Cultivation

The hour of You (5 PM to 7 PM).

Li Yun left the martial arts hall and headed home.

Third Senior Sister, Tiger Subduing Fist is at least at Great Success.

Looking at the progress of the Tiger Subduing Fist in his mind, Li Yun felt certain.

[Tiger Subduing Fist (Minor Success): 4653/10000]

After being guided by her, his proficiency had surged by nearly three hundred points.

Unfortunately, such opportunities were rare.

Earlier, it wasn't that he hadn't thought about sparring with her.

However, that path had already been trampled to death by other senior brothers.

When Yu Qingqing was hit on, she would at most refuse verbally, only resorting to force when she couldn't stand it anymore.

But Liu Lingyan would never say much to her junior brothers; she would go straight to sparring.

She would strike Dark Force into their bodies, leaving them bedridden for two or three days.

Gradually, no one dared to hit on her anymore.

Li Yun wasn't afraid of being beaten, but lying in bed for several days would delay the progress of his stance training, so after weighing the options, he hadn't gone to spar with her.

If there were an expert willing to spar unconditionally.

And he had no bottlenecks.

Li Yun didn't even dare to imagine how fast his fist technique could improve.

Lost in his thoughts, he was almost at his front door.

Catching a glimpse of the scene ahead, his heart skipped a beat.

Taking advantage of the fact that they hadn't noticed him, he turned into another alley.

Two people dressed in white were chatting with Li Yun's neighbor.

Li Yun had asked the broker about this neighbor when he bought the house.

They were a wealthy family who had fled from the south, having lost their child on the road, leaving only the couple behind.

The two people were flanking Lady Song, the neighbor.

The person in white on the left leaned forward, her voice trembling and choked with sobs:

"Sister Song, when my son went missing, I couldn't eat or sleep either, hugging his clothes and crying until dawn."

She gripped the corner of her garment as if touched by a painful memory, her throat bobbing:

"Later, after I joined the Unity Society, the brothers and sisters helped me inquire everywhere. There were people to talk to, so my heart slowly settled, and I could finally swallow a few bites of food."

The other person in white chimed in at the right moment, her voice even gentler and warmer:

"Our Unity Society exists to help these suffering people; who knows, maybe one day there will be news of your son, Sister Song."

"Can... can you really find him?"

Lady Song was clearly clutching at straws.

The person in white pressed her advantage:

"There is strength in numbers; having one more glimmer of hope is always better, isn't it?"

"Okay, I..."

Tap, tap.

Footsteps appeared abruptly.

Lady Song and the two in white turned their heads simultaneously to see Li Yun walking out from the intersection with an expressionless face.

Lady Song's expression remained unchanged, while the two in white exchanged a glance, a flicker of panic in their eyes.

Li Yun ignored them, walking past with a blank face until he reached his own door.

He opened the side gate and stepped inside.

Li Yun wouldn't interfere with such matters, nor could he manage them all.

If he happened upon it, he might interrupt it in passing.

But in all likelihood, Lady Song would still join the Unity Society.

That had nothing to do with him.

He walked a circle along the courtyard wall, where fine white stone powder was spread evenly...

After the full circle, all his small precautionary measures remained intact, with no signs of having been disturbed.

Finding nothing amiss, he went to the courtyard and began practicing his blade technique.

With a flick of his wrist, the blade whistled through the air, chopping, hacking, and slashing with clean, crisp movements, devoid of any hesitation.

The wind of the blade brushed past his ears, snapping sharply.

Blood Blade Technique relies on speed to mask its treachery, and treachery to conceal its lethality.

The blade moves appear as swift as lightning, but in reality, they secretly align with the positions of the Eight Trigrams and Hidden Gates.

Every stance contains the variation of three feints to one strike, pursuing a finishing blow that draws blood the moment the blade is drawn.

In the courtyard, the blade wind howled; every rise and fall of the stance was clean and decisive, without a shred of redundancy.

It fully displayed the ruthlessness and deviousness of this blade technique.

[Blood Blade Technique: +1]

[Blood Blade Technique (Entry): 12/5000]

With no one to guide him, he could only rely on the manual, mimicking the forms as best he could.

Fortunately, he had his golden finger as a safety net; every time he practiced according to the manual, he gained +1, and there were no bottlenecks.

