Basic Fist Technique, Ten Thousand Starts

"Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three..."

Lin Fan gritted his teeth, sweat soaking through his thin clothes. Each punch felt as heavy as lead, but he didn't stop, nor dared he.

The three-day countdown ticked in his mind.

The clearing outside the shack was small, about five paces square, with packed dirt ground and a few clumps of withered grass along the edges. The early morning sun slanted down, casting a long shadow over Lin Fan.

Punch.

The simplest straight punch, requiring power to originate from the ground, travel through the legs, waist, and back, finally culminating at the fist. The incantation in the booklet said: "Fist out like a spear, advancing without retreat."

But Lin Fan's current punches were weak. Far from being like a spear, they couldn't even be considered a decent stick.

"Incorrect power generation."

He stopped, wiped his sweat, and looked back at the booklet in his hands. The stick figures in the illustrations were simple, but several key points were clearly marked: heel pushing off the ground, waist and hips twisting, shoulder blades engaging.

In the original owner's memories, he knew these points, but knowing and doing were two different things. Body coordination required rigorous training, and although the original owner had practiced for two years, it was mostly to cope with school's basic courses. He had never, like now, dissected each movement to the extreme to ponder it.

Lin Fan took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and simulated the power generation process in his mind.

Push off the ground—power rises from the soles of the feet.

Twist hips—core of the waist and abdomen tightens.

Send shoulder—back muscles work in synergy.

Punch—power flows through the arm.

"Again."

He opened his eyes and assumed a boxing stance again. This time, he deliberately slowed down, focusing his attention entirely on his body's sensations.

One, two, three...

The movements were still stiff, but with each punch, he adjusted: the angle of his foot, the bend of his knees, the timing of his core tightening, the rhythm of his breathing.

It was like debugging complex code, where every parameter affected the final output.

Sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging. Lin Fan wiped them haphazardly with his sleeve and continued.

Time slipped away with the repetitive movements.

The sun gradually rose, and the noise of the slum grew louder. Cursing from a woman and a child's crying came from the adjacent shack, vendors hawked their wares in the distance, and the aroma of baked flatbread wafted through the air—cheap food from the inner city, costing 5 cents each, a luxury for Lin Fan.

His stomach began to cramp.

Since last night, he had only drunk half a bowl of water. His body was protesting, but his mind was exceptionally clear.

"Fifty, fifty-one..."

The soreness in his arms had turned into a numb burning sensation. With every punch, muscle fibers tore and reformed. Lin Fan could feel that although this body was thin, the foundation laid by years of labor was still there, just lacking systematic training.

"If the system is really loading..." he thought distractedly while punching, "what trigger conditions does it need? Proficiency? Or some kind of mental resonance?"

As a programmer in his past life, he was no stranger to "systems." In games, characters accumulated proficiency through repeated actions to level up skills. If this martial arts panel was indeed a similar mechanism, then every practice session he was doing now should be accumulating "data."

But there was nothing in front of him.

Except for that fleeting 1% progress bar.

"Do I have to practice a certain number of times?" Lin Fan frowned, forcing himself to concentrate, "Then I'll practice, practice until it appears."

He increased the frequency of his punches.

Sweat soaked the ground, leaving a small dark imprint. His breathing became heavy, his lungs pulling like bellows. But Lin Fan didn't stop; instead, he made his movements more standard—if he was going to grind for proficiency, he couldn't be sloppy.

One hundred times.

Two hundred times.

Three hundred times...

When he reached five hundred straight punches, Lin Fan's vision began to blur. He had to stop, leaning on his knees and gasping for air. His heart pounded as if it would explode, and the muscles in his entire body trembled.

Too weak.

This body, too weak.

If it were martial artists trained by systems in his previous life, let alone five hundred punches, even five thousand would probably be done without batting an eye. But he, at merely five hundred, was nearing his limit.

"Can't stop." Lin Fan bit his tongue, the coppery taste stimulating his nerves, "My sister is waiting for medicine."

He straightened up and assumed a boxing stance again.

