He wasn't sure how long had passed when a green notification suddenly appeared in his vision.
'While mining, you had a sudden insight. The rhythm of your pickaxe shifted, and an inexplicable cadence emerged. Your body twisted, arms striking like hammers, and your skin grew taut. You have reached the Entry level of the Copper Body Skill.'
'Copper Body Skill (Entry)'
'Copper Body Skill 0/500 (Entry)'
'Effects: Qi and blood begin to overflow. Strength courses through your body. Power concentrates in your muscles and sinews. Skin becomes tough and flesh solid. Light blows cause no injury.'
In his memories, he was beaten by four or five people daily—first with leather strips, then with wooden sticks—honing his skin until it was as tough as ox-hide.
He also swung a heavy Iron Hammer, endlessly tempering his body.
As the years and months blurred together, Xu Yunfan's distracting thoughts were hammered away by the instinctual striking. With every blow, he could feel the shifts in his internal power and the way he channeled his strength.
Suddenly, in a flash of inspiration, he held his breath and concentrated his spirit. Raising the Iron Hammer with both hands, his toes gripped the earth. Power surged from the ground, flowing through his thighs, his waist and abdomen, up his spine, and into his shoulders and arms.
This power coursed through his entire body to his arms. In that instant, all the scattered strength within him twisted together like a single rope.
CLANG!
The stone he had been hammering incessantly let out a deafening, metallic ring. With that single strike, the large bluestone before him shattered into pieces.
In an instant, a vast power seemed to awaken within him. It transformed into more than a dozen warm currents, like gentle streams from a spring thaw, yet they carried a vigorous energy as they rushed toward his every limb and bone.
As the warm currents surged, the muscles and sinews they passed through felt as if they were being forged by a blacksmith. Every fiber absorbed the energy, growing firm and powerful. In that moment, his once-scrawny frame rapidly filled out.
"Huuu..."
Xu Yunfan stretched his body slightly, carefully feeling the tautness of his muscles. His expression was one of pure elation.
'Excellent!'
'As expected of the system panel!'
'My own talent isn't half-bad either, comprehending the Copper Body Skill in such a short amount of time.'
'It's nothing like what Li Haomiao said, about needing three or four months to see any progress. It didn't even take me a full day.'
He couldn't help but glance at Li Haomiao.
Li Haomiao: "?"
Xu Yunfan held his breath, gathered his strength, and swung the Iron Pickaxe again.
His feet dug into the ground as he unleashed a sudden burst of power from his waist and hips. His muscles instantly tensed like twisted steel cables, and thick veins bulged on his skin.
A fierce power, like an Earth Dragon Flipping Over, erupted from the soles of his feet. It surged up through his muscles and sinews, layer by layer, before converging in his arms.
CLANG!
A metallic clang, much louder than before, reverberated through the entire mine. The Iron Pickaxe striking the ore sent a shower of sparks flying, and a large chunk of ore was gouged out with that single blow.
"Hm?"
Li Haomiao, who had been resting with his eyes closed, opened them and stared at the distant Xu Yunfan in astonishment.
"You've reached the entry level of the Copper Body Skill?"
Xu Yunfan glanced down at his tattered clothes. Though riddled with holes, they still concealed his body, so Li Haomiao couldn't have seen the physical changes.
He replied, "Going by what you said—'qi and blood surging, churning without pause'—if it feels like that, then I suppose I have reached the entry level."
A long silence followed.
After a long moment, Li Haomiao let out a breath.
"I was mistaken."
'He was utterly shocked, to the point of questioning his own existence.'
'When he first began his journey on the Martial Dao, it had taken him, Li Haomiao, a full seven days to reach the state of 'qi and blood surging, churning without pause.''
'How long did it take this Xu Yunfan?'
'At most, half a day.'
'And he had been cultivating an Ultimate Skill from the Taoist Sect! His own Innate talent was supposed to be leagues above Xu Yunfan's.'
