"Stacked Force Palm was powerful enough for offense and killing."
"But Bone Piercing Finger could bore through metal and stone, giving it armor-piercing capabilities. At certain times, it might play a crucial role."
"Perhaps I should first invest a large amount of experience points to fully comprehend Bone Piercing Finger, then increase the tempering level of my ten fingers?"
He could also temper his ten fingers himself according to the portion of Bone Piercing Finger he had comprehended.
But just looking through the tempering method recorded in Bone Piercing Finger made Zhang Wan feel a little weak in the knees.
It was not something that could be accomplished through diligence and hard work alone. He also had to endure pain.
To master Bone Piercing Finger, he had to repeatedly temper all ten fingers to their limits, then let them recover.
By repeatedly damaging and repairing them, damaging and repairing them, he could increase the toughness of his ten fingers. Only after they became as hard as iron and stone, combined with magical power, could he unleash the might of Bone Piercing Finger.
Tempering them entirely by himself would be far too torturous.
He could temper a small portion himself and rely on experience points for the rest. In particular, he should use experience points during the initial stage of tempering his ten fingers.
The initial stage was the most painful. Once he got through it, tempering his ten fingers afterward would become much easier.
But the panel required him to fully comprehend the technique before he could raise the tempering level of his ten fingers. That was really damn troublesome.
For a martial technique like Bone Piercing Finger that could be used up to the Ninth Level Postnatal, Zhang Wan had originally only intended to invest a small amount of experience points—enough to use it for the time being.
Later, once his cultivation continued to improve, he would invest experience points bit by bit and raise the martial technique's level.
Otherwise, even if he fully comprehended the martial technique now, he would be unable to unleash its proper might because of his cultivation level. What would be the point of that?
He might as well save the experience points.
After all, he could invest them whenever he needed to.
"Forget it. I'll invest them."
"So I won't be helpless when I need to use Bone Piercing Finger." Zhang Wan immediately used 102 experience points, filling the progress bar for comprehending Bone Piercing Finger.
In an instant, a flood of insights concerning Bone Piercing Finger surged into Zhang Wan's mind.
It left him dazed for a moment.
"As expected, using a large amount of experience points all at once and gaining too many insights feels a little like overeating." Zhang Wan rubbed his brow, and the bloated sensation from having too much knowledge stuffed into him rapidly receded.
After digesting these insights, Zhang Wan used one more experience point to increase the tempering level of his ten fingers.
Immediately, Zhang Wan felt his ten fingers tremble. The bones, flesh, and skin all became tougher.
After thinking it over, Zhang Wan fetched the fragments of the thick plank that had just been smashed apart and jabbed one finger toward them.
Thud!
He directly poked a hole through it.
"Hmm, later I can find a three-centimeter-thick iron plate and see whether I can poke a hole through that." Zhang Wan was fairly satisfied with Bone Piercing Finger's might. It was enough for him to use at present.
After investing one experience point into the tempering level of his ten fingers, Zhang Wan stopped and did not continue investing experience points.
It was enough for him for now. Although his ten fingers would become even stronger if he continued raising the level,
he had also discovered that tempering his ten fingers according to the Bone Piercing Finger method would cause an obvious change in them.
If he did not restrain himself and the changes became too great, people would realize that something was wrong.
There was nothing wrong with people knowing that he was cultivating Bone Piercing Finger. It would be troublesome if they discovered that his progress was abnormal.
One point was enough.
Moreover, after repeatedly using experience points today, he had already spent more than a hundred. With only 8,069 experience points remaining, Zhang Wan decided to stop his reckless spending.
Just as Zhang Wan was sweeping the courtyard, he suddenly saw snowflakes falling thick and fast.
"It's snowing. That makes sense. It's almost the end of December." Zhang Wan muttered under his breath. After calculating the time, he went to Third-Grade Class C to pick up his second younger sister, Zhang Lingshu.
When he arrived, the snow that had been falling without pause had already wrapped the entire Beginner Martial Arts Academy in a white coat. Along the way, he saw the people from the clerical office bustling about.
