The urgent priority was making money! (Please keep reading~) (1 / 2)

Just as Dian Zhang had said, the path of martial arts was a race against every passing moment. Fall behind by one step, and every step afterward would lag behind. When an opportunity appeared, if you failed to seize it with your life on the line, that single opportunity would not be the only thing you lost to others.

The Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art had already been recorded on his panel. With his experience practicing the Poison Sand Palm and the Five Poisons Art, cultivating the Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art did not feel entirely unfamiliar.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Soon, the sound of a heavy object striking flesh rang throughout the Side Room.

Iron Dregs were the scraps left behind after forging. After round upon round of repeated refining, their metal content had become extremely low, but every grain was viciously sharp.

Although Zhao Er's skin was already quite tough, the repeated blows began to leave it red and swollen, even if they did not split it open.

Not only that, some of the powder also entered Zhao Er's body through his pores.

Yet Zhao Er acted as though he felt nothing. His movements did not ease in the slightest; instead, he struck even harder.

Only after the small bag of Iron Dregs had been smashed into powder and his body was covered in scraps did Zhao Er stop. Then he began using the circulation method unique to the Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art.

"Urgh!"

As Zhao Er circulated the art, a muffled groan escaped his lips, and his body began trembling involuntarily.

Although Zhao Er had prepared himself for the pain of cultivating the Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art, only when he actually began did he realize that he seemed to have underestimated its agony.

Cultivating the Five Poisons Returning to Origin Body involved absorbing toxins, using them to destroy the body, and then reforging it. Depending on the poison, the process brought all sorts of sensations: burning, aching numbness, and swelling.

Cultivating the Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art felt as though metal was grinding his muscle fibers to pieces before reforging them. The entire process was nothing but pure pain.

What Zhao Er did not know was that others used pure metal shavings for cultivation not only to reduce the toxins in the impurities, but also to lessen the pain. The more impurities the metal contained, the more agonizing cultivation became.

No, this hurts too fucking much...

Zhao Er had only just completed one full circulation, yet he already looked as though he had been hauled out of the water. His body shook like grain in a winnowing sieve, forcing him to stop cultivating.

But Zhao Er was not giving up. Instead, he turned toward the medicinal herbs, stored snake venom, and centipede venom sacs in the Side Room.

Without hesitation, Zhao Er walked over, picked up the prepared mixture of herbs and various toxins, and swallowed it straight down.

Only after doing all this did Zhao Er return and resume cultivating. This time, however, before practicing the Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art, he first cultivated the Five Poisons Returning to Origin Body.

Zhao Er was already familiar with the pain of cultivating the Five Poisons Returning to Origin Body, and had grown accustomed to it.

Most importantly, Zhao Er's medicinal herbs contained large quantities of toxins that could numb his body or his nerves.

Thus, when Zhao Er finished cultivating the Five Poisons Returning to Origin Body and began the Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art again, that heart-rending, lung-tearing agony did indeed lessen considerably, just as he had expected.

At least the pain was now within what Zhao Er could endure.

As Zhao Er began circulating the Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art, the scraps embedded in his body and the powder clinging to his skin began falling away.

This meant that Zhao Er had absorbed all the metal within them, leaving them unusable.

As the powder fell away, the patches of red, swollen skin and even the broken wounds disappeared along with it. His skin looked a little fairer than before.

"Whew~~finally finished cultivating. I have no idea how other people bear it..."

Zhao Er let out a long breath and finally opened his eyes, his expression relaxed. Although his cultivation was over, the pain he had just endured still left him shaken.

"Grrr~~"

Just as Zhao Er finished cultivating, his stomach gave a timely rumble, and an intense hunger swept over him.

The Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art was no unorthodox, fringe method. Although its cultivation process was excruciating, it was fundamentally an orthodox art; it simply consumed more resources in the form of metal.

Still, constantly grinding down and reforging his muscles during cultivation also consumed a considerable amount of energy within Zhao Er's body.

But Zhao Er could not spare a thought for eating yet. He wanted to know how much progress his latest cultivation had yielded, so he could verify whether substituting Iron Dregs for metal shavings was viable.

Event complete. Beginning settlement!

Settlement event: cultivation!

Consumed poison, cultivated "Five Poisons Returning to Origin Body," cultivated "Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art"

Gained: "Five Poisons Returning to Origin Body" +5, "Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art" +2

Whew~~the cultivation results of the Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art are still much worse than those of the Five Poisons Returning to Origin Body. Looks like making money needs to be my priority for now... Perhaps getting another art and merging it with the Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art would speed up cultivation, too.

Looking at the Settlement Panel, Zhao Er saw that the Five Poisons Returning to Origin Body had gained one more point of progress than in his previous cultivation settlement. He guessed that this was because his body had absorbed the toxins in the iron dregs.

The Nine-Turn Golden Armor Art's progress, however, was less than half that of the Five Poisons Returning to Origin Body. Even including the gains made during cultivation itself, it would only increase by four points a day.

Moreover, because cultivating it was so painful, once a day was already Zhao Er's limit. He was not satisfied with that.

And so, making money became his most urgent priority.

He put on his clothes, pushed open the door, and walked out. It was already growing dark outside, but his parents and younger sister had not started eating. Instead, they sat at the table waiting for him.

"Second Brother~~come eat! Mother cooked a huge pot of venison today!"

Only when she saw Zhao Er approaching did Zhao Shan manage to tear her eyes away from the meat.

"All right, all right, I'm coming!"

The pain in Zhao Er's body had not completely faded, and even his fingers still trembled slightly. But he did his best to keep it under control as he walked over to eat and drink with his family.

Four days passed in the blink of an eye.

Over those days, aside from going up the mountain, Zhao Er cultivated at home every day.

The outskirts of the Clear Radiance Mountains now posed a far smaller threat to Zhao Er, so he had increased the number of centipede traps he set on the mountain from three to six.

He only needed to walk a little farther each time to harvest more centipedes, which amounted to a sizable income for him.

Unfortunately, his luck seemed to have been somewhat worse on these trips. His traps had not caught another large stag.

His only catch had been a half-grown wild boar. Although the little boar was not worth much money, it replenished his family's meat supply. Zhao Er's appetite had increased greatly over the past few days, so with this little boar, they would not need to buy any extra meat.

"Second Brother! Second Brother! Those people collecting protection money are here again!"

Zhao Er was still cultivating in the Side Room when Zhao Shan came running in from outside, shouting as she ran.