Bedrock Stance Perfection

Cheng Yang accepted the remaining payment Guo Qingping had personally delivered, exchanged no further pleasantries with him, and sent him away.

The same old reason: he did not want too much involvement with the Guo Household.

Their relationship was limited to dealings of mutual benefit.

He would be leaving to suppress bandits tomorrow.

First, he looked at the panel.

[Destiny: Peerless Bearing]

[Effect 1: From this day onward, one day of cultivation equals one year.]

[Effect 2: You have no bottlenecks on the path of cultivation.]

[Effect 3: Your talent will gradually strengthen with the passage of time.]

[Perfection of Back-Piercing Stance]

[Spirit Crane Stance Perfection]

[Wild Bull Stance Perfection]

[Bedrock Stance Great Accomplishment (2156/3000)]

[Whale Breath Stance Minor Accomplishment (0/500)]

[Great Dragon Stake Beginner (0/100)]

[Tiger-Leopard Stance Beginner (0/100)]

[Spirit Crane Fist Minor Accomplishment (1/500)]

[Back-Piercing Fist Beginner (56/100)]

[Vajra Fist Minor Accomplishment (35/500)]

[Breath-Concealing Formula Minor Accomplishment (16/500)]

[Clearwind Saber Technique Beginner (0/100)]

Bedrock Stance still needed nine hundred proficiency points before reaching Perfection.

If he stayed up tonight and trained harder, he could grind Bedrock Stance to Perfection and gain another source of support for tomorrow's bandit suppression.

With his recovery ability, two or three hours of sleep would be enough.

Since that was the case, then it was time to start grinding.

Night sank inch by inch.

The martial hall's rear courtyard was as still as an ancient well.

The moon had already been swallowed more than halfway by the clouds. Only a few strands of silvery-gray light leaked down, falling across the stone-paved ground and outlining a lone figure.

Cheng Yang stood at the edge of that moonlight. Beneath his feet were the blue bricks he had trodden upon for most of the day. His breathing was pressed extremely low, the rise and fall of his chest nearly imperceptible, yet every inhale and exhale carried a heavy, dull resonance, like a bell slowly letting its echoes spread within his body.

Bedrock Stance.

He had stood from dusk until now. He had drunk water twice and eaten more than a dozen pieces of dried meat; every other moment had been nailed to this tiny patch of ground.

Bedrock Stance was the highest-grade stance art in the Chen Clan Martial Hall, and it emphasized one word: solidity.

Solidify the blood and qi, solidify the sinews and bones, solidify the mind and spirit.

After cultivating it to Great Accomplishment several days ago, he had felt the somewhat floating blood and qi within him gradually settle.

Like a pot of boiling water with the fire slowly lowered, true scorching heat began to accumulate at the bottom.

And what he was doing now was sealing that pot completely, compressing what lay inside to the utmost, squeezing it to the limit, until there was not the slightest space left to retreat.

He had long stopped looking at the numbers on the panel, relying only on the sensations of his body to press onward.

From the hour of Xu to the hour of Hai, from the hour of Hai to the hour of Zi, the voices in the courtyard gradually dispersed, the insects' chirping gradually weakened, and even the wind seemed sleepy, wriggling along the base of the walls.

Cheng Yang's clothes became wet, then dry, then wet again. Sweat stains layered grayish-white marks across the fabric like cracks in saline-alkali earth.

Past the middle of the hour of Zi, he began to feel a strange, suffocating swelling sensation arise from within his bones.

It was neither pain nor soreness. It was more as though something was slowly expanding from the depths of his marrow, propping every bone in his body wider by a circle. They had not truly grown larger—it was merely an illusion born from being "full" to the absolute limit.

A faint layer of blue-gray luster glimmered beneath his skin. This was the distinctive sign of Bedrock Stance nearing Perfection: his blood and qi had sunk into the gaps between his bones, resonating somehow with the very color of his bone matter.

The flow of blood and qi within him also slowed little by little.

It was not exhaustion. It was restraint.

The torrent of blood and qi that had once surged like a great river was now gathered, compressed, and condensed by an invisible force. It was like forcing a river from its broad channel into a narrow ditch. Though its flow had slowed, every drop carried greater weight.

Cheng Yang gritted his teeth, the veins at his temples faintly bulging. This feeling of "pressure" was far heavier than he had anticipated. When his previous stance arts broke through to Perfection, his blood and qi had expanded outward each time, overflowing and releasing.

