Seizing a Fortuitous Opportunity!

As the Mist Incense burned away, turning into wisps of black smoke that the Divine Statue inhaled, proficiency began shooting upward!

[Realm: First-Rank Skin Tempering Realm (Initiation) 999/1000]

When the number reached 999, just as Zhou Chen had expected, he encountered no so-called Realm Barrier. At that moment, the qi and blood throughout his body gathered to an unimaginable degree!

He felt like a balloon filled to bursting.

The instant the number broke through 1000—

"Rumble!"

Zhou Chen felt as though a basin of boiling water had been poured into his body!

The qi and blood gathered beneath his skin surged through his body like a mighty river, washing open countless blockages within his meridians.

Zhou Chen's skin instantly turned red, wisps of heat rose from the top of his head, and sweat drenched his entire body. Countless black impurities seeped from his pores, filling the air with a foul stench.

Before he could even wipe himself down, another wave of intense pain came from within his body.

"Hiss!"

Zhou Chen felt as though an invisible pair of massive hands were pulling his entire body apart. A series of crackling sounds like beans being stir-fried came from inside him. After the agonizing pain came an unprecedented sense of comfort that instantly spread through his whole body. He had actually grown several inches taller.

Zhou Chen opened his eyes, a sharp gleam flickering within them.

[Realm: First-Rank Skin Tempering Realm (Minor Accomplishment) 1/2000]

Based on the degree to which one's qi and blood had reached fullness, each realm was further divided into Minor Accomplishment, Major Accomplishment, and Perfection.

He had finally become a First-Rank Martial Artist!

Zhou Chen grinned and knocked his fists together before his chest. They actually gave off two muffled bangs, like metal striking metal.

"Could this be Copper Skin?!"

Zhou Chen froze. He circulated his qi and blood to the fullest and clenched his fist hard. His muscles tightened, and a dark bronze sheen emerged over his skin. Wild delight surged through his heart.

That was right!

This was Copper Skin!

According to Lian Taoze, the Skin Tempering Realm required not only nurturing one's qi and blood, but also tempering one's skin membrane. The more thoroughly toughened the skin membrane, the greater one's future achievements would be.

Thus, the degree to which one's skin membrane was tempered at this stage was divided into Iron Skin, Copper Skin, and Golden Skin!

For most people, cultivating Iron Skin was already impressive. Yet some geniuses refused to settle for Iron Skin. With lofty ambitions, they would only be satisfied after cultivating the more formidable Copper Skin, or even Golden Skin.

But saying it was easy; doing it was hard.

Not only did it require frantically tempering one's qi, blood, and skin membrane, it also required supplementing oneself with all sorts of rare medicinal ingredients. Only then would one have the slightest chance of seeking a Copper Skin opportunity. Thus, throughout the entire Zheng Family Martial Arts Hall, the number of people who had cultivated Copper Skin could be counted on one hand.

Take Lian Taoze, for example. Back then, he had lingered in the Skin Tempering Realm for an extra year and a half, suppressing his realm before he barely managed to temper himself to Copper Skin.

But the benefits were equally astonishing. When Lian Taoze had just broken through to the Second-Rank Flesh Tempering Realm, he had actually defeated Shen Ao in a sparring match, even though Shen Ao had already spent more than a year tempering himself at the Second Rank.

Zhou Chen had only just entered the First Rank, yet the skin membrane over his entire body was already as tough as Copper Skin. This meant that, at the very least, he could cultivate Copper Skin to Perfection. If he had sufficient resources, he might even pursue Golden Skin.

"But why? Clearly, the Stake-Standing Exercise and fist techniques I cultivate are the same as my senior brothers'. Could it be because there's no Miasma Poison left in my body?"

After turning it over and over in his mind, that seemed to be the only explanation. His eldest senior brother had once said that before the Black Mist appeared, martial arts had flourished like a dragon. People practiced martial arts several times more easily than they did now, achieving far more with the same effort!

But after the Black Mist arrived, everything changed! The martial path became fraught with ten thousand hardships!

"Forget it. There's no use thinking so much."

Letting out a soft breath, Zhou Chen cast those thoughts from his mind. Then he casually clenched his fist, and it seemed as though even the air had been crushed apart by that grip.

"My strength has soared as well. Copper Skin not only increases the toughness of my skin membrane, it has also given me much greater strength out of thin air. Even senior brothers of the same rank probably couldn't take a full-force punch from me!"

A smile appeared at the corner of Zhou Chen's lips.

Now this was more like it.

He had hands, feet, and a cheat. It was only natural that others could not compare to him.

Afterward, Zhou Chen washed up and prepared to sleep.

Those who practiced martial arts needed both diligence and nourishment. Sleep was the foundation of nurturing qi and blood.

Once he had rested enough, he could report his breakthrough to Master Zheng tomorrow and naturally begin cultivating the Wild Bull Fist. Otherwise, when facing enemies, all he could do was swing rocks around and smash people with them. That might work against a few thugs, but if he encountered a proper Martial Warrior, he would definitely suffer for it.

He just did not know whether he would progress quickly in cultivating the Wild Bull Fist. His innate physique was poor, but what if his comprehension was high?

Even if his comprehension was low, it did not matter. Who told him he had a cheat?

How could the strength others accumulated through bitter cultivation be as steady and reliable as strength he gained by adding points?

Once proven, forever proven—never retreating!

The future was promising!

As Zhou Chen pondered this, he suddenly noticed that the Divine Statue in his mind seemed slightly off. He sank his consciousness into that mist-shrouded space and examined it carefully.

