The Bottleneck for Ordinary People

Time flew.

Ye An's life ran like clockwork. Every day followed the same rhythm—he reached the Martial Hall at dawn, went home after dark, and gave every hour in between to the bluestone slab.

People came and went across the training ground. Some praised Ye An's perseverance; others mocked his Bone Structure.

Ye An paid them no mind.

What mattered to him was the progress bar in his vision.

[Azure Cloud Finger: 37/100]

That was his progress on the first day.

Ten days passed.

[Azure Cloud Finger: 49/100]

Ye An was training more slowly now than he had at the start. He couldn't help it.

That was the problem with his Bone Structure.

Ye An calculated silently. At this pace, he would reach one hundred in about two months.

That was considerably faster than normal for High-Grade C Bone Structure, because Ye An trained far longer each day than anyone else.

All Ye An could do was put in more time!

That evening, Ye An finished training and unwound the strips of cloth from his fingers.

"Hey, new guy."

Ye An looked up. A young man of twenty-five or twenty-six stood atop a stone weight nearby, grinning at him.

He wore a dusty gray training jacket, and his cloth shoes had two holes in them.

His face was clean, but deep wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes when he smiled. They made him look much older than he was, as though life had worn him down.

"You are?"

"Wang Tie." The young man jumped down from the stone weight and brushed the dust off his trousers. "I got here two years before you. Just call me Brother Tie."

Ye An nodded. "Good to meet you, Brother Tie."

Wang Tie looked him up and down, his gaze settling on Ye An's bandaged fingers.

"How long have you been training those hands?"

"A little over a month."

"How many jabs a day?"

"Just over a thousand."

Wang Tie whistled. "That's brutal! If I'd trained like you back then, I wouldn't be where I am now."

"What's wrong with where you are now?"

Wang Tie didn't answer. He stretched and jerked his chin toward the Martial Hall's gate. "Come on. Let me buy you a bowl of tea."

They left the Martial Hall and sat down at a tea stall by the street.

Wang Tie ordered two bowls of cheap tea at three coins apiece. Tea dust settled at the bottom, while the yellowish brew smelled burnt and bitter.

"You know," Wang Tie said quietly, holding his bowl and watching the tea dust floating in it, "I've been at Green Bamboo Martial Arts Hall for two years."

"When I came here two years ago, I was like you—High-Grade C." Wang Tie smiled. "No, I was a little worse. Mid-Grade C."

"The Hall Master said that with my Bone Structure, if I trained hard, I could reach First Body Tempering in half a year. Back then, I thought half a year wasn't long."

Wang Tie took a sip and frowned. Whether the tea or the memory tasted bitter, Ye An couldn't tell.

"The year before last, I trained a little over two hours a day. I was fairly lucky and reached First Body Tempering after six months. Not fast, but not slow either."

"And then?"

"Then I wanted to push for Second Body Tempering." Wang Tie set down his bowl. "Going from First Body Tempering to Second Body Tempering normally takes a year. I saved money for more than half a year, bought Body Tempering Pills and Realm Breaking Pills, shut myself away to break through—and!"

Wang Tie made a gesture.

"It collapsed."

"Collapsed?"

"Yeah. The breakthrough failed, all my progress vanished, and I had to start over." Wang Tie smiled bitterly. "Do you know what that feels like? I saved for more than half a year, spent seven days shut away, and at the last moment, pop—it was all gone. Like letting out a fart."

Ye An was silent for a moment. "Did you try again?"

"I did." Wang Tie's voice dropped. "I spent another half year preparing, borrowed money to buy better pills, and it collapsed again."

"And that brings us to now?"

"Now..." Wang Tie looked down at his empty tea bowl. It looked like him. "I'm up to my neck in debt. My father's over fifty and still cuts firewood in the mountains. My mother's eyesight is failing, but she won't spend money on medicine."

Wang Tie raised his head and watched the people passing along the street, though Ye An couldn't tell what he was looking at.

"Sometimes I think it would've been better if I'd never learned martial arts. I could've stayed home and farmed. We'd be poor, but we wouldn't be in debt. My parents wouldn't have to suffer alongside me."

That was how the world worked. Ordinary people took up martial arts because they thought becoming martial artists would let them earn more money.

Once they reached First Body Tempering, they could earn money. But then what? The next goal was Second Body Tempering.

That demanded more resources. Slowly, they would discover that although they earned more than before, life hadn't improved. Instead, they needed even more money.

Ye An didn't know what to say.

He thought of his own family. His father's general store earned twenty taels a month. His second brother's tuition and medicinal herbs cost fifteen, leaving five to support a family of four. His eldest brother studied at the county school, where tuition had gone up again.

The money for Ye An's martial arts tuition was what his father and eldest brother had scraped together by denying themselves.

