"Welcome to the Four Seas Martial Arts Gym."
"Join as a student now and get thirty percent off!"
The young hostess immediately greeted the visitor with a smile.
"I'd like to rent a training room," Qin Ze said.
The gym's training rooms were fully equipped.
Not only did they have rings, all sorts of weapons, and protective gear, but they also had qi and blood testers.
The hostess's eyes curved into crescents. "A training room costs five hundred an hour. How long would you like it for?"
Qin Ze winced at the price.
Since leaving the psychiatric hospital, he had less than a thousand bucks to his name.
His family had gone traveling, and who knew what year of the monkey or month of the horse they'd be back.
He'd have to ask his big sister for support.
Otherwise, he'd starve in a couple of weeks.
"One hour is enough."
"Please follow me."
The hostess took Qin Ze to the front desk to pay, then gave him a black room card.
"Turn left on the first floor. It's the second room."
"Thanks." Qin Ze took the card.
The hostess suddenly leaned close, her breath fragrant as orchids. "Student, would you like an instructor?"
"Our female instructors all just graduated from martial arts universities. We have photos here for you to choose from."
The hostess wore a high-slit qipao. She deliberately raised a leg, and the slit nearly reached her armpit.
"Are these instructors of yours respectable?" Qin Ze asked.
The hostess giggled. "This is a respectable martial arts gym."
"But if you want one... that'll cost extra."
In the past, the place with the highest concentration of teachers wasn't a school, but a barbershop.
But in this world, Qin Ze felt that martial arts gyms had an even higher concentration of teachers than barbershops.
"No need. I'm just going to practice a little."
If it was free, he could give it a try.
But pay for it?
Forget it, then.
The hostess immediately lost interest and swayed her hips back to the entrance to continue soliciting customers.
Qin Ze thought to himself that people's hearts weren't what they used to be, and hurried to the training room.
The countdown had already begun the moment he'd received the room card.
Beep-
Qin Ze swiped the door open and found the qi and blood tester in the center of the room.
To put it plainly, the qi and blood tester was a wooden post with an electronic display.
Attack the post with all your strength, and the display would show the qi and blood value of the strike.
Qin Ze took a deep breath and landed a heavy punch squarely on the post.
The electronic screen flickered a few times, then displayed the qi and blood value.
513.
One hundred was the dividing line between martial artists and ordinary people.
A qi and blood value above one hundred made someone what people commonly called an unranked martial artist.
Only after breaking through one thousand would they become an official Level One Martial Artist.
By martial artist rankings, Qin Ze was now equivalent to a level-0.5 martial artist.
Though he wasn't strong, he had at least passed the threshold for registering for the martial arts exam.
Bang, bang, bang, bang-
Qin Ze's arms shook, and eighty acupoints burst open in succession.
After circulating the Fate Reversal Technique at full power, he punched the post again.
801.
He wasn't finished yet.
Qin Ze gathered the attributes of all his clones and tested another punch.
The qi and blood value on the display shot up like a little cow riding a rocket.
It finally settled at 1,269.
A moment later, sage time arrived.
Qin Ze lay on the floor like a salted fish.
"So with all my buffs active, I can trade blows with a Level One Martial Artist."
Though only for half a minute.
The skill that gathered the attributes of all his clones had a cooldown of about an hour.
At most, he could use it more than twenty times a day.
"Mm~"
Qin Ze suddenly jolted.
A wave of pleasure rushed from the soles of his feet through his entire body, straight to the crown of his head.
The negative effects of sage time vanished instantly.
"Brother Devour broke through!"
Qin Ze received qi and blood feedback from Brother Devour, who was out farming in the wild.
Bang!
Qin Ze sprang to his feet with a carp kip-up and punched the post.
835.
"Holy crap, Brother Devour is awesome!"
The qi and blood feedback from Brother Devour this time was worth two months of Qin Ze's meditation.
"Quick, say thank you to Brother Devour."
"Brother Devour has it rough, getting his blood sucked by a sneaky bastard like you."
"Get more Soul Orbs! If each of us clones gets one, won't the original take off?"
"To get Soul Orbs, we'd have to hunt exotic beasts. At our level, all we can do when we face one is slide-tackle it."
"We'll leave that important task to Brother Devour."
The clones chimed in one after another, giving Qin Ze an idea.
He'd let Brother Devour farm in the city a while longer, then send him outside the city to develop.
Maybe, if his luck was good, he'd get another Soul Orb.
There was still more than half an hour left in the training room.
Qin Ze couldn't be bothered to cultivate, so he lay down and enjoyed the air conditioning instead.
Then he took out his phone and called Qin Yu.
After he'd called three times in a row, Qin Yu's slightly weary voice finally sounded on the other end.
"A-Ze, I already told you, your sister is in a desperate fight with an alien race. Don't call if it's nothing important."
Faintly, Qin Ze heard other voices.
"Those in the back, hurry up and catch up. We're almost at the summit."
"I've already booked the hot spring hotel. Tomorrow morning we'll watch the sunrise..."
Dark lines covered Qin Ze's face. "Having your final showdown with the alien race atop the Forbidden City, are you?"
"Hurry up and send me money. I'm about to run out of food."
Cultivation was his top priority now.
Qin Ze couldn't be bothered to worry about exactly where his sister and the others were off having fun.
"Huh? You need money to eat?" Qin Yu asked, puzzled.
Qin Ze said, "Well, that's news. Who doesn't need money to eat?"
Qin Yu said, "True. Never heard of it."
Qin Ze said, "Drinking the northwest wind is free. Want some?"
"I don't drink it."
"Neither do I."
"What respectable person drinks the northwest wind?"
"Then hurry up and send me money!"
"Hello? The signal's a little bad here. I'll hang up first... Beep, beep, beep..."
Qin Ze gritted his teeth and called his mom and dad.
"Sorry, the number you have dialed cannot be reached at the moment. Please try again later..."
He'd been blocked.
Qin Ze fell into deep self-doubt.
Was he really their biological child?
When his time was up, Qin Ze walked out of the gym.
"Please come again."
The young hostess at the entrance smiled and bowed.
"Did you used to work at a barbershop?" Qin Ze asked curiously.
The hostess shook her head. "No, I work part-time at a bathhouse."
All right, then.
At least it was in her field.
Qin Ze found a random pig trotter rice place downstairs from his home and spent fifteen bucks.
The meal rush had just passed, so there weren't many customers. Qin Ze sat down in a corner.
The television on the wall was playing the Jiang City evening news.
"A rift has appeared twenty-six kilometers east of the city. It has released no fewer than thirty F-rank exotic beasts so far. Law enforcement is clearing them out. Residents should not leave the city unless necessary."
"The Jiangcheng Secret Realm has stabilized. The City Defense Bureau is leading a team to clear out the dangers, and it will be opened to the public at a later date."
"With a little over a hundred days left until the college entrance exam, registration for the martial arts exam begins in five days. Keep it up, students, and strive to achieve the great rejuvenation of the human race."
His pig trotter rice arrived.
There was meat, rice, and vegetables.
It tasted pretty good, too.
For the next few days, Qin Ze cultivated step by step.
He Bi didn't come looking for trouble again without knowing his place, and almost always took a detour when he saw Qin Ze.
That morning, Qin Ze had just sat down in the classroom when Fatty ran over excitedly and grabbed his hand.
"Brother Ze, I've awakened a talent ability!"