Yet Bedrock Stance's Perfection was the opposite—it drew inward, pressed downward, and sank deeper.

It was as though it meant to forcibly grind all the blood and qi accumulated by the previous three stance arts into his bones.

But he did not retreat.

His body roared soundlessly. No one else could hear that roar; only he could feel it, traveling from the soles of his feet to his knees, from his knees to his spine, then splitting from his spine into both arms. One stream surged upward past his shoulder blades, through the bones of his neck, and braced against the back of his head. Finally, with a hum, like a hammer striking an anvil, his entire spine jolted violently.

Then all sound vanished.

The oppressive swelling pain was sucked away in an instant, replaced by a strange, contradictory sensation where lightness and heaviness coexisted—lightness.

Cheng Yang slowly opened his eyes.

A faint blue-gray halo swept across the surface of his pupils, vanishing in a flash.

[Bedrock Stance Perfection]

He remained where he was, quietly sensing the changes within his body.

The density between his bones seemed to have risen another level. Every segment of bone felt as if it had been wrapped in a tighter, sturdier shell atop its original foundation. His weight had not increased, but that feeling of being thoroughly tamped solid was so clear it felt almost tangible.

He raised a hand and slowly clenched his fist.

The sound of his finger bones colliding was deeper and duller than when he had possessed Copper Bone. It was like two thick slabs of iron lightly striking beneath layers of cloth—without a clear ringing echo, only a brief, solid thud.

After Bedrock Stance reached Perfection, his body seemed to have changed from loose sand into solid wood. That strength was no longer outwardly displayed or conspicuous; it was hidden within every bone and tendon, waiting to pour forth when needed.

He lowered his head and glanced at his palm.

The blue-gray gleam on his skin had completely faded, restoring its usual color, but he knew that what lay beneath had changed.

Four stance arts at Perfection: Back-Piercing, Spirit Crane, Wild Bull, and Bedrock.

Four pillars had sunk deep into the earth in different directions, supporting a foundation more solid than that of any peer his age in Qinglin County.

He exhaled a breath of turbid air. The white vapor condensed into a line in the night sky, drifting far away before dispersing.

There was still no sign of dawn at the horizon, but Cheng Yang looked up at the moon's position and estimated that less than half an hour remained before the end of the hour of Chou.

He rolled his shoulders and neck. A dense series of cracks sounded from his bones, and then he returned to the center of the stone-paved ground.

A thought circled through his mind: Since there was still half an hour left, he might as well feel out the entry stage of the Clearwind Saber Technique. He would learn however much he could. After all, he would need to use a blade when suppressing bandits tomorrow.

He picked up a wooden stick from the corner and held it diagonally in his hand.

He closed his eyes and recalled the opening move of the Clearwind Saber Technique.

It did not emphasize forms. What mattered was the coordination between his breath and the blade when striking. Then his wrist flicked, and the wooden stick swept diagonally through the night.

Wind brushed over the stick, releasing an almost inaudible hum.

Like wind passing over a bell beneath the eaves.

Without opening his eyes, Cheng Yang slashed again.

[Clearwind Saber Technique Beginner (4/100)]

[Clearwind Saber Technique Minor Accomplishment (1/500)]

When the first rooster crow sounded in the distance, he sheathed his saber.

He looked at the panel before him.

After practicing the technique for only a short while, he had already cultivated the Clearwind Saber Technique to Minor Accomplishment.

It seemed his talent for saber techniques was quite good.

Cheng Yang tossed aside the wooden stick, raised his sleeve to wipe the thin sweat from his temple, and looked at the pale gray-blue layer spreading across the eastern sky.

In another two or three hours, he would leave the city with the City Guard to suppress bandits.

Now, the foundation of four perfected stance arts stood beneath his feet, while the physique of the Silver Bone Realm bore upon his body.

This information gap would become his greatest reliance in this bandit suppression.

Others might think he was still an ordinary Flesh-Tempering Martial Master, but little did they know that he might now be able to contend even with a Force Tempering Martial Master.

With just one more stance art reaching Perfection, this Silver Bone body of mine will undergo another transformation.

Gold Bone...

That was the foundation only geniuses in the prefectural city could possess...

Cheng Yang turned and headed into the room.

Before departure, he could still sleep for a few hours.

It would be enough.