Training Underway

Nan Shan Ling, in a residential district two kilometers from Meng Lao Er's home.

Wang Xiaoma stood hunched beneath a tree, his body covered in bruises and scars, with bandages wrapped around several places.

His eyes darted uncertainly as he looked at the man before him.

"Big Brother, what do we do now? That damned Meng Lao Er has already sold the mineral vein to Shadowless Fist Gym," Wang Xiaoma could not help saying.

Wang Feng shot him a vicious glare and roared, "You still have the nerve to say that? You dragged your feet over the task I gave you and never got it done. Now that the Shadowless Fist Gym's master has stepped in, we don't have a chance anymore!"

Wang Xiaoma looked utterly aggrieved. "How was I supposed to know Meng Lao Er had ties to the gym master? If that gym disciple hadn't meddled that day, I would've succeeded long ago."

When Wang Xiaoma thought of Wang Yu, who had beaten him senseless, his abdomen still throbbed faintly.

"Useless trash!" Wang Feng cursed furiously, growing angrier the more he thought about it.

He had clearly been the first to discover Meng Lao Er's mineral vein. He had thought it was a sure thing, only for Wang Xiaoma to screw it all up.

"Sun Chengshan, the master of Shadowless Fist Gym, is a Martial Artist with Body Tempering Fifth Level Cultivation. I am no match for him. This matter ends here," Wang Feng said coldly.

Still unwilling to let it go, Wang Xiaoma raised his head. "Big Brother, we can forget about the mineral vein, but we can't just let that disciple who beat me off so easily!"

Wang Feng's anger flared at his words. With a grim expression, he swung his hand and slapped his little brother to the ground.

"You still dare bring that up!"

Wang Xiaoma clutched his swollen, reddened face, wronged beyond words.

"Let me ask you this: if you go after that disciple and Sun Chengshan comes forward, then what? Do you want me to die with you?" Wang Feng said in a cold, heavy voice.

"I..." Wang Xiaoma was speechless.

At the end of the day, he was merely a local thug. He had no real concept of just how powerful a gym master like Sun Chengshan was.

Only Wang Feng understood that continuing to provoke an expert like Sun Chengshan was like dancing on a knife's edge, gambling with one's own life.

There was no way he would do such a thing.

"Hmph!" Wang Feng could not be bothered with the useless Wang Xiaoma any longer. Flicking his sleeve, he left.

Mining was a lengthy undertaking, not something that could be settled in a few days. At present, the work was in full swing.

Meanwhile, after receiving the two hundred Crystal Coins commissioned by Meng Lao Er, Wang Yu once more settled down and threw himself into round after round of fist practice.

Time passed, and another two months went by in the blink of an eye.

A series of crisp cracks rang from his muscles and bones as heat surged throughout his body, flushing his skin red while vapor seeped from every pore.

Wang Yu stood still, his hands clenched into fists and hanging naturally at his sides. Without moving, he quietly felt the changes brought about by his body breaking through its limits.

After a long while, he exhaled a stream of hot air and opened his eyes. His pupils were exceptionally bright, and two streaks of sharp light shot from them like lightning.

After five months of cultivating Shadowless Fist, and with little support from precious materials, he had forcibly brought the second layer of the fist art to perfection and broken through to its third layer—the Body Tempering Third Layer.

This cultivation speed was undeniably astonishing.

Even Ji Fei, previously the most gifted disciple in the gym, had needed nearly two full years to reach the third layer of the fist art.

Wang Yu's cultivation speed was faster than Ji Fei's by an unknown margin.

"Finally, I made it." Wang Yu was in quite a good mood as well.

With his current cultivation, he could be considered one of the standouts among the disciples of the Town's martial arts gyms.

"If I had a supply of precious materials, my cultivation efficiency could increase severalfold. What a pity!" Wang Yu sighed inwardly.

There were quite a few factors affecting the growth of his fist art proficiency.

The benefits of precious materials, the strength of his sparring opponents, and his own condition while practicing—the more focused he was, the higher the proficiency values he could produce.

Even factors such as the environment, climate, and temperature differences could have subtle effects.

These were all insights he had gradually figured out over the past few months of cultivation.

In the courtyard, a group of disciples were still shouting and training hard, throwing punch after punch.

Wang Yu's silent breakthrough in cultivation did not draw any attention.

Several months had passed, and many young new faces had appeared in the courtyard.

