Fist Technique Breakthrough

"Off you go." Chen Mo pushed a fully loaded wheelbarrow of snow toward the already-dry ditch before him and dumped it in.

He had now been in the Guard Camp for three months. By rights, it was time for him to be assigned to a squad.

But the New Year holiday was approaching, Xingyuan Prefecture was at peace, and many of the guards were locals.

So General Sun granted his many soldiers leave to rest, allowing them to return home and reunite with their families.

As a result, everything was put on hold. Even the monthly assessment at the end of the month was canceled.

Unless something earth-shattering happened, everything else could wait until after the holiday.

There were now only a little over thirty guards remaining in the Guard Camp—those with no home to return to, or whose families did not live in Xingyuan Prefecture—along with a small number of auxiliary soldiers assigned to miscellaneous duties.

Many tasks normally handled by the auxiliary soldiers now had to be done by the guards themselves.

Shoveling snow was one example. If they relied only on the auxiliary soldiers, they would not be able to clear it all even after half a month.

Still, the approach of the New Year did bring one benefit: the army camp's food standards had risen noticeably.

They slaughtered a pig one day and a sheep the next. A cow had fallen and died at General Sun's home two days earlier, and he had even sent more than two hundred jin of beef to the guards on duty.

As for all kinds of pastries, fruits, dried fruits, various wines, and even New Year goods such as tobacco leaves, General Sun had sent them quite a lot as well.

Chen Mo neither smoked nor drank, so he traded those things with the other guards, exchanging everything for pastries and dried fruits.

His room was now piled high with all kinds of snacks. Every day after eating, he would grab several handfuls and munch on them.

This allowed his qi and blood to build up faster. Even if each increase was only a thread or wisp, the accumulation over time still amounted to no small sum.

Training had also come to a complete stop. Aside from the necessary odd jobs they had to do each day, the rest of their time was entirely at their own disposal.

This suited Chen Mo perfectly. The food standards had risen noticeably, and if nothing unexpected happened, that would continue until after the fifteenth day of the first lunar month.

If things continued like this, he should be able to undergo his next Mortal Transformation after the fifteenth. Even if it came late, it would not be delayed by more than a few days.

Before then, he might even cultivate the second layer of his Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist. By that time, his strength would certainly have risen considerably.

Pushing the wheelbarrow back into camp once more, Chen Mo picked up his shovel and began clearing snow again.

The snow that had fallen over the past two days was thick, reaching to a person's calves. He had to clear it quickly while he could; otherwise, it would be even harder to shovel later.

The small ditch where they dumped the snow was not far from the army camp. It had long since dried up, so they could safely dump all the snow inside.

The guards remaining in camp now possessed two or three hundred jin of strength even without practicing martial arts. Every one of them was a burly man.

Thus, they moved extremely quickly, sending cart after cart of snow out of the camp.

The dry ditch soon brimmed over with snow. With so much piled together, it might not all melt even after spring arrived.

"Brothers, the kitchen is making dumplings for lunch today. Let's make do with those at noon, then have something good tonight!" A cook came over and called out with a laugh.

It was New Year's Eve, and the next day would be the New Year.

Even in an ordinary commoner's household, people would do their best to prepare a good spread for the New Year.

The cooks in the Guard Camp were not especially skilled, but today they still exhausted every means at their disposal to prepare as many dishes as possible.

"Sounds good!" Chen Mo was the first to answer. He dropped his shovel and sprinted straight for the kitchen.

Xingyuan Prefecture had a rule: dumplings had to be eaten on New Year's Eve, but they were eaten at noon rather than in the evening.

There were two fillings: beef with radish, and pork with chives.

Everything in the army emphasized practicality and ruggedness, so the dumplings were not small either. Each one was as large as two or three copper coins.

Chen Mo first brought over four large plates. Each plate held seventeen or eighteen dumplings. He ate two plates first and left the other two to cool.

He also grabbed several cloves of garlic and poured himself a bowl of aged vinegar.

By the time the other guards began arriving one after another, Chen Mo had already polished off two plates.

