Practice made the days slip away in silence; in the blink of an eye, several days had passed.

Zhou Ming's days at the Dragon Soaring Escort Agency consisted of nothing but training.

The only amusement during that time was going to see Wen Ruoxi.

Unfortunately, ever since Wen Ruoxi had kicked him last time, he had been met with a closed door every day.

The escort agency had a total of four martial techniques.

The first was the Eight Saber-Cutting Forms he had learned from Escort Master Li, while the second was the Soaring Dragon Body Technique he had practiced to avoid getting beaten.

The other two martial techniques were Flower-Print Fist and the Soaring Dragon Spear.

It was worth mentioning that the Soaring Dragon Body Technique and Soaring Dragon Spear were paired martial techniques.

Those two martial techniques were also what he had worked hardest on these past few days.

As for Flower-Print Fist, it was not worth mentioning. It erupted with blood qi, leaving flower prints with every punch; it was far too gaudy for his taste.

But today, he had nothing left to practice.

His cultivation speed was too fast. As long as he converted blood qi quickly enough, he could keep grinding without pause.

Other Martial Artists, whether breaking through in cultivation techniques or martial techniques, would encounter bottlenecks.

Unfortunately, with Destiny, he could not experience what a bottleneck was.

Even a prodigy like Wen Ruoxi, who had openly become a Seventh-Rank Martial Artist at twenty, still needed time to settle and polish herself.

But Zhou Ming did not. His martial path had gone smoothly as flowing water; every few days, he made new progress.

Since first coming into contact with martial arts, in only a few short months, he had gone from an ordinary person to a Ninth Grade Martial Artist with a Perfect Foundation, on the verge of entering Eighth Rank.

On the martial path, one rank required one technique.

Cultivation techniques were merely guides.

Like a person growing up, every stage had its own things that needed to be done.

It was not as though the escort agency lacked Eighth-Rank Cultivation Techniques, but Zhou Ming felt that none suited him.

[Dragon Glory Earth Human Transmigration Panel]

[Host: Zhou Ming]

[Rank: Ninth Grade Martial Artist - Jade Skin]

[Destiny: Double Results with Half the Effort]

[Analysis: Do half the work, reap huge rewards.]

[Cultivation Technique: Dragon Soaring Stance (Ninth Level, Complete)]

[Martial Techniques: Eight Saber-Cutting Forms - Reached the Pinnacle, Flower-Print Fist - Mastery Through Practice (0/100), Soaring Dragon Body Technique - Reached the Pinnacle, Soaring Dragon Spear - Reached the Pinnacle]

After glancing over the panel, Zhou Ming removed his wine gourd, took a drink, and sighed toward the sky. "What a worry!"

A few months ago, even wanting to practice martial arts had been a luxury.

Now, faced with Eighth-Rank Cultivation Techniques, he was picking and choosing.

Zhou Ming even suspected that he had become a little too full of himself.

Ninth Grade was Skin Tempering. Any Stance Training could convert blood qi, and in the end, it could achieve a Perfect Foundation and cultivate Jade Skin.

But Eighth-Rank Bone Tempering was quite different, because bones were trained internally.

Every Eighth-Rank Cultivation Technique targeted only certain bones in the human body, yet all claimed to produce a Perfect Foundation.

But when Zhou Ming heard this, he felt there was a huge pit hidden inside.

The human body had 206 bones, and they were telling him that tempering only some of them into Jade Bone counted as a Perfect Foundation?

He felt that if he believed it, he would definitely end up as a corpse by the roadside.

So for the past two days, with nothing left to practice, Zhou Ming could only drown his sorrows in drink, not knowing what to do.

Suddenly, a figure holding a tobacco pipe passed by the front of Zhou Ming's courtyard.

"Hey, Yang Escort Leader! Yang Escort Leader! Come in and sit for a while!" Zhou Ming called out to the figure.

Yang Escort Leader stopped, shot him a glance, then turned and entered the courtyard.

Zhou Ming quickly brought out a tea table and chairs, then fetched a jar of wine and two bowls, filling them to the brim.

Looking at the bowl of wine before him, Yang Zhengxing glanced at Zhou Ming again. "So idle? Not training?"

Zhou Ming had been about to think up a topic, but upon hearing that, his eyes lit up and he began to complain.

A quarter of an hour later, Yang Zhengxing said in surprise, "Train all the bones? The escort agency does not have such a cultivation technique. Your golden years vanish in the blink of an eye. You should not aim too high. Break through first; it will not be too late to train it afterward."

Zhou Ming looked at the wine in his bowl. "I considered that too, but I'm afraid that if I turn back later, I won't be able to make all my bones Jade Bone."

After taking a puff from his pipe, Yang Zhengxing asked again, "I cannot answer that question. I only know it can be trained, but whether it can succeed, I truly do not know."

"But with the talent you have displayed, you may not be unable to touch the Supreme Realm and Transcendence. The choice is yours."

This was the second time Zhou Ming had heard the words Supreme Realm and Transcendence.

Growing curious, Zhou Ming immediately asked, "Yang Escort Leader, what do Supreme Realm and Transcendence mean?"

