After eating meat for three days straight, Li Su could feel the difference.
The internal energy in his body no longer pricked him as much. It wasn't that the energy had become less piercing; rather, his body had grown more capable of bearing it.
Not only that, he could feel his physical strength improving.
It wasn't the sort of change where something that had been difficult to lift yesterday suddenly felt easy today. It was an improvement that was hard to describe in words—a feeling of growing stronger.
As proof, he was getting hungry faster.
On the first day, one pork knuckle had been enough to fill him up.
By the third day, he felt he could eat another half.
Seeing Li Su's condition, Tianming simply increased the amount of meat and had him keep eating until he was full.
A week later, Li Su once again went to Tianming's meditation room.
Tianming took out a porcelain bottle and handed it to Li Su. "You don't need to eat meat today. From now on, whenever you're cultivating and feel a needle-pricking sensation as your qi circulates through your body, take out one of these and swallow it. Once the prickling eases, resume your cultivation. There are a hundred pills inside. Come back to see me when you've used them up."
Li Su took the bottle and nodded, then returned to his normal routine.
The pills in the bottle were probably supplements meant to aid cultivation of Arhat Gong.
When he returned to the usual place where he swept and practiced, Xuanci and the others had already arrived and were all cultivating.
Li Su thought for a moment, picked up his tools, and began cleaning for the day.
About an hour later, he put all the tools away, sat down, and began cultivating Arhat Gong.
Nearly two weeks had passed. He closed his eyes and visualized, and soon Li Su fell into the familiar rhythm.
The qi in his body was once again being cultivated after a long break.
He visualized the Arhat to refine his qi.
The Arhat's form was like fire, ceaselessly tempering the qi in Li Su's body.
Feeling his qi diminish bit by bit, Li Su opened his eyes about an hour later, a trace of surprise in them.
His qi refinement had become faster.
More accurately, visualizing the Arhat had become easier. Before, he could only see it vaguely, and trying to focus on it consumed tremendous energy and left him exhausted. Now he could see it more clearly.
Was it because of his physical strength?
His qi hadn't changed much, yet visualization had become easier. The only possible explanation was that the meat he'd been eating continuously these past few days had provided ample nutrition and thoroughly strengthened his body.
Essence, qi, and spirit—no wonder the ancients so often grouped these three together.
When qi was abundant, essence flourished; when essence was full, the spirit was strong.
Li Su took a deep breath, unable to keep the smile from his face. The unexpected problem with Arhat Gong had been resolved, and things had clearly returned to the right track. He had revealed a few things about himself, but without doing so, there was no way he would have gotten the medicine now in his arms, let alone pork knuckles for seven days in a row.
Of course, becoming famous meant Li Su could hardly keep cultivating in secret.
But it didn't matter. If you wanted something, you had to give something up, didn't you? Besides, Xuancheng and Xuanci would be taking the heat ahead of him, wouldn't they?
After all, even though he had mastered Arhat Gong, when it came to martial arts, he couldn't beat Xuannan and the others, let alone Xuanci, who was a little stronger, or Xuancheng, the strongest of them all.
Li Su got to his feet, walked down the steps, and joined Xuanci and the others in training.
Of course, he was still practicing the most basic Arhat Fist.
Xuanci and the others were used to it. They didn't understand why Li Su kept clinging to Arhat Fist, but they knew that although Shaolin Temple's Arhat Fist was only a beginner-level technique, that didn't mean its ceiling was low. At the very least, even Xuancheng would struggle to withstand three moves from Tianming's Arhat Fist.
So even though Xuancheng had already made some progress with Great Strength Vajra Palm, he had turned around and begun seriously practicing the entry-level Vajra Palm. After all, simple didn't mean easy to learn.
Morning lessons, work, and fist training.
One day, then another, and another.
There wasn't much to do for amusement in ancient times.
With Xuancheng, a martial arts fanatic, among the group, everyone trained extremely hard.
Xuanci in particular, despite his naturally restless temperament, had the pride of a young man. Xuancheng had been holding him down ever since they began cultivating, and he naturally refused to accept it.
Once he began falling behind in Vajra Palm, he started putting in extra practice. As long as Xuancheng didn't leave, he wouldn't leave either. No one knew how long he could keep up that level of hard work, but it undoubtedly spurred Xuannan and the others on.
At this point in time, they weren't eminent monks who had cast aside everything. They were just a bunch of young boys.
After morning lessons, they generally began training, and over the course of a day they spent about four shichen doing so.
Moreover, Li Su gradually realized that their group enjoyed considerable privileges at Shaolin Temple.
Their masters and uncles were easygoing with them, and they were assigned very little work. For over a year, the tasks they had to do had always been limited to the area where they trained. They were never assigned things like hauling water or chopping wood, and at mealtimes, the few of them could eat until they were full.
After a while, Li Su more or less understood.
At Shaolin Temple, the eight of them were probably the leaders of this generation of the Xuan rank—in more familiar terms, they were practically true disciples.
It made sense. Shaolin Temple wasn't like the temples of the real world; it was one of the martial arts sects, with fierce competition both within and beyond its walls. Naturally, it would devote itself to nurturing talented disciples. Just look at Xuanci: in his thirties, he was already able to lead the martial world and rally so many fighters to head to Yanmen Pass and intercept Xiao Yuanshan. Those men were all experts. Without Shaolin Temple's deliberate cultivation, how could Xuanci have earned such prestige?
Don't say they weren't experts. They absolutely were. They might not have been able to beat Xiao Feng or Xiao Yuanshan, but what kind of men were those two? Even before joining Shaolin Temple, Xiao Yuanshan had been an instructor of the Liao Kingdom's Imperial Guard. There was no need to question his martial prowess.
With the biggest flaw in cultivating Arhat Gong now corrected, Li Su naturally increased his training.
He worked especially hard at practicing Arhat Fist.
As his body strengthened his spirit, cultivating Arhat Gong became increasingly smooth. The qi he built up from practicing Arhat Fist eight times a day wasn't enough to refine.
So he increased it to ten repetitions a day, then twelve, then eighteen.
Moreover, the more qi he built up, the more he could refine. Li Su's qi grew rapidly, and in turn it kept stimulating his body to grow stronger. Arhat Gong was further perfected and became ever more wondrous.
Of course, Li Su was different from Xuancheng. He wasn't the sort who would keep training as long as he could. He understood the importance of balancing work and rest, and he hadn't expected to become invincible in this first life—not in the World Fragment, either. Everything he did was ultimately for the real world.
After training harder for a while, Li Su began adjusting his routine.
With the pills he had, he took one every three days, practiced Arhat Fist twelve times a day, and cultivated Arhat Gong for an hour.
As he slowed down and found a balance, his progress wasn't as fast, but training became much more manageable.
Gradually, gradually.
The Arhat grew clearer and clearer. He could see it perfectly whenever he visualized, and bit by bit, Li Su began to make out details. In the space around the Arhat, there were one Arhat after another.
Faced with this, Li Su more or less understood.
Arhat Gong was probably fully mastered once he could see all the Arhats.
It had taken him nearly a year to reach the Circulation Realm in Arhat Fist. Judging by how things were going, Arhat Gong would take a year at the earliest and two at the latest.