Meanwhile, the cook in charge of boiling the dumplings was still bringing them out plate by plate.

Being an auxiliary soldier working in the Guard Camp was a good posting as well. Since the guards lived well, the auxiliary soldiers had much better days than ordinary soldiers outside.

The cooks helping in the kitchen had it especially good. They ate whatever the guards ate, and each of them lived more comfortably than a minor local landlord.

Chen Mo ate five plates of dumplings first, then loosened his belt and ate two more before sitting for a while to let the food settle.

Then he picked up two more plates of dumplings, intending to take them back as an afternoon snack.

Everyone had long since grown accustomed to this. There were many big eaters in the army camp, but someone who could eat as much as Chen Mo was truly one of a kind.

At first, everyone had been surprised, but after seeing it so often, they grew used to it.

Before they knew that Chen Mo had silently killed seventeen or eighteen people, everyone had assumed he was honest and simple.

After learning that, most people began to see Chen Mo as someone who was ruthless but sparing with words.

He had fled for his life and begged for survival all the way from Qing Province to Xingyuan Prefecture in Ding Province, killing seventeen or eighteen people along the way. No matter how one looked at it, that was not something simple or easy.

Even some veteran soldiers would not dare claim they could definitely accomplish such a feat.

Since Chen Mo had managed to do it, that was enough to prove he was absolutely not as honest and simple as he appeared on the surface. At the very least, he was certainly not someone to provoke.

After putting the dumplings back in his room, Chen Mo continued shoveling snow that afternoon. He worked for roughly another two hours before the accumulated snow was basically cleared away.

After finishing, Chen Mo returned to his barracks room and ate the two plates of dumplings that were still slightly warm.

The remaining guards now all lived in the same row of barracks. Several braziers burned inside, making the place as warm as spring compared to the outside world.

The braziers were also connected directly to the outside by high-quality iron pipes, venting the smoke straight out and eliminating any worry about carbon monoxide poisoning.

The New Year's Eve dinner was better than ever before. There was far too much to finish, so they would be able to eat leftovers for the next few days—lots and lots of leftovers.

On the first day of the New Year, General Sun returned from the city on horseback. He handed red envelopes to each of the guards who had been unable to return home for the holiday, chatted with them for a while, and then departed.

Over the following days, Chen Mo's life did not change much from before. Apart from eating better, he did not let up on his daily cultivation and training.

The main reason was that he truly had nothing else to do. He neither drank nor gambled with the other guards, and with nothing to occupy him all day, he could only train to pass the time.

More than ten days passed in the blink of an eye. One day, while Chen Mo was cultivating, he clearly felt his physical body shudder.

This was a sign that the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist was about to break through. As a very simple external hard technique, its breakthrough had nothing to do with an opportunity or fate.

As long as one trained tirelessly, the breakthrough would come naturally, like water flowing into a channel.

Chen Mo's legs were rooted deep into the ground like the intertwined roots of an ancient tree. In his perception, a single qi-and-blood mass had originally appeared, but it was now gradually becoming two.

From then on, every time he cultivated, the results would be twice what they had been before.

Not only that, Chen Mo could clearly feel that once the second qi-and-blood mass finished condensing, his qi and blood became even more vigorous.

The results of every cultivation session from then on would be twice what they had been before.

This martial art did not provide a martial artist with any direct increase upon breaking through. All improvements came from daily cultivation.

A breakthrough was merely a means of breaking through a shackle. Once a martial artist reached a bottleneck and continued cultivating, their qi and blood would begin accumulating continuously, gradually condensing into a new qi-and-blood mass within their body.

Only when the qi-and-blood mass had fully condensed could the martial artist be considered to have broken through the barrier to the next layer and gain further improvement through continued cultivation.

Carefully sensing the qi and blood surging through his body after the breakthrough, Chen Mo then focused his mind on the Mortal Transformation Pearl.

The originally transparent and colorless Mortal Transformation Pearl was now almost completely crimson. His next Mortal Transformation would likely come within the next few days.