Effort Always Brings Rewards

In the unseen depths, a message merged into Chen Jue's mind.

It told him that the miraculous "Diligence Rewards Log" before him was his innate talent, which had accidentally awakened when he was on the verge of death!

With this talent, not a single drop of sweat would be shed in vain!

And for every measure of effort, he could gain up to three measures of reward!

One measure came from his own sweat, one from Reward for Diligence, and one from external spiritual energy.

Chen Jue's hands were empty at the moment, so he naturally had no external spiritual energy to provide.

Therefore, the Diligence Rewards Log directly settled his gains for the day at a 1.5x multiplier.

A golden tome floated above Chen Jue's head, absorbing the scattered spiritual energy around it and turning it into golden threads that descended into his body.

[Reward Settlement]

[You used wound salve and recovered from part of your injuries. Light injuries have been converted into minor injuries.]

[You held a stance for 1 hour, increasing your qi and blood slightly. Qi and Blood Realm Level Nine (89.1%→89.2%)]

[You practiced saber techniques 3.5 times. Six Directions Saber Art proficiency has increased to (940/10000).]

Cool medicinal power repaired his gunshot wound.

Warm qi and blood seeped into his veins.

His saber-practice experience embedded itself into his mind and muscle memory.

"It was actually real!"

Chen Jue's face flushed red, and he was wild with joy.

He had never imagined that such a heaven-shaking stroke of fortune would fall onto his head because of a single musket shot!

With such a monstrous talent, whether he practiced the saber, held a stance, or swallowed medicine, he would gain "multiplied" growth compared to others from now on.

And aside from consuming external spiritual energy, this growth required no additional time, manpower, resources, or other costs from him!

This was simply a peerless deal that yielded ten thousandfold profit from a single investment!

No wonder martial artists everywhere racked their brains trying to awaken their innate talents!

Even an innate talent like his, based on a "laborer mechanism," was already this heaven-defying.

He did not dare imagine just how terrifying those peerless prodigies who had awakened "some divine body" or "some sacred body" truly were!

"I've been far too lazy!"

"At my age, at this stage, how can I possibly sleep?!"

As if he had been injected with chicken blood, Chen Jue sprang from the bed. Enduring his still-unhealed gunshot wound, he stood with his feet parallel and knees slightly bent, assuming the Divine Dynasty's strongest stance art—Primordial Unity One-Qi Stance.

This stance art was anything but ordinary. It could help martial artists cultivate qi and blood to the greatest extent possible and forge a solid foundation.

Back when the foreign races marched south and the Divine Land lay in turmoil, the Martial Ancestor Emperor had created it through painstaking effort, combining the foundational martial arts of countless schools in order to train a powerful new army.

At the time, many profound martial techniques and internal arts had been bestowed alongside this stance art.

But once peace had returned to the realm, ninety-nine percent of the martial techniques and cultivation arts in the world had been reclaimed jointly by the emperor and the great clans.

Only Primordial Unity One-Qi Stance, due to its low threshold and widespread dissemination, remained a qi-and-blood stance art cultivated by all the people.

And Primordial Stance truly lived up to its title as "the best under heaven."

From the moment Chen Jue assumed the rounded stance, the circular force naturally arising within him ground his internal organs, limbs, and bones like a millstone, causing faint, nearly imperceptible "currents" to emerge and slowly flow into his bloodstream.

These weak "currents" were the qi and blood that Primordial Stance Art squeezed from a martial artist's body.

Chen Jue's martial talent was above average, and his stance art had already reached the point of consummate mastery. As long as he stood for one full hour, he could refine a strand of dense qi and blood from within himself.

However, if he wanted to perfect his qi and blood and reach the limits of an ordinary man, Chen Jue needed to accumulate a thousand such strands of dense, abundant qi and blood!

Chen Jue stood until two in the morning. Only after the excitement of having found a priceless treasure had completely faded did he finally become mentally exhausted and collapse into bed.

