Second Bone Tempering

At dusk, Lu Hao returned home. He had slaughtered 60 pigs today; it wasn't that Lu Hao was slow, but rather the transport speed at the facility was fixed, averaging one pig every five minutes.

If he slaughtered too many at once, the subsequent processing steps would cause major trouble, leading to spoilage from excessive accumulation.

In the evening, after eating dinner with his mother.

Lu Hao explained that he intended to make a breakthrough tonight and asked his mother to stand guard. After all, as a Rank 5 martial artist, his mother could intervene in time if any complications arose.

Arriving in the martial arts training room, Lu Hao glanced at his panel.

[Slaughter Point System]

[Host: Lu Hao]

[Vitality: 179/179 cal+]

[Mentality: 269/269 Hz+]

[Storage Space: 1 cubic meter]

[Slaughter Points: 232]

Lu Hao was currently at his peak state, making it the perfect time for a breakthrough.

Lu Hao looked at his mother and nodded. He swallowed a Blood Vitality Pill, then began his stance training while simultaneously circulating the Tempering Method.

He then focused his consciousness on the plus sign behind his vitality value.

[Spend 100 Slaughter Points to increase vitality cap by 1 point?]

Confirm.

As Lu Hao's consciousness shifted, he suddenly felt countless surges of vitality energy rushing through him. Ahead lay a barrier; once he broke through this gate, he would achieve his second bone tempering.

Standing to the side, Bai Qiuyao watched Lu Hao, who was holding his stance, with a worried expression. Her right hand tightly gripped a jade bottle containing a Life Recovery Pill, worth over 6 million on the market. If Lu Hao's breakthrough failed, this pill could restore him to his original state.

However, Bai Qiuyao was more concerned about her son's mindset. Every true martial artist must possess their own invincible, undefeated momentum to reach the high-ranking Grandmaster level.

If he failed this time and a seed of doubt was planted, it might prevent him from merging his essence and blood later on, thereby making it impossible to break through to Grandmaster.

Lu Hao, meanwhile, could feel how powerful the vitality energy surging through him was. Logically, his meridians should never have been able to withstand such immense force.

Yet, for some reason, this vitality energy did not damage his meridians at all. It seemed this was the power of the system.

An hour passed.

When Lu Hao circulated the Tempering Method for the fourth time.

Suddenly, Lu Hao felt the barrier blocking him being shattered. His vitality cap began to increase.

His entire skeleton began to shift, and his flesh and blood trembled. Having already undergone one round of bone tempering, Lu Hao was overjoyed, as this meant his second bone tempering had begun.

On the surface of his skin, tiny beads of black, filthy blood were squeezed out; the impurities within his body were being expelled.

Lu Hao dared not slack off and quickly held his stance; now was the time when the stance training was most effective.

Seeing blood beginning to seep from the surface of Lu Hao's body, Bai Qiuyao, who was standing to the side, finally relaxed. She could see that the blood being expelled contained many impurities.

This meant that Lu Hao had indeed succeeded and had begun his second bone tempering. The most difficult step had been cleared; even if he were to lie down and do nothing now, his vitality would automatically temper his bones.

Watching her youngest son reach the point of second bone tempering, Bai Qiuyao couldn't help but think of Tian Bai. Both of them had reached second bone tempering.

If the Magic City Abyss did not exist, their paths ahead would have been perfectly smooth.

Unfortunately, there were no "ifs."

If it weren't for the sake of Hao'er, she might have charged into the Magic City Abyss the moment she received the news.

Bai Qiuyao couldn't help but lose herself in thought. Martial artists appeared invincible and peerless, but the pain in their hearts was something only they truly understood.

The Abyss must be destroyed.

Half an hour later, Lu Hao had turned into a "black man." From the outside, there wasn't a single clean spot on his entire body.

Lu Hao stopped his stance training and the Tempering Method. The second bone tempering was complete. The next step was to increase his vitality until it reached 199, then proceed to the third bone tempering or break through to become a formal martial artist.

Lu Hao immediately opened his panel to check.

[Slaughter Point System]

[Host: Lu Hao]

[Vitality: 120/187 cal+]

[Mentality: 170/279 Hz+]

[Storage Space: 1 cubic meter]

[Slaughter Points: 132]

The effect was astonishing. With the second bone tempering, his vitality cap had increased by 8 cal, and his mentality had increased by 10 Hz.

His vitality cap had risen to 187; he was only 12 cal away from the limit of the second bone tempering. Once he reached that, he could find a way to break through and proceed to the third bone tempering.

However, the greatest benefit of the second bone tempering wasn't just that. It was that all his bones had been tempered once. Now, all 206 bones in Lu Hao's body were 20% tempered.

This would greatly accelerate his speed during the subsequent low-rank bone tempering, especially since even his skull was 20% tempered, which meant that when he reached Rank 7 to temper his skull, the process would be much faster.

Therefore, Lu Hao would not simply break through to become a martial artist after just the second bone tempering. With the help of the panel, he was definitely going to complete the third bone tempering before breaking through.

The bonus provided by tempering 30% of his entire skeletal structure, along with the subsequent improvements to his cultivation, would be immeasurable.

Lu Hao attempted to use Slaughter Points to increase his Vitality cap, and the result was a success; it required 50 Slaughter Points to increase his Vitality value by one point.

It seemed that the previous breakthrough had required so many Slaughter Points because it was a bottleneck, whereas normal increases were much more affordable.

Lu Hao raised his head, looked at his mother with a smile, and shook his arm.

"Mom, look, I succeeded! I've reached the second stage of Bone Tempering."

"Mm-hmm, Hao'er, you did it," Bai Qiuyao said with a smile.

"I'm going to go wash up first; otherwise, I'm covered in all this filthy blood and grime."

As Lu Hao spoke, he headed toward the washroom. His entire body was covered in sticky, foul-smelling blood. If he hadn't needed to practice his stance training during the second stage of Bone Tempering, he wouldn't have been able to stand it for this long.

"Go on, go wash up. We can talk about your gains once you come out."

Lu Hao entered the washroom, and as he showered, he began to think.

He had now taken his first step in this world. What followed would be a step-by-step process: increasing his Vitality, reaching the limit of the third stage of Bone Tempering, and finally breaking through to become a Rank-1 Martial Artist.

The benefits of the second stage of Bone Tempering were already so obvious that with the help of his panel, Lu Hao, who lacked nothing in terms of talent, naturally intended to pursue the third stage of Bone Tempering.

Lu Hao remembered that the difficulty of the third stage of Bone Tempering lay in nourishing one's Vitality to reach the limit of 199. This step alone required a significant amount of time; Lu Hao's case was different only because he had Slaughter Points to make the process simple.

An average person would have to spend half a year just on this, while also constantly purchasing medicinal pills to assist in increasing their Vitality, costing several million.

Even after that, they might still fail to break through the barrier, let alone achieve the third stage of Bone Tempering. Therefore, the limit for most people was the second stage of Bone Tempering.

As for the third stage of Bone Tempering, Lu Hao remembered that in the original story, only Xie Lei from Magic Martial University had achieved it, but he had been dragged down by the process, his cultivation speed becoming too slow. After him, there was the protagonist, Fang Ping, who naturally succeeded in the third stage of Bone Tempering with the help of his system.

With the help of his panel, Lu Hao would naturally have no problem achieving the third stage of Bone Tempering.

His entire body felt much lighter in the water, and he felt a sense of ease with every breath he took. It seemed that the hidden benefits of expelling impurities from his body were slowly manifesting.

After washing up, although he hadn't yet recovered to his peak, Lu Hao could feel his Vitality circulating more quickly and clearly.