Within the incense burner covered in ash, besides the black Mist Incense that had burned down to its root, there was now an additional small stub of red incense, like a spring bamboo shoot just breaking through the earth.

"Another stick of incense? When did this appear? How did I not notice?"

A string of questions rose in Zhou Chen's heart. Looking at that stub of incense, he hesitated over whether to light it and see what effect it had. But the moment that thought emerged, the Divine Statue conveyed a sense of refusal.

"It won't work?"

Zhou Chen looked at the red incense, which was less than an inch long, and understood the Divine Statue's meaning. It was not that it could not be lit, but that the red incense had to reach at least one inch before it could be ignited.

It was not enough yet.

But Zhou Chen did not even know where this stick of incense had come from. He recalled things carefully before finally arriving at a guess.

"It seems the incense burner in my mind only gained this stick after I killed Zhang Mingfei and the others. Could it be that this Red Incense has to be accumulated through killing people?"

Zhou Chen could not be certain, but he could not exactly go kill someone right now just to verify it.

Forget it. He mulled it over repeatedly for a while, but could not make heads or tails of it. In the end, he simply pushed his doubts aside for now.

The next day in Azure City, after breakfast, Zhou Chen went to the martial arts hall to practice as usual. Master Zheng had not arrived yet. He had originally planned to tell Master Zheng about his breakthrough as soon as he got there.

That was fine. He would first run through a round of punches to warm up. Yet just after setting his stance and throwing two moves, the door to the inner courtyard creaked open, and several people emerged while surrounding a tall, thin young man.

Ma Pengcheng, a collateral member of the Ma Family from neighboring Linhua District, so distantly related that they were beyond the fifth degree of kinship. Like Zhou Chen, he was an Ordinary Disciple of the martial arts hall, but he had trained there for many years. It was said that his qi and blood were abundant, his Iron Skin incomparably hard, and that he had long since reached First-Rank Major Accomplishment.

Half a month ago, he had come looking for Zhou Chen once already. The moment he opened his mouth, he demanded that Zhou Chen give him his daily portion of Qi-Blood Soup. His reasoning sounded grand and righteous: he had watched Zhou Chen practice martial arts for over a month, and Zhou Chen's qi and blood had not advanced in the slightest. Drinking it would be a waste, so he might as well give it to him to help him charge toward Skin Tempering Perfection. There would surely be a generous reward afterward.

At the time, Zhou Chen had nearly thought he had misheard.

Qi-Blood Soup was a qi-and-blood supplement allocated internally by the martial arts hall. One bowl cost one tael of silver, and even if it reached the outside market at two taels, people would scramble to buy it. Even if he did not drink it himself, merely selling it onward would earn him a net profit of two taels a day—sixty taels in a month.

Why should this Ma fellow get it for free just by flapping his lips?

He was merely seeing that Zhou Chen had made no progress in a month and had come to bully him, plain as day.

"Junior Brother Zhou."

Ma Pengcheng walked closer with a perfectly smooth smile on his face. "Are you truly unwilling to reconsider what we discussed before? Everything I said was for your own good. Think about it. If you waste three months here and fail to enter the ranks, at best you'll become a guard outside. Do you know why commercial firms replace their guards with a new batch every so often?"

Without waiting for Zhou Chen to answer, he continued on his own. "Because they all died! Guards do work that trades their lives for money, licking blood from the edge of a blade! Junior Brother, think about it. You still have parents and a younger sister at home. If something happened to you outside, how would they live?! But if you give your Qi-Blood Soup to me, I'll have an eighty percent chance of charging into the Second-Rank Flesh Tempering Realm. Eighty percent! Once I enter an aristocratic commercial firm through the Placement Fair and settle down, there will surely be a generous reward!"

He spoke with heartfelt sincerity, as though he truly were worrying about Zhou Chen's long-term prospects.

The so-called Placement Fair he mentioned was a channel through which the major aristocratic commercial firms periodically came to martial arts halls to recruit people for positions.

As the saying went, the poor studied literature while the rich practiced martial arts. Martial Warriors needed meat, food, soups, and medicines to strengthen their qi and blood; they needed precious medicinal ingredients to temper their muscles and bones. Which one of these did not cost a sky-high sum of silver? Thus, anyone who entered the First-Rank Martial Artist stage needed to find a path into a position and secure an income to feed back into their cultivation.

Zhou Chen's expression remained unchanged. After quietly hearing him out, he did not say a word.

Seeing that Zhou Chen did not state his position, a pockmarked young man behind Ma Pengcheng impatiently stepped forward, his tone carrying a hint of aggressive pressure. "Junior Brother, don't be foolish! Your aptitude is ordinary. You've drunk Qi-Blood Soup for so long without the slightest reaction. To put it bluntly, you're just wasting good things! But if you give it to Senior Brother Ma, he'll gain a few more chances of breaking through! Once Senior Brother Ma reaches the Second-Rank Flesh Tempering Realm, would it be any trouble for him to give you back a few bowls?"

He spoke as though it were perfectly justified, as though stealing another person's belongings were the way of heaven and earth, and everyone else ought to yield to him.

Zhou Chen withdrew his stance, then turned to look at the pockmarked young man and said, "Get lost, Pockmarked Face! You're standing too close. The sight of those pockmarks all over your face makes me sick!"

What a joke. Before breaking through, when these people came looking for him, swallowing his anger had been called sizing up the situation. But now that he had broken through to the First Rank, if they still dared jump onto his face, he would not be so pleasant anymore!