Li Yun couldn't help but sigh at how truly excellent his talent was.

However, if he wanted to reach minor accomplishment quickly, continuing to practice like this simply wouldn't cut it.

He needed to spar, and he needed real combat.

That was no easy task.

Exhausted from practicing the blade, Li Yun returned to his bedroom, preparing to practice the Bone Shifting Technique.

This cultivation method was similar to a mental technique, requiring coordination with secret prescriptions at every stage.

Entry requires Crispy Bone Soup, minor accomplishment requires Marrow Nourishing Paste, and major accomplishment requires Bone Penetrating Pill.

The medicinal ingredients for the Crispy Bone Soup were still within a range Li Yun could accept, costing about one tael of silver per dose.

Li Yun went to different herbal shops, either buying larger quantities or purchasing other herbs alongside them.

He brought them back.

As for the ingredients for the Marrow Nourishing Paste, Li Yun had broken down the list and asked at the shops; the main ingredients alone would easily cost dozens or even hundreds of taels.

As for the ingredients for the Bone Penetrating Pill, the shopkeepers simply shook their heads upon seeing them, indicating they had never even heard of them.

In Li Yun's view, the effects of the Bone Shifting Technique were excellent.

For an ordinary person, bones are connected and bound by tendons; let alone moving them voluntarily, even a slight dislocation would be heart-wrenchingly painful.

Yet, this Bone Shifting Technique could turn the impossible into the possible.

It allowed for subtle shifting and dislocation, precisely avoiding vital points.

This technique also came with the effect of disguise.

There was no need for ointments or pastes; one only needed to adjust the subtle angles of the facial and shoulder bones to change one's silhouette.

Even one's height could be slightly altered through the fine-tuning of the spinal vertebrae.

In this world, there were too many variables.

If one day he needed to change his appearance and hide his tracks, this technique would surely prove incredibly useful.

In short, the more trump cards, the better.

He drank the prepared Crispy Bone Soup and sat cross-legged.

He silently recited the incantation:

Bones loosen like cotton, qi pulls like thread.

Will sinks into bone gaps, form changes with thought.

Bones guard vital points, the body has no flaws.

The moment his bones began to shift, a tidal wave of excruciating pain swept over him.

The tearing sensation deep within the bone gaps felt as if his tendons were being forcibly stretched and ground by blunt objects; every millimeter of movement was accompanied by piercing agony.

Cold sweat instantly seeped from Li Yun's forehead, sliding down his temples.

He gritted his teeth tightly, his muscles tensed, and his veins bulged.

The pain was so intense that his vision went black.

Bone shifting was inherently an act against nature, and pain was something one had to endure.

[Bone Shifting Technique: +1]

[Bone Shifting Technique (Not Yet Entered): 675/1000]

After a long while, Li Yun slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air, his breathing trembling slightly.

His face was as pale as paper, and the lingering pain still haunted his bone gaps.

Catching his breath and resting for a moment, he took out Introduction to Poisons and began to read.

The pain in his bones made it impossible for Li Yun to sleep.

He decided to schedule his reading for the end of the day.

It would alleviate the pain while ensuring no time went to waste.

A while later.

[Introduction to Poisons: +1]

[Introduction to Poisons (Uninitiated): 853/1000]

Li Yun had memorized the contents of the booklet, from the ratios of Knockout Powder to Yin-Yang Powder and everything in between.

The progress was slowing down.

Perhaps because it was knowledge-based, it was different; he would need to read more books to increase his proficiency faster.

Relying solely on one Introduction to Poisons was, in the end, a drop in the bucket.

He would need to verify his findings later on.

But for now, he had no choice but to keep flipping through the pages.

Days turned into weeks.

Every single day, Li Yun could clearly perceive himself growing stronger.

It was incredibly fulfilling.

The population of Crow Mountain City continued to swell, and someone even approached Li Yun to ask if he would sell his house for two hundred taels.

Li Yun refused, of course.

Occasionally, when returning from the martial arts hall, he would find traces of blood in the corner by the wall.

It was the result of the medicinal powders he had concocted himself, combined with his "Tetanus" iron shards.

At their worst, there were even people lying there.

And so, it continued until the end of December.

The year-end tournament was about to begin.