Skin Refining! Three Breaths Nine Breaks!

Leg Dao Divine Ability!

Lu Ming saw that he had gained a point of leg dao experience, and his heart surged with joy.

Sure enough, his guess was correct—cultivating a lightness skill martial art could evolve a new divine ability.

That meant if he continued cultivating other martial arts, like fist techniques or sword techniques, wouldn't they all be able to evolve into divine abilities?

In the future, he might possess ten thousand divine abilities, soaring through the sky and burrowing into the earth, capable of anything.

Lu Ming couldn't help but daydream, his heart stirring with excitement.

After a long while, he calmed down. The future was bright, but for now, he didn't have the opportunity to acquire that many secret manuals.

His daily cultivation time was also limited, so he could only focus on the present.

With demons and monsters stirring in the city, evolving a Leg Dao Divine Ability could greatly enhance his chances of survival.

He immediately decided to spend at least half of his daily time cultivating Grass Gliding.

Cultivating Grass Gliding would also increase his power, speeding up his breakthrough to become a Skin Refining martial artist, without delaying his cultivation progress much.

With that thought, he unhesitatingly brewed a packet of Qi-Nurturing Powder. It looked black and murky, with a strong smell of Chinese medicine.

Pinching his nose, he tilted his head back and downed it in one gulp.

Along with the bitter medicinal taste, a fiery medicinal force fell from his throat into his stomach, exploding like sparks inside him, surging through his limbs and bones.

Lu Ming felt his heart pounding, his blood boiling within him. Knowing the Qi-Nurturing Powder had taken effect, he immediately resumed cultivating Grass Gliding.

[Evolving Leg Dao Divine Ability (2/100)...]

[Evolving Leg Dao Divine Ability (3/100)...]

[Evolving Leg Dao Divine Ability (4/100)...]

[...]

Over the next five days, Lu Ming spent two hours each day cultivating Grass Gliding.

But each session of Grass Gliding took a long time, unlike the Nine Palace Living Stakes, which could be completed in a few breaths, so his experience grew slowly—only 15 points per day.

Even so, after five days, he was almost done grinding his leg dao experience.

[Evolving Leg Dao Divine Ability (75/100)...]

"Hoo—" In the small courtyard, Lu Ming finished the last round of Grass Gliding for the day, stood up to close his practice, and panted slightly as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel.

Though his body was exhausted, seeing his leg dao divine ability experience reach 75 filled him with excitement.

Soon, the day after tomorrow, he would evolve his first Leg Dao Divine Ability.

His first Acupoint Divine Ability was Heaven Leak, and it was with Heaven Leak that he had stepped into the Integrated Force level—it had helped him immensely.

He wondered what his first Leg Dao Divine Ability would evolve into, and anticipation swelled within him.

After a moment of reverie, he felt his body had rested enough, so he went to the Nine Palace Stakes to begin today's Wooden Tablet Nine Palace Stakes training.

"Tap tap tap..."

He was now very skilled at walking the stakes, gliding through them with a single step, moving flexibly and smoothly.

In less than three breaths, he exited the Nine Palace Stakes, accompanied by nine wooden tablet clacks, and reached the other side.

[Evolving Acupoint Divine Ability (162/10000)...]

"Keep going!" Lu Ming applied some injury ointment, rested a bit, and continued training.

[Evolving Acupoint Divine Ability (164/10000)...]

[Evolving...]

[Evolving Acupoint Divine Ability (200/10000)...]

The sun set in the west as Lu Ming finished the last round of Wooden Tablet Nine Palace Stakes, his whole body aching.

He glanced at his acupoint experience—steady progress, but the total of 10,000 made him wryly smile.

A few days ago, after evolving his second acupoint divine ability, Point Kill, he had trained the Nine Palace Living Stakes the next day and found that the acupoint divine ability could still evolve.

But the experience requirement had, as before, added another zero to the original 1,000, demanding a full 10,000 points to evolve the third acupoint divine ability.

Now, he only spent two hours a day on the stakes, gaining just 40 points of experience. At this rate, he would need over half a year to evolve the third acupoint divine ability.

Still, the two acupoint divine abilities, Heaven Leak and Point Kill, were very powerful and enough for him to use for a while, so he could accept this.

What bothered him more was that over these five days, using one packet of Qi-Nurturing Powder per day, he now had only one left.

"Eh?!" The Qi-Nurturing Powder worked well, and Lu Ming was thinking about how to get more packets, when he suddenly felt his blood and qi churning violently after this training session.

It was like waves crashing inside him, making his body feel swollen.

"This is..." Lu Ming's eyes widened slightly.

The next moment.

His blood and qi swelled rapidly, and the Integrated Force, which felt like compressed cotton, seemed to be refined along with it, transforming into a surge of blood and qi that traveled through the skin all over his body.

In just a few breaths, his body, honed through days of bitter training, finally underwent a transformation—his skin suddenly became tough and resilient.

As soon as he clenched his fist, he could clearly feel the skin all over his body fusing into one, his strength surging greatly!

Even the soreness from his earlier training seemed to have lessened considerably.

"Broken through! This is Skin Refining, the true realm of a martial artist!"

Lu Ming's heart surged with joy. "So this is... Blood-Qi Power?"

Lu Ming could sense strands of Blood-Qi Power within his body, condensed from his blood energy—the foundation of a martial artist.

And he could freely manipulate this Blood-Qi Power to coat his skin, greatly amplifying his strength.

"Martial arts... are truly amazing!" Lu Ming curiously experimented with various attempts.

That night, he fell asleep very late.

The next day, he rushed excitedly to the Martial Arts Arena.

Wei Jinlin hadn't arrived yet, but most of the disciples were already there.

Lu Ming glanced around, but furrowed his brow slightly—he hadn't seen Li Youning in the past few days.

Military Service Bureau disciples were generally not allowed to leave the bureau.

However, if one could pass a higher-level Nine Palace Stakes formation, namely the Stone Tablet Nine Palace Stakes, then they could come and go freely.

To pass the Stone Tablet Nine Palace Stakes, one needed the strength of a perfected Skin Refining realm. Li Youning had definitely reached that level. Perhaps she had gone out on business.

Soon, Wei Jinlin arrived. Lu Ming suppressed the distracting thoughts in his mind, stepped forward, and said:

"Master Wei, I can now achieve Three Breaths Nine Breaks."

Wei Jinlin's eyes flickered slightly as he stared at him and said:

"You're called Lu Ming, right? Give it a try."

A flash of confidence passed through Lu Ming's eyes as he approached a Wooden Tablet Nine Palace Stakes.

In truth, after acquiring the Point-Kill Divine Ability, as long as his body was in a normal state, his momentum was stronger than these lifeless wooden stakes.

He could shatter all the wooden stakes instantly with Point-Kill, without needing to break through to Skin Refining.

But that was meaningless. The purpose of demonstrating Three Breaths Nine Breaks before Wei Jinlin was to earn the right to live in the compound and train on the Stone Tablet Nine Palace Stakes.

Without reaching Skin Refining, he simply couldn't practice the Stone Tablet Nine Palace Stakes, so he waited until after his breakthrough to demonstrate.

"Slap slap slap..."

Lu Ming slid into a Mud-Wading Step, and immediately felt his skin tighten all over, unleashing the power of the Skin Refining realm.

With Blood-Qi Power bolstering him, he didn't use any finger techniques—just the palm strikes of the Nine Palace Living Stakes—yet he still broke nine wooden stakes in a row, easily reaching the other end within three breaths.

The nine sounds fell, and the entire arena fell silent.