A turning point in the problem with his physique came half a month later.
That day, Fang Lin first saw his father sneak into the storeroom with a pale yellow piece of gelatin tucked away.
The next morning, Father Fang was unusually absent from training, while Mother Fang, Qiao Rong, looked visibly healthier. Her attitude toward Father Fang was also gentler at breakfast.
That night, Fang Lin lay awake in bed for a long time.
His father had already begun making an effort to establish a Soul Master Lineage, so he could not afford to slack off.
Deep in the quiet night, Fang Lin straightened up and climbed nimbly out of bed.
"It's almost three in the morning. Dad and Mom should have settled down by now, right?"
Muttering to himself, Fang Lin crept to Fang Yuanqiao's room and listened at the door for a while. Only after confirming that there was no more movement did he sneak toward the storeroom.
The room was piled with odds and ends, dried medicinal herbs, and some animal hides. Fang Lin's gaze fell on a red cabinet in the corner.
Inside was a black iron box. He stood on tiptoe to take it down and undid the clasp, revealing a pale yellow lump of gelatin at the bottom.
It was the size of an adult's fist and looked rock-hard, yet it felt warm to the touch.
Whale Gelatin was formed from secretions in the heads of deep-sea whale Soul Beasts. It was exceptionally hard and melted when heated. The older it was, the deeper its color.
Judging by its color, this piece had only just reached a hundred years in age. Its effects were mild, making it just right for low-level Soul Masters.
Fang Lin manifested his long saber and tried to cut off a piece, only to leave a shallow mark.
It was harder than he had imagined.
He felt his way to the kitchen and lit a charcoal fire. Nearly an hour later, the entire hard lump of Whale Gelatin had turned into a jelly-like liquid that gave off a faint, fishy-sweet aroma.
Heating it over charcoal was much slower than burning it directly with a flame. Fang Lin even nodded off while waiting.
He scooped up a spoonful and put it in his mouth. The warm liquid slid down his throat.
It tasted a little fishy at first, with a slightly sweet aftertaste.
A stream of heat erupted from his lower abdomen and swept through his body. Fang Lin felt his skin burning all over, and his little brother showed signs of entering an unstoppable state.
After putting the remaining Whale Gelatin back, he hurried to his room and used his Soul Power to guide the heat through his meridians.
As his Soul Power circulated, a fine tearing sensation came from deep within his muscles, and it felt as though something were pressing into the gaps between his bones. His entire body ached unbearably.
His physique was still too weak, which was why the reaction was so intense... Fang Lin paid it no mind and focused on circulating his Soul Power.
When the horizon began to pale, Fang Lin emerged from meditation, his eyes gleaming. Although he had meditated all night as usual, this time he felt neither sleepy nor tired.
His other little brother was wide awake too.
"I can't get greedy. A mouthful every two days is enough, or my body won't be able to take it."
His body was sticky with sweat and grime that had seeped from his skin. Fang Lin took a cold shower, suppressed his excitement, and went to the courtyard for his morning training as usual.
Shoulders lowered, elbows dropped, chest held in, and abdomen drawn back: the standard horse stance.
This time, Fang Lin held the stance for fifteen minutes before he felt anything, twice as long as before. Throughout, heat kept pouring out of his Dantian and spreading toward his calves as he held the stance.
The effect on his physique was plain to see.
From then on, Fang Lin secretly took a spoonful every few days.
When a third of it was gone, Fang Yuanqiao noticed something amiss and wandered around the storeroom with a saber for quite a while.
After he went in and out three times, Qiao Rong finally could not help asking what he was doing. Fang Yuanqiao looked evasive and, after a long pause, finally managed, "Looks like mice got in. I'm having a look."
Fang Lin, who was practicing with his saber in the courtyard, heard him. He turned his wrist lightly, spinning the blade through a flourish.
The iron saber weighed seven or eight jin, but it now felt somewhat light. It was time to switch to the next one.
To speed things up, Fang Lin slipped into the storeroom that night and ate the more than half of the Whale Gelatin that remained.
The fierce side effects of the Whale Gelatin made Fang Lin miserable for two or three days, but the results were equally striking.
Most of the hundred-year-old Whale Gelatin had ended up in Fang Lin's stomach. Compared with when he had just awakened, his strength and endurance had increased by nearly thirty percent.
As his physique improved, Fang Lin gradually became able to replace sleep with meditation. Aside from physical training and saber practice, he spent as many as eighteen hours a day cultivating his Soul Power, nearly twice as long as an ordinary person.
Saber practice and meditation filled his days, one after another. Life was monotonous but fulfilling.
Finally, one morning, Fang Lin's Soul Power steadily rose to level six.
"One level in three months, so about four levels a year. Even if cultivation gets slower at higher levels, it should still be at least three and a half levels. Reaching level ten within a year and a half is a conservative estimate."
Having finished his calculations, Fang Lin let out a long breath and went to the courtyard to practice as usual.
A month and a half earlier, he had grown accustomed to the weight of his Tool Martial Soul and switched to using it for saber practice.
His saber flashed through the courtyard as the sky gradually brightened and cooking smoke began to rise from the house.
Thin wisps of smoke drifted slowly through the window gaps and into the air. The aroma of meat mingled with that of wheat foods, filling the entire house.
The person cooking this time was an ordinary woman in her early thirties surnamed Zhang.