"First Rank is the Supreme Realm. Breaking past First Rank is Transcendence."

"Then how many Supreme Realm experts does our Yan Kingdom have?"

"None."

Zhou Ming cried out in alarm, "None? How could there be none?"

Before Yang Escort Leader could speak, Zhou Ming continued, "Then what about Transcendence?"

Yang Escort Leader said irritably, "Questions, questions, questions. Why do you have so many questions? There are no Supreme Realm experts, and no Transcendents either. And not just in Yan Kingdom—the Zhao Kingdom and Chu Kingdom have none as well. Across the entire martial world, the highest rank at present is Second Grade."

Upon hearing the answer, Zhou Ming rolled his eyes. "So this Supreme Realm and Transcendence stuff is all just your imagination, then."

"It is not imagination. The Martial Dao Inheritance Record has recorded it clearly. It is only that the Vast Sea Continent has not produced a Supreme Realm expert for five hundred years."

After finishing the last bowl of wine, Yang Escort Leader rose and headed out of the courtyard.

"If you are not afraid of wasting time, and do not care about your own martial path, then practice Eighth-Rank Cultivation Techniques one by one. Practice until you achieve the Jade Bone throughout your whole body that you want, then break through to Seventh Rank. You do not even have a single Jade Bone yet, so why worry about something so far away?"

Zhou Ming laughed freely.

Yes, it was such a simple method.

How had he not thought of it?

It was not as though he could not cultivate several techniques at once.

If he did not have a complete cultivation technique that could achieve Jade Bone throughout his entire body, then he would train them. If one was not enough, then two; he would continue until every bone in his body was Jade Bone.

Zhou Ming turned and entered the house, beginning to read through the copied manuals of the escort agency's three Eighth-Rank Cultivation Techniques.

After reading through the copied manuals of all three cultivation techniques, he understood eighty percent of them.

According to the cultivation techniques,

Ninth Grade converted blood qi, using it to nourish skin and flesh until they reached four forms—copper, silver, gold, and jade. One could cultivate Jade Skin and even release it externally to form a Jade Garment.

Eighth Rank, meanwhile, used blood qi to temper one's own bones.

At that thought, Zhou Ming shuddered.

Hiss!

This was probably going to hurt a little.

But hurt or not, he had to do it!

Zhou Ming sat cross-legged on the bed and, following the circulation route of the first Eighth-Rank Cultivation Technique, the Evergreen Art, mobilized his blood qi and breathed in rhythm.

After circulating it through one cycle, three streams of refined, purified blood qi wandered through his body on their own before finally settling upon the three finger bones of his right ring finger.

In an instant, a piercing pain struck. Before he could cry out, it vanished.

Yet in that brief instant, Zhou Ming's forehead had become covered in sweat.

The panel flashed.

[Rank: Ninth Grade Martial Artist - Perfect Foundation Jade Skin - Bone-Tempering Initiation (1/100)]

Seeing the change on the panel, Zhou Ming knew that to break through into Eighth Rank, he had to temper Iron Bone.

He sat cross-legged on the bed and raised a hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

Pain? Pain was right.

Without hardship, how could one succeed?

Zhou Ming took out a bottle of Bone-Tempering Paste and smeared it over his right ring finger, then began training.

A piercing pain surfaced again, and he clenched his teeth.

At that moment, the Bone-Tempering Paste he had applied slowly seeped into his skin. His entire ring finger felt icy cold, and the pain weakened somewhat.

That was a little comfortable.

Before he could savor the feeling, his entire right ring finger first prickled with pain, then in the blink of an eye became a tearing, burning agony.

"Damn your mother! Ice and fire, double hell, is that it?!"

Zhou Ming fell onto the bed, his left hand gripping his right ring finger tightly, hoping to lessen the pain somewhat.

But it was useless. The agonizing pain at that moment penetrated deep into his marrow, and the extreme torment left his consciousness somewhat hazy.

"Fuck! It hurts! Hurts! Hurts!"

His roar of pain pierced through the house.

On the rooftop, three figures sat above.

Wu Escort Leader wore a strange expression. "It is only Bone Tempering. Does he need to scream so loudly? Is that kid really that afraid of pain?"

Wang Quan shook his head. "I don't know. When Ruoxi kicked him, I never saw him cry out in pain. He only squatted on the ground and rubbed it."

Yang Zhengxing smoked his pipe in silence.

Listening to the miserable cries from below, Wang Quan felt greatly satisfied. "Second Brother, it really was right to have you persuade him. That kid stopped training for two days and insisted on finding some cultivation technique that trained bones throughout the whole body. Where was I supposed to find such a thing? It had me worried sick."

Wu Escort Leader asked curiously, "How did you persuade him? That kid does not look like someone without his own opinions."

Yang Zhengxing exhaled a mouthful of smoke and said indifferently, "I told him that if he truly wanted to train, then he should practice Eighth-Rank Cultivation Techniques one after another."

After pausing, he said with some uncertainty, "If he practices enough of them, it should work, right?"

The two beside him looked at each other, speechless for a long time.