This time, his punches were even slower. Not that he didn't want to be fast, but his body wouldn't allow it. Each punch felt like struggling through mud, requiring all his strength to complete a full movement.

But Lin Fan's eyes grew brighter.

Because he discovered that when the body was pushed to its physical limit, some subtle sensations became clearer: the airflow generated by the fist cutting through the air, the vibration of muscle fibers contracting, the path of force transmission through the bones...

He began to adjust instinctively, seeking the most energy-efficient, most effective way to generate power.

It was a programmer's instinct—optimizing algorithms, improving efficiency.

Six hundred times.

Seven hundred times.

Eight hundred times...

The sun hung directly overhead, its midday rays fierce. Most of the slum dwellers had retreated into their makeshift shelters to escape the heat, but Lin Fan remained in the open space, tireless as a machine.

His clothes were completely soaked, clinging to his skin. His exposed arms and legs were an unnatural shade of red, the result of prolonged sun exposure and strenuous exercise.

But he didn't care.

"Nine hundred... ninety-one..."

His voice was hoarse, barely audible. Each breath tasted of blood, his throat feeling as if it had been scraped by sandpaper.

His consciousness began to blur.

The scene before him started to waver; the shelters, the sky, the ground—everything distorted into indistinct patches of color. Only the punching motion continued, becoming an instinctive bodily reaction.

Lin Fan remembered the nights of coding overtime in his previous life.

The same exhaustion, the same loneliness. Characters danced on the screen, the clatter of the keyboard echoing in the empty office. Back then, he thought life couldn't get any harder than that.

Now he knew that in true desperation, even exhaustion was a luxury. Because if he stopped, he might never be able to stand again.

"Nine hundred... ninety-eight..."

In the last few punches, his arms could no longer lift to the standard height. His fists pushed forward limply, as if against an invisible wall.

"Nine hundred ninety-nine..."

Lin Fan gathered the last of his strength and adopted his stance. His vision was blurry; he adjusted his posture purely by feel. His legs trembled, threatening to buckle.

But he didn't fall.

He took a deep breath—if it could still be called breathing—and then, with all the strength in his body, threw his one thousandth punch.

His fist cut a crooked arc through the air, stopping midway.

Then, Lin Fan's vision went black, and he pitched forward.

In the last moment before losing consciousness, he thought he saw a faint, translucent line of text flash before his eyes:

[Basic Fist Technique Proficiency +1]

He didn't know how much time had passed.

Lin Fan woke to a violent coughing fit.

He was lying on the ground, half his face pressed against the warm earth. Opening his eyes, the first thing he saw was his own sweat-drenched palm, fingers spread, fingertips trembling slightly.

From inside the shelter came Lin Xiaoyu's suppressed coughs, one after another, as if she were trying to cough out her lungs.

Lin Fan abruptly pushed himself up.

Sharp pain shot through his entire body—arms, shoulders, back, thighs—every muscle screamed in protest. He gasped, nearly collapsing again.

But his sister's coughing was like a whip lashing at his heart.

"Xiaoyu..." he rasped, struggling to get to his feet.

He stumbled into the shelter. Lin Xiaoyu was curled up on a straw mat, her small face flushed red, one hand covering her mouth, the other pressed to her chest. Seeing Lin Fan enter, she tried to stifle her coughs, but it only made her cough harder.

"Don't hold it back," Lin Fan hurried over and gently patted her back. His palm touched his sister's thin back, and he could clearly feel the outline of her bones.

After coughing for a while, Lin Xiaoyu gradually calmed down, leaning weakly into Lin Fan's embrace, gasping for air.

"Brother... you've been training all morning..." she whispered, her eyes fixed on Lin Fan's sweat-soaked clothes and red arms. "Does it hurt?"

"It doesn't hurt," Lin Fan replied, his voice still hoarse. "How are you feeling? Is anything bothering you?"

Lin Xiaoyu shook her head, then nodded. "It's just... my chest hurts when I cough. Brother, am I... am I going to die soon?"

"Don't talk nonsense," Lin Fan pulled her closer. "Brother will get the medicine soon. Just hold on a little longer, just a little."

