Longevity by Grinding Skills

Accustomed to the fierce, unrivaled power of a heavy hammer, Xu Yunfan was immediately drawn to it. It was the same style as the Thirty-six Cloak Hammers he practiced.

If he were to wield it with the Divine Gilded Mace, its power would surely reach a whole new level.

Time flowed by like water. After the True Inheritance Ceremony, Xu Yunfan completely immersed himself in his martial arts training, practicing the Celestial Cicada Force every day until his body reached its absolute limit.

After largely completing the Second Level of Muscle and Skin Training, he could gain a guaranteed thirty to forty Skill Points each day. His training efficiency had nearly doubled.

His days fell into a strict routine. Every night, Xu Yunfan would practice Meditation on the Linn Character Technique. After cultivating the Celestial Cicada Force in the morning, he would practice the Nine Profound Dragon-Defying Mace Technique at noon. In the afternoon, he went to his master, Zhan Yan, to learn the Celestial Craft Forging Technique and forge weapons. At night, he would go to the Library to study the collections of the four halls, poring over the four fundamental martial arts manuals and their related knowledge.

His days were packed to the brim.

When the other disciples of the Celestial Craft Cave saw how relentlessly Xu Yunfan trained each day, they couldn’t help but start to follow his example.

"Damn it."

Yue Mountain set down his Giant Axe and stared at his once-calloused hands, now covered in blisters. A pained expression crossed his face.

He wrapped his palms in linen soaked in medicinal wine. The bloodstains on the axe handle had long since seeped into the wood grain.

He turned to glare at the new cracks on the weapon rack. He’d made them last night trying to imitate Xu Yunfan’s Shock Force. Unfortunately, he still couldn’t get the hang of it and had even damaged several Refined Steel Giant Axes in the process.

He looked up ahead, where Qi Huan was relentlessly practicing his Sword Momentum.

Ever since learning of Xu Yunfan’s ascetic-like training methods, Qi Huan had been greatly spurred on. He even stopped his regular visits to Min Yue Tower every few days to listen to music, instead spending every waking moment with his longsword, practicing the Thousand Waves Sword.

He was training several times harder than before.

"Senior Brother Qi, do we really have to train as hard as that Xu Yunfan?"

For seven days straight, they’d been rising before the chickens and sleeping after the dogs, training from dawn till dusk. Even a man made of iron would start to break.

"Seven thousand, six hundred."

Qi Huan’s hoarse voice rasped from the corner.

His eyes were completely bloodshot, and the longsword felt heavy in his grasp, yet he showed no sign of giving up.

The head disciple of the Hidden Blade Pavilion had chained the longsword to his wrist. The muscles of his forearm were swollen to twice their normal size, engorged with blood. With every thrust, beads of blood seeped from his pores.

The distinctive whistling sound of the Stacked Force, unique to the Thousand Layered Wave Swordsmanship, had grown ragged. As he made his final thrust, the tip of his sword drooped powerlessly just three inches from the target.

Deep within a brightly lit tunnel in the ore vein, hundreds of feet beneath the Celestial Craft Cave, the Profound Iron tip of the Mechanical Mining Pickaxe in Yan Yuwei’s hands was nearly worn away.

Every time she raised her hands and brought the pickaxe crashing down, a large chunk of the Profound Iron Ore Vein before her would shear off. Rock fragments flew everywhere. As wisps of metallic aura filled the air, she used the Melting Gold and Forging Iron technique to circulate her Blood Qi and absorb them, causing the surface of her skin to take on a faint metallic sheen.

A nearby disciple watched the nearly frenzied Yan Yuwei and couldn’t help but worry. "Senior Sister, maybe you should rest for a bit. You’ve been digging for three days without sleep. If you keep this up, your body won’t be able to take it, and your martial arts might even regress."

Yan Yuwei brought the pickaxe down one last time, sending a shower of sparks into the air, before plopping onto the ground. Panting heavily, she glanced at her blister-covered hands.

Suddenly, Yan Yuwei cursed.

"I’m the head disciple of the Melt Gold Hall, a one-in-ten-thousand talent! If that Xu Yunfan can achieve Tendons and Skin Perfection, I refuse to believe I can’t even reach Skin Cultivation Perfection!"

