I Had an Epiphany?

These past few days.

Every evening after dinner, Chen Fan would wander through public places nearby—teahouses, pleasure houses, inns, and the like.

He probed indirectly, quietly gathering and investigating intelligence on Pi Liu and his men.

He had gained something. Pi Liu truly was no ordinary man; he had once briefly displayed his strength, and taking on more than a dozen ordinary people alone was no problem for him. He might be a martial artist as well.

At the same time.

Chen Fan kept searching for ways to increase the idle-training efficiency of his martial arts.

Unfortunately, he had found nothing all along...

That day, the sun set.

Chen Fan pushed open the gate and entered the courtyard.

His little niece Chen Xi's giggles drifted over.

The little girl was too young to remember much. Free of worries, she ran back and forth through the courtyard.

Not far ahead of her, a huge fat tabby cat was sprawled on the ground.

It turned out that the neighbor's tabby had somehow sneaked into their home.

Strangely enough, Sophora Street lay on the outskirts of town—one could even call it the countryside. Most families could barely keep themselves fed, and having meat once in a while was no easy thing, yet this tabby had grown huge and plump.

Little Chen Xi pounced toward the big cat.

With a leap, the cat sprang onto the wall in a few bounds and quickly escaped outside.

Though fat and round, it was astonishingly agile!

The little girl waved her hands in disappointment. Then, seeing her uncle return home, she happily scampered over and threw herself into his arms.

Chen Fan's eldest brother was deeply chauvinistic.

He clung to many feudal bad habits, favoring sons over daughters and greatly disdaining his wife for giving birth only to a girl.

Chen Xi was three and a half years old and still too young to remember much. She had received little fatherly affection and liked her uncle Chen Fan better.

The name Chen Xi had been given to the girl by Chen Fan after his transmigration.

Old Chen had no learning to speak of.

Chen Xi revealed two little dimples and called unclearly, "Little Dad! Little Dad!"

Local custom had children call their uncles Little Dad.

Her father had been absent these past few days, yet the little girl did not miss him in the slightest. Instead, because Chen Fan had improved their meals and they ate meat nearly every day, she had grown more and more cheerful.

Of course, Chen Fan's improved meals had also earned him no small amount of nagging from his sister-in-law. After all, the enormous pressure of twenty taels still hung over their heads.

Smiling, Chen Fan picked the little girl up.

As he continued forward, however, he suddenly froze.

The characters before his eyes had undergone a wondrous change.

[You observed the tabby cat's movements and entered a state of epiphany, gaining a deeper understanding of Tiger Fist.]

Chen Fan was utterly dumbfounded.

"When the hell did I have an epiphany?"

He had just watched that tabby spin and leap. He had not had any thoughts at all, nor had he felt anything unusual...

This was a far cry from the legendary epiphany, wasn't it?

At that instant, Chen Fan suddenly felt an itchy, tingling sensation around his fists.

It gave him an irresistible urge to practice Tiger Fist again.

He immediately set Chen Xi down.

Then he stood in the small courtyard and began practicing once more.

At first, the few forms were still somewhat sluggish, but after running through them several times, they became smoother and smoother, flowing like drifting clouds and running water.

As he threw his punches, Chen Fan himself entered an inexplicable state.

Scenes of the tabby cat leaping kept flashing through his mind.

Heat also began streaming from his entire body.

He seemed able to feel a scorching current circulating through both arms.

He suddenly threw a punch forward.

Pa!

The air surged, and a crisp crack rang out from nowhere.

At Chen Fan's ears, it seemed as though he heard a fierce tiger roar.

At the entrance to the main room some distance away, the little girl sat on a small stool. Seeing Chen Fan draw back his fist and stand tall, she excitedly clapped her little hands.

"Amazing! So amazing!"

Chen Fan let out a breath, then looked into the empty air before him.

[Your understanding of Tiger Fist has greatly improved. The cultivation progress of the second form of Tiger Fist has increased by 50%. Your idle-training efficiency for Tiger Fist has increased.]