'What kind of monster is he?!'
Li Haomiao recalled being hailed as the foremost Martial Dao genius of the Great Zhou Jade Capital. As he remembered accepting the title with a smile, a subtle sense of shame crept over him.
"So, is my aptitude any good?"
Li Haomiao's expression remained unchanged. He reined in his turbulent Heart and Spirit, steadying his nearly shattered Dao Heart, and said slowly, "It's passable. In the Taoist Sect, an aptitude like yours would qualify you to be an Outer Disciple."
Xu Yunfan nodded slightly at his words. 'Seems like I'm not too bad, then.'
Just as he was about to stand, a commotion suddenly erupted outside the mine.
Li Haomiao's ears twitched, and he tilted his head to look toward the entrance.
"Looks like trouble has found you for killing Jiang Ming's son."
With a placid expression, Xu Yunfan rose and saw Cui Ye leading the charge toward them.
In the torchlight, Cui Ye's gaze fell upon Xu Yunfan. His eyes flashed with malice as he raised his Iron Pickaxe and charged, roaring.
"You wretched slave, die!!"
THUD!
Cui Ye went tumbling like a gourd for four or five meters before landing on the ground, where he began to howl in agony.
Xu Yunfan calmly retracted his foot, his gaze turning with an icy chill toward the three remaining men.
The next man rushed forward, swinging his Iron Pickaxe down. Xu Yunfan moved fluidly, sidestepping just enough to dodge the descending weapon.
The swing of the Iron Pickaxe, once so fast and frantic, now seemed sluggish and slow in his eyes.
He threw a simple backhand punch that landed squarely on the man's side. The man instantly doubled over like a shrimp, letting out a choked "Urgh!" The Iron Pickaxe slipped from his grasp as he collapsed to his knees, clutching his stomach, unable to move.
Xu Yunfan looked at his hand, clenching it into a loose fist.
'My physical fitness... it's not just my Constitution and strength that have improved. My eyesight and reflexes have been enhanced all around.'
'Just reaching the entry level of the Martial Dao brought such a huge boost. I wonder what it will be like when I cultivate the Copper Body Skill to the Minor Achievement stage.'
'These guys were all cut from the same cloth. Relying on their powerful family backgrounds, they ran amok in Jade Capital. But they were sharp enough to know who they could afford to provoke and who they couldn't, which is how they'd gotten away with it for so many years.'
Seeing Cui Ye taken down with a single kick, and watching Xu Yunfan effortlessly evade a pickaxe with movements as smooth and agile as their former bodyguards, the two remaining men felt a jolt of fear and didn't dare advance.
Seeing this, Xu Yunfan advanced on them without hesitation.
One of them blustered, "You damn slave! You dare come any closer?"
The words had barely left the man's mouth when Xu Yunfan closed the distance in a single stride. He slapped him left and right, his palms making sharp cracking sounds against the man's cheeks. In an instant, the man's face was swollen like a pig's head.
"Stop! Stop hitting me! Stop!"
"Beg me!"
"I'm begging you!"
The man, his face swollen to a pulp, knelt and begged for mercy, tears and snot streaming down his face. He feared nothing—not even shedding a tear when his own father died before his eyes—but he was terrified of pain.
Xu Yunfan pulled back his slightly numb hand and looked at the man kneeling before him.
This was Hex Changgong, son of Hex Jin, the Prefect of Jade Capital Prefecture. He was arrogant, domineering, and utterly without conscience, even daring to murder people in the streets.
'He'd had a powerful father, earning him the gritted-teeth hatred of countless people. Now that the Empress had seized his family's assets and wiped out his clan, it was a cause for celebration.'
He turned to the other two. They made to run but froze in their tracks at the sound of his voice.
"If you run, I'll spend the rest of my time doing nothing but hunting you down."
One of the men swallowed hard, feigning composure. "What do you want?" he asked in a low voice.
Xu Yunfan said, "Leave your food and water."