First Body Tempering

Ye An already lost count of the days.

Waking up each day meant training. He ate when hungry, slept when tired, and woke up to continue training.

[Azure Cloud Finger: 71/100]

[Azure Cloud Finger: 76/100]

[Azure Cloud Finger: 82/100]

[Azure Cloud Finger: 87/100]

At noon that day, the students gathered at the entrance of the Martial Hall to eat dry rations and chat.

"Did you hear? Those bastards from the Blackwind Stronghold came down the mountain again."

"Which place did they raid this time?"

"Northern Li Family Ravine. They stole three oxen and even beat up two villagers."

"Won't the township protector magistrate do something?"

"How can he? The Blackwind Stronghold hunkers down on Blackwind Ridge, easy to defend and hard to attack. Not to mention Pang Hu's strength, with hundreds of men under him, how many people would die in a hard assault?"

"Tch, what a world..."

"Ain't that the truth. For petty martial artists like us, just holding onto our own tiny plot of land is already good enough."

Ye An sat in the corner gnawing on a strip of dried meat.

Blackwind Stronghold, Pang Hu. Rumor had it that his strength had already broken through Meridian Opening, a force not to be taken lightly.

Qian Duoduo leaned over and lowered his voice. "Those people from the Blackwind Stronghold are getting more and more arrogant. I heard they have ties with certain lineages in the city, otherwise how could they have such guts?"

Ye An glanced at him. "How so?"

Qian Duoduo chuckled and didn't dare to elaborate.

Ye An didn't press further either.

The pit on the stone slab grew deeper and deeper, on the verge of being pierced through.

[Azure Cloud Finger: 91/100]

[Azure Cloud Finger: 93/100]

[Azure Cloud Finger: 95/100]

After reaching ninety-five, the speed slowed down noticeably.

The closer one got to the breakthrough stage, the more every martial artist would find themselves stuck, thereby causing their cultivation progress to slow to a crawl.

At this point, what was being tested was a martial artist's comprehension and Bone Structure, but Ye An had no bottlenecks.

Ye An's problem lay in time!

Ye An only needed time!

One day, two days, three days.

[Azure Cloud Finger: 96/100]

[Azure Cloud Finger: 97/100]

The fourth day.

Ye An's fingers were swollen even more severely than before, and the cloth strips holding the ointment had already been replaced several times.

Zhao Tieshan finished his cultivation, walked over to Ye An's side, and stood for a moment.

"Take a rest. I see you're almost accumulating enough to reach the barrier-breaking stage."

"Alright." Ye An didn't raise his head and continued practicing Azure Cloud Finger.

"When I practiced the first layer back then, I was just like you. Poking every day, poking until my fingers bled, poking until the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep."

Ye An stopped his movements and glanced at Zhao Tieshan.

Zhao Tieshan smiled, his smile holding a hint of simple honesty. "But it took me three months to reach First Body Tempering. How long has it been for you?"

"Almost three months."

"Three months..." Zhao Tieshan repeated, acknowledging it with approval. "Faster than me."

The fifth day.

[Azure Cloud Finger: 98/100]

The sixth day.

[Azure Cloud Finger: 99/100]

Ye An looked at this number, his finger hanging suspended in mid-air.

Ninety-nine.

Just a little bit more!

Ye An took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

He suddenly opened his eyes.

He pointed with a single finger!

"Crack."

The stone slab split from the middle, a hole piercing straight through from front to back.

[Azure Cloud Finger: 100/100]

Ye An looked at the cracked stone slab and felt the changes within himself.

A warm current started from his fingertip, surged upward along his arm, passed through his wrist, forearm, and elbow, and spread all the way to his shoulder. Then it followed his spine downward and coursed through his entire body.

This was no illusion.

It was real, tangible power!

Ye An's skin tightened, his muscles expanded, and his bones clicked and popped. This was a transformation from the inside out, as though something had been shattered and then grown back anew.

Ye An clenched his fist.

His knuckles cracked a few times, and the air in his palm was squeezed out, producing a faint, muffled sound.

Ye An stood up, his footsteps steadier than ever before.

Ye An walked over to the black stone in the courtyard used for testing strength.

The black stone stood a foot high and half a foot wide, cyan-gray and smooth on the surface. This was a testing stone, used specifically to measure the Body Tempering Realm.

The standard for First Body Tempering was to leave an imprint on it.

Su Yuanshan was standing under the veranda before anyone noticed.

Zhao Tieshan pulled back his fist and looked over toward this side.

Lin Shaoyun walked out from the back courtyard, crossing his arms and leaning against the door frame as he watched Ye An.

Su Qing stopped working on repairing the wooden stake and looked up.

Qian Duoduo jumped up from the bench, the dried rations in his hand halting near his mouth.

Ye An extended the index finger of his right hand.

There was no gathering of force, no flashy movements—he simply pressed forward relying on the strength gained from Body Tempering.

Crack!

On the surface of the black stone, a fissure spread out from his fingertip, a full half-finger deep.

First Body Tempering!

The training ground fell silent for a fleeting moment.

"He did it." Zhao Tieshan was the first to speak, his voice not loud but carrying a hint of a smile.

Su Qing tossed her tools onto the ground and clapped her hands in appreciation. "Congratulations."

