Basic Fist Technique, Ten Thousand Starts

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

Lin Fan gritted his teeth. Sweat had already soaked through his thin shirt. Every punch made his arms feel as heavy as lead. But he didn't stop, and he didn't dare stop.

The three-day countdown ticked away in his mind.

The patch of open ground outside the shack was tiny, barely five paces square. The earth was packed hard, with a few clumps of withered weeds growing along the edges. The morning sun slanted across it, casting a long shadow from Lin Fan.

Charge Punch.

The simplest Straight Punch emphasized drawing power from the ground, channeling it through the legs, waist, and back, then driving it into the fist. The booklet's verse read: "A punch shoots forth like a spear, surging ever onward."

But Lin Fan's fist was limp and feeble. It wasn't like a spear; it wasn't even a decent stick.

"My force is all wrong."

He stopped, wiped away his sweat, and looked at the booklet in his hand again. The figure in the diagram was drawn in simple lines, but several key points were clearly marked: push off from the heel, rotate the hips, and drive the shoulder blade.

The Original Owner's memories held all these pointers, but knowing them and putting them into practice were two different things. Coordination took endless practice to build. Though the Original Owner had trained for two years, most of it had been to get through the school's basic classes. He had never taken each movement apart and studied it down to the tiniest detail as Lin Fan was doing now.

Lin Fan drew a deep breath, closed his eyes, and visualized the sequence of movements in his mind.

Push off the ground—the force rose from the soles of his feet.

Rotate the hips—his core tightened.

Drive the shoulder—the muscles in his back worked in concert.

Punch—the force flowed through his arm.

"Again."

He opened his eyes and settled into his Boxing Stance once more. This time, he deliberately slowed down, focusing all his attention on what he felt in his body.

One, two, three...

His movements were still clumsy, but with each punch he made adjustments: the angle of his feet, how much he bent his knees, when he tightened his core, and the rhythm of his breathing.

It was like debugging a complicated program. Every parameter affected the final output.

Sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging them. Lin Fan hastily wiped it away with his sleeve and kept going.

Time slipped by in repetition.

The sun climbed higher, and the Slum District grew noisier. A woman shouted and children cried in the neighboring shack. A vendor hawked his wares in the distance, while the charred aroma of baked flatbread wafted through the air—the cheap food that trickled out from the Inner City. One piece cost five points, already a luxury for Lin Fan.

His stomach began to cramp.

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

"Fifty, fifty-one..."

The ache in his arms had turned into a numb, burning sensation. With every punch, his muscle fibers tore and rebuilt themselves. Lin Fan could feel that this body was frail, but the foundation laid by years of hard labor was still there. It simply lacked systematic training.

"If the system really is loading..." he thought as he punched, letting his mind wander, "what does it need to trigger? Proficiency? Or some kind of mental resonance?"

As a programmer in his Previous Life, he wasn't unfamiliar with the idea of a "system." In games, characters accumulated proficiency through repeated actions and raised their skill levels. If this Martial Arts Panel really worked in a similar way, then every practice session should be adding to his "data."

But he could see nothing.

Except for that progress bar that had flashed by once: 1%.

"Do I have to reach a certain number of repetitions?" Lin Fan furrowed his brow and forced himself to focus. "Then I'll keep going until it appears."

He quickened the pace of his punches.

Sweat soaked the ground, leaving a small, dark patch. His breathing grew ragged, his lungs tugging like a broken bellows. But Lin Fan didn't stop. Instead, he made his movements even more precise. If he wanted to grind proficiency, he couldn't cut corners.

One hundred.

Two hundred.

Three hundred...

When he counted his five-hundredth Charge Punch, his vision began to darken. He had no choice but to stop and brace his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. His heart raced as if it might burst, and every muscle in his body trembled.

Too weak.

This body was too weak.

If he were one of the Martial Artists who had undergone systematic training in his Previous Life, he could probably do five thousand Charge Punches without batting an eye, let alone five hundred. But he was already on the verge of collapse after just five hundred.

"I can't stop." Lin Fan bit through his tongue, the metallic sweetness jolting his nerves. "My little sister is still waiting for her medicine."

He straightened up and settled into his Boxing Stance again.

This time, his punches were slower still. It wasn't that he didn't want to go faster; his body no longer allowed it. Each punch was like struggling through a swamp, taking every ounce of his strength just to complete the movement.

But Lin Fan's eyes grew brighter and brighter.

He had discovered that when his body was exhausted to the limit, certain subtle sensations became clearer: the current of air stirred by his fist, the quiver as his muscle fibers contracted, the path his bones took to transmit force...

He began adjusting by instinct, searching for the most effortless and efficient way to generate power.

It was a programmer's instinct—optimize the algorithm, improve the efficiency.

Six hundred.

Seven hundred.

Eight hundred...

The sun climbed overhead, and the midday light beat down fiercely. Most people in the Slum District had retreated into their shacks to escape the heat. Only Lin Fan still stood in that patch of open ground, like a tireless machine.

His clothes were completely soaked and clung to his body. His bare arms and calves had turned an unnatural red from the prolonged exposure to the sun and the intense exercise.

But he didn't care.

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

His voice had grown so hoarse it was barely audible. Every breath tasted of blood, and his throat felt as if sandpaper had scraped it raw.

His consciousness began to blur.

The scene before him wavered. The shack, the sky, the ground—everything warped into indistinct patches of color. Only the punching motion continued, now an instinctive response of his body.

Lin Fan remembered the nights he had spent working overtime, writing code in his Previous Life.

He had been just as tired, just as alone. Characters had flickered across the screen, and keyboard strokes had echoed through the empty office. Back then, he'd thought life could never be harder than that.

