Deep in Lu Lin's mind, a delicate, miniature furnace quietly hovered in midair.
The furnace had been there since the day he transmigrated.
Over the first five days, Lu Lin had burst with anticipation and thought it to be his cheat tool, yet it stayed deathly silent as he became disillusioned and almost gave up.
Unexpectedly, the instant he dug up the shoddy spiritual stone, the silence was broken.
[Discovered: Lower-class spiritual energy. Exchange for one month of hard training? Y/N]
This line was clear above the furnace.
"Spiritual energy...comes from shoddy spiritual stones? Only this can activate the furnace?" As his thoughts raced, Lu Lin, without any hesitation, chose...
"Yes!"
The next moment, the shoddy spiritual stone quivered in his palm, as a stream of warm, pure energy spilled outside, then coursed along his arm meridian all the way up into his mind before disappearing.
Meanwhile, the quiet furnace, as though coming back to life, glimmered hazily all over its surface.
Above the furnace, new lines of text emerged.
Owner of Martial Dao Furnace: Lu Lin.
Training Time: 1 month.
Martial Arts: Demonic Ape Blood Qi Art.
[Channel Training Time into martial arts to enhance them.]
The shoddy spiritual stone in his hand had already turned to a handful of dull-looking ashes.
"Martial Dao Furnace! Absorb spiritual energy, convert it to Training Time, and directly enhance martial arts! " Lu Lin's eyes had a wild glint deep in them, as he instantly grasped the furnace's main function. "Let me try it out... Channel this one-month Training Time all into Demonic Ape Blood Qi Art!"
Just as this thought popped up,
[Through a month's hard training, your mastery of Demonic Ape Blood Qi Art has grown steadily, reaching the twenty-eighth move.]
In a flash, Lu Lin settled into a mystical state, feeling as though having gone through a whole month's hard training.
Sweat poured out, and his tendons and bones ached; finally, his stable dedication to every move had brought him naturally to the twenty-eighth move! At the same time, a warm current cycled around his body, dispelling his tiredness and giving rise to a never-felt pleasure.
In the hushed tunnel, only his heartbeat sounded. Lu Lin unhesitatingly dropped his pickaxe and began the drill.
The first move...the second....the twenty-second move, all in one go! Next was the unattainable twenty-third move....
This time, his movement flowed like water, smooth and unchecked! Twenty-fourth move, twenty-fifth... it was still effortless when he made it to the twenty-eighth. But as he tried the twenty-ninth, the familiar splitting aches flared up again.
"It has really worked!" Lu Lin was so overjoyed that he almost cried out loud. "A shoddy spiritual stone is one month's hard training! All I need is another two pieces to master the thirty-sixth move and step into the Body Tempering First Level! "
Initially, he had already given up hope; it was his unwillingness that fueled his desperate struggle, but now, he could live on.
If one can live, who would want to die?
He took a few deep breaths, suppressing his chaotic emotions, then scooped up the pickaxe and dug on with a fervent strength never seen before.
Even his pickaxe swings looked more energetic.
However, as if his luck had run out, till sundown, he only mined three jins of Xuan-iron ores and did not see the milky-white shimmer of light again.
But Lu Lin had not been discouraged, as shoddy spiritual stones were uncommon. According to this body's memory, over the past two and a half months, he had dug up only twelve pieces of them, averaging one piece every six days.
With fourteen days ahead, he still had a good chance.
Carrying the backpack basket, he walked out of the cave. At the entrance, the Sect superintendent was counting and logging everyone's haul in a ledger.
"Boy! You ores? Less than three jins again? Are you going to slack off and wait for death?" A superintendent, with fat, cruel lines on his face, whipped a scrawny teenager's abdomen with a 'crack', tearing open a wound with flesh visible beneath.
The pain sent a spasm through the teenager and wrung cold sweat out of him, yet he could only beg in a moaning voice, "Superintendent... this lowly has really done his best... My luck has been too terrible these few days...please, allow me a few more days. I'll definitely make up for it... definitely...."
"Hump, you'd better do as you said! Or else..." The superintendent showed a vicious snigger and set it down in the ledger, his threat unspoken yet revealed out loud.
When it was Lu Lin's turn, the superintendent eyed him with a gloating gaze, "You boy is good at mining, finishing your task every day. Too bad you have trash for martial arts talent. I remember...half a month left, right? Heh heh, what a shame."
Lu Lin turned in his ores silently, then, with the basket on his back and the pickaxe in hand, head lowered, went back to the bunkhouse. After gobbling up coarse food, he crashed on the bed.
His body was now extremely tired.
The next morning, the training chants rose on the drill ground once more.
Lu Lin set up his stance, went from the first to the twenty-second move, then completed the twenty-third smoothly, and tried the twenty-fourth, before stiffening with good timing and stopping.
