Innate divine strength?

"Junior brother is here, sit down quickly."

Qin Zhixu stood up to welcome him, showing no airs at all, and walked over to the kettle to pour a cup of tea, placing it on the table.

"Give this a try. It's green tea I picked from the mountain during my last business trip; the flavor is quite good."

After sitting down, Lin Ye picked up the teacup and took two sips, the fragrance traveling through his nasal cavity and settling into his stomach.

After exchanging pleasantries for a while, he took a transparent bag out of his backpack, which contained twenty-five neatly arranged Black Spiral Grass.

"Senior brother, this is the Black Spiral Grass. There are twenty-five stalks in total; please count them."

Qin Zhixu took them with a smile and set them aside casually, not even glancing at them a second time.

"Alright, it's the same account as before, right? I'll have the finance department wire the money to you at noon."

It was only a matter of ten thousand yuan or so; even giving it to him directly wouldn't have been a big deal.

He was simply worried that his junior brother had a strong sense of pride, and that giving it to him directly might make him overthink things.

Since his father intended for his junior brother to attend this gathering, he was officially acknowledging him as a disciple; they were all family from now on.

In the past, such matters would have required a public announcement and a formal apprenticeship banquet, but there weren't so many rigid rules these days.

With such a status, a portion of core resources would be allocated to his junior brother in the future, let alone a little pocket money.

In the current world, where powerful figures occupied various territories and there was a growing trend of chaos, they had to stay united.

Lin Ye nodded slightly, having already entered the information into the system when he was responsible for the procurement.

"Sorry for the trouble, senior brother."

Qin Zhixu blew on his tea, "It's no trouble at all, just a small matter."

"If you need anything in the future, just go to the warehouse and take it; I've already given the instructions."

"I have to meet a guest at noon, and then I'll be heading back in the afternoon. The teacher still has a lot to finish up on his end."

Lin Ye nodded, "Then I'll head back first."

Qin Zhixu stood up to see him off, and as they reached the door, he gently patted Lin Ye on the shoulder.

"I won't go down with you. Be careful on the road. I heard a group of cultists arrived in the city these past few days, so keep your guard up."

Lin Ye was somewhat surprised; he hadn't expected his senior brother to be so well-informed.

"Understood, senior brother. You take care as well."

"Good, go on then."

Walking out of the school gate, Lin Ye looked down both sides of the main road before heading straight home. It was Sunday, and the martial arts gym was closed.

It wasn't even ten o'clock when he got home, and a notification popped up on his phone showing a deposit of ten thousand yuan into his bank account.

Immediately, Lin Ye opened his computer and found the merchant he had searched for last time that sold the Golden-Thread Night Bat.

Before long, the webpage loaded, and the merchant's name was South Bank Night.

After scrolling down a bit, he found the Golden-Thread Night Bat among the many exotic pets.

"Price: 1800."

"Quantity: 15."

"Last transaction date: 2028.4.16."

Closing the webpage, Lin Ye leaned back slightly. The last transaction was over two months ago, which meant the Golden-Thread Night Bat wasn't exactly a hot seller.

He would hold off on buying it for now; the toxicity of the Golden-Thread Night Bat was too high, so it wouldn't be too late to buy it once he translated the preparation method.

What interested him most about the Heart of Dark Night Boiling was actually the boost to his mental power.

Increasing his mental power might alleviate the exhaustion he felt when translating the manuscripts, and a stronger mental power might even have a positive effect on his martial arts training.

After all, things like comprehension were intangible and mysterious, but they surely had some connection to the mind.

Moreover, if he wasn't mistaken, mental power should be a sub-attribute falling under the category of the intelligence stat.

In other words, increasing his mental power should be able to boost his intelligence among the four main attributes.

This might be the only way he could increase his intelligence in the short term.

Closing the computer, he didn't dwell on it further and walked to the living room to start practicing his punches.

Punch, punch, punch.

Every punch was thrown with full force, every single one with one hundred percent focus, feeling the flow of qi spreading along his meridians toward his limbs.

For lunch, he simply boiled a few eggs, half a jin of beef, and a basket of vegetables.

He practiced until six in the evening, then repeated the same meal he'd had at noon.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, Lin Ye slowly controlled his breathing, the heat in his body gradually cooling down.

Sensing the interior of his body, the flow of qi, with his spine as the core, spread along his meridians toward his limbs, already reaching his shoulders and hips.

"Monument."

He chanted silently in his heart, and the black Monument appeared, his gaze landing on the ability column.

[Soul Whale Fist "Level 1" (5/100)]

After a hard day of training, he had gained another two points of experience.

Leaning back slightly, he felt a sense of relaxation in his heart.

Practicing martial arts was truly a grueling task; there was no such thing as gaining a dozen experience points in a single day or breaking through to a new realm in just a few days.

Unless one had Potential Points; a single Potential Point was worth one hundred experience points, equivalent to two months of his own hard training.

However, there was nothing wrong with practicing his punches this way; he loved this feeling, even more than when he challenged the Ozaki Eight in his past life.

Being able to unleash his fist force recklessly without worrying about physical injury, while clearly seeing his own improvement bit by bit.

This feeling was even more addictive than narcotics.

*

*

*

The next morning, Lin Ye pushed open the doors of the gym.

It was already past seven o'clock, and several students were practicing in the main hall; they were all new students from the same batch as Lin Ye.

One reason was that the effect of training was about the same wherever one went, and the other was that the senior students weren't this diligent.

Lei Long sat behind the reception desk, bored out of his mind, and greeted Lin Ye listlessly when he saw him.

Lin Ye responded with a grunt and strode toward the punch force tester.

This scene made several students steal glances, and even Lei Long lifted his eyelids to look over.

Staring at the punch force tester in front of him, Lin Ye took two hand wraps from his pocket without haste and tightly bound his knuckles.

He stepped back half a pace.

"Bang!"

"203kg."

Looking at the data on the tester, he didn't hesitate and continued to smash his fists into it.

"203kg."

"204kg."

"203kg."

Data with negligible differences flashed continuously on the display screen.

Half a minute later, Lin Ye had thrown over a dozen punches, with the data for each punch differing by no more than 1kg.

After testing his right fist, he tested his left.

Except for the values being about 5kg lower, the gap between each punch remained within 1kg.

After finishing the test, he gently kneaded his wrists to relieve the recoil from the punches.

Glancing at the data, he nodded inwardly; under absolutely standard force application, the power of every one of his punches was nearly identical.

It was only because the tester couldn't display results with extreme precision that such a large margin of error as 1kg appeared.

In the center of the hall, several students from the same batch widened their eyes in disbelief.

Originally, they had only heard Head Coach Lin say that Lin Ye had high aptitude, but they hadn't felt it personally.

But now, they truly realized the gap.

A punch force exceeding 200kg for his right hand, and his slightly weaker left hand also infinitely close to 200kg.

This level of punch force was even higher than Wei Qian's! This was the true number one among their batch of students!

Good grief, had this guy been too low-key before?

They had actually thought he was just a sparring partner hired by that young lady Yan Yi.

Lei Long behind the reception desk was also somewhat surprised; to be able to hit with this kind of force given his physique, could it be that he was also born with supernatural strength like himself?

"Tap, tap, tap."

Footsteps echoed from the wooden staircase leading to the second floor.

Lin Fei walked down, her hands in her pockets and her feet bare, swaying with every step.