Grinding Steel to Make Gold, True Worth Revealed

The short knife made one final cut on the wood, peeling off a thin curl of shavings that spiraled to the ground.

Ye Qingxuan weighed the finished bolt in his hand, then examined it closely under the dim oil lamp. The bolt was about a foot long, as thick as a child's arm, with both ends rounded smooth while the middle kept the wood's natural roughness for a good grip. He tapped it lightly with the knife's spine—a dull, solid sound. Good material.

He stood, walked to the back of the courtyard gate, and tried fitting the bolt into the two mortises he'd chiseled earlier. The size was perfect. With a click, it slid in flush.

"Clap, clap, clap."

A few crisp handclaps came from behind.

Ye Qingxuan turned. Ye Caiwei stood at the inner room's doorway, her small face full of admiration.

"Brother, you're amazing! Even better than Uncle Carpenter Zhang down the lane!" The little girl's eyes sparkled under the lamplight.

Ye Qingxuan smiled, walked over, and ruffled her hair. "You're just sweet-talking me. Go to sleep now. We have to get up early tomorrow."

"Mm!" Ye Caiwei nodded firmly, glanced once more at the sturdy bolt, then turned and went back into the inner room with peace of mind.

Listening to her breathing in the inner room settle back into soft, even rhythms, Ye Qingxuan's smile slowly faded. He returned to the outer room, pulled out the new bolt, and slid it back in.

Click.

That faint sound, in the dead silence of the night, was like a calming pill, giving this rundown little courtyard its first taste of the security that came with "home."

He took a deep breath, closed the door properly, and walked to the bedside.

Without a moment's hesitation, he stripped off his faded black outer robe, then his undershirt, revealing his lean upper body that was just beginning to show its contours. Moonlight seeped through the gaps in the window lattice, tracing faint shadows of muscle across his frame.

From the old wooden chest at the foot of the bed, he fished out an undershirt he'd changed out of just a few days ago. This shirt had been worn so long that the fabric had been softened by sweat and repeated washing, yet it was still tough and resilient—perfect for his purpose.

Ye Qingxuan sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed and wrapped the soft old undershirt tightly around his right hand, layer after layer, until his palm and knuckles were padded with thick cloth.

He closed his eyes. In his mind, the cultivation method of the Indestructible Vajra Body flowed word by word.

"Skin is man's armor, binding the sinews and bones without, wrapping the organs within. The beginning of external training starts from the skin..."

The method wasn't profound—it was even crude. Rub, press, slap, strike.

He exhaled a mouthful of stale air, extended his left arm straight, and pressed the cloth-wrapped right hand against his left shoulder.

He began to rub.

At first, it was just a faint itch from the cloth rubbing against his skin, like a feather lightly teasing.

He increased the pressure, and the motion shifted from a gentle "rub" to a forceful "press." The cloth bundle moved inch by inch down his arm, from top to bottom, slowly.

The itch vanished. In its place came a wave of heat. Beneath the skin, his blood and qi seemed stirred by the external force, surging faster. His skin, visible to the naked eye, flushed red.

Ye Qingxuan gritted his teeth and added another thirty percent more force.

The heat turned into a fiery pain.

It wasn't the sharp sting of a knife or sword cut, but a dull, burning ache that rose from deep within the flesh. Every inch of skin ground over by the cloth bundle felt branded by a hot iron, a continuous, needle-like sting.

His breathing grew ragged. Veins bulged faintly at his temples. Sweat beaded on his hairline, the tip of his nose, his jaw, streaming into rivulets that slid down his neck and soaked into his chest.

The muscles in his arm, under the relentless pain, tensed and trembled involuntarily.

This was body refinement. This was external training.

Treating flesh and blood like a piece of stubborn iron, hammering and tempering it with the most primitive, most clumsy methods. The agony was something only those with great willpower could endure. Ordinary people would complain bitterly after a few days and give up halfway.

Ye Qingxuan didn't make a sound.

This pain—compared to the torment he'd suffered on his sickbed in his past life—what was it, really?

That pain back then was despair, decay, the helplessness of watching life slip away.

But this pain now was rebirth, tempering, the real sensation of power taking root in his bones.

Sweat ran into his eyes, stinging so badly he couldn't open them. He relied only on memory and instinct, over and over, following the path recorded in the method, rubbing and pressing his left arm.

He didn't know how long passed. Just as his arm went numb and his strength was nearly spent—

In his mind, that silent scroll appeared.

On the scroll, in the area representing the Indestructible Vajra Body, a tiny, barely noticeable point of light suddenly flared.

Beside it, an archaic character slowly emerged:

[Merit: +1]

The next moment, a strange, warm current surged from the depths of his sea of consciousness, instantly flowing through his entire body.

The burning pain in his left arm, under the wash of this warm current, rapidly faded, transforming into a tingling, numbing itch. Beneath the skin, it felt like countless tiny ants were crawling, repairing, regenerating.