After sampling Fang Yuanqiao's cooking, Fang Lin had insisted on changing cooks. He had fought for three days before they hired her.
Auntie Zhang was an excellent cook, far better than Fang Yuanqiao or Qiao Rong. She occasionally exchanged cooking methods with Fang Lin.
The family of three sat around a carved solid-wood table. Roasted meat and seasonal vegetables were neatly arranged, the steamed buns were plump and soft, and warm cow's milk sat to one side. The meal was lavish, and the roast meat was trotter meat from an eighty-year-old Spiked Porcupine.
Following Fang Lin's recipe for charcoal-roasted pig trotters, Auntie Zhang had made them springy and chewy, with the aroma of scallions wafting through the air.
Qiao Rong picked up a piece and put it in Fang Lin's bowl. "You should take cultivation step by step too. Go slowly, and don't push yourself too hard."
With meat in his mouth, Fang Lin answered indistinctly, "I know, Mom. Don't worry."
A year of that monotonous but fulfilling life passed in the blink of an eye.
During meditation one night, an invisible layer in his meridians shattered, and Fang Lin's Soul Power broke through to level ten as naturally as water flowing into a channel.
A year and three months had passed since his awakening. He had hardly slacked off for a single day, and at last he had achieved this.
During that time, Fang Lin had grown to just over one and a half meters tall. His flesh was firm and his frame broad and sturdy, making him far taller and stronger than children his age.
Nourished by Soul Power, Soul Masters grew much faster than ordinary people.
"It took almost four months to get from level nine to level ten. Sure enough, each level takes longer as I go on. If every level after this takes four months, reaching level twenty will take more than three years."
After his breakthrough, Fang Lin noticed that his Soul Power seemed to have hit a bottleneck. But according to the original story, the Soul Power gained at this point simply did not manifest and could still be accumulated.
At breakfast, Fang Lin told the others at the table that he had broken through to level ten.
"Good boy!"
Fang Yuanqiao excitedly slapped the table, shaking porridge out of the bowls and earning a glare from his wife.
"Not bad. A bit better than your old man was back then. Tomorrow, we'll take you to hunt for your first Soul Ring."
Fang Lin looked up in surprise. "So soon? I haven't even decided what kind of Soul Beast I want for my first Soul Ring."
"Do you think you're shopping for vegetables?" Fang Yuanqiao said with a laugh. "There are only a few kinds of Soul Beasts in Soto City's Soul Hunting Forest that are suitable for you. You'd be lucky just to find one of the right age."
Fang Lin scratched his head sheepishly. It seemed he had imagined hunting for a Soul Ring would be too easy.
"Then are there any stronger Soul Beasts that could improve the quality of my Martial Soul?"
For a Martial Soul of ordinary quality, adding a Soul Ring was an opportunity to improve its potential. A Soul Ring from a powerful Soul Beast might even bring about a beneficial mutation.
Fang Yuanqiao looked helpless and shot him an annoyed glance.
"Your old man spent three years hunting Soul Rings for people in the Soul Hunting Forest, and I barely saw a handful of Soul Beasts with high-grade bloodlines. On top of that, you'd need one that's a hundred years old. Even if there are any, they've all been separately penned up by those nobles. If you work hard, maybe my grandson will get to use one."
Like the quality of a Soul Master's Martial Soul, Soul Beasts were ranked by the quality of their bloodlines. A high-grade bloodline Soul Beast such as the Man-Faced Demon Spider could hunt and kill a Soul Elder with a thousand years of cultivation. A top-grade bloodline Soul Beast such as the Sky Azure Bull Python could stand against an ordinary Titled Douluo at ten thousand years.
High-grade Soul Beasts were no less rare than Soul Masters with level five or six Innate Soul Power.
Fang Lin could only put aside his unrealistic hopes and let out a long sigh. "Then let's choose an ordinary Soul Beast at the age limit."
Fang Yuanqiao gazed at him impassively, as though looking at a foolish son.
"In theory, the age limit for a Soul Master's first Soul Ring is 423 years, but that doesn't apply to every Soul Master. My former commander in the army said that, for someone with an ordinary Martial Soul and physique, 300 years is basically the limit. If the Soul Ring has violent attributes or isn't compatible, even 200 years is a stretch."
"If you were a Beast Soul Master, you might be able to consider a Soul Ring at the limit even with an ordinary Martial Soul. Beast Soul Masters have a natural physical advantage. Even without Soul Rings or Soul Skills, they're about thirty percent stronger than Tool Soul Masters with Martial Souls of the same quality."
"You've kept up your physical training these past three years, but I reckon 350 years is your limit at most. After you get your first Soul Ring, keep training your body. Then you can consider aiming for 700 years with your second Soul Ring."
Fang Lin frowned deeply, unconsciously picking at his ear.
A year earlier, after Fang Yuanqiao's Whale Gelatin had all been wiped out, he had spent a considerable sum on a larger piece. Although he had hidden it somewhere else, Fang Lin had still found it.
But after consuming half of it, Fang Lin had found that its effects were much weaker than before. In the end, it had only improved his body by around ten percent.
The first piece of Whale Gelatin of a given age had the best effect. To improve further, he would have to consume older Whale Gelatin.
But even with the diminished effect, the two pieces of Whale Gelatin had built upon each other. Fang Lin was confident that his physical condition was at least on par with a Beast Soul Master of the same level. If he did not take a Soul Ring at the limit, he could hardly accept it.