Faced with the female cultivator's kindness and concern, Lin Changheng could only attribute it to his considerable talent for body tempering, assuring her that he had strength to spare and knew his limits.
Xu Hanwu looked thoughtful but did not press him. After all, who did not have something unusual about them?
She had secrets of her own, too. After giving him another word of caution, she arranged the full quantity Lin Changheng requested.
Lin Changheng breathed a sigh of relief and paid all the spirit stones required for the materials. By a rough estimate, these materials alone had cost him nearly a thousand spirit stones over the years.
The poor pursued letters; the wealthy practiced martial arts. Even in the cultivation world, that old saying held true.
After all, body tempering was also a form of "martial practice," in a sense.
After an unknown stretch of time, Lin Changheng felt that the medicinal bath had become like plain water, with nothing left for him to absorb, and rose out of the tub.
As he dressed, he looked at the faint azure sheen beneath his skin. With a thought, he activated the "Evergreen Azurewood Body."
Without any apparent cause, an azure light began to emerge over Lin Changheng's body.
Lin Changheng extended his palm and saw that it had quietly taken on an azure-green hue, resembling a piece of mottled green jade.
If the "Evergreen Azurewood Body" Xu Hanwu had displayed back then was a piece of pure green jade, flawless and without any grain,
then the "mottling" in Lin Changheng's version was not impurities, but the growth rings of ancient wood faintly visible beneath his skin.
This was a unique effect of the technique's second layer, as well as its distinguishing mark.
He flicked a finger against his arm,