"Congratulations." Congratulatory voices rang out one after another from the surroundings.

An additional true martial artist in the Martial Hall meant that the strength of the Green Bamboo Martial Arts Hall had improved.

Qian Duoduo shoved the jerky into his mouth, chewing as he said indistinctly, "He actually pulled it off."

Zhou Yuanlong stood behind the crowd, his expression looking rather poor. Meanwhile, Sun Wanqing bit her lip and said very little.

"It's just good luck," Zhou Yuanlong muttered quietly.

Su Yuanshan looked at the crack on the black stone, his voice flat. "The First Layer of Azure Cloud Finger is complete."

"Come get the formula for the Second Layer tomorrow."

"Thank you, Master."

Su Yuanshan said nothing more, turning and heading back to the back courtyard.

Qian Duoduo rushed over, grabbed Ye An's wrist, and turned it over to observe it closely. "Why is this finger of yours as hard as iron?"

Ye An pulled his hand back and brushed off Qian Duoduo's teasing with a perfunctory reply. "I was born with it."

"Haha."

"Judging by the force of that finger just now based on First Body Tempering with Azure Cloud Finger, it's at least three hundred catties!"

Ye An once again sensed the changes in his body; the feeling of breaking through this barrier was truly wonderful.

His entire body felt as though it were wrapped in an invisible membrane, and his skin was much firmer than before. Pressing down with a hand, he could feel that the muscles underneath were rock-hard.

Ye An bent his waist, his spine clicking twice, and everything had been enhanced.

This was First Body Tempering.

Skin, flesh, tendons, bones, and membranes had all been reinforced completely.

Everything was different now.

It was completely different.

Zhao Tieshan walked over and asked after Ye An calmed down, "How does it feel?"

"It's like--changing into a completely new body..."

"That's right." Zhao Tieshan nodded. "First Body Tempering is a watershed. Before reaching it, no matter how hard you train, you are still an ordinary person. Once you reach it, you can truly be considered to have stepped through the door."

Zhao Tieshan glanced at Ye An's fingers. "Go back and rest well for a few days, don't train too hard. The second level requires even higher intensity, and if you forcibly keep practicing in your current state, it will only yield the opposite result."

"Thank you for the guidance, Senior Brother." Ye An agreed with Zhao Tieshan's words; he truly needed to rest and recover.

The sky had already grown dark, and lanterns on the street were lighting up one by one.

Ye An walked very quickly when returning home today.

He wanted to tell his father this good news.

Tell Big Brother.

Tell Second Brother.

When Ye An reached Willow Alley, he saw the light of his father's grocery store still on.

Ye Shouzhuo was calculating accounts behind the counter, the clatter of the abacus echoing in the room.

Ye Shouzhuo had rolled up his dust- and sweat-stained cuffs at the moment, revealing his thin wrists.

The dim yellow light shone on his face, the corners of his eyes and brows covered in the traces of years, as if carved stroke by stroke by a knife.

"Dad."

Ye Shouzhuo raised his head, his gaze shifting over from the ledger.

"I've reached First Body Tempering."

Ye Shouzhuo naturally knew what First Body Tempering was.

The sound of the abacus stopped.

Ye Shouzhuo's hand stopped in mid-air, only putting the abacus down after a long while.

He looked at Ye An, his gaze lingering for a split second on Ye An's cloth-wrapped fingers before moving to Ye An's face.

"It worked?!" Ye Shouzhuo's voice was somewhat hoarse.

"It worked!"

Ye Shouzhuo didn't speak.

He lowered his head and flicked the abacus again, the beads colliding to produce a crisp click.

"Good." Ye Shouzhuo looked steady and composed, but the fingers flicking the abacus were trembling slightly.

"Dad, aren't you going to take a look?"

"What's there to look at."

"You're my son, how could I not know whether you've got what it takes?"

Ye An smiled brilliantly; he understood that the support from his father and Big Brother actually took an immense amount of determination.

And Ye An did not let them down.

"Then I'm heading back to my room."

"Mn."

Ye An turned and left the grocery store, walking toward the courtyard.

Passing Big Brother's room, Ye An knocked on the door.

"Brother."

"Come in."

Ye An pushed the door open and entered. Ye Ping was sitting at the desk reading a book, the flame of an oil lamp flickering in the draft, casting his shadow against the wall, growing larger and smaller by turns.

"I've reached First Body Tempering."

The book in Ye Ping's hand was put down.

He looked at Ye An, his gentle smile carrying joy.

"Good."

"I knew you could do it."

"How did you know?" Ye An bantered.

"Because you're my younger brother."

Ye An couldn't help laughing. "Since when do you say things like that?"

"From reading books." Ye Ping laughed along with him. "Books all write it like this."

The brothers looked at each other and burst into loud laughter.

This joy of breakthrough made both of them equally happy.

"Where's Second Brother?"

"Number Two should be patrolling East Ward right now; let's wait for him to come back before telling him this surprise."

"Mn."

With First Body Tempering, the subsequent cultivation would require Body Tempering Pills.

He could also go find work just like Second Brother.

Tomorrow he would go learn the second level's Azure Cloud Finger, with Second Body Tempering as the next goal.

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