"Ding—"
The oven timer chimed sharply.
Lin Ye opened the oven and pulled out a metal tray lined with foil. Five stalks of dried Black Spiral Grass lay on top.
He hadn't gotten home until nearly midnight the night before, so there hadn't been time to brew Night of the Black Goat.
So he'd gotten up at four that morning to roast the Black Spiral Grass and prepare the potion ingredients.
He'd only roasted five stalks because he was running low on money.
"What are you roasting?"
Jiang Weilan came over carrying the rice cooker.
"A plant."
Lin Ye replied, then casually crushed the five stalks of Black Spiral Grass into powder and put them into separate glass bottles.
Jiang Weilan nodded, still confused. I know it's a plant?
"Wash your hands and come eat."
"Okay."
At the table, Jiang Weilan put down her spoon and looked at Lin Ye.
"How have you been feeling during training these past few days? Are you tired?"
Lin Ye picked up a slice of boiled cabbage and put it in his mouth. "Pretty good. I'm not too tired."
"Don't push yourself too hard. Look how much weight you've lost."
Jiang Weilan looked a little worried for him, then a hint of puzzlement crept into her eyes.
"Son, have you gotten taller?"
Lin Ye set down his chopsticks. "Have I?"
He got up and walked over to the scale in the kitchen, stepped on it, and pulled up the measuring tape.
"One hundred and eighty-three centimeters. Maybe I had a second growth spurt after starting martial arts."
"My weight's seventy-six kilos. I haven't lost weight. I've even gained a few."
Jiang Weilan's face lit up. "That's great! Try to grow to 1.9 meters. You'll stand out in any crowd!"
Lin Ye smiled. Wasn't 1.9 meters a bit too tall? He didn't really like attracting attention.
He sat back down at the table. "How are things with my sister?"
At Lin Ye's question, Jiang Weilan looked a little troubled, though not particularly worried.
"It should be fine. You know Tieqin University is basically a talent pipeline for Tieqin Group."
"Even if she doesn't get into the internal training program, she'll still be able to get a good position."
Lin Ye nodded. Tieqin University was different from Coast University, which was a public university established under the provincial government.
When Tieqin University was first founded, it had been built entirely with funding from Tieqin Group.
It had originally been meant to train talent for the group. Only later had the provincial government taken it over, making it a joint university.
He'd heard that the takeover had caused quite a stir at the time. The provincial government had sent over a thousand people to surround the group's headquarters.
The group's headquarters hadn't originally been in the center of Tieqin City. It had moved there only after that incident.
If his sister didn't take a job at Tieqin Group, she could still have a good future in the provincial capital.
It would just take much longer for her to reach a position comparable to one she could attain by building her career within Tieqin Group.
After breakfast, Jiang Weilan went to work, and Lin Ye left home as well.
Steam rose from breakfast shops along the street, carrying the savory aroma of meat and noodles.
Lin Ye strolled along at an easy pace. After the shift in his mindset the night before, it felt as though a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He was completely relaxed.
More than half an hour later, he reached Market Street and headed for a storefront.
"Black Goat Shop! Heh heh heh!"
Six big characters were written on the shop sign.
"Boss!"
Lin Ye called out, and a middle-aged man wearing a leather apron came out from the back.
"Well, look who it is! It's you, handsome. Don't tell me you're after goat horns again?"
Lin Ye glanced toward the back, where several black goats hung from iron hooks, their hides mostly stripped off.
"Got any?" he asked.
The boss clicked his tongue. "What kind of question is that? Of course I've got some! This is what I sell. How could I not have any for you?"
"Five pairs, and two jin of goat blood," Lin Ye said.
The boss chuckled and casually sharpened his boning knife against an iron rod.
"Tasty, huh? This goat blood of ours is the good stuff! Have a few chunks before you get down to business, and you'll be guaranteed to stay hard as a steel spear!"
"Did you add anything to it?" Lin Ye joked.
The boss hurriedly waved his hands. "Not a chance! Would I do something that shady? It's all-natural!"
"All right, pack it up for me. I'll cook some more when I get home," Lin Ye said with a smile.
"Coming right up!"