Hearing this, the disciple beside her couldn’t help but mutter, "Why are you comparing yourself to that freak? Ever since he joined, Senior Brother Xu has been obsessed with martial arts. It’s been almost three months, and he’s only gone out once. He spends all his time training. The Foundry Hall Disciples say his body is made of Profound Steel and he sleeps less than two hours a day. He’s definitely shortening his lifespan! Senior Sister, you can’t be like him—AAGH!!!"

Yan Yuwei retracted her fist. She glanced sideways at the disciple she had just punched out of the mine tunnel and snorted coldly.

"I was born with the Geng Metal Physique, why the hell would I be scared? If he can do it, so can I!"

...

Yanbei Dao, Yanbei State. The Jiuyao Sect on Nine Luminaries Mountain.

The seventy-two peaks pierced the sea of clouds like inverted swords. On the main peak’s Broken Dragon Cliff, an Obsidian Base a full thirty zhang square was anchored to the mountain by thirteen Meteorite Iron Chains, securing nine great halls of Basalt between the cliffs.

At the sect gate, two eighteen-foot-tall Bronze Vengeful Spirit Statues held Iron Chains in their mouths. The disciples on duty were clad in twenty-eight-jin suits of Heavy Armor forged from Meteorite Iron.

Since the first Sect Leader of the Jiuyao Sect, Chu Yuan, erected the Iron-Blood Stele on Broken Dragon Cliff during the Yongchang Period of the previous dynasty, seventeen generations of Sect Leaders had passed.

During the bloody war that founded the Great Zhou, Jiuyao’s three thousand Black Feather Guards broke through seven city gates under a hail of arrows. The Mountain-Suppressing Halberd, a royal gift bestowed after the war, remains planted before the Jiuyao Sect’s Nine Luminaries Hall to this day.

Over hundreds of years, the Sect alone had grown to tens of thousands of disciples. Not counting miscellaneous laborers, there were over ten thousand Outer Disciples, nearly ten thousand in the Inner Sect, and several hundred True Disciples spread across the Jiuyao Sect’s nine peaks. This was to say nothing of its countless farmlands, properties, and businesses. It was practically a kingdom within a kingdom.

After the True Inheritance Ceremony at the Celestial Craft Cave, Elder Yin Hong of the Jiuyao Sect and a silent, dispirited Teng Lingchuan traveled hard for seven days, finally returning to the Jiuyao Sect.

Yin Hong stood at the edge of the Observatory’s cliff, hands clasped behind his back. In the twilight, the seventy-two peaks looked like quenched greatswords piercing the heavens.

A column of red smoke rising from the distant Iron-Melting Peak cast a mottled glow on Teng Lingchuan’s bandaged right arm. The bones within had been shattered by the Thunderfire Qilin Hammer back at the Celestial Craft Cave. Now that he had returned to the Jiuyao Sect, he would naturally be treated with the finest healing balms.

Yin Hong glimpsed the trembling tendons in his disciple’s wrist—a latent injury from over-exerting the Pleiades Jade Net Scripture.

"What, are you going to act like your life is over after one little setback?"

’Teng Lingchuan has been with the Jiuyao Sect since he was a child, and his path has been smooth sailing until now. Experiencing a setback like this is a good thing for him.’

Teng Lingchuan was silent for a long moment before speaking in a low voice. "Master, that hammer strike from Xu Yunfan... I have a feeling he wasn’t using his full strength."

Yin Hong laughed. "Anyone with eyes could see he wasn’t going all out. If he had used his full power, you would have died on the spot. Then, I’m afraid the Jiuyao Sect would have had to mobilize an entire peak to make the Celestial Craft Cave pay a hefty price."

Yin Hong spoke casually, but it was the truth. The Jiuyao Sect was one of the top sects in the Great Zhou, an absolute behemoth. The Celestial Craft Cave, with only a few thousand disciples and the capacity to support barely more than a dozen True Inheritors, was no comparison.

Hearing Yin Hong’s reassurance, Teng Lingchuan’s spirits lifted slightly. "Then would Xu Yunfan have died?"

Yin Hong replied nonchalantly, "Of course. We wouldn’t even have had to lift a finger. That Old Ghost Hong would have stepped in personally. Why do you think he rushed over? To fight me?"

Teng Lingchuan fell silent for a moment before saying quietly, "For the mountain entry quota at the start of next year... could one be given to Xu Yunfan? I want to fight him again."