He had put up this show intentionally, for fear that he might reveal his stunning feat of making a six-move breakthrough overnight, which was certain to sow doubts in people's minds.
His plan was to advance one or two moves a day, steadily.
Sure enough, the goateed superintendent only shot him a surprised gaze and did not probe into it.
"Lo and behold! With hard work, even Lu Lin can make a breakthrough. Do you think of yourselves as beneath him?" The superintendent harangued at this, using Lu Lin's example to galvanize them.
Their eyes burning with hope, other warriors-to-be buckled down even more.
Finished with training, he went to mine as ever, but he was still unlucky and only dug up four jins of Xuan-iron ores, not stumbling on any spiritual stone.
Time passed in boredom and hardship.
Six days later, when his pickaxe broke open the rock wall once more, a familiar hint of milky white was exposed, and Lu Lin's heart gave a leap.
A second shoddy spiritual stone!
The Martial Dao Furnace momentarily responded, greedily sucking the spiritual energy from within and converting it to one month of Training Time again.
With no hesitation, Lu Lin channeled all of it into Demonic Ape Blood Qi Art.
[Through a month's hard training, your mastery of Demonic Ape Blood Qi has improved steadily to the thirty-fifth move.]
The familiar warm current swept across his body again. Lu Lin began practicing at once, his moves, like a roaring river, progressing unchecked from the first to the thirty-fifth and coming to a stop at the thirty-sixth.
"What a shame, only one step short of success. But that's nothing. I still have nine days left. Even if I get over it myself without shoddy spiritual stones, nine days is enough."
Lu Lin's fists tightened.
Hope was already within immediate reach.
As night fell, Lu Lin turned in Xuan-iron ores, headed back to the bunkhouse, and went to bed early after his meal.
Four hours later, Lu Lin rose and discreetly walked outside.
Though left with only one last move, he dared not slack off. Since the day was packed, he would train at night.
He had to make the most of time and grasp that move as soon as possible.
Over the drill ground, the moon hung high, splashing down threads and strands of moonlight.
There were many men hard at work under the moon.
Here, time was life. He wasn't the only one practicing diligently in the middle of the night.
Lu Lin did not stay but strode down the mountain path, arriving at a rocky mess and plunging into it.
Amid the rocks was a strip of flat ground, tiny but quiet, meeting Lu Lin's need.
He set up his stance and proceeded from the first all the way to the thirty-sixth move until from his muscles came a splitting pain.
A brief break, then go on...
Round after round. Lu did not go back until over two hours later.
He dared not press himself too hard, as he had heavy labor tomorrow and needed enough sleep.
Insufficient sleep led to the withered spirits of a man, who had to redouble his efforts, yet harvested half as much.
In the blink of an eye, another five days went by, and Lu Lin dug up another shoddy spiritual stone.
But this time, Lu Lin simply transformed it into Training Time, but did not pour it into Demonic Ape Blood Qi Art.
For he felt he was at the threshold of the last move and needed just a little more effort.
Yet he had four days left.
He wanted to use Training Time after he was done with this move and see its effect.
That night, the rocky mess.
Lu Lin practiced Demonic Ape Blood Qi Art again and again.
In the fifth round....
"Snarl!"
A deep ape roar, evoking an image of the Elder Age, tore through his throat, as a layer of blood-red haze instantly enveloped him; from both his tendons and bones sounded incessant pops of beans being fried; his muscles swelled and rippled like a rolling dragon, while his punches and kicks echoed faintly through the night air!
In the time a stick of incense takes to turn to ashes(fifteen to thirty minutes), Lu Lin returned to the opening stance.
Though profusely sweaty, he felt completely relaxed, his spirits soaring and his energies refilled, and in his eyes, the world had become more focused and vivid.
"It's done! Completing the thirty-six moves of Demonic Ape Blood Qi Art has had Qi and Blood (vital energy for martial arts practitioners)filling my body....This is the strength at the Tempering Body First Level!" He stepped up to a boulder of over a hundred jins, flung his arms around it, and lifted it with great ease.
Rumors had it that a man at the Tempering Body First Level had a strength of three hundred jins, which now proved true.
"The Tempering Body Second Level comes along with another three hundred jins. One's strength goes up to one thousand jins at the Third Level. And a breakthrough into the Fourth Level--Tendon and Flesh Tempering---brings a two-thousand-jin strength.... As for the Tenth Level, how fantastic it would be?" Lu Lin fervently looked forward to it.
The Tempering Body Realm was split into ten Levels, parallel with the ten Levels of Demonic Ape Blood Qi Art, and into four Stages---Qi and Blood Nurturing(the First to the Third Level), Tendon and Flesh Tempering(the Fourth to the Sixth), Bone Forging(the Seventh to the Ninth), Vital Organ Strengthening(the Tenth), namely Body Tempering Early Stage, Middle Stage, Late Stage, and Pinnacle.
