Hundred Tough Fat Armor!

Spirit Pig Meat was pure in quality, carrying almost none of the usual gamey odor. Blanching it would instead cause the energy contained within to leak away.

Lu Jue raised his knife and brought it down, swiftly chopping all the pork into a fine mince before adding it to the old yet gleamingly polished iron pot in batches.

He added no complicated spices, merely sprinkling in a little salt for flavor before mixing in four cans of gray Energy Powder and adding water to simmer it.

After three busy hours, every bowl and basin in the house was filled with cloudy meat broth.

Lu Jue sat cross-legged on the cold, hard floor, opened the panel, and dragged "Basic Body Tempering Exercise" into the Fast-Track Slot.

"Panel, activate Fast-Track!"

The instant the thought fell—

Boom!

A suction force far more ferocious than before erupted from deep within his dantian! It was as if a colossal Taotie beast had awakened, opening an invisible maw and madly devouring every scrap of usable energy in his body!

Just one minute! Perhaps even less!

The food he had swallowed at the Lineage banquet not long ago was instantly drained dry!

An extreme hunger swept over him like a tsunami!

Lu Jue did not hesitate in the slightest. He grabbed the large bowl he had prepared beside him and tipped his head back, guzzling down the cloudy meat broth with loud gulps!

After two bowls of warm broth entered his stomach, that violent suction force seemed to be soothed for a brief instant. But immediately afterward, it returned with even greater ferocity!

On the panel, the progress bar for "Basic Body Tempering Exercise" began crawling forward at a slow yet unwavering pace.

Inside his body, every cell seemed to have been thrown into a furnace running at full speed. Violent swelling pain battered his nerves wave after wave.

He could clearly feel his muscle fibers tearing and reforming, his bones emitting a faint yet dense hum, while blood and qi surged beneath his skin, undergoing some profound transformation.

Seventy minutes later, only the final bowl of meat broth remained.

At that moment, Lu Jue was enduring the violent agony of the final stage.

The bones throughout his body seemed to be dismantled and reassembled, letting out teeth-gritting creaks. His muscles spasmed violently, and the blood and qi beneath his skin resembled boiling lava, every surge bringing searing pain.

Just as he felt his consciousness was about to be swallowed by the endless pain—

Hum!

A cool breath suddenly surged from deep within his dantian, instantly flowing through all four limbs and every bone. Wherever it passed, the pain receded like the tide, replaced by an indescribable sense of clarity!

Fast-Track complete!

For this Fast-Track, you primarily consumed Spirit Pig Meat and gained the talent: Hundred Tough Fat Armor

Lu Jue felt a strange warm current arise from his dantian and rapidly flow deep beneath the skin all over his body, leaving him somewhat surprised.

"Another defensive talent?"

He had thought that the body-tempering-focused "Basic Body Tempering Exercise," paired with Spirit Pig Meat, would grant him bonuses to strength or endurance.

He subconsciously felt his own body.

His muscle lines remained distinct, even appearing more lean and powerful now that "Basic Body Tempering Exercise" had reached completion.

But beneath his skin, the layer of fat that had once been soft now conveyed an indescribable density and resilience.

It was as though every inch beneath his skin had been padded with an invisible yet highly elastic membrane, tightly fitting against his muscles and protecting his internal organs.

"Let's test my strength first!"

Lu Jue was in no hurry to test his new talent. His physique had surged dramatically, and his entire body felt so swollen with power that he desperately wanted to find an opponent and vent it all out!

The surging sense of power within drove him back into the courtyard, where he stopped before the large tree thick enough for one person to wrap their arms around.

Exert force!

Every joint in his body immediately erupted with a rapid, crisp series of crackles like beans popping in a pan. A sense of power far more vast than when "Basic Fist Arts" had reached completion welled up from deep within him!

The clothes that had once hung somewhat loose on him were now stretched tight by his bulging muscle lines.

If "Basic Fist Arts" emphasized techniques and mainly enhanced the strength of the arms,

then "Basic Body Tempering Exercise" brought a comprehensive elevation of his physique! His strength, speed, endurance, defense, and even the quantity and quality of his blood and qi had all increased enormously!

