"If you enter my tutelage, I have no other demands. You must abide by the martial arts hall's rules. If you cannot, don't blame your master for turning his back on you!" Yue Shan warned sternly.
"This disciple will faithfully obey your instructions!" Lin Fan promised.
Yue Shan nodded, then reached into his robes and tossed a money pouch to Lin Fan. "Your master is a worldly man. Let me give you a little silver as a welcoming gift."
Lin Fan caught it. The familiar feel told him it contained gold leaves, and he estimated there were more than ten of them.
A thousand taels of silver at their first meeting-Lin Fan loved how worldly his master was. The worldlier, the better.
"Thank you, Master!" Lin Fan offered his sincere thanks.
Yue Shan turned his gaze to Yang Kuan and instructed, "Yang Kuan, take Lin Fan to register, then teach him the Body Tempering Art."
"Yes, Master."
While Lin Fan rejoiced, others were angry, anxious, and terrified.
When Zhang Yu heard from Han Feng that Lin Fan had already reached major accomplishment in Iron Cloth Shirt and entered the inner courtyard as Yue Shan's disciple, he dropped into his chair, his eyes blank and his face filled with disbelief.
"How is that possible? Apart from spending a little time as Young Master Tang's Human Stake every day, he had no opportunity to practice Iron Cloth Shirt. How could he have reached major accomplishment? A martial arts genius, a prodigy in combat, a freak of cultivation-how could Lin Fan possess such talent?" Zhang Yu muttered to himself, growing more resentful and jealous with every word.
Slowly, his fists clenched, and his blank gaze turned resolute. "Lin Fan must die. Even if I have to take a risk, I must kill him. Otherwise, I'm doomed!"
In the inner courtyard, Li Feng's private training room resounded with furious, jealous, and frenzied roars.
"Why should Lin Fan reach major accomplishment in Iron Cloth Shirt? Why should he catch up to me so quickly? What right does a mud-legged peasant like him have? He should rot in the mud forever, forever trampled beneath my feet!"
Back with Lin Fan, Yang Kuan took him to finish registering and collect three sets of inner courtyard disciple robes. Once he put them on, Lin Fan could conduct himself outside as a disciple of the Mountain Suppression Martial Arts Hall. Everyone in Qingshan County would have to show him some respect.
After becoming an inner courtyard disciple, even a martial apprentice like Lin Fan could receive a monthly stipend of twenty taels. Such treatment was something Lin Fan would never have dared dream of before.
Yang Kuan brought Lin Fan to the Martial Practice Pavilion, a place specifically for inner courtyard disciples to practice martial arts. Every disciple could apply for a private training room.
Yang Kuan helped Lin Fan apply for one. When they opened the door and entered, an enormous room of more than three hundred square meters came into view. Its floor and walls were built from Black Tortoise Stone as tough as iron, sturdy enough for a Ninth-Grade Martial Artist to wreak havoc at will.
But Lin Fan did not dare unleash his full strength here. He was a little worried he might blast through a wall. A hundred thousand jin of strength combined with the destructive power of Gang Qi was no joke.
As he was now, Lin Fan believed that if he faced that protector of the Green Snake Bandits again, he would not fear him at all, even if the man were uninjured. His chances of winning were considerable.
"Junior Brother Lin, I know you must be eager to practice the Body Tempering Art. I'll teach you right away." Yang Kuan wore a look that said he understood him perfectly.
Lin Fan felt helpless, but he still had to pretend to be eager. "Thank you, Senior Brother!"
Yang Kuan taught him movement by movement, line by line of the mnemonic formula. In Lin Fan's eyes, his movements had many shortcomings. After all, Yang Kuan had only reached major accomplishment, while Lin Fan had already reached perfection.
Yet Lin Fan could only pretend to be a novice, deliberately making mistakes for Yang Kuan to correct. The feeling hardly bore mentioning.
Ah, keeping up this non-genius persona is exhausting. Lin Fan felt helpless, but he had no intention of revealing his full talent. How many geniuses under heaven met a good end? Only those who followed the Dao of lying low could make it to the end.
It took Yang Kuan nearly an hour to finish teaching him once, and then he started again from the beginning. He said he would make sure Lin Fan learned it that day.
