Initial Accomplishment

"Very good."

Chen Mu looked at the System Panel, and his heart settled.

His body had yet to recover from its soreness and numbness, but he was in no hurry to improve. After regaining a little strength, he first took a bath, washing the mud and grit from his body, before returning to his bedroom.

Once he had adjusted his condition and fully recovered, feeling the abundant blood and qi within him, he took a deep breath, summoned the System Panel again, and willed it to consume experience points and raise the Gold Jade Mo Pi Fa.

Buzz!!!

This time, the sensation was different from improving his saber techniques before.

When he improved his saber techniques, countless springs, summers, autumns, and winters, along with memories of innumerable fierce battles and martial contests, appeared out of nowhere. It was as though he had experienced them firsthand, everything pouring into his consciousness in an instant.

But when he improved the Gold Jade Mo Pi Fa, in that single instant, it felt as if he himself had become a pot of soup, filled with boiling blood and qi. Then a drop of hot oil fell into it, and in an instant, thousands upon thousands of bloody mists billowed upward.

"Hiss..."

There were no words to describe how it felt at that moment.

It was as though the skin-tempering experiences of an entire month, or even several months, had all been superimposed into that instant. Chen Mu's consciousness froze outright; the word pain was nowhere near enough to describe the sensation.

This had utterly surpassed the limits of what a human mind could endure, causing Chen Mu's consciousness to faint at once. Yet whether he was conscious or not, his body's transformation did not pause in the slightest.

His skin visibly changed. His originally wheat-colored body silently gained a faint jade-like sheen, flashing several times before slowly fading away and returning to normal.

Who knew how much time passed.

Chen Mu gradually woke.

He moved only slightly, yet waves of needle-like pain shot through the skin all over his body, making him nearly cry out. But he immediately gritted his teeth and endured it, stiffening in place without moving.

"Improving this Mo Pi Fa is far more brutal than improving saber techniques..."

Chen Mu endured the changes in his body and slowly adapted to them, thinking to himself with a grimace.

Although saber techniques were also poured into him all at once, they were ultimately only insubstantial memories and insights. Mo Pi Fa was completely different. What suddenly surged forth was genuine Medicinal Power. By some terrifying means, the System Panel had forcibly made his body absorb that Medicinal Power in an instant, continuously transforming it within an extremely short time.

For an ordinary person, suddenly bearing all the Medicinal Power required to advance from initial Skin Tempering to Mo Pi Minor Accomplishment would likely make their blood and qi flow in reverse, causing them to vomit three pints of blood and die on the spot. Yet the System Panel was incomparably domineering. Such Medicinal Power did not damage his flesh, organs, or viscera in the slightest, acting only upon his skin membranes. It was more like accelerating the process tens of thousands of times in an instant, rapidly transforming his skin membranes.

Though every inch of his skin was currently sending needle-pricking pain through him, leaving him afraid to move at all, Chen Mu could clearly sense that his blood and qi had become noticeably more vigorous than before.

This pain was not a side effect, either. His skin membranes had transformed too greatly in too short a time, leaving him somewhat unable to adapt.

As time passed.

That stinging sensation finally faded away little by little, and Chen Mu slowly sat up.

He carefully examined his arm. There was no obvious difference in either its color or surface, but when he lightly touched it with his fingers, he could clearly feel that the toughness of his skin membranes had improved considerably.

"So this is Mo Pi Minor Accomplishment."

Chen Mu slowly rose to his feet, clenched his fist, and threw several punches into the air.

Skin Tempering, Flesh Tempering, Tendon Transformation, Bone Tempering.

Each step was a process of tempering one's physique, advancing from the outside inward. The most crucial factor was one's own "blood and qi." The medicinal powder taken internally and applied externally was ultimately an outside aid; it could not completely replace the human body's own blood and qi. Otherwise, there would not be sayings like "a weak body cannot bear tonics."

After a martial artist reached thirty, progress in practicing a Body Tempering Method became slow. The reason was that after thirty, one's blood and qi had reached its peak. Before thirty, it was more about "strengthening," using every means to bolster blood and qi and stimulate its growth. After thirty, it became more about "nourishing," finding ways to nourish blood and qi and prevent it from declining.

Skin Tempering was the most basic and outermost step, but it was also the foundation.

What Chen Mu could clearly sense now was that the "warm current" within his body, which he had previously only been able to faintly perceive, had become much clearer. This was the blood and qi naturally generated by a strengthened physique.

"My punching and kicking strength has not increased much, but my stamina has certainly improved by quite a bit. If I swing my saber at full force, I might be able to hold out another quarter of an hour compared to usual..."

Chen Mu made a rough estimate.

Do not underestimate that quarter of an hour. Many times, when life and death hung in the balance, even a little more stamina, even one more saber strike, could be the difference between life and death. The explosive strength of a Skin Tempering martial artist might not differ much from that of an ordinary strong man, but in terms of stamina, the blood and qi condensed through strengthening the physique with Mo Pi Fa had already far surpassed that of ordinary people.

The other improvement was the strengthening of his skin membranes.

Chen Mu remembered Ren Yan's changes before and after. His skin had visibly become rougher and more textured, undoubtedly due to practicing Mo Pi Fa. But Chen Mu himself was entirely different.

The Gold Jade Mo Pi Fa bore the words "Gold Jade" in its name, clearly indicating that it caused the least damage to the body. Naturally, it was completely different from ordinary Mo Pi Fa. Thinking of Xu Hongyu, the Chief Constable, whose body was jade-like and crystal-clear, without the slightest hint of the roughness of Skin Tempering, this was clearly a unique trait of this Mo Pi Fa.

There was no visible change on the surface, but the strength of his skin membranes had truly increased.

Chen Mu walked outside, grabbed a handful of rough pebbles, and rubbed them across his arm.

In the past, even if this did not break the skin and draw blood, it would at least leave a large patch of white marks and cause stinging pain. But now, he felt only a faint sense of friction, without the slightest pain. Even the jagged, sharp edges on the rough pebbles left almost no marks on his skin membranes.

"Endurance, resistance."

Chen Mu tossed the pebbles aside and muttered the words.

The first step of this Body Tempering Method, Skin Tempering, clearly focused on improving these two aspects. Now that he had reached Mo Pi Minor Accomplishment and his skin membranes had become tough, he still could not withstand sharp blades, but ordinary wooden clubs and blunt weapons would not be able to harm him unless wielded with sufficient force.

Unlike before, when he possessed fierce saber techniques but had a frail body. If he faced an encirclement by many vicious criminals and was struck once or twice through a moment of carelessness, he might have capsized in the gutter on the spot. Now, the likelihood of that happening had greatly decreased.

"Skill and physique complement one another. Only with a tougher physique can I fight more freely in battle and bring Saber Force techniques into play to the fullest."

Chen Mu revealed a thoughtful expression.

Thinking back on it now, he had truly taken an enormous advantage when he killed Tang Quan that day. Not only had Tang Quan's chest been pierced by Xu Hongyu's sword, leaving him with an almost fatal wound, but Chen Mu had then blinded him with lime, preventing him from even bringing out his techniques.

On top of that, Chen Mu's saber techniques had already reached the realm of Saber Force. Only then had he been able to split Tang Quan's skin membranes with one strike, cut his throat, and deliver the final fatal blow. Otherwise, even ten ordinary people wielding sharp weapons would likely have been slaughtered clean by the severely wounded Tang Quan.

Mo Pi Minor Accomplishment was only the first step, but for Chen Mu, it also meant taking a brand-new step forward.

With the System Panel's efficiency, the path of Skin Tempering that would take ordinary people two or three years could be drastically shortened for him!