The heavy snowfall had made the people in the academy's clerical office frantic.
"They have to handle every miscellaneous task in the entire academy, and they also have to take care of the food, drink, and bodily needs of those newly enrolled students, some of whom are only four or five years old. Life in the clerical office isn't easy."
Zhang Wan sighed.
Still, very few people in the academy bullied those from the clerical office.
Most people who served as laborers in the academy had some connection to it. They were either former students who had studied there but failed to break through to the Postnatal realm, or simply relatives of martial artists from the academy or sect.
No one had enough free time to go looking for trouble with them.
However, the Beginner Martial Arts Academy covered a vast area and had a great many people, so there were bound to be all sorts of rotten, troublesome affairs.
Zhang Wan had simply avoided such matters all along, preventing trouble from becoming entangled with him.
Of course, that was also because there really were not many such incidents, and they could be avoided with a little attention.
When he reached Third-Grade Class C, Zhang Wan picked up his second younger sister, Zhang Lingshu.
Zhang Lingshu was not wearing much. Now that heavy snow had begun to fall and the temperature had dropped sharply, she also felt the cold.
"Use Ox Demon Body Tempering Fist to circulate the qi and blood within your body and ward off the cold. Once we get back to the courtyard, put on more clothes," Zhang Wan reminded her.
Zhang Lingshu nodded. Her chubby little face was solemn with concentration. She circulated Ox Demon Body Tempering Fist to stir her qi and blood, turning her whole body bright red and sending off waves of heat as she hurried toward the courtyard through the goose-feather snow.
Zhang Wan, who wore even less and had only a thin shirt on, paid no attention to the snow or the cold.
The physique he had gained simply by breaking through to the Postnatal realm was enough to make him fearless of both heat and cold.
After the heavy snow began falling, the days passed one by one, and soon it was the end of December.
The academy had reached its year-end vacation.
Once the final day of December passed, the academy's many students began returning home one after another.
The students of the Beginner Martial Arts Academy came from all over the regions within a thousand kilometers ruled by the Jade Bone Sect.
Relying on the students themselves, it was difficult for them to travel back and forth safely.
The students traveled between home and the academy aboard large rune carriages operated by the Jade Bone Sect.
Normally, these carriages transported supplies throughout the Jade Bone Sect's territories and also served as transportation for some people.
When the academy went on vacation, it arranged for some carriages passing through the appropriate routes to come and safely take the students home.
Zhang Wan therefore boarded a rune carriage bound for Hemi Town with Zhang Lingshu.
"Simple wooden materials, three or four ordinary horses, and some levitation runes carved onto it—that's all it takes to create a light, fast rune carriage."
"The wonders of runes truly defy description."
Sitting in the carriage, Zhang Wan released his spiritual sense and examined the levitation runes hidden within the carriage frame.
The runes were not difficult to find, but they were extraordinarily profound and complicated, making Zhang Wan's eyes swim.
Runes had tremendous uses. They could be used in talismans, formations, and magical artifacts, and their applications could be described as extraordinarily broad.
But mastering them was no easy matter either.
Only martial artists could master runes.
For ordinary people, memorizing runes in their entirety was extremely difficult. Even if they remembered them and could draw them perfectly, it would still be useless.
Runes by themselves did not possess any power.
Without magical power to activate them, runes were merely dead objects.
After examining the levitation runes with his spiritual sense for a few glances, Zhang Wan withdrew his gaze.
He had simply become curious and wanted to see what levitation runes looked like.
As he was now, he was still unqualified to learn runes.
At the very least, he would have to complete ten years of literary classes at the academy before he would be qualified to study them.
"But speaking of runes, during the next few years at the academy, should I try learning a cultivation craft?"
If he mastered one of alchemy, artifact refinement, talisman drawing, or formations, he could rely on it to earn cultivation resources in the future.
With sufficient resources, he could also reduce his consumption of experience points.
Before you continue