After briefly adapting to his current body, Lu Jue drew a deep breath and threw a Straight Punch.

This time, his exertion of force was smoother and more natural. The power throughout his body flowed like rivers returning to the sea, gathering at his fist without the slightest obstruction!

Bang!!!!!

A deafening impact far duller and more destructive than the last one erupted with brutal force!

The tree trunk shook violently, its crown swaying wildly as fallen leaves fluttered down like rain.

He withdrew his fist and looked closely—

At the point of impact, a chunk of the trunk had directly burst open, exposing the pale wood within!

A dent at least twice as deep as before, large enough to fit most of a fist, stood starkly before him!

Even more terrifying, countless cracks spread madly in every direction from the center of that horrifying indentation!

The tree itself had even tilted slightly in the direction opposite the blow, visibly so to the naked eye!

He withdrew his fist and stood still.

Looking at the astonishing destruction he had caused, even Lu Jue felt a trace of shock.

He had only felt this kind of purely physical explosive power from those top students who had long occupied the top few dozen rankings among their peers—an realm attainable only through piled-up resources and extraordinary talent.

"Let's test the new talent too!"

A fierce glint flashed through Lu Jue's eyes. The muscles in his right arm swelled again as he drove his fist into his own abdomen with eighty percent of his strength!

Thud!

A sound like striking a thick sandbag rang out.

The instant his fist made solid contact, he clearly felt the highly resilient "fat armor" beneath his skin activate in a flash. Like a lake disturbed by a tossed stone, invisible ripples spread outward from the point of impact.

The force that had originally been concentrated at a single point was dispersed into countless tiny vibrations, ultimately vanishing into nothingness.

Not only that, his skin merely reddened slightly, and even the pain had been offset by more than half!

An incredulous gleam of delight burst from Lu Jue's eyes.

One had to know that his strength had already undergone an earth-shaking transformation. Even eighty percent of it was far beyond what he himself from two days ago could have endured.

Yet when it struck his current self, it was neither painful nor itchy!

What Hundred Tough Fat Armor brought was not the hard, head-on defense of armor, but a yielding force that overcame hardness!

Against someone of equal strength, even a full-force blow would likely struggle to cause him any real harm!

"In future fights against students of the same level, I can completely endure their attacks, force my way in, and trade injury for injury. Who could outlast me?"

Most importantly, Hundred Tough Fat Armor was closely tied to the strength of his physical constitution and would continue to grow as his physique improved!

Perhaps it was not particularly eye-catching at present, but what about the future?

If his blood and qi blazed like a rainbow and his physique became like a dragon, could he perhaps easily neutralize even the attacks of those top-tier Calamity Beasts?

Of course, it was still too early to speak of such things.

His most urgent concern now was the quota competition several days away.

With his current strength, he was more than capable of entering the top hundred of the grade.

Combined with his two talents, his strength would absolutely place him among the top fifty!

Yet this confidence did not cloud his mind.

The soaring prices and resource controls he had witnessed at the market today made him keenly realize that something earth-shaking must have happened outside.

In the future, Cultivation Resources would inevitably become harder and harder to obtain, and every resource would draw even more frantic competition.

He had no choice but to consider the worst-case scenario—what if those wealthy young geniuses who usually scoffed at a tuition fee of one hundred thousand changed their minds this time and insisted on spending a little time participating in the competition?

To them, competing for the quota was not about saving that one hundred thousand in tuition. Their purpose might be far colder.

—Eliminate some commoner geniuses!

Even with capital already backing them, one hundred thousand was by no means a small sum. If they spent one hundred thousand on tuition, their subsequent Cultivation Resources would inevitably be affected.

Fall one step behind, and every step afterward fell behind.

The martial path placed weight on one word: "fight"!

That "fight" was not only fighting for resources, opportunities, and a future. It also meant fighting for momentum and fighting to be first!

Spending a little time to personally push Commoner Martial Artists, already starved of resources, into an even harsher predicament—was that not another, colder kind of "fight"?

Depriving others of resources was itself a means of consolidating one's own advantage!

At this thought, the light in Lu Jue's eyes grew increasingly sharp.

"I can't leave even the slightest thing to chance. I have to become stronger—strong enough to crush every variable!"