Ye Qingxuan stopped his movements and let out a long breath of stale air tinged with blood. He spread his left arm and looked at it under the lamp. The entire arm was bright red, covered in fine red dots—the sign of qi and blood surging, the skin and membranes being stimulated.

With a thought, the familiar scroll unfolded clearly in his sea of consciousness.

code
[Martial Art: Indestructible Vajra Body]
[Realm: Uninitiated (Scale: Zero Cun)]
[Merit: 3/5]

Three-fifths!

Adding the two points he'd accumulated over the previous two nights, he now had three points of merit. Only two more were needed to reach completion, to push the scale of the Indestructible Vajra Body forward by one cun, truly reaching the "Initiate" realm.

The pent-up frustration in his chest was expelled entirely with a rough breath, transforming into an indescribable relief.

He clenched his fist, and a series of faint, crisp pops came from his knuckles. The sound, at this moment, was incredibly pleasing to the ear.

The door to the inner room was quietly pushed open a crack.

Ye Caiwei's little head poked out from behind the door. Holding the coarse porcelain bowl in her hands, she tiptoed over to Ye Qingxuan's side.

"Brother, have some water."

The little girl's voice was kept low, as if afraid to disturb him.

Ye Qingxuan turned around and took the bowl. The water was warm, neither hot nor cold, just the right temperature for drinking. He downed it in one gulp and handed the bowl back to his sister.

"Go back to sleep, quickly."

"Brother, why is your arm so red?" Ye Caiwei looked at his flushed arm, her small face full of worry.

"It's nothing, just training," Ye Qingxuan said with a smile. "It's the same principle as Uncle Wang the butcher pounding pork at the alley entrance every morning—the more you pound it, the firmer the meat gets."

The analogy was a bit crude, but Ye Caiwei understood. She nodded with a hint of comprehension, then looked back several times as she returned to the inner room.

Ye Qingxuan sat by the bed for about half an hour. As the hot sweat on his body receded, the burning sensation on his arm also diminished significantly, leaving only a persistent, tingling itch.

He picked up the old undershirt he had used to wrap his hand again.

A night's time could not be wasted.

He was ready to do it again!

But when his right hand, wrapped in the cloth bundle, pressed against the skin of his left arm once more, a piercing pain, several times more intense than before, shot through him!

Ye Qingxuan's body trembled uncontrollably.

The skin that had been rubbed was bright red, almost translucent under the lamplight. Every pore stood on end, covered in fine red bumps that looked as if they might bleed at any moment.

This feeling wasn't like training; it was like using a coarse sandcloth to grind away at a piece of raw meat.

He only rubbed twice before stopping.

The muscles in his arm twitched violently from the intense pain.

No good.

He made a judgment immediately.

He wasn't a reckless brute who didn't know when to adapt. Although the Indestructible Vajra Body had the Heavenly Machine Codex to assist it, eliminating the risk of qi deviation, it didn't generate power out of thin air. Its foundation was still this flesh-and-blood body.

The first session of training was about tempering and stimulating the blood and qi.

But this second session—the skin and flesh hadn't recovered, and the blood and qi hadn't settled. Forcing the training wouldn't be tempering; it would be self-mutilation.

Once the foundation was damaged, not only would there be no progress, but even the current gains might regress.

Biting off more than one could chew.

He slowly put down the undershirt, walked to the water vat in the corner, scooped up a ladle of cold well water, soaked a cloth strip, and gently pressed it against his burning arm.

The chill seeped into his skin and flesh, and the burning pain eased slightly.

It seemed that twice a night was more than this body could handle for now.

Then it would be once in the morning and once in the evening.

Ye Qingxuan settled on his plan. During the day, patrolling the streets might seem like idling, but it also allowed him to move his muscles and bones, letting his blood and qi flow smoothly. When he returned home in the evening, rested through the night, and his body recovered, it would be just right for another session of training at dawn.

That way, he could accumulate two points of merit each day.

By tomorrow, or at the latest the day after, he would gather five points of merit and truly step into the threshold of the Indestructible Vajra Body!

He lay back down on the hard wooden bed, staring at the blackened roof beam.

Without this Martial Path Heavenly Machine Codex, relying solely on the vague instructions in the manual—"rub the skin and flesh, temper the bones and sinews"—he feared he would never find the way in, even if he spent his whole life on it.

The nuances of heat, force, and timing—a slight deviation could lead to a vast error. One misstep, and at best, his skin would split open; at worst, his qi and blood would go awry, damaging his internal organs and leaving him with a lifetime of ailments.

Martial arts training was never an easy thing. Xiong Tiezhu was born with Divine Power, but the brute-force fist techniques he practiced consumed the most blood and qi, making his progress slow. People like Wei Datong couldn't even get their foot in the door and could only stand by, envious and complaining.

But he had a path to the heavens that no one else could see.

The aches in his body and the anticipation in his heart intertwined, washing over him as a powerful wave of drowsiness.

The night was still long.

But the dawn would always come.