Lin Fan helplessly followed along, improving a little with each repetition. He was already doing his best to hold back his progress, but Yang Kuan was still greatly astonished.
"Junior Brother Lin, you really are a genius. You've memorized all the movements so quickly. All that's left is the breathing rhythm, and that needs gradual adjustment. Back then, it took me nearly half a month just to reach the entry level of the Body Tempering Art." Although Yang Kuan sighed, his tone betrayed his pride.
Lin Fan did not understand, but he respected it. He offered a word of flattery while also probing indirectly about a few things.
"Senior Brother Yang, do you think there's anyone in this world who can memorize a martial art after seeing it once, then cultivate it to perfection in a short time?"
At this, Yang Kuan's gaze grew distant, his expression revealing envy. "Of course there is. There's a kind of person in this world born to be a seed of the Martial Dao, born for the Martial Dao itself. They possess a Divine Ability Bone and are called Martial Dao Monsters." He paused there to let Lin Fan digest it.
"For martial arts with less than ten percent Intent Realm, they can learn them after a single viewing, and they cultivate extremely quickly. In ten days or half a month, they can reach perfection. Their cultivation realms advance very quickly too. In one month, they can go from an ordinary person to Body Tempering Perfection."
The more Yang Kuan spoke, the more envious he became, while the more Lin Fan listened, the more astonished he grew. These traits of a Martial Dao Monster closely resembled his own. In fact, he was even more outrageous: he had taken only ten days to cultivate from an ordinary person to Body Tempering Perfection.
Could I be a Martial Dao Monster with a Divine Ability Bone? Lin Fan pondered inwardly, already leaning toward believing it.
"Ah..." Yang Kuan shook his head and sighed. "This world really is unfair. Forget it. Divine Ability Bones are too far removed from us. Besides, possessing one without power or influence is a calamity too. The powerful people who want to seize a Divine Ability Bone and transplant it into themselves are as numerous as the stars in the sky. Too many Martial Dao Monsters have been hunted down for that."
Lin Fan's face paled slightly at these words. At that moment, he was immensely relieved that he had been cautious enough not to reveal his true cultivation speed. Otherwise, he might already be lying in some powerhouse's secret chamber, having his tendons ripped out and his bones stripped away.
"Junior Brother Lin, why are you so pale? You're breaking out in a cold sweat too. Are you all right?" Yang Kuan asked with concern.
"I'm fine. I just didn't expect that even Martial Dao Monsters might not live to see tomorrow. This world is too chaotic," he explained briefly.
"Who are we to pity them?" Yang Kuan gave a self-mocking smile. "They still have a good chance of becoming towering powerhouses and controlling their own destinies. Ordinary people like us are the miserable ones, forever struggling at the very bottom of the martial world. The slightest wind or wave in the martial world can drown us."
"Heh..." Lin Fan laughed awkwardly. "You're right, Senior Brother."
Afterward, Yang Kuan continued teaching Lin Fan the Body Tempering Art. The two practiced until they stopped for lunch at noon.
The meals for inner courtyard disciples were heaven and earth apart from those for outer courtyard disciples.
There was a wide variety of dishes, all excellent in color, aroma, and flavor. Apparently, every cook here had received further training at the Heavenly Fragrance Pavilion.
Most importantly, they could drink as much medicinal soup as they wanted. If they could stomach a whole bucket, that was fine. They no longer needed to worry about insufficient medicinal soup slowing their cultivation progress.
Lin Fan downed three bowls of medicinal soup in succession, leaving his belly rounded. He rubbed his stomach and asked Yang Kuan with feigned casualness.
"Senior Brother, you've already reached Body Tempering Major Accomplishment. Have you started Bone Forging yet?"
Yang Kuan shook his head. "My Body Tempering hasn't reached its limit yet. I'll only start Bone Forging once I feel I've reached that limit."
Lin Fan was disappointed. It seemed secretly learning a Bone Forging cultivation method from Yang Kuan would be impossible.
He grew anxious inwardly. Inner disciples all had private training rooms, so secretly learning from them was not a viable path at all. He had to obtain a body-forging cultivation method through some other means. The feeling of being unable to keep progressing was simply too painful.