Weighted Training

Li Hanche raised a hand in acknowledgment.

Then he got into Zhou Ping's carriage and returned to the villa.

Qingluo and Baiwei were already waiting at the door.

There was something indescribable in their eyes—heartache, admiration, or perhaps a faint, underlying worry. It was hard to tell.

"Young Master is back."

Qingluo took his schoolbag.

Li Hanche nodded, entered the living room, sat down on the sofa, and looked at the two maids.

"Where's yesterday's whip?"

Qingluo and Baiwei exchanged glances, and both their expressions changed.

"Young Master, the wounds on your back have only just healed..."

"If they've healed, we can continue."

"You can use more force today. I've adapted faster than expected."

Qingluo opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but when she met Li Hanche's eyes—calm in a way no six-year-old's should have been—she swallowed the words that had reached her lips.

Baiwei silently turned around and went to fetch the whip.

It was a full size thicker than yesterday's, heavy in the hand.

Li Hanche took off his shirt, walked to the center of the living room, and turned his back to them.

His lean yet straight back bore no trace of yesterday's wounds. His skin was as smooth as before.

"Come on."

The sound of the whip slicing through the air rang through the living room.

Li Hanche's body tensed slightly, but far less than it had yesterday.

The pain was still intense, but his tolerance had improved—not merely his body's ability to endure it, but his mental endurance as well.

The Mind-Clarity and Nature-Seeing Art had sharpened his senses, but it had also greatly raised his threshold for enduring pain.

Because he could clearly distinguish between pain that signaled genuine injury and pain that was merely the body's response to growing stronger.

The Tyrant Body Art circulated rapidly within him. A warm current surged toward his back, beginning to repair and strengthen it.

Qingluo's lashes grew heavier, and her hand grew steadier, because she could see the changes in Li Hanche's back.

The red welts began healing at a visible rate the moment they appeared. Once healed, the faint copper sheen on his skin would glimmer briefly before fading back into stillness.

She finally believed him.

This six-year-old child was not fooling around. He truly was cultivating a system unlike anything they had ever heard of.

Being beaten was not punishment to him, nor was it self-harm. It was tempering.

Baiwei stood to one side, clutching the hem of her clothes with both hands, her eyes reddening. The impulse she had felt yesterday to rush forward and stop this had vanished.

She merely watched in silence, watching that small, thin figure remain unmoving beneath the lashes, watching the copper glow on his back flare up again and again.

No one knew how long it went on.

The whip stopped.

It was not Li Hanche who called for it to stop. Qingluo stopped on her own.

Her hand was trembling—not from fear, but from exhaustion.

Li Hanche turned around. The red welts on his back were fading at a visible rate.

Fine beads of sweat covered his forehead, but his eyes were as clear as a deep pool.

"Thank you for your hard work."

He said it to Qingluo.

Then he bent down, picked up his shirt from the floor, shook it out, draped it over himself, and headed upstairs.

His figure was thin, but his spine was straight.

Baiwei watched his back disappear around the turn of the stairs, then suddenly spoke in a low voice.

"Sister Qingluo, what kind of person do you think Young Master will become in the future?"

Qingluo lowered her head to look at the leather whip in her hand, stained with faint traces of blood. Her voice was very soft.

"I don't know."

She paused.

"But he'll definitely become someone terrifying."

Upstairs, Li Hanche sat by the bed without lying down right away.

He closed his eyes, his consciousness operating both cultivation arts at once.

The Nine-Turn Tyrant Body Art repaired the damage to his back, converting every trace of external force into nourishment for his body.

The bones beneath his flesh were already beginning to undergo subtle changes under the Tyrant Body Art's tempering, becoming denser and harder.

Before long, these hands would be able to wield the Dark Nether Ice Soul Spear and truly set foot on the path he had chosen.

He lay down and turned onto his side, avoiding the faint lingering prickling pain in his back.

The rest day arrived soon enough.

Physical combat training—that was how he explained it to Qingluo and Baiwei.

But to any normal person, it looked like a six-year-old child being beaten up one-sidedly by two adult Soul Masters taking turns.

On the stone-paved ground of the courtyard, Li Hanche stood barefoot, iron weights bound to his hands, feet, and torso.

He had asked Qingluo to have those weights custom-made by a blacksmith a few days ago. They were forged from pure iron without any flashy decorations, each piece heavy and solid.

The two weights on his wrists were ten jin each, and the two on his ankles were also ten jin each. The iron vest wrapped around his chest and abdomen weighed as much as thirty jin.

Altogether, he carried more than seventy jin of weight.

For a six-year-old child, that weight already exceeded his own body weight.

Qingluo and Baiwei stood two steps in front of him, one to the left and one to the right. Both had changed into fitted clothes suitable for movement, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows to reveal fair, toned forearms.

Their faces bore an unusual expression. They could not bear to go all out.

Because Li Hanche had given them a strict order.

"Treat me as a real enemy. Don't hold back. Don't go easy on me."

The seriousness in his eyes when he said it made the two maids swallow all the words of persuasion that had risen to their lips.

Qingluo moved first.

She was a level twenty-eight agility-type Soul Master, and her speed was outstanding among those of the same rank.

With a light tap of her foot, she darted toward Li Hanche's left side. Her right hand came together like a blade, carrying a modest gust of force as it chopped toward his shoulder and neck.

She had held back half her strength in that strike, but not her speed.

Yet Li Hanche reacted faster than she had expected.

His body sank slightly as he drove his left shoulder upward into Qingluo's hand blade.

His shoulder, covered by the iron vest, collided with her strike with a dull bang.

Qingluo felt as if the edge of her palm had struck an iron plate wrapped in cowhide. The rebounding force made her palm go slightly numb.

Li Hanche merely swayed at the waist, his feet rooted firmly to the ground.

The first turn of the Nine-Turn Tyrant Body Art, "Copper Skin," combined with weight training, had raised his physical strength to an astonishing level in just a few days.

Baiwei attacked immediately after.

She was a level twenty-five control-type Soul Master. She was slower than Qingluo, but her timing and angles were far trickier.

Her martial soul was a Silver Silk Soft Whip. In her hand, it became a silver arc that curled around from Li Hanche's right, aiming for his ankle in an attempt to trip him.

Li Hanche's response was straightforward. He stomped down hard with his right foot.

The weight around his ankle, combined with his own strength, slammed into the stone pavement with a dull tremor.

The vibration disrupted Baiwei's soft whip, knocking its tip half an inch off course. It brushed past his ankle without managing to wrap around it.

But this exposed his back.

Qingluo seized the opportunity. With a turn of her body, she had already circled behind him and drove her palm into his back.

The strike landed squarely on the iron vest, its force penetrating through the armor.

Li Hanche let out a muffled grunt and staggered two steps forward, nearly falling.

But he forcibly steadied himself on the third step. Twisting his feet and rotating his waist, he swept his right arm, wrapped in iron, at Qingluo behind him.

There was no technique in that sweep whatsoever—only brute force.