Only now did he understand that in a true desperate situation, even exhaustion was a luxury. Once you stopped, you might never get back up.

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

With his last few punches, he could no longer raise his arm to the proper height. His fist limply extended, as if he were pushing against an invisible wall.

"Nine hundred ninety-nine..."

Lin Fan summoned the last of his strength and settled into his Boxing Stance. His vision was blurred, and he could only adjust his posture by feel. His legs trembled, on the verge of buckling.

But he didn't.

He drew a deep breath—or what passed for one—then poured all his strength into his thousandth Charge Punch.

His fist traced a crooked arc through the air and stopped halfway.

Then everything went black, and Lin Fan pitched forward.

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

[Basic Fist Technique Proficiency +1]

***

He had no idea how much time had passed.

Lin Fan woke to a fit of violent coughing.

He was sprawled on the ground, one side of his face pressed against the warm dirt. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was his sweat-soaked palm, fingers spread and trembling slightly.

From inside the shack came Lin Xiaoyu's muffled coughs, one after another, as if she were about to cough up her lungs.

Lin Fan abruptly pushed himself upright.

Pain surged through his entire body—his arms, shoulders, back, waist, thighs. Every muscle screamed in protest. He sucked in a sharp breath and nearly collapsed again.

But his little sister's coughs lashed at his heart like a whip.

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

He staggered into the shack. Lin Xiaoyu was curled up on the Straw Mat, her little face flushed red. One hand covered her mouth, the other pressed against her chest. When she saw Lin Fan come in, she tried to stifle her coughs, but only coughed harder.

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

After coughing for a while, Lin Xiaoyu finally began to settle down. She leaned weakly against Lin Fan's chest, gasping for breath.

"Brother... you, you practiced all morning..." she murmured, looking at Lin Fan's sweat-soaked clothes and reddened arms. "Does it hurt?"

"It doesn't." Lin Fan's voice was still hoarse. "How are you feeling? Does anything else hurt?"

Lin Xiaoyu shook her head, then nodded. "It's just... my chest hurts from coughing. Brother, am I... not going to make it?"

"Don't talk nonsense." Lin Fan hugged her a little tighter. "I'll get the medicine soon. Just hold on a little longer. Just a little."

He sounded resolute, but his heart was frozen solid.

It was already noon. Half a day had passed from the "Three-Day Limit" the pharmacy clerk had given him.

And all he had done was practice punching all morning.

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

He went outside. The midday sun was so harsh he could barely keep his eyes open. Leaning against the mottled earthen wall, Lin Fan slowly worked his aching body.

One thousand Charge Punches.

Other than exhausting himself, what had he gained?

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

Had it been a hallucination? Or had the system really started responding?

Lin Fan closed his eyes and focused, calling up the panel in his mind as he had before.

One second, two seconds...

Nothing.

"Do I have to reach my limit again to trigger it?" He opened his eyes and looked at his hands, still trembling faintly.

In this state, a thousand Charge Punches were out of the question. Even a hundred would be a struggle. His body was already depleted; if he forced himself to keep training, he might cause permanent damage.

But he had no time to recover.

Lin Fan drew a deep breath and went back into the shack. He rummaged through the wooden chest and found half a rough-grain cake, blackened and hard. Neighbor Auntie Zhang had given it to him a few days ago, and he had been saving it ever since.

He washed it down with cold water, broke the cake into small pieces, and slowly swallowed them.

The coarse bran scraped his throat. It tasted bland, but at least there was something in his stomach now. Lin Fan could feel the food being digested, its meager energy spreading through his limbs and body.

He sat cross-legged and tried to regulate his breathing according to the Basic Breathing Technique he remembered.

The Original Owner had learned the most rudimentary breathing method at school. It was supposed to "nurture vitality and ease fatigue," but its effects were negligible. Lin Fan hadn't expected much, yet when he truly quieted his mind and guided his breathing with intention, he was astonished to discover—

His fatigue was slowly fading.

Not quickly, but he could clearly feel the ache in his muscles easing and his mind growing sharper.

"Is this... the effect of vital energy?" Lin Fan's heart stirred.

In this world of Spiritual Energy Revival, faint traces of energy drifted through the air. Humans inhaled it through breathing techniques and converted it into their own vital energy. The Original Owner had been only the lowest-ranking Martial Disciple, unable even to project vital energy outside his body, but the restorative effect of the Basic Breathing Technique was clearly far greater than ordinary breathing on Earth.

Lin Fan closed his eyes and concentrated on guiding his breath.

In and out, long and slow.

Gradually, he entered a wondrous state. His body was still tired, but his mind was exceptionally clear. He could "see" the flow of air through his body and "feel" his muscle fibers slowly repairing themselves.

Just then.

Text flashed before his eyes again.

This time, it was no longer a hazy hallucination, but clear blue characters, translucent and glowing:

[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 certain he had seen them.

It wasn't a hallucination.

The system really was responding to his actions.

"Proficiency... fatigue..." Lin Fan muttered, his heart pounding.

If every fist technique practice session and every breathing cycle increased proficiency, then as long as he trained enough, his skill levels would keep rising. And based on his experience with games in his Previous Life, higher skill levels should bring attribute bonuses or increased power.

Then hunting a 1st Tier Demonic Beast might no longer be an unattainable dream.

Lin Fan stood and felt the strength that had returned to his body.

It wasn't enough.

Not nearly enough.

But at least he had found a direction.

"Again."

The boy walked out of the shack and settled into his Boxing Stance once more. Sunlight fell across his sweat-damp forehead, glinting in tiny sparks.

This time, his punches were a little more precise than before.

And in a dimension beyond the reach of his eyes, lines of pale-blue data quietly took shape, flowed, and accumulated...