If he didn't have the [Sage of Martial Dao], a failed attempt at First Body Tempering would mean all that silver had gone down the drain.

"Enough. Let's not talk about it." Wang Tie stood, took a few coins from his sleeve, and placed them on the table. "Tea's on me. Train hard. Don't end up like me."

He patted Ye An on the shoulder and turned to leave.

After two steps, he looked back. "Oh, right. How far along is your Azure Cloud Finger?"

"About thirty percent." Ye An concealed another twenty percent of his progress.

"High-Grade C Bone Structure, and a little over a month." Wang Tie did the math. "How long do you train each day?"

"Eight to ten hours."

Wang Tie froze, then smiled as realization dawned.

"If I'd had that kind of grit back then, maybe things would've turned out differently."

"Brother Tie."

"Hmm?"

Ye An hesitated, then asked, "Do you regret it?"

Wang Tie stood beside the street, the setting sun stretching his shadow long. He was silent for a long time before saying something Ye An hadn't expected.

"Regret it? No! These two years of training have been the two years I've felt most like a person in my whole life."

Wang Tie smiled and waved. This time, he walked away without looking back.

Ye An sat at the tea stall and slowly finished his bowl of bitter tea.

Wang Tie's words went around and around in his head.

Hard work didn't guarantee success. Effort didn't guarantee a reward. A breakthrough could fail, progress could vanish, and time and resources could all go to waste.

That was the fate of ordinary martial artists.

Ye An looked at the panel on his chest that only he could see.

He was different.

Ye An had time. He had perseverance.

What he needed was something that could guarantee his success.

And he already had it.

Ye An rose, put his bowl back on the table, and headed toward the Martial Hall.

It wasn't dark yet. He could train for another two hours.

Over the following days, Ye An trained as though his life depended on it.

Wang Tie's words lodged in Ye An's heart like a thorn, reminding him every moment—time waited for no one!

Ye An kept to his routine.

Every day, he was the first to arrive at the Martial Hall and the last to leave.

The hole in the stone slab deepened from half an inch to an inch, then nearly went all the way through.

[Azure Cloud Finger: 55/100]

[Azure Cloud Finger: 63/100]

[Azure Cloud Finger: 71/100]

Zhou Yuanlong and Sun Wanqing still mocked Ye An when they happened to pass him, but he could no longer be bothered to listen.

Lin Shaoyun occasionally glanced at him. The contempt in his eyes was no longer as strong as it had been when they first met.

Qian Duoduo still came over to chat with Ye An and check on his progress with Azure Cloud Finger.

Everything remained peaceful.

Until one evening.

By the time Ye An left the Martial Hall, dusk had fallen. He followed South Street toward Willow Alley. As he passed Drum Tower Street, he saw several people gathered outside a general store on the corner.

Ye An knew the shop. Its owner's surname was Chen, and like his father, the man ran a small business.

"Shopkeeper Chen, your monthly fee is due."

A fat man in a brocade robe stood at the entrance, flanked by two burly men who looked like hired thugs.

Shopkeeper Chen bent at the waist, his face full of ingratiating smiles. "Steward Zhou, business has been terrible this month. Could you give me a few more days?"

"A few more days?" Steward Zhou sneered. "You're already ten days late! If you don't pay, you can close this shop!"

Shopkeeper Chen's face went white.

Ye An stood at the alley entrance, watching with a bitter feeling in his chest.

Ye An recognized the steward causing trouble—he was one of the Zhou Family's people. Every shop in Anping County had to pay the Zhou Family a monthly "fee." Put plainly, it was protection money. If they didn't pay, they could forget about doing business in peace.

The Chen Family had no one who trained in martial arts.

So Shopkeeper Chen could only pay.

Ye An lowered his head and quickened his pace toward home.

When he passed his family's general store, Ye An stopped. It was still open. His father was inside doing the accounts, the dim yellow lamplight falling across his hunched back.

Ye An watched from the alley for a while.

Shopkeeper Chen's store had to pay protection money. The Ye Family's did not.

It wasn't because the Zhou Family was kindhearted. It was because the Ye Family had Ye Ning.

Mid-Grade B Bone Structure. Black Tiger Martial Arts Hall. Second Body Tempering.

Sixteen years old, and already at Second Body Tempering.

With that reputation behind him, even the Zhou Family had to think twice. Offending a martial artist who might one day reach Third Body Tempering, or even Meridian Opening, wasn't worth a little monthly fee.

Those were the rules of this world.

If your fists were hard enough, no one dared bully you.

If they weren't, you could only end up like Shopkeeper Chen: bending your back, forcing a smile, and letting others carve you up.

Ye An clenched his fists. Reaching First Body Tempering could not wait.