However, a brutal strength like this would still be easily broken faced with an immortal. This filled him with awe and curiosity about those mystical, unpredictable means that immortals had.
"I have the Marital Dao Furnace. Nothing is impossible. Channel in!" This thought sprang up.
At once, the Qi and Blood in him churned and surged like boiling water and turned scorching-hot like fire!
"Over a month's hard training, due to lack of treasures to boost your Qi and Blood, your progress has been slow, your Qi and Blood slightly increased.", read the line above the furnace.
Lu Lin felt with care; his Qi and Blood had grown, but only by a limited amount.
"Treasures to boost Qi and Blood...." Lu Lin murmured.
At the bottom of the Demonic Sect, where to acquire such resources? There was little choice but to accumulate them over time.
Meanwhile, the information panel of the Martial Dao Furnace had been updated again.
Owner of Martial Dao Furnace: Lu Lin.
Realm: Body Tempering Realm (First Level)
Training Time: Zero.
Martial Arts: Demonic Ape Blood Qi Art.
Inner Space: one foot
"Inner Space?" Lu Lin was dumbstruck, then overjoyed! He instantly realized that this was storage space that the Furnace had opened up!
Focusing his mind, he 'saw' that inside the Furnace, there was a small space measuring one foot by one foot by one foot.
He picked up a stone; a slight thought of his sent it disappearing into the cubic space, and his next thought returned it onto his palm.
"Fantastic! This would conceal things better than an immortal's storage pouch!" Lu Lin felt assured.
From the looks of it, this mysterious Martial Dao Furnace could do a lot more than enhance one's mastery of martial arts.
The next morning.
The three-month deadline was only three days away.
On the drill field, Lu Lin stretched himself like a Demonic Ape, his punches stirring howls of wind and his whipping legs leaving afterimages, going through the thirty-six moves of Demonic Ape Blood Qi Art in a continuous, perfectly smooth stream. His full and round movements proceeded without a hitch as any onlooker could sense his roaring Qi and Blood.
A breakthrough that went so swimmingly instantly drew dozens of gazes. Envy, jealousy, bewilderment, elation... all kinds of emotions meshed together.
"You...have actually made it?" The goateed superintendent could not hide his surprise, eyeing Lu Lin up and down.
Lu Lin's 'steady' growth over these few days had attracted a few superintendents' attention. After all, almost everyone knew how terrible the talent he had shown before was. Eventually, they concluded this as a case of 'a slow burn leads to a great fire'. He had looked slow early on, but actually, a firm foundation was being laid for an unstoppable eruption.
There had been similar cases in history.
"Open your eyes and check this out!" the goateed superintendent pointed at Lu Lin, his voice booming. "Heaven helps those who help themselves! By working his ass off, even Lu Lin can break through into the Body Tempering Realm First Level! Do you think of yourselves as beneath him? "
These words seemed a shot in the arm, kindling the flames in the eye sockets of other warriors-to-be.
That's right. Even Lu Lin could manage that. Why couldn't they? All at once, the chants over the field rose higher, and their training grew a lot more relentless.
As the training closed, the goateed superintendent called Lu Lin over and passed him a small wooden box. The moment its lid opened, a strong whiff of a unique, refreshing scent drifted out, along with a faint bloody smell.
Inside quietly lay a full and round blood-red pill.
"Qi-Blood Pill!" Lu Lin's pupils constricted at the sight of it
The item was refined with the blood of spiritual beasts as the main ingredient, nourishing a Body Tempering Realm warrior's Qi and Blood, thus quickening their training pace.
"Yes." The superintendent closed the lid and handed it to Lu Lin. "Per the Demonic Sect's rules, everyone who has entered into the Body Tempering Realm can take a Qi-Blood Pill every ten days. Here. Keep training hard." His bland tone did not suggest the slightest encouragement or approval.
"Thanks a lot, Sir." Lu Lin accepted the wooden box, bowing low, yet hardly felt the slightest sense of relaxation.
He was clear that this pill was not given to him out of generosity, but their increased value after stepping into the Body Tempering Realm First Level made them worth a bit of investment from the Sect. If they could not meet the Sect's standards in the days to come, their fate would only be worse than being fed to Demonic Wolves---they would either be drained of their blood essence or be refined into Human Pills.
"Well." The goateed superintendent offered a deadpan nod before his tone turned sharply cold, "Since you are now at the Body Tempering Realm First Level, with a greater strength, you need to turn in more Xuan-iron ores every day. From today on, six jins a day. Understand?"
A chill crept into his heart as he hung his head, replying, "Understood."
So ruthless! Doubling his task requirement on the heels of his breakthrough!
He clenched the wooden box containing the Qi-Blood Pill as a fire blazed in his chest.
"Just you wait.... With the Martial Dao Furnace... I will definitely rise someday! Use martial arts to slay immortals and tear a bloody trail out of the Xuesha Demonic Lair! "