Chen Jue slept extremely restlessly.

In his dreams, the Rat Gang's gunfire flashed through streets and alleyways.

He and a group of inspectors were trapped in a dark alley, shot to death in a hail of bullets.

There were also powerful figures from the inner city who discovered the secret of his innate talent, pried open his skull with blood-red sabers, and took out something resembling a Daoist scripture...

His dreams were chaotic and tangled, like a nightmare pressing down upon him. They reflected Chen Jue's worried, anxious heart, tormenting him beyond measure while leaving him unable to struggle free.

By the time he woke in a panic, broad daylight had already arrived, and the sun was high in the sky.

Sitting at the edge of the bed, Chen Jue found that cold sweat had long soaked his back. As he silently chewed over those fragmented scenes from his dream, they seemed shocking wherever he looked.

"One must not harbor the intent to harm others, but one must never be without the vigilance to guard against them."

"The 'Diligence Reward Talent' is what I rely on to survive, and it is the greatest secret of my life. I absolutely cannot let anyone learn of it."

"But if I keep my head down and develop quietly, people will underestimate me. My talents will be buried, and it will affect others' willingness to invest in me. The balance here truly is hard to grasp..."

Chen Jue murmured to himself, sinking into indecision.

He actually had a vague idea of attributing everything to the intangible, elusive concept of "comprehension."

But limited by his experience, he could not yet figure out a workable plan.

"Hah! Forget it."

Chen Jue let out a deep breath, settled his emotions, and walked out of the study.

The living room's surveillance camera sensed his movement and turned toward him with a faint rustle. His aunt's quick, lively voice came through the speaker.

"Good boy, breakfast's on the table. Wash up, and remember to eat!"

"Got it, Auntie." Chen Jue waved at the camera and, familiar with the routine, headed into the bathroom.

His father had died early, and his uncle's family had always taken great care of him.

Especially when he had first begun attending Riverside Martial High School as a day student, his uncle would come pick him up from school every day in his inspector's uniform. As a boy without a father, Chen Jue had never suffered campus bullying.

After Chen Jue finished washing up and returned to the living room, his uncle He Yuanshan's voice came through the surveillance system again.

"Ah Jue, since you were injured in the line of duty this time, the chief approved ten thousand in medicine expenses for you, along with a week of medical leave."

"Stay at your uncle's place for a few days and don't run around everywhere."

"Alright, Uncle. I'll wander around during the day, then help you pick up He Tang from school this afternoon." Chen Jue calmly accepted his uncle's invitation to eat and stay for free, then lifted the cover from the dining table.

There was a fragrant bowl of tomato braised beef, accompanied by five boiled eggs. The staple was a large bowl of millet porridge with longan and red dates, meant to replenish blood and nourish qi.

His aunt could not have treated him better. She cherished him even more than her own daughter, He Tang.

Smelling the food, Chen Jue felt saliva well up beneath his tongue, his appetite thoroughly stirred.

After tossing and turning all night, his stomach was already empty. He picked up the millet porridge, still warm, and wolfed it down in a storm.

After breakfast, Chen Jue went to a nearby park to practice Primordial Stance Art.

Now that the Diligence Reward Talent was with him, everything he did had a goal to strive toward.

As a result, he put even more effort into holding his stance.

"Sink qi into the dantian—fortify the foundation!"

"Lift with empty spirit—guard the mind!"

"Relax the waist and tuck the hips—stabilize the root!"

"Sink the shoulders and drop the elbows—gather strength!"

Chen Jue had long memorized the four-character essentials of Primordial Stance by heart; they had merged into his muscle memory.

If stance arts were classified like martial techniques into beginner, proficient, minor accomplishment, major accomplishment, and perfection, then his stance art was at least at the perfection level.

The moment he stood in an open space, the qi and blood within his body seemed like boiling water condensing, continuously generating without end.

Chen Jue stood for another three hours.

