In the days that followed, Xia Xi settled into a regular routine, shuttling between two places.
By day, he learned forging from Tiezhen.
At night, he worked on his Life Skills, then headed into the nearby mountains to look for ore.
Occasionally, when his body felt tired,
he would go outside the village and enjoy a comfortable soak in the hot springs.
The swordsmiths had not been fooling him. A soak really did improve his circulation considerably.
This gave Xia Xi a sudden idea.
He secretly brought some hot spring water back to his lodgings, then used his [Medicine] and [Pharmaceutical Crafting] skills.
He successfully developed version 0.1 of a medicinal bath.
The results were unexpectedly good.
After a single night, Xia Xi's [Body] had successfully increased by 2 points.
It passed the 700 mark.
Normally, unless he triggered a great success, even high-intensity training could not directly raise the stat in a single night.
However, when he took his second and even third medicinal baths,
the rate of stat growth began to drop noticeably...
According to his Medicine assessment, after roughly ten uses, his body would become completely resistant to this medicinal bath's effects.
Even so, it would be enough to raise Xia Xi's Energy Level by 7 or 8 points.
And Xia Xi made a decision.
Once he returned, he would find some mountain springs in the Northern Region too and arrange the same medicinal baths for all his underlings.
Xia Xi was not a stingy man.
On the contrary, if he could make the people who trusted and admired him stronger, he did not mind taking a small loss or going to a little trouble.
As long as he worked hard enough, with his astonishing wisdom and the system working alongside him,
there was no way anyone