In the early morning, gentle sunlight fell upon the people of Chen Village, wrapping them all in a warm coat.
The village hunters had left early that morning, leaving only some of the able-bodied villagers on guard.
On the training ground east of the village, Chen Shanxiong was teaching the village children their morning exercises. A group of children punched and kicked beneath the sun, sweating like rain, an imposing sight in their own way.
"Mornings are full of vitality, and Spiritual Qi is most abundant then. It's also the best time for us to absorb the essence of heaven and earth. Training at this time yields twice the result with half the effort, so you must never slack off."
Chen Shanxiong held his hands behind his back, his sharp eyes sweeping over the children. They all fell as silent as cicadas in winter, not daring to move.
"Next, we'll practice the next form, the standing stance!"
More than a hundred children, ranging from six years old to their teens, immediately lowered their waists into horse stances and raised their hands loosely, assuming the proper standing posture.
Children who grew up under the pressure of blood and fire could always burst forth with tenacious vitality.
After experiencing that night of bloody battle half a year ago, the village children had become extremely enthusiastic about cultivation. With the village also providing abundant resources, quite a few promising talents had emerged among them over the past six months.
It was easy to foresee that when this generation grew up, they would be much stronger than the last.
In the distance, Chen Mu sat in the shade of a tree, watching the children train from afar. Beside him, A Huo looked around with interest.
Chen Mu could tell that although Chen Shanxiong's training method was simple, those who cultivated this way built exceptionally solid foundations and exercised every part of their bodies. If they managed to break through and become martial artists later, it would be much easier for them to break through to higher ranks than for other martial artists.
Unfortunately, this cultivation method absorbed spiritual power far too inefficiently. It could not draw Spiritual Qi into the body at all; only when spiritual power drifting between heaven and earth happened to touch their bodies would they absorb it.
He had spent this time studying Fundamentals of Spirit Studies and had gained a deeper understanding of spiritual power, so he planned to develop a martial arts cultivation technique for the villagers to practice.
The secrets behind the Acala Heart Sutra were too far-reaching. He did not even dare tell his own third uncle about it, much less teach it to anyone else. If he wanted to strengthen the villagers, he could only develop another martial arts cultivation technique himself.
Chen Mu had a sufficiently strong starting point: he had inherited the Rune Ancestor's legacy, cultivated an advanced technique like the Acala Heart Sutra, and possessed wisdom from his previous life. Developing a martial arts cultivation technique was feasible in theory, but lately he had kept getting stuck on how to combine the pathways of spiritual power with the structure of the human body.
He drew several diagrams of the human body on the stone table, then used himself as a model, assuming all sorts of strange postures as he tried to draw Spiritual Qi into his body.
A Huo watched the poses he struck from beside him, looking thoughtful.
"Are you researching a cultivation technique?"
A Huo suddenly spoke, making Chen Mu freeze for a moment. Still, he was not particularly surprised. Everyone had long since guessed that A Huo was not really mute; he simply did not want to speak.
"Yes! Do you have any suggestions?"
Chen Mu admitted it readily.
After living in Chen Village for a few days, A Huo was no longer as reserved as before. He glanced at the weapons rack on the training ground and curled his lip. "I heard you can make enhanced weapons. If you're willing to make me a longsword, I'll tell you the basic cultivation technique of my old tribe. How about it?"
Almost no one in Chen Village used swords. They were too difficult to learn and offered no advantage in hunting, being better suited to one-on-one combat instead. As a result, no one learned to use them, and naturally there were no such weapons in the village.
Still, making a longsword would not be difficult if he spent a little more resources, so Chen Mu readily agreed.
The cultivation technique A Huo provided was called the Origin-Returning Body Tempering Technique. It clearly absorbed Spiritual Qi much more efficiently than the Eight Forms of Body Tempering that the children of Chen Village were learning.
With the Origin-Returning Body Tempering Technique as a model, Chen Mu's research suddenly took a great leap forward. Many things he had not understood about the technique he envisioned became clear all at once, and he soon created his own martial arts cultivation technique, which he named the Five Elements Body Tempering Technique.
The Five Elements Body Tempering Technique primarily absorbed Five Elements Spiritual Qi from between heaven and earth. It was gentle in nature and far more efficient than even the Origin-Returning Body Tempering Technique.
More importantly, Chen Mu was skilled in Five Elements Runes. If he succeeded in his cultivation in the future, he could set up rune arrays to help gather Five Elements spiritual power, further enhancing the effects of practicing the Five Elements Body Tempering Technique. This was also a consideration for future development.
For now, though, Chen Mu could only think about it. Leaving aside the fact that his cultivation realm was still nowhere near high enough to set up rune arrays, building spirit-gathering rune arrays consumed an enormous number of spirit stones. Many mid-sized tribes could not afford them, much less Chen Village.
Before long, the day of the annual sacrifice arrived again.
Chen Village generally held its annual sacrifice within the month before the onset of winter each year.
On that day, the villagers would not go out. Instead, they gathered in the square, where the village priest led them in offering sacrifices to the heavenly god and praying for favorable weather, peace, and good fortune in the coming year.
This time, however, the village did away with the offering of servants and offered wild beasts instead.
Naturally, Chen Mu had strongly advocated for the change. Apart from two rather stubborn clan elders, the other villagers had no objections. After all, food was now plentiful in the village, and many unseen conflicts could be resolved readily.
After the annual sacrifice, the village also had to send people to deliver spirit stones as tribute to the nearest mid-sized tribe.
Chen Mu had not known this before. Only then did he understand why, despite having so many martial artists, the village sometimes could not even ensure its people had enough food and clothing.
In previous years, when they sometimes failed to gather enough spirit stones, they had even been forced to send some villagers to the mid-sized tribe to be sold into slavery. Otherwise, Chen Village would have been attacked by the mid-sized tribe, and many other low-tier tribes would have come to take a bite as well.
Fortunately, thanks to Chen Mu, the hunters had become much more efficient this year. Not only had they gathered enough spirit stones, they even had some left over, which was why Chen Hongjie had been looking so high-spirited lately.
After the annual sacrifice, the Five Elements Body Tempering Technique was officially introduced in the village. The village martial artists were the first to learn it, and when they felt how formidable the technique was, they were all beside themselves with excitement.
Chen Mu did not claim credit for the technique. Instead, he said it was the cultivation technique of A Huo's former tribe.
From then on, A Huo was formally accepted by the people of Chen Village. Though he did not take the surname Chen, he was treated as more than one who had, and no one in the village regarded him as an outsider anymore.