an arduous task that consumed an immense amount of blood and qi. Jiang Qinghe had not rested well the previous night, and all he had eaten that morning was a dry flatbread.

Before long, his blood and qi were nearly depleted, and exhaustion clearly set in.

Fine beads of sweat seeped from his forehead. He temporarily stopped moving, walked to a stone stool nearby, and sat down to rest.

With a slight stir of thought, Jiang Qinghe instinctively looked toward the interface.

Yet neither the Iron Shirt Skill nor the Rock Crushing Palm appeared on it.

"Whew..."

He sighed, a bitter smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.

True martial arts were indeed far more profound. After training hard for an entire morning, he had not even crossed the threshold.

Jiang Qinghe lowered his head to look at the blood scabs on his hands, then raised his eyes toward Gong Jie, who was still sweating like rain in the field, his skin membranes glimmering with a bluish-gray sheen.

"According to what Senior Brother Zhao said, if I can cultivate the Iron Shirt Skill to the Minor Accomplishment realm of Copper Skin..."

He mused inwardly:

"Things like rough porcelain shards might only leave a faint white mark on my hand!"

Though the Wood Splitting Skill was not an orthodox cultivation method and did nothing to temper flesh and skin,

it could actually provide strength gains equal to those brought by the Iron Shirt Skill at perfection.

If he cultivated the Iron Shirt Skill to perfection, he would possess both formidable defensive power in his skin and flesh, as well as the combined strength granted by two cultivation methods...

The more Jiang Qinghe thought about it, the more excited he became. As if pumped full of chicken blood, he rose to his feet and resumed training...

Not long afterward.

The Martial Disciples on the training ground began to leave in groups of two or three.

The shouts and the sounds of fists and feet tearing through the air gradually grew sparse.

The vast grounds seemed somewhat empty. Only three or four people remained, still gritting their teeth and persevering.

Jiang Qinghe's gaze swept over those departing figures. Most walked with heavy steps, their faces visibly pale and their lips somewhat dry—clear signs of excessive blood and qi depletion.

There was no other reason.

At the beginning of martial training, when one was tempering skin, flesh, tendons, and bones while expanding one's blood and qi, the consumption was enormous.

And throughout the day, only around the hour of the dragon did a thread of lesser yang purple qi rise between heaven and earth.

The blood and qi within the human body surged along with it, making it the golden period when tempering the physique and circulating blood and qi were most efficient.

Once that hour had passed, the results would be somewhat diminished.

An even crueler reality was that of the apprentices who came to Wanping Martial Academy to study, eight or nine out of ten were commoners born into poverty.

Either their families had sold off their meager fields, or they had pinched pennies for years before barely gathering enough for the entrance fee.

After paying the tuition fee—enough to leave an ordinary family struggling for breath—their scant household savings had long been emptied.

How could they possibly have even a fraction of spare money to buy costly pills that nourished blood and qi and fortified the foundation?

Thus, for the overwhelming majority, those brief hours in the morning were their limit.

After half a day of bitter cultivation, they had already squeezed dry their bodies' reserves of blood and qi. Their limbs went weak, and their heads spun as stars danced before their eyes.

If they forced themselves to continue, it would not only be useless, but might instead damage their foundations.

The Martial Disciples could only leave in haste, weary and hungry.

Some would find a place to rest and recover, while others would head into the city to take odd jobs and hard labor, earning meager money and grain to support themselves.

The martial academy itself did not provide meals. The martial dormitories behind the bamboo grove, where ordinary Martial Disciples rested at night, were merely several large communal sleeping rooms.

Seven or eight men crammed onto one heated brick bed, amid the stench of sweat and feet and thunderous snores.

The terrible conditions were easy to imagine. Unless they truly had nowhere else to go, few would choose to spend the night there.

Jiang Qinghe watched those hurriedly departing backs and silently sighed.

The dry flatbread tucked into his clothes was his only source of energy for the next few days.

Only by becoming Elder Ping's disciple could one live in the academy's standalone residences for free and receive meals.

Deep within the martial academy, several residences lay hidden among the bamboo grove.

Each came with its own small courtyard for disciples to cultivate in.

Dusk deepened, spreading across the horizon like thick ink.

"Hah!"