He spoke with determination, but his heart was ice-cold.

It was already noon. Half a day had passed since the pharmacy clerk's "three-day deadline."

And he, besides training his fists all morning, had done nothing else.

Lin Fan helped his sister lie down and gave her half a bowl of water. Lin Xiaoyu soon fell asleep again, her brow furrowed, her breathing shallow.

He walked outside. The midday sun was blinding. Lin Fan leaned against the mottled mud wall, slowly moving his sore body.

One thousand punches.

Besides being utterly exhausted, what else had he gained?

He tried to recall the text he had seen before losing consciousness—that line, [Basic Fist Technique Proficiency +1].

Was it a hallucination? Or had the system truly started responding?

Lin Fan closed his eyes, concentrated, and summoned the status panel in his mind as he had before.

One second, two seconds...

Nothing.

"Does it only trigger when I reach the limit again?" He opened his eyes, looking at his still trembling hands.

In his current state, let alone a thousand punches, even a hundred would be a struggle. His body was already overexerted; forcing himself to train further could very well cause permanent damage.

But he didn't have time to recover.

Lin Fan took a deep breath and turned back into the shed. After rummaging through a wooden box for a while, he found half a piece of dark, coarse grain bread—this was given to him by his neighbor Aunt Zhang a few days ago, and he had been reluctant to eat it.

Washing it down with cold water, he broke the bread into small pieces and slowly swallowed.

The rough wheat bran scratched his throat, and the taste was bland, but his stomach finally had something in it. Lin Fan could feel the food digesting, and faint energy flowing to his limbs and bones.

He sat down cross-legged and, following the method of Basic Breathing Technique from memory, tried to regulate his breathing.

The original host had learned the most rudimentary breathing method in school, said to "nourish qi and relieve fatigue," but the effect was minimal. Lin Fan hadn't held out much hope, but when he truly calmed his mind and guided his breath with his intent, he was surprised to discover—

The fatigue was slowly receding.

It wasn't fast, but he could clearly feel the soreness in his muscles lessening, and his mind clearing up a bit.

"Is this... the effect of Origin Energy?" Lin Fan's heart stirred.

In this world of spiritual energy resurgence, faint energy drifted in the air. Humans absorbed it into their bodies through breathing and exhaled it, converting it into their own Origin Energy. Although the original host was just a bottom-tier martial artist, unable to even project Origin Energy externally, the recovery effect from Basic Breathing Technique was clearly much stronger than ordinary breathing on Earth.

Lin Fan closed his eyes, focusing on guiding his breath.

Inhale, exhale, long and slow.

Gradually, he entered a wondrous state—his body was still tired, but his consciousness was exceptionally clear. He could "see" the path of the airflow within his body and "feel" his muscle fibers slowly repairing.

Just then.

Text flashed before his eyes again.

This time, it was no longer a blurry hallucination, but clear, semi-transparent blue characters:

[Basic Breathing Technique Proficiency +1]

[Current Fatigue: 87%]

[Suggestion: Continue breathing exercises to recover, or consume high-energy food]

Lin Fan's eyes snapped open.

The characters disappeared.

But he was sure he had seen them.

Not a hallucination.

The system was truly responding to his actions.

"Proficiency... fatigue..." Lin Fan murmured, his heart pounding wildly.

If every practice of a boxing technique, every circulation of breathing increased proficiency, then as long as he practiced enough, his skill levels could continuously improve. And once skill levels increased, based on his past life's gaming experience, there should be attribute bonuses or power enhancements.

By then, hunting a first-order demonic beast might no longer be an unattainable dream.

Lin Fan stood up, feeling the strength that had somewhat recovered within his body.

It wasn't enough.

He was still far from it.

But at least, he saw a direction.

"Again."

The young man walked out of the shed and assumed a boxing stance again. Sunlight shone on his sweat-soaked forehead, reflecting tiny specks of light.

This time, his punching motion was a little more standard than before.

And in a dimension beyond his sight, lines of light blue data were quietly generating, flowing, accumulating