Neighbors, How Times Have Changed? (Happy holidays, godfathers! Please vote and keep reading!)

Sure enough, even with an ordinary cultivation method, after deducting all other losses and always cultivating in the right direction, the energy required to start from zero was still an astronomical figure.

The human body could only absorb a limited amount of medicinal power each day. The precautions for the "Iron Bone Stance" strictly stated that martial artists with a Qi and Blood Value below fifteen thousand could only take two medicinal baths per day.

This was precisely the core shackle that made progress in this technique so slow.

Unlike techniques that relied on repeatedly tempering moves, it could not speed up progress by pouring in vast amounts of time and grinding away in an endless rat race. No matter how hard one pushed, the daily training time for the "Iron Bone Stance" still had a limit.

Yet the panel Lu Jue possessed was precisely the sharp weapon that broke this convention! It could ignore those rules and compress years of accumulation into just two short hours!

Lu Jue had long since made his choice regarding the meat this time.

The spirit-type livestock currently available in stable, large quantities on the market were nothing more than pigs, cattle, chickens, fish, sheep, rabbits, and ducks.

By common sense, chicken might lean toward enhancing vision, rabbit might improve speed or thigh muscle strength, while fish was most likely related to water affinity or long-lasting breath.

With the upcoming arena match in mind, those talents were random and limited in effect. Only by pushing his existing advantages—strength and defense—to their utmost could he walk the king's road!

Therefore, he set his sights on Spirit Beef.

The "Iron Bone Stance" focused on skeletal defense, while Spirit Beef could take the talent Barbarian Ox Strength to an even higher level.

With the two stacked together, his strength would surely rise another step by then, turning him into a true "humanoid fortress" with both offense and defense!

When he arrived at the nearby market and made his way among the stalls, Lu Jue was disappointed to find that little Spirit Beef remained. Even if he swept up every vendor's stock, it would still fall far short of the amount he estimated he needed.

Left with no choice, he tried contacting the staff member he had met when buying Giant Horned Barbarian Beef last time, asking whether there was a stable supply channel.

Fortunately, the man had extensive connections. In just ten minutes, he contacted an upstream supplier and secured Lu Jue an allotment of eight hundred catties at a wholesale price of 208 yuan per catty.

The only fly in the ointment was that the day's supply had already been cleared out, and they agreed that delivery could only be made tomorrow morning.

Lu Jue knew full well that the man had definitely taken some kickbacks in the middle.

But compared to the market retail price, which had already soared to 214 yuan, this wholesale price was hard to come by. He could accept it.

After paying the deposit, Lu Jue boarded the bus home.

Over the past few days, he had noticed that the times his father sent him encouragement on Feixin had become increasingly irregular. He vaguely suspected that, in order to earn more money for his martial arts training, his father had most likely taken on a second job.

Today happened to be his father's only day off each month. He decided to go back, both to see his father and to tell him the good news that he had been named a "Seed Student" at the martial arts school, so his father would not have to work himself so hard anymore.

As the bus slowly approached the familiar streets and alleys, Lu Jue saw a sparse circle of people gathered at the entrance to the courtyard. His father, Lu Mingyuan, with his somewhat thin frame, was standing at the edge of the crowd.

At the center stood a tall young woman with a neat ponytail. She wore a well-tailored martial arts training uniform, and there was a trace of irrepressible high spirits between her brows.

The familiar neighbors around her were chattering away in praise.

"Ah, Zhang Lu, I could tell from the time she was little that she'd amount to something! She'll definitely become someone extraordinary in the future!"

"This girl is so thoughtful. She's already entered a martial arts school, yet she still came back especially to treat everyone to a meal!"

"What? You said Zhang Lu's Qi and Blood Value is already nine thousand? She can try Entering Force the year after next? She's only nineteen, isn't she? Our courtyard has truly produced a phoenix!"

"Xiao Jie, did you hear that? Learn more from your Sister Lu. Get into a martial arts school someday too and bring honor to our family!"

More than twenty households were crammed into the mixed residential courtyard where Lu Jue lived, and Zhang Lu's family was one of them.

She was one year older than Lu Jue. Last year, she had passed the Martial Arts Examination and entered a Third-rate Martial Arts School in Tianhai City to study, becoming the first young person in the courtyard to truly step into a martial arts school. For a time, she was unmatched in the limelight and became the model parents used to educate their children.

Lu Jue's arrival drew the attention of several neighbors, and the crowd automatically opened a gap for him.

Through it, his gaze met Zhang Lu's at the center of the crowd.

Influenced by spiritual energy, people in this world generally matured early. Among the lower classes, there were plenty who married at fifteen or sixteen.

Once upon a time, Zhang Lu had taken quite a liking to Lu Jue because of his handsome appearance. She had even once asked her father to bring up a marriage proposal with Lu Jue's father, but Lu Jue, who had been single-mindedly focused on martial arts at the time, had flatly refused.

At this moment, the girlish affection that had once been in Zhang Lu's eyes when she looked at Lu Jue had vanished without a trace, replaced by a subtle sense of superiority.

A smile tugged at her lips as she greeted him. "Lu Jue, what a coincidence. Want to have dinner with everyone tonight?"

Though this simple greeting sounded rather warm, it was more like a polite drawing of boundaries.

She was now a martial arts school student, while Lu Jue, in everyone's eyes, was merely an ordinary student still struggling bitterly at a martial arts school. Between them, an invisible chasm seemed to have already formed.

Lu Jue silently glanced at the marks resembling whip wounds that had inadvertently been exposed beneath her sleeve, then merely nodded calmly. "Mm. I came back to see my dad."

His gaze passed over Zhang Lu and settled on his father.

His father wore his usual smile, echoing the neighbors' praises. His eyes were full of envy as he looked at Zhang Lu.

"Xiao Jue, your Sister Lu rarely comes back. Tonight, everyone can wait for—what happened to you?"

Before his father could finish speaking, the smile on his face instantly froze. His gaze abruptly locked onto the white bandages exposed around Lu Jue's neck and wrists. His heart clenched hard, and without caring that the neighbors were still around, he hurried forward. "Wh-when did you get hurt? Is it serious? Did something happen at the martial arts school?"

That cry immediately drew the surrounding neighbors' attention to Lu Jue.

"Mm, it was a normal sparring match. Just some minor injuries," Lu Jue said blandly.

"How is that a minor injury? The bandages are soaked red!"

"Dad, if it were really a serious injury, you'd be guarding me at the hospital right now. How could I be standing here talking?" Lu Jue tried to put his father at ease.

Hearing this, Zhang Lu also looked over and assumed the air of someone who had been through it all.

"Uncle Lu, since Xiao Jue chose the martial path, injuries are as commonplace as meals. You don't need to worry too much!"

She paused, turned her gaze to Lu Jue, then added casually, "Xiao Jue, if someone at the martial arts school is bullying you and it's hard to handle, remember to tell me."

"Thanks, Sister Lu. I appreciate the thought, but I'm really fine," Lu Jue answered neither humbly nor arrogantly.

Just then, someone in the crowd lowered their voice and muttered with a smile of relish at the spectacle, "Tsk, tsk, tsk. I remember, didn't Zhang Lu's father once bring up marrying the two families with Lu Qiang? He wanted the two children to spend more time together, but it was rejected outright!"

"Looking at things now, heh heh, times really have changed."