Impervious to Blades and Spears, Skin Like Bear Armor!

The Head Shopkeeper did not take him to the armory, but instead had him wait in the front hall.

Before long, a stooped old hunter with one arm and one blind eye emerged slowly, carrying a wooden tray in his hand.

The Head Shopkeeper pointed at a yellowed booklet on the tray and said with a smile that did not reach his eyes, "Brother Sun, the trading house has strict rules. The armory is an important place, and only core personnel may enter. This Iron Skin Bear King Skill is an exceptionally outstanding defensive technique in the Postnatal Hide Polishing Realm. You have only half an hour to read it. How much you can remember depends on your own fortune."

Sun Yu ignored the Head Shopkeeper's pleasantries and directly picked up the ancient book.

Upon opening the title page and reading only a few lines, his pupils contracted slightly.

This technique followed an exceedingly extreme path of body tempering.

By imitating the breathing and exertion of savage bears in the mountains and forests, it forcibly tempered one's skin and flesh until they became as tough as bear hide. Once mastered, one could almost ignore the slashes of ordinary blades and swords against opponents of the same realm.

Its defensive power was astonishing!

But the reason this technique had been brought out was clearly not out of good intentions.

Its cultivation requirements were so harsh they could only be called monstrous.

The technique explicitly stated that to cultivate it, one had to hunt venomous demonic beasts every day, take their blood and gallbladders, and boil them together with various fierce medicinal ingredients into a scalding medicinal bath.

The practitioner had to soak in the bath, draw the poisonous blood into the body, and forcibly stimulate the regeneration of the skin membrane.

An ordinary person's vitality and blood simply could not withstand the corrosion of such a poisonous medicinal bath. Once the poison attacked the heart, one would suffer festering flesh at best and die on the spot at worst.

The Head Shopkeeper sipped his tea, watching Sun Yu's expression from the corner of his eye.

He had his own calculations in bringing out this technique.

The technique looked powerful, but in truth, it was a pitfall.

If Sun Yu succeeded in cultivating it, the trip to Black Wind Pass would gain a powerful helping hand.

If he crippled himself practicing it or did not dare to practice it at all, the trading house could not be blamed. Who told him to insist on a technique?

"Kid, stunned stupid, are you?"

The One-Armed Old Hunter beside him suddenly let out a piercing sneer, his single eye fixed viciously on Sun Yu.

"Don't think that just because you killed a beast and served as a guest retainer for a few days, you're really something. A few self-important fools in the trading house cultivated this technique before. Want to know what happened to them in the end?"

Sun Yu looked at him expressionlessly.

"They were all boiled into rotting meat by that poisonous medicinal bath—even the cracks in their bones turned black!" The old hunter's withered finger jabbed heavily at the wooden tray.

"Without the trading house's superior antidote pills and a physician watching over you, if you dare blindly cultivate this technique on your own, you're courting death. Even if you take the technique, you may not live long enough to master it!"

The old hunter's words carried undisguised contempt and warning.

This was the trading house's way of putting a newly arrived guest retainer in his place, making him understand that without the trading house's resources, he was nothing.

"Thank you for the reminder, Senior."

Sun Yu's tone was calm. He was neither provoked nor showed the slightest hint of panic.

He said no more, sat down cross-legged on the spot, and immersed his mind completely in the Iron Skin Bear King Skill.

Half an hour passed in the blink of an eye.

"Time's up." The Head Shopkeeper set down his teacup.

Sun Yu closed the ancient book right on time and returned it to the wooden tray. Closing his eyes, he quickly ran through the diagrams he had just memorized in his mind.

A familiar silver gleam rippled across his retina like water.

[Technique: Iron Skin Bear King Skill (Not Initiated)]

It worked.

Sun Yu opened his eyes and let out a long breath. Without offering a single extra explanation, he rose to take his leave and strode toward his guest retainer's courtyard.

Watching Sun Yu's departing back, a trace of surprise flashed through the old hunter's cloudy eye before turning into a deeper sneer. "He who refuses an old man's words..."

Back in the guest retainer's courtyard.

Sun Yu locked the door and immediately sat cross-legged on the bed.

As a bronze gong rang out.

Zishi had arrived.

The panel flickered faintly, and the glowing "+" behind [Iron Skin Bear King Skill (Not Initiated)] lit up right on cue.

Sun Yu's gaze sharpened, and his will slammed down fiercely!

"Buzz!"

[Iron Skin Bear King Skill (Initiated)]!

There was no flashy transition. A torrent of heat ten times more violent than when he had cultivated the Eight Divisions Vajra Skill exploded within Sun Yu's body!

"Urgh..."

Sun Yu let out a muffled groan and clenched his back teeth tightly. Veins instantly bulged across his forehead.

The heat was like countless red-hot steel needles, madly piercing deep into his skin membrane, only to be forcibly ripped out again by an exceedingly tyrannical force.

Torn apart, reforged, then torn apart again!

Sweat mixed with the residual impurities in his body, instantly soaking through his clothes.

