Pure Yang Lüzu, Enlightened Quanzhen

After rowing ashore, Chen Jue headed down the mountain and went home to shower, his clothes soaked through. Rather than going to Lin Family Village for breakfast, he cooked himself a bowl of noodles and put the last packet of Ten-Ingredient Tonic Decoction on to simmer.

"I need to buy more tonics already!"

Glancing at the empty box, Chen Jue went online and placed another order for the Ten-Ingredient Tonic Decoction.

His training had progressed so rapidly that he had finished in half a month a supply that would normally take someone two or three months to consume.

Still, the surge in his attributes meant Chen Jue had no qualms about spending the money.

After all, he now received a monthly allowance of 6,000 yuan, so he no longer had to worry about eating himself into poverty with tonics.

After breakfast, Chen Jue browsed the trending news on his phone and sat resting for an hour before recovering the stamina he had spent training underwater.

He checked the time. It was only just past nine in the morning, and the sunlight outside had just cleared the summit of Leigong Peak to fall on his windows and door. Feeling sufficiently rested, Chen Jue resumed training at home.

He practiced the Twelve Forms of the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic, Boat Boxing, and the Eight Immortals Stance in rotation. Once he closed his pores, the hot currents of qi and blood coursing beneath his skin gathered increasingly toward his legs and hands.

This was a sign that he was on the verge of developing hidden strength!

Unfortunately, Boat Boxing lacked depth. In everyday terms, its ceiling was too low, and it could not train hidden strength throughout the entire body.

Master Li Xiangning had practiced it for half his life, yet had only developed bright force in his hands and feet. That alone showed the shortcomings of this minor boxing style.

Chen Jue did not particularly mind, though. To him, these martial arts were merely tools for improving his physical attributes.

If one had shortcomings, he could simply switch to another and keep practicing. As long as his proficiency and levels could still rise and he could keep earning attribute points, Chen Jue trained with exceptional enthusiasm.

He trained until past eleven, earning 0.04 free attribute points. Together with what he had saved earlier, Chen Jue now had 0.36 free attribute points.

Had the martial arts competition not cost him a day, he probably would have had enough by now to raise either the Twelve Forms of the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic or the Impact-Conditioning Skill another level.

"I'm still being a little too impatient!"

Chen Jue shook his head and went to the kitchen to prepare lunch.

After lunch, he napped for over an hour, then got up in the afternoon and began exercising with equipment.

Each 50-kilogram dumbbell already felt a little light, so Chen Jue added another plate, increasing the weight to 75 kilograms.

Holding one in each hand, he pumped them vigorously up and down, heat rising from his entire body. After just over half an hour, his Strength increased by 0.01, reaching the 1.70 mark.

The muscles in Chen Jue's arms looked astonishingly thick and bulky. Combined with his bright force technique for closing his pores, they made his entire arms look dark gray and gleaming, as though cast from iron.

After exercising for over two hours, he went to the kitchen and drank a small bowl of Ten-Ingredient Tonic Decoction.

Watching his depleted Constitution slowly recover through the combined effects of the medicine and the Twelve Forms of the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic, Chen Jue smiled with particular delight.

Unfortunately, breaking past "2" in Constitution had not produced any major unusual phenomena. That kept Chen Jue from letting his imagination run wild as he had before.

Still, after his Constitution passed "2," Chen Jue's breathing and heartbeat became slower and deeper than before.

According to his digital watch, his heart rate had fallen to 30 beats per minute, occasionally dipping to 28 or 29. He could now genuinely rival a turtle in the water. (Turtle: ...Please, try being human!)

Moreover, the two underwater training sessions had greatly improved Chen Jue's cardiopulmonary function. His heartbeat grew increasingly powerful, and his stamina recovery speed had also increased considerably.

Checking the time and finding it was already five in the afternoon, Chen Jue made dinner.

After eating, he rested until seven, then put on the new training weights he had bought earlier and jogged up the mountain.

The new weights consisted of a 50-kilogram vest and 20 kilograms of wrist and ankle straps, totaling a full 70 kilograms.

Even a special forces soldier would struggle to endure such an outrageous load for long.

But after the substantial increases in Chen Jue's Constitution and Strength, 70 kilograms was merely a dumbbell he could lift with one hand-and was actually a little lighter than his own dumbbells.

He jogged a lap around the reservoir with the weights on, worked up quite a sweat, and earned a small increase in Agility.

Along the way, he encountered some villagers out for a stroll and greeted each of them with a smile.

After he had lived in the village for over half a month, the current residents of Chen Family Village had grown accustomed to Chen Jue's presence. Seeing him head up the mountain to exercise no longer aroused much curiosity.

He was young, after all!

In the eyes of the village elders, young people like Chen Jue were better off getting plenty of exercise!

Alternating between running and walking, he earned 0.02 Agility over the next hour. The increased load had clearly improved his efficiency.

Once darkness had fully fallen, Chen Jue went to the reservoir dam, descended the steps, and took off his training weights, leaving them on the bank. Then he jumped into the little boat and rowed over to the funnel-shaped whirlpool.

With a splash, he submerged again and swam down, holding his breath as he reached the Floodgate Valve. Settling into the Eight Immortals Stance, he began sensing the surging underwater currents.

This time, Chen Jue lasted nearly twenty minutes.

He only stopped once the Eight Immortals Stance's proficiency in his skill list had filled completely.

An unfamiliar muscle memory spread throughout his body. Just as Chen Jue was about to end his practice, he suddenly felt heat gather in his hands and feet. Holding his hands level, he pushed them out to either side, and a powerful surge of hidden strength burst through his palms, sending waves rolling outward.

Hidden strength erupted beneath his feet as well, stirring the silt on the bottom into a murky cloud.

Before he could think further, those four bursts of hidden strength made Chen Jue's heart hammer several times in rapid succession. With the air in his lungs exhausted, he hurriedly swam up toward the surface.

Only after climbing into the boat and taking several gasping breaths did Chen Jue feel a little better.

"The Eight Immortals Stance didn't advance to Lv3. Just like the Child's-Boy Skill, it reached perfection directly!"

Chen Jue glanced at his attribute panel. The newly perfected Eight Immortals Stance had gained a bonus annotation similar to [One Qi, Rising Sun Birth]: "Pure Yang Lüzu, Enlightened Quanzhen."

[Pure Yang Lüzu, Enlightened Quanzhen]: Greatly increases the training speed of authentic Daoist internal arts.

This was the second miraculous bonus state generated by his attribute panel. Yet one look at its effect left Chen Jue somewhat bewildered.

It was clearly a stance-training and boxing art used by coastal fishermen to fight Japanese pirates. How had Daoism become involved?

Shaking the water off his body, he rowed ashore, shouldered his training weights, and jogged all the way home.

After a hot shower and a change into clean clothes, Chen Jue began searching online for relevant information.

That search opened up a whole new line of thinking and helped him sort out many of his guesses about the origins of Boat Boxing and the Eight Immortals Stance.