Breakthroughs in Succession

After eating more than half of the ginseng, he finally made up for the deficit within his body, and his cultivation stabilized at the mid-stage Body Phase.

Qin Dongcheng felt the vigorous power within him, as well as his clearly improved physical constitution, and nodded in satisfaction.

The Heaven Rewards Diligence System was indeed formidable. One reaped what one sowed was already absurd enough, let alone its critical hit rules.

Testing his current strength, he easily lifted a boulder weighing several hundred kilograms. In his previous life, an ordinary person could never have done such a thing.

Qin Dongcheng had cultivated for only a few days, yet he had already risen to this level.

This was only the Body Phase Realm. The Skin Phase Realm and Flesh Phase Realm beyond it surely possessed even more formidable strength.

After spending several days consolidating his current realm and adapting to his explosively increased strength, speed, reactions, and more, he was finally at ease.

The Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist combined training forms and combat forms. As long as one cultivated the training forms, the combat forms would naturally be learned as well.

Both the training forms and combat forms had four moves: the defensive Mount Tai Towering, the offensive Mount Tai Pressing Down, the balanced offensive-and-defensive Mount Tai Flying Stone, and the footwork technique Mount Tai Rotation.

As his cultivation soared by leaps and bounds, he could use its combat forms to adapt. The training and combat forms were not too different, so they were not difficult to cultivate.

For example, the training form Mount Tai Pressing Down consisted of ninety stances in one move, ninety variations in total. When cultivated, it was like Mount Tai bearing down from above, tempering every part of the body layer by layer.

When used as a combat form, it was likewise like Mount Tai pressing down, making it difficult for an enemy to resist.

Mount Tai Towering was the same. Its training form resembled mountain peaks towering high, tempering every part of the body bit by bit, enhancing one's overall constitution without missing a single spot.

When used as a combat form, it defended every part of the body, leaving no gaps.

Mount Tai Flying Stone and Mount Tai Rotation followed similar principles as well.

Though the Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist appeared to have only four moves, it contained three hundred and sixty variations, encompassing the number of the heavenly cycle. It truly deserved its reputation as Luo Cloud Prefecture's foremost body-strengthening fist technique.

Even looking across the entire world, it was among the very best body-strengthening fist techniques.

Its main drawback was that it was difficult to comprehend, difficult to learn, and difficult to cultivate... He had practiced it for several months before, yet had been unable even to begin comprehending it.

As usual, he spent the day tending the herb fields—gathering herbs, pulling weeds, planting seedlings... Everything proceeded in perfect order as he dealt with each medicinal herb according to its condition.

Yet while loosening the soil in one herb field, he unexpectedly disturbed something. The earth before him suddenly churned, and a creature over a foot long abruptly lunged at him, aiming straight for his throat.

"Mount Tai Pressing Down!"

At the brink of life and death, Qin Dongcheng instinctively unleashed the Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist he had been cultivating. Mount Tai Pressing Down crashed forth and bore down with tremendous force.

"Bang..."

"Squeak, squeak..."

His strike landed squarely on the lunging creature. It let out a miserable cry and was directly killed by Qin Dongcheng.

"You have killed a ground rat. Congratulations, you have triggered a Hundredfold Critical Hit. Your Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist combat forms, combat experience, combat techniques, and ground rat corpses have increased a hundredfold!"

What Qin Dongcheng had not expected was that this punch would trigger a Hundredfold Critical Hit, directly granting him a hundredfold haul.

A hundred ground rat corpses were nothing much, at most giving him something extra to eat. But his gains in every other aspect were tremendously gratifying.

The combat forms of the Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist rose at a visible pace, and even the training forms surged forward by a considerable margin.

His combat experience and combat techniques improved greatly as well, equivalent to the gains Qin Dongcheng would have made from fighting for dozens of days and nights. Qin Dongcheng, who had originally been nothing but a novice in battle, leaped into becoming a minor expert in combat and killing.

This was perfect. In the future, he only needed to remain peacefully in Bamboo Forest Valley and occasionally hunt wild beasts to easily obtain substantial combat experience and combat techniques. He would not need to painstakingly fight and kill people everywhere.

For Qin Dongcheng, this was an incomparably wonderful thing.

However, looking at the huge pile of ground rat corpses stuffed inside the Diligence Space, Qin Dongcheng was somewhat speechless. These things were not worth much, and they did not taste particularly good either. When he had time, he would simply give them to the nearby villagers.

Ground rats were merely wild beasts, not even first-rank Monster Beasts. Their corpses were worth very little.

Demons and ghosts existed in this world. First-rank demons and ghosts were comparable to Body Phase Realm Martial Artists, while second-rank ones were comparable to Skin Phase Realm Martial Artists.

The original owner had worked as a herb field handyman in Bamboo Forest Valley for several months. At most, he had encountered wild beasts and had never seen any ranked demons or ghosts.

It was said that certain ranked demons and ghosts could easily kill Martial Artists who had condensed Blood Qi. Ordinary Martial Artists simply could not withstand them.

Only official disciples of the Five Elements Sect, or veteran handymen who had stepped into the Martial Artist realm, could deal with them.

Qin Dongcheng was only at the mid-stage Body Phase right now and had barely fought a few times. If he encountered ranked demons or ghosts, he would be in serious trouble.

But ranked demons and ghosts were often astonishingly valuable. Their bodies contained all sorts of precious materials. For instance, a Monster Beast's fur, hide, blood, and flesh were all valuable, far surpassing unranked wild beasts.

Bamboo Forest Valley lay near the Five Elements Sect headquarters, where official disciples patrolled year-round. Thus, demons and ghosts rarely managed to invade this place.

Evening soon arrived. After finishing his work in the herb fields, Qin Dongcheng quietly went to a nearby village and left the ground rat corpses in several secluded spots.

The villagers would soon discover those ground rat corpses and take them home. Qin Dongcheng found ground rat meat unpalatable, but to these villagers, it was a rare delicacy.

He did not give all of them to the villagers. He also stored some ground rat meat in the Diligence Space, planning to make it into dried ground rat meat later. Should anything unexpected happen, it could serve as provisions.

After dinner that night, Qin Dongcheng practiced the Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist as usual, focusing mainly on the training forms while occasionally practicing the combat forms.

With the insights he had gained during the day, the Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist progressed rapidly. By midnight, he had actually raised it to the Minor Achievement Realm.

The higher one's realm in the Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist, the better its effects when improving one's physical constitution, and the easier it became to trigger all sorts of strange phenomena.

During combat and killing, it would also inflict greater harm upon enemies.

It was said that if one could cultivate the Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist to perfection while in the Body Phase Realm, there was a high chance of awakening a strange phenomenon. This was precisely why the Mount Tai Body Strengthening Fist could become one of the highest-ranked body-strengthening fist techniques in this world.

The original owner had chosen to join the Five Elements Sect because its various cultivation techniques and combat skills were among the finest in this world.

Yet his talent and aptitude had been too poor, and his comprehension was limited as well. He simply could not become an official disciple. If not for having studied medicine since childhood and possessing considerable knowledge of medicinal herbs, he would not even have qualified to become a chore disciple.

Even then, he had only made it because the Five Elements Sect had been urgently short of a batch of chore disciples at the time. Otherwise, he would have long since slunk away in disgrace.

After cultivating for several more days, Qin Dongcheng realized that his alchemy had reached a certain level and that he could proceed to the next stage of cultivation.