Jiang Qinghe withdrew his stance and stood still, his chest heaving violently as he exhaled a long breath of turbid air.

Sweat flowed like streams down from his forehead and temples, soaking through his training clothes and sticking coldly and clammy against his skin.

Even with his tenacious nature, all he wanted at that moment was to collapse onto the ground.

Nearly an entire day of bitter cultivation had finally yielded results.

Jiang Qinghe immersed his mind and settled the fruits of the sweat and willpower he had poured out today.

"Ding. System settlement in progress... You cultivated the Iron Shirt Skill and Rock Crushing Palm diligently without pause today. Potential Points +1."

[Realm: Body Tempering (Beginner)]

[Cultivation Methods: Iron Shirt Skill (Beginner—0/5), Wood Splitting Skill (Perfection)]

[Martial Skill: Rock Crushing Palm (Beginner—0/5)]

[Potential Points: 8 (0–1 point obtainable daily)]

Seeing that his realm was displayed as Beginner, Jiang Qinghe's expression immediately brightened.

"Just as I thought! Only orthodox cultivation methods can guide the advancement of one's realm! And the Potential Points I've saved up these past days have finally found their use!"

With that thought flashing through his mind, he poured all his Potential Points into the Iron Shirt Skill.

[Realm: Body Tempering (Minor Accomplishment)]

[Cultivation Method: Iron Shirt Skill (Minor Accomplishment—0/10)]

In an instant, Jiang Qinghe's blood and qi surged wildly.

A force like a raging flood swept madly through his skin membranes.

It was as though dozens of fine needles had pierced into his flesh.

Pain—an indescribable, unbearable pain—swept through his entire body in an instant.

"Urgh—ah!"

Jiang Qinghe let out a muffled groan, clenching his teeth as the veins at his temples bulged. He forcibly suppressed the urge to cry out, while sweat instantly soaked through his clothes.

Visible to the naked eye, the exposed skin of his body repeatedly glimmered with a faint bluish-gray luster before returning to normal moments later.

This advancement was Completely Different from the breakthrough of the Wood Splitting Skill.

What the Wood Splitting Skill brought was the growth of strength.

But the advancement of the Iron Shirt Skill was a forging directed at the skin membrane's defensive system.

In an almost brutal manner, it compressed the Copper Skin effect—which might have otherwise required months of steady grinding—into the span of only a few breaths!

The price of accelerating it by a thousand or even ten thousand times was an extreme pain that felt like being torn apart.

The agony gradually receded, leaving behind an unceasing, faint stinging sensation across the surface of his skin.

Like a suit of copper armor fresh from the furnace, suddenly draped over a body that had never adapted to it.

The violent strengthening of his skin membranes in such a short time left Jiang Qinghe feeling somewhat stiff and uncomfortable.

Only after a long while did he open his eyes, slowly rise, lift an arm, and firmly pinch the muscles of his forearm with all five fingers.

The surface of his skin remained warm and soft, retaining its elasticity, but the resilient texture contained beneath was no longer the same.

It no longer carried the fragile feel of mere flesh and blood. Instead, it was as if a layer of tough leather had wrapped around the outside of his flesh, while also possessing the dense, weighty quality of metal.

His gaze swept over the ground, and Jiang Qinghe bent down to pick up a sharp-edged shard of stone.

Using the sharp ridge of the stone shard, he forcefully drew it across the outer side of his other forearm.

Before this breakthrough—even before last night—

that strike would have been enough to cut through his skin and draw crimson blood.

But now, as the stone shard Flashed across his skin, it produced only a faint, harsh scraping sound.

No expected sting came from his arm. There was only the sensation of a blunt object scraping against something hard.

The first step of Body Tempering—the Copper Skin realm!

Though it could not block sharp weapons such as swords and blades, it should have no fear of ordinary clubs and staves.

After his delight faded, Jiang Qinghe's brows furrowed slightly as he once again carefully sensed the changes in his body.

"This Copper Skin realm Can Be Called an enormous improvement to the defensive power of the skin membranes, but the increase in strength..."

He clenched his fist, feeling the force of his muscles contracting and swelling.

"Seems to be less than two hundred pounds?"

It seemed Copper Skin specialized in defense; strength was not its forte.

Just as Jiang Qinghe was lost in thought, a deep, powerful voice suddenly sounded beside his ear.