Quite a few familiar old faces had also left the gym to make a living elsewhere.

Other than a handful of core disciples, the replacement of old by new was commonplace in martial arts gyms.

After all, most people joined a martial arts gym to learn martial arts in order to find a better way to make a living.

When wealthy and influential families extended an olive branch, they generally left.

Only a small number of disciples who sought a higher realm of martial arts were willing to remain and seek their Master's guidance.

Among the disciples practicing their fists, Li Niushan's massive build stood out in particular as he continued to train with his head down.

His physical aptitude was fairly good, but his comprehension could only be considered below average.

Thus, even now, he had yet to achieve a breakthrough in his fist art. His realm still hovered at the peak of Body Tempering First Level, always just one kick shy of the door.

Among the disciples, he and Wang Yu had joined around the same time, so they could no longer be considered new disciples.

As they walked through the courtyard, they could hear quite a few people calling them Senior Brother.

"So much time has passed. I wonder how the mining is going."

Wang Yu thought to himself. Over the past two months, aside from practicing his fists, the situation at the mineral vein was what concerned him most each day.

Based on the mining progress and the profit-sharing terms in the contract, the first batch of mineral profits should be coming in around now.

"Once I have Crystal Coins, I can go to the market and buy some precious material foods." Wang Yu calculated inwardly.

If he wanted to continue filling the third layer of Shadowless Fist's proficiency and reach the fourth layer of the fist art,

it would require a much longer period of time.

As far as he knew, Master Sun Chengshan had spent a full six years cultivating from the third layer of the fist art to the fourth!

Yet the combined time Wang Yu had spent cultivating the first three layers had not even exceeded three years.

The gap in difficulty was clear.

In fact, regardless of whether it was fist arts, leg arts, blade arts, or anything else,

they all shared one thing in common: reaching the fourth level of Body Tempering became incomparably difficult, requiring time to grind and endure.

Once one finally attained Body Tempering Fourth Level Cultivation, it meant the body-tempering art one practiced had finally borne fruit.

Across all of Island Town, those with cultivation in the first three levels of Body Tempering were ultimately still disciples, while Martial Artists with Body Tempering Fourth Level Cultivation already had the qualifications to open a martial arts gym and become a gym master!

"Once my fist art reaches the fourth layer, I should have at least some ability to protect myself, right? No, to be safe, I should cultivate Shadowless Fist directly to perfection."

As Wang Yu thought, he washed away the grime his body had expelled.

"This is bad! Jifeng Hall and Feiyingmen Hall have brought people to cause trouble at the mineral vein! Senior Disciple Brother, Master wants you to take all the core disciples over there!"

The disciple He Tie rushed in from outside the gym.

The injuries he had suffered before had mostly healed. Sun Chengshan had even obtained compensation for him. He was still training at the gym.

"What! Those two martial arts gyms have truly thrown all shame to the wind, joining forces to make trouble!"

"Hmph, they must have been tempted by the wealth. I heard long ago that they've been restless lately!"

At once, the gym disciples became indignant. They stopped practicing, rolled up their sleeves, and looked ready to go all out.

Hearing the commotion, Wang Yu came out and saw Song Hezheng preparing to leave with more than a dozen core disciples, his face grim.

These so-called core disciples had all spent at least a year in the gym.

They had all cultivated Shadowless Fist to the second layer.

He Tie, Liu Yemei, Zhang Yi, and even Zhang Erdan were among them.

"Junior Brother Wang, you came at just the right time. Something has happened at the mineral vein. Master has summoned us to go there," Song Hezheng said, turning to call out to Wang Yu.

Over the past half year, Wang Yu's rapid growth had thoroughly proven that Sun Chengshan's judgment had not been wrong.

Song Hezheng, in particular, had never underestimated Wang Yu from the start.

He knew that Wang Yu did not show off, but his cultivation had already reached the latter stages of Body Tempering Second Layer. The third realm was not so far away either.

Of course, what he did not know was that Wang Yu had already completed a breakthrough in cultivation today.

The moment Wang Yu heard that something had happened at the mineral vein, he frowned slightly and immediately followed.

This was no joke. He was counting on the money from the mineral vein to speed up his cultivation; nothing could go wrong at such a critical moment.

The group of disciples rushed out of the gym in a blaze of urgency, stirring up discussion among the pedestrians along the street.