Lin Ye left Market Street and headed straight home.
On the way, he stopped at a precious-metals shop and bought another 120 grams of White Tin Powder, nearly emptying his wallet.
Sitting at his computer desk, Lin Ye looked at the ingredients laid out in front of him. After taking a deep breath, he began brewing.
With his previous experience, he was much more practiced this time.
Near noon, he sat at the computer desk with the ingredients for brewing Night of the Black Goat laid out in front of him.
Only the final step remained: pouring the powder left after burning the White Tin Powder and Black Spiral Grass into the Black Goat Blood, mixing it thoroughly, then sealing it and letting it sit.
But that step had to wait until after sunset. He couldn't do it yet.
Leaning back slightly, he summoned the Monument.
His gaze settled on Potion Apprentice in the abilities column.
This ability increased the success rate of brewing Type I Potions by 30%. It was a bit like a title in a game, but one that could be upgraded.
"One Potential Point adds one attempt."
He spoke softly. Using Potential Points this way was even more extravagant than putting them into Intelligence.
"I wonder how many bottles I'll manage to make this time. And how many attempts can I add?"
He closed his eyes and rested for a while, then got up and went to the living room to stretch. He went straight into his fist training.
"Whoosh!"
He threw a punch, then quickly pulled it back. His retraction was more than twice as fast as his strike.
Lin Ye felt the changes in his body. Once he'd entered the basics of fist technique, his muscles seemed to work together as one.
When he threw a punch, it felt like he was pulling on a rubber band. As the punch shot out, a hidden force followed through.
When he drew his fist back, it felt as though the rubber band were pulling it in, tugging his arm back with force.
The pull from his shoulder and back all the way to his fist was especially noticeable.
"Qi-Sensation Like Rope... a noose... unified force."
One advantage of Ancient Fist Technique was that it trained the whole body to generate force as one. He hadn't felt this as deeply before he'd mastered the basics.
Only after he'd mastered the basics—and especially after he'd reached the absolute standard of force generation—had he truly understood what made Ancient Fist Technique so formidable.
It was a method entirely different from modern combat sports.
He'd read about Ancient Fist Technique on the Chao Forum. One poster had compared Ancient Fist Technique and modern combat sports to forging.
Modern combat sports focused on hammering a point and a line. You could forge them into an iron rod, a blade, or even fold and hammer them into refined steel.
But that was as far as it went. They could never break free of the concept of an "iron tool."
Ancient Fist Technique was different. It focused on hammering a plane and a body, no longer confined by shape. It treated the piece of iron as a whole and forged it that way.
At the beginning, perhaps it was nothing more than an ordinary iron ball, far less deadly than a blade.
But its upper limit was incredibly high—so high that it could even reach the terrifying level of something like "nuclear fusion."
The poster had exaggerated, but the basic idea was true: Ancient Fist Technique had a higher ceiling than modern combat sports.
The problem was that most people lacked the aptitude, and even more had no opportunity to learn Ancient Fist Technique.
He'd spent the past few days searching online for information about it, but most of what he found was rumor or hearsay.
It was as if an invisible hand were deliberately diminishing Ancient Fist Technique's influence.
And it had worked. If he hadn't been a student in the Department of Pharmacy, if he hadn't come across the existence of Secret Potions, he wouldn't have looked into Ancient Fist Technique. He probably wouldn't have had the chance to learn it, either.
Unless, someday in the future, he reached the peak of modern combat sports and decided to look into it out of curiosity.
Then he'd regret not learning about it sooner.
The situation online felt strangely disjointed to him.
Clearly, martial arts schools were connected to a force-wielding institution like the Police Department.
Yet online, they seemed completely insignificant.
It felt as though someone were suppressing Ancient Fist Technique, and Ancient Fist Technique was fighting back with everything it had—but in the end, a small arm couldn't contend with a big thigh.
He fell silent for a while, then sighed and let the thought go.
He kept punching. With each strike, he could feel the qi sensation in his body moving along his meridians and out toward his limbs.
Time flew by. As dusk fell, Lin Ye came out of the bathroom, gently drying his hair.
"Monument."
[Soul Whale Fist "First Layer" (3/100)]
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