This was only possible because he had already built a foundation with the Vajra Skill. If it had been his former sickly body, this first stat increase alone would have hurt him badly enough to pass out.

It took a full half an incense stick's time before the tearing pain gradually subsided, transforming into an intensely deep numbness.

Sun Yu gasped for breath and slowly opened his eyes.

He lowered his head to look at his arms.

The skin that had become somewhat fair and firm from cultivating the Eight Divisions Vajra Skill now faintly revealed an exceptionally dark, iron-blue hue.

When he reached out and squeezed it hard, it no longer felt like soft flesh, but was as hard and cold as real pig iron.

"This is the Iron Skin Bear King Skill... truly overbearing beyond compare."

Sun Yu clenched his fists, feeling the astonishing resistance to blows beneath his skin membrane. A blazing fire lit in his eyes.

No poison was needed. No risking his life.

All he needed was time.

And he could reach perfection!

Over the next several days.

The side courtyard behind the trading house was unusually quiet.

Sun Yu shut his doors to visitors. Other than having the clerks deliver three times the normal amount of Demon Beast Meat meals each day, he did not step over the threshold even once.

On the first day, [Iron Skin Bear King Skill (Beginner)].

On the second day, [Iron Skin Bear King Skill (Proficient)].

As his proficiency increased, the changes in Sun Yu's body grew ever more drastic.

His once-normal skin and flesh began to take on an eerie bluish-black color.

By the third day, at [Mastery], he casually drew a woodcutter's blade across his arm. It left only a faint white mark, failing to even break the skin.

On the fourth day, [Minor Accomplishment].

On the fifth day, [Major Accomplishment].

In the front hall of the trading house.

The Head Shopkeeper flipped through the account books and seemingly casually asked the One-Armed Old Hunter beside him, "What has that kid been doing these past few days? Did he go to the back mountain to hunt bears and take their gallbladders?"

"He didn't." The old hunter sneered.

"He's been holed up in his room every day, stuffing himself with Demon Beast Meat. He hasn't even had anyone prepare a large wooden tub for medicinal baths."

The Head Shopkeeper's fingers tapping the abacus paused, and a trace of contempt flashed through his eyes.

"Looks like he saw through the true nature of this technique, realized it was a dead end, and gave up outright." The Head Shopkeeper picked up his teacup and shook his head.

"In the end, he's just a mud-legged peasant who clawed his way up from the bottom. He has some talent, but lacks that ruthless resolve to smash the cauldrons and sink the boats."

He had originally been counting on the boy to truly dare to cultivate it. Even if he ended up half-crippled, as long as he did not die, the trading house could spend a little to keep him alive with antidote pills and send him to Black Wind Pass as a meat shield.

Now, it seemed he had overestimated the boy.

"It's fine if he gave up. At least he can still escort that batch of goods for us in one piece. Once we pass Black Wind Pass, whether he lives or dies will have nothing to do with us." The Head Shopkeeper set down his teacup and stopped paying attention to the matter.

He had no idea.

That in the guest retainer's side courtyard, just a wall away.

At Zishi on the sixth day.

As the "+" sign on the panel shattered completely.

[Iron Skin Bear King Skill (Perfection)]!

"Boom!"

On the bed, it was as if a true ancient savage bear had awakened within Sun Yu's body, letting out an incomparably muffled roar.

His violently surging blood and qi no longer flowed like threads, but transformed into a rolling torrent that washed over every inch of his skin membrane with unprecedented, brutal force.

"Riiip!"

The thin short shirt on Sun Yu's body was forcibly torn apart by his suddenly swelling muscles!

Visible to the naked eye, the bluish-black skin across his body rapidly transformed toward an immensely profound Dark Gold.

Beneath his skin membrane, his great tendons resembled knotted black pythons, brimming with suffocating explosive force.

Along with the washing of his blood and qi.

A thick layer of black toxins and impurities, carrying a fishy stench, was forcibly expelled from his pores, forming a hard shell over the surface of his body.

Sun Yu suddenly opened his eyes.

Deep within them, a dark-red feral glint resembling that of a savage bear flickered faintly.

He rolled off the bed, his body as heavy as an iron tower. When his feet landed on the floor, they made a muffled thud.

Walking to the washbasin, Sun Yu vigorously scrubbed away the black shell on his body.

By moonlight.

He looked at his reflection on the water and sucked in a sharp breath.

The Iron Skin Bear King Skill at the Perfection Realm had not only tempered his skin membrane to the utmost limit!

Sun Yu drew the refined iron hunting knife with a backhanded motion. Without holding back in the slightest, he aimed at his left arm and brought the blade down fiercely!

"Clang!"

A crisp crash of metal striking metal exploded through the night.

The refined iron hunting knife was violently knocked aside, a rice-grain-sized chip breaking from its edge.

Yet on Sun Yu's left arm—

There was no blood, no wound, not even the white mark from before.

Late Hide Polishing Realm!

With his current physique, he was confident that even against someone at the Great Perfection Hide Polishing Realm, he would have the strength to fight.