Promotion to First-Rate

Having given up on replicating Black Powder and nitroglycerin, Lin Lin could not think of any other way to earn Sect Contribution Points by improving the Cold Iron Mine's production efficiency for the time being.

After giving it some thought, Lin Lin decided to stop thinking about it for now.

In any case, he had already earned enough Sect Contribution Points to repay this year. Even if the sect came to collect its debt, that would not be until the end of next year.

He still had a whole year!

By then, his martial arts would be far stronger than they were now. At worst, he could work overtime and take on extra sect missions. Once his martial arts improved, he would be able to accept higher-level missions, making it far more efficient to earn Sect Contribution Points.

As the saying went, nothing in this world was difficult as long as one was willing to give up.

Once he decided not to think about earning Sect Contribution Points for the moment, Lin Lin immediately felt the burden on his shoulders lighten.

After that, Lin Lin composed himself and devoted all his attention to cultivation.

Although he had obtained a copy of the Hundred Flowers Secret Records, which was worth no less than a Peerless Divine Art, it did not have much impact on Lin Lin's daily life.

Every day, aside from eating, sleeping, and resting, he spent all his time challenging the Cold Iron Ore walls. Using his fingers as a sword, he condensed Sword Qi and continuously dug deeper into the mine, training his swordsmanship, movement technique, and body-protecting martial arts while also practicing his Inner Power Cultivation Method through Dual-Mindedness.

Whenever he rested during cultivation, he would patrol the entire Mining Area to ensure that the Cold Iron Mine's production continued normally.

Having stayed in the Cold Iron Mine for so long, he could now calmly treat temperatures dozens of degrees below zero as commonplace.

Amid this orderly routine, the days passed one after another.

The five sets of Superior Martial Arts he had learned continued to improve, his cultivation of the Hundred Flowers Secret Records gradually deepened, and more and more acupoints within his body were illuminated and opened.

Almost every day, Lin Lin could clearly feel the Inner Breath circulating through his meridians and acupoints growing denser and more abundant. His muscles, bones, flesh, and blood also became increasingly powerful, while his body steadily grew stronger through subtle changes.

As reflected in his Attribute Panel, attributes such as Lin Lin's vitality and Inner Force had increased severalfold compared to when he had last gone out to carry out the Elite Disciple Promotion Mission.

Normally, one could only be considered a First-Rate Expert after reaching True Qi Condensation.

This was because the sublimation of Inner Breath and the condensation of Inner Force into true qi caused a martial artist's combat power to rise at an almost exponential rate.

Although Lin Lin had not yet reached True Qi Condensation, his cultivation of Superior Martial Arts and the unlocking of his body's potential through continuously illuminating acupoints had greatly enhanced the attributes on his panel.

Though he had not stepped into the True Qi Condensation Realm, his increasingly powerful attributes had still firmly pushed his combat strength across the enormous gulf between Second-Rate and First-Rate, allowing him to completely enter the ranks of First-Rate Experts.

According to the martial world's assessment of First-Rate Experts, anyone capable of facing a thousand alone and taking an enemy general's head amid an army of ten thousand could be considered one.

An expert of this level could, even without dodging or evading, use a Single-Handed Sword to slaughter their way through more than a thousand elite armored soldiers arranged in a Military Formation.

And Lin Lin had now reached precisely that level.

Take the Mountain Stronghold he had once wiped out as an example. Back then, he had needed the strength of Hui Ping Town's Local Militia to run rampant, but now he could ignore the enemy's Military Formation charge and slaughter them all with ease given enough time.

If a First-Rate Expert employed tactics, using guerrilla strategies of striking when the enemy was tired and retreating when the enemy advanced, even an army of ten thousand could be dragged down by such an expert.

Only experts could deal with experts!

Thus, in the present age, a great army's commander might not necessarily be an expert.

They might simply excel at military strategy and ingenious schemes, possessing the talent to command.

But they would certainly have many experts guarding them. Otherwise, they would be nothing more than a meal on someone else's plate.

Reaching the combat level of a First-Rate Expert gave Lin Lin a slight sense of security.

Someone at this level could be considered upper-middle tier even across the entire martial world. As long as he did not court death, he would basically not die.

But that safety was only relative to ordinary people.

To stronger experts, First-Rate Experts were still not particularly worthy of attention. At most, they had changed from a piece of meat that could be kneaded at will into a thorn that would prick whoever broke it.

Lin Lin understood this well.

So after being happy for a while, his mood returned to calm, and he continued to pour all his energy into cultivation.

As Lin Lin illuminated new acupoints, he followed the same principle: first cultivate the acupoints that increased Inner Force and Inner Breath, then nourish and illuminate the other acupoints. This effectively increased his upper limit of Inner Force and made the later process of illuminating acupoints increasingly faster.

Because he had consistently followed this cultivation principle, even though nourishing and illuminating acupoints became more difficult over time, Lin Lin still continued to grow stronger at a rate of nearly one acupoint per day.

The only drawback was that as his cultivation progressed, Lin Lin's consumption of food and medicine also increased.

Although his combat strength had reached the First-Rate level, Lin Lin could not yet absorb a portion of Heaven and Earth Essence Qi to sustain his body's consumption and cultivation like other First-Rate Experts. As a result, he went from three meals a day to five meals a day plus a late-night snack.

Every meal he ate was nutritious Medicinal Cuisine.

In addition, he had to consume quite a few Cultivation Secret Medicines that replenished vitality and blood in order to sustain his cultivation.

Money flowed away like water.

Even with Lin Lin's family's considerable income, they were beginning to feel strapped for cash.

If the Cold Iron Mine's output had not continued to increase, bringing in not only a substantial monthly salary but also an additional income of sixty to seventy thousand taels of silver at the end of the year, Lin Lin would have had to start thinking of ways to make money just to maintain such enormous cultivation expenses.

As he illuminated more and more acupoints, Lin Lin also gained many insights into how to nourish them.

Acupoints that increased Inner Breath and Inner Force required one method of nourishment; acupoints that increased vitality and physical constitution required another; and acupoints that increased Mental Strength and the senses required yet another.

Although the details of nourishing and illuminating each acupoint differed slightly, the general methods could be divided into three categories based on Essence, Qi, and Spirit. Once one grasped the general approach, even without records from the Hundred Flowers Secret Records, one could discover the method for nourishing a new acupoint after a brief period of experimentation.

"Since there is such a methodology, wouldn't illuminating every Heavenly Cycle Acupoint and Hidden Acupoint throughout the body be an easy matter? Why does the Hundred Flowers Secret Records only include 365 Heavenly Cycle Acupoints and 168 Hidden Acupoints, for a total of 533 acupoints?"

After grasping the fundamental patterns behind nourishing acupoints, Lin Lin looked at the more than one thousand acupoints displayed in the Meridian System on his Attribute Panel, and this question naturally arose in his mind.

The next moment, a flash of inspiration struck Lin Lin's mind, and his entire body trembled as though he had been struck by lightning!

The latter half of Chapter 48 was revised. Everyone can go take a look.

Readers who see this notice after December 17, 2022, may ignore it.