Such extraordinary perseverance and effort drew the attention of many curious onlookers.

"He's so handsome and works so hard—who on earth is dating guys like this?!"

Someone posted a video of Chen Jue holding his stance online, along with bizarre accompanying text.

As noon approached, Chen Jue gradually began to feel hungry, weak, and drained.

His body was issuing a warning. It meant that his remaining physical reserves had been completely exhausted, and further squeezing would damage his foundation.

Naturally, the best way to recover physical strength was to eat and rest.

Chen Jue therefore stopped practicing and went to a nearby deli, where he spent sixty treasure notes on three jin of cooked meat to eat with steamed buns.

The deli was not a restaurant. Its main customers were commoner martial artists, and every day it stewed a thousand jin of meat in huge pressure cookers, using nothing but salt for seasoning.

Thus, while the price was attractive, the taste was easy to imagine.

Chen Jue walked down a bustling street packed with traffic and towering buildings, taking a bite of bun and a bite of meat as he ate along the way.

The meat's texture was difficult to put into words.

Soft, sticky, greasy, and a little gamey.

It was like a zombie corpse that had been sealed in a freezer for ages and was finally seeing daylight again.

But martial artists had iron stomachs. Compared to the meat's age, Chen Jue actually loathed the rank, gamey smell in it even more.

As he ate the barely swallowable meat and buns, Chen Jue planned for the future.

As the saying went: poor scholars, rich martial artists.

It meant that in the Great Ming Divine Dynasty, studying would leave one poor for life, while only practicing martial arts offered the chance to become immensely wealthy!

But if he wanted to advance with fierce vigor along the martial path,

the first thing he had to face was three meals a day—or even four or five.

After all, no matter how heaven-piercing one's aptitude or peerless one's talent, energy intake and growth in strength still had to obey the law of dynamic equilibrium.

One could not expect to raise a Heaven-Piercing Great Sage capable of uprooting mountains on three meals of vegetable porridge.

"A trainee salary of twenty-five hundred isn't enough even if I eat zombie meat for all three meals, let alone the extra meals needed for stance practice..."

"No wonder most garrison inspectors secretly collude with gangs... Without gray income, honest people simply can't make anything of themselves through martial arts."

As Chen Jue pondered this, he happened to pass an iconic structure in the inner city, majestic in form and resembling an ancient palace—Jiangnan Myriad-House Office!

It was the most violent official institution in all of Southern Province. Under its command were three thousand garrison troops, every one of them a powerful martial artist.

It was the banner of imperial power against local authority. Without their suppression and deterrence, Southern Province's taxes would not reach the imperial capital next year.

Oh, right!

Once he reached Clerk Rank Nine and transitioned from clerk to official, he could choose to join Jiangnan Myriad-House Office and become a Subordinate Ninth Rank auxiliary soldier!

He had heard that garrison troops received excellent benefits, along with bounty missions such as patrolling mountains and suppressing demons.

If he wanted to eat meat by the mouthful, he could just go into the mountains and get it himself!

"But before that, getting my first bit of startup capital is the key!"

Chen Jue finally reached his destination.

It was an office building soaring into the clouds, located in a bustling area of the inner city.

Its azure glass curtain walls reflected the autumn sunlight. On the side of the building, the four words "Pei Clan Bank" were written in impeccably standard running script, radiating grandeur.

Slightly nervous, Chen Jue took out his phone and opened the recently popular AI assistant.

"Doubao, Doubao, I've got a project here with a 200% return rate that needs a loan for investment. Do you think it's reliable?!"

A crisp female voice immediately came from the phone.

"This time, I'll speak plainly and give you the most direct, correct answer—there's a 99% chance this project is a scam. I absolutely do not recommend taking out a loan to invest."

"Would you like me to explain some anti-scam basics?"

"?!" Chen Jue laughed in irritation. He closed the assistant, tucked his identification card into his pocket, and strode into Pei Clan Bank.

What scam? This was where the dream began.