At nine o'clock on the evening of November 10, the Martial Arts Hall on the second floor of the villa was brightly lit.
Chu He carefully summoned the White Jade Wine Pot from his Sea of Consciousness.
The Wine Gourd was only the size of a fist, yet its capacity was by no means small.
A liter of Red Blood Wine was barely visible inside. Chu He had no idea what the interior of the White Jade Wine Pot was made of.
Based on Chu He's past experience brewing liquor, a liter of ordinary liquor usually weighed a little less than two jin. But Red Blood Wine was clearly different from ordinary liquor.
Through the White Jade Wine Pot, Chu He could clearly sense that the Red Blood Wine weighed a full ten jin!
That was far too much to drink in one go.
Since staying up late was bad for his health, Chu He prepared to train through the night.
He drank a mouthful of Red Blood Wine. As its spicy heat washed over him, Chu He began practicing the Seven Star Blade Technique, passed down through his family.
As Cosmic Energy flowed into his body, Chu He began to feel a reaction.
A strange warmth rose from his stomach, gathering like trickling streams into a river before rapidly spreading throughout his body.
At first, the warmth was mild, but it gradually grew scorching, as if a fire had been lit inside him.
Before long, the effects of the Red Blood Wine spread like an erupting volcano. A blazing current surged through his body, flowing like molten lava into every part of him.
Chu He remained unmoved, flicking the tip of his blade upward with lightning-fast precision.
As he exerted himself, he clearly felt the muscles in his arms becoming unusually active.
His muscle cells seemed infused with fresh vitality. They expanded and contracted, and each contraction was more powerful than the last. Bathed in heat, his muscle fibers grew tougher, and every muscle became firmer.
Each heartbeat was accompanied by a surge of strength.
Right before Chu He's eyes, the muscles in his arms took on the sharply defined contours of a sculpture.
Daring not to stop, Chu He spun around, sweeping his blade in a horizontal slash as his body turned.
The slash was like a river of stars streaking across the night sky. The blade cut through the air, which let out a faint whistle.
His strength had clearly increased as his muscles grew stronger.
Seeing the obvious changes, Chu He gazed at the White Jade Wine Pot in his palm, his eyes shining.
"What a treasure! It really is a treasure!"
Just that one mouthful had made Chu He realize how much better this was than ordinary training!
Even a month of training might not have yielded as much as that one mouthful.
Without hesitation, Chu He downed another large mouthful.
Boom!
The fire seemed to burn through his muscles and reach his tendons and fascia!
It burned into his bones!
His tendons and fascia grew more supple and elastic.
His bone density increased, and his bones became harder and denser.
"Gah!" Chu He couldn't help drawing in a little breath, as if that might put out the fire raging inside him.
But soon, he stopped.
Each deep breath came with a faint cracking sound from his bones. They were changing dramatically in a short time, as if being reshaped.
Chu He stopped swinging his blade.
He was a little worried his bones might suddenly snap.
Fortunately, that didn't happen.
As the minutes passed, the changes within Chu He continued, slow but steady.
Four in the morning.
Chu He exhaled a cloud of hot, white breath.
Salt stains from sweat covered his face, body, back, and even his crotch.
Feeling the warmth inside him begin to fade, and seeing that little Red Blood Wine remained in the White Jade Wine Pot, Chu He steeled himself and downed it all.
Thump! Thump!
His heartbeat sounded right beside his ears.
It boomed like a war drum!
With each beat, Chu He's body turned red. Thick veins bulged and twisted across his body like vines.
At last, the fire reached his cells.
Unbeknownst to Chu He, the mitochondria in his cells grew more active under the effects of the Red Blood Wine. They released more energy to fuel his entire body.
Even the DNA in his cell nuclei seemed to be undergoing some kind of optimization, greatly improving his cells' ability to repair and regenerate themselves.
As these changes took place, Chu He could feel his strength, speed, and endurance rising at an astonishing rate.
In his Sea of Consciousness, the sphere of liquid that had originally floated at the mouth of the White Jade Wine Pot now seemed to be boiling, releasing waves of dense white mist.
The mist billowed wildly, soon filling his entire Sea of Consciousness. Then, it began to grow denser.
Six in the morning.
In November, the sky over Northeast Base City was still dark.
Feeling the warmth in his body fade and vanish, Chu He let out a long breath of white vapor and slowly collapsed onto the floor, as if his bones had been pulled out.
That night had been more exhausting than spending ten days in the Wilderness Zone.
His body wasn't tired; his mind and spirit were.
But the gains had been enormous.
Chu He clenched his fist and looked at the sharply defined muscles on his arm, his eyes blazing.
This body, more muscular than anything he'd ever dared imagine in his past life—even more muscular than a bodybuilding coach's—was now his own?
"Who was the first person to say that excessive bodybuilding attracts the same sex? That was so damn right!" Chu He couldn't help running a finger over his bicep, feeling how hard it was.
"Tsk! Am I being a bit too full of myself?"
"Whatever! With muscles like these, what's wrong with being a little full of myself?"
Joking aside, after lying down for a few minutes, Chu He got up and went to the Punch Strength Machine.
His father had bought it for the house. It could measure strength up to the Junior War God level.
Unfortunately, no one had ever managed to exceed the machine's limit.
"Thud!"
Chu He aimed at the target and punched it squarely. The Punch Strength Machine gave a dull thump.
It seemed to be taunting him: "Come on, kid, put some power into it! That's not enough!"
"Thud!" "Thud!" "Thud!"
Chu He threw seven or eight punches in a row and took the average: 7,629 kilograms.
Over 7,600?
Chu He blinked. The display still showed the same number.
"If I remember right, the standard for a Junior War General is 8,000, isn't it?" Chu He murmured. "If that heart was from an Elementary Warlord Level creature..."
A moment later.
"Haha!" Chu He's eyes shone, and excitement surged through him like a tide.
"Now that's what I call having a cheat!"
"One bottle of Red Blood Wine, brewed from an Advanced Beast Soldier's heart—the heart of a One-horned Iron Rhino, almost a Junior Beast General—and it's already brought me this far. If I brew all the hearts I brought back into wine, couldn't I go straight to Advanced War General?"
However, the higher-level hearts clearly required ingredients that couldn't usually be bought in the Base City. Aside from their age, wild and farm-raised ingredients also differed in the strength of their Spirit Machines.
Besides, Chu He had encountered too few Spirit Machines so far, so he hadn't yet been able to fully work out the Wine Recipes for those hearts.
"I'll go to the Wilderness Zone and look for ingredients!" A powerful thought burst into Chu He's mind.
"Of course! The good stuff is all in the Wilderness Zone!"
"I've hidden all my treasure in the Wilderness Zone. Want it? Then go find it!"
With that rather odd thought, Chu He turned off the lights in the Martial Arts Hall and headed for the bathroom.
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