The number marking Tiger Fist's progress shot from 11% to 61% in an instant, leaving Chen Fan stunned.

His face was filled with delight.

These past days, he had kept trying to improve and raise his idle-training speed, yet he had never found a way.

He had been ready to give up, only for the willow trees to part and bright flowers to appear.

It could even directly increase his cultivation progress!

Though the method was rather strange...

But thinking it over carefully, Tiger Fist was a boxing art created by observing tigers in motion. Tigers were feline animals too, so there really was a tiny thread of connection between them and a tabby cat.

"My comprehension may be quite good, but it can't be so good that watching a tabby cat move would give me an epiphany... It must have happened to meet some hidden condition of the idle-training system..."

Chen Fan pondered thoughtfully.

"Watching a tabby cat can give me an 'epiphany,' improving my training efficiency and progress. If I could see a real tiger, then wouldn't that mean..."

Chen Fan could not help letting his imagination run wild.

But he quickly shook his head again.

"With my three-legged-cat skills, I probably wouldn't even be enough to fill a tiger's teeth."

Chen Fan was no fool. He had no desire to give a tiger an extra meal.

Besides, even at the original efficiency, he would need at most two months to finish cultivating Tiger Fist. There was no need at all to risk his life just to watch a tiger!

If he lost his life, wouldn't that be a case of losing more than he gained?

"Right, the prompt said my idle-training efficiency for Tiger Fist has increased. I wonder by how much?"

He checked the automatic cultivation efficiency again. He could now complete about 12% progress per day.

His cultivation efficiency had increased by nearly one-third!

After doing some quick calculations, Chen Fan found that Tiger Fist, which originally would have taken nearly forty more days to complete, now needed only around twenty more days. It would be complete in less than a month—at least ten days earlier.

"I wonder what that heat current in my body was when I practiced martial arts in that 'epiphany' state. Could it have been the legendary hidden force?"

Unfortunately, he did not understand even the slightest bit of martial arts common sense.

Guessing blindly could never give him the answer.

And after leaving that state of "epiphany," he could no longer sense that heat current in his body.

"I know nothing about martial arts. I still need to join a martial arts school."

Chen Fan clenched his fist.

However, joining a martial arts school required an enrollment fee.

It was easily dozens of taels of silver, something Chen Fan simply could not afford right now.

As his thoughts turned, a new wild idea soon emerged in his heart.

"I wonder whether this golden finger can only idle-train one martial art at a time, or multiple ones. If it can handle multiple tasks at once..."

Chen Fan's eyes gleamed.

Ever since he began practicing Tiger Fist, his physique had grown stronger and stronger. If he practiced several more martial arts, then with all those bonuses stacked together, wouldn't he become even more powerful?

That epiphany from watching the tabby cat happened only once.

No matter how Chen Fan observed the cat's movements afterward, he could not trigger it a second time.

It left Chen Fan quite helpless.

These days, Chen Fan had improved their meals, bought Tiger Fist, and still had the money promised to Pi Liu this month. The family's few taels of savings were clearly about to run out.

So he asked Steward Hou to advance one month of wages.

It was only because Steward Hou thought highly of Chen Fan that he made this special exception, allowing him to draw three taels of silver in advance.

A few days later, carrying the silver he had prepared, Chen Fan went to the Flying Tiger Sect again. He wanted to run into the slovenly man from that day and buy a few more manuals.

He went for two or three days before finally seeing that slovenly fellow for the second time.

The man was still lingering outside the Flying Tiger Sect's hall.

Overjoyed, Chen Fan immediately approached him.

"I finally found you!"

At the sight of Chen Fan, the man's expression changed slightly. Then he immediately put on an act, adopting a baffled expression.

"Little brother, have you mistaken me for someone else?"

He was actually pretending not to know him!

Chen Fan gave a bitter smile. Knowing what the man was thinking, he said, "Don't misunderstand. I'm not here to return the goods!"