Martial Arts Training

"Son, tell us honestly are you practicing Dad's martial arts?" Mom also asked, her arms crossed like she'd caught me sneaking cookies.

"Uh… kinda? I mean, I've seen you guys do it every morning. It's not rocket science." Han Chen explained.

"Foolishness!" Father slammed a palm on the tea table. Cups rattled. "Martial arts demand precision. One misaligned stance could rupture meridians!"

"…I'll be careful." He said in a low tone.

Dad sighed, rubbing his temples. "Son, don't mess around with this stuff. One wrong move, and you'll be coughing up blood or worse. Hidden diseases, internal bleeding—you name it."

"We were going to start you at 15," Mom said, "but since you've hit your growth spurt, we'll begin now. Just… don't get cocky."

After a lecture that felt longer than my last life, Dad grilled me on martial arts basics. A week later, what followed was an interrogation spanning anatomy charts and pressure points. Han Chen answered flawlessly, citing tendon elasticity ratios and lymphatic drainage pathways until Father's scowl softened.

'I aced it, of course. '

"Talent and luck decide seventy percent of progress. Took me ten years to reach Ming Jin—family duties slowed me. Your mother needed a decade for Transform Jin under my guidance." A vein twitched near his temple. "Not that I'm jealous." The smack Mother delivered to Father's shoulder echoed.

"Medicinal diets speed things up," Dad continued, handing me a bowl of something that smelled like burnt grass. "We've been giving you small doses, but now you'll get the full treatment. And remember—this is family secret. If the main branch finds out, we're toast."

From that day, I ate like a lab rat. Skin refinement came easy. My body, already primed by leftover immortal energy, breezed through blood and bone refinement in five months. But I played it cool, hiding my progress. No need to attract attention.

Han Chen noted the flaws in their world's martial arts—crude imitations of animal movement, centuries of iterations made it better and fundamentally distinguished from imitations but still missing application of core principles of human biology. No foundational body tempering. No path to truly bridge the gap between mortal limits and the Ming Jin threshold making it decades of work instead of just a year or more.

His immortal consciousness descended later in his life than when his potential was judged by a powerful family master. So, he was treated like just another ordinary talent.

Using his self-refined Human Body Exercise, he maximized results with minimal effort, achieving about 20% refinement—far from true immortal qi refinement, but enough to ease entry into ming jin.

While he spent most of his time cultivating, he also made sure to keep up with the modern world. He spent hours in the school library, reading science books and articles. He didn't want to accidentally say something that hadn't been discovered yet or reveal knowledge from the future. Basically, trillions of years of history in immortal world didn't just progress in spiritual field. Scientific progress has reached its pinnacle.

He improved his grades, and soon he went from being above average to the top of his class. People started calling him a nerd, but that changed when he joined a few sports events. He didn't try hard—just enough to win and earn the activity points he needed. That's when people started seeing him differently.

It was still indigestible to some people like the class president, teachers and Xu Qing. Especially her. She started reminiscing about childhood promises and plays they did together. He was sure that this will soon result in some form of intimate confession. He avoided her as much as possible without appearing so.

During these events, he noticed a group of students practicing martial arts. They were mostly from rich and powerful families, and even though the school had over 4,000 students, only a handful of them were part of this group. They moved with skill and confidence, and he couldn't help but watch them closely.

May be due to the influx of funds from their families to school, despite the complaints from common students about their arrogant nature and exclusive club. Further those who are in it are all rich kids. He didn't want to have any trouble with them at all at this point.

Money was another problem. Wealth is another aspect needed in the progression of spiritual path. Sometimes hard work over years could just be offset by a single treasure herb. But even the best mortal medicines available here comes with a huge price tag.

He needed it, but as a minor, he couldn't work nor earn money without his guardian's permission. This limited his options, and it frustrated him. To make things worse, his actions had already started to change the course of history. Xu Qing had started showing interest in him.

But his mind was stuck on the girl he had married in his past life. Saving her was his top priority—if he didn't, it could create a heart demon that would haunt him forever. Still, the situation was complicated.

"Because I changed things, there's no guarantee she'll end up with me now," he thought. "Even if I try to follow the original timeline, I'd have to let Grandpa die and let her accident happen. Or I could take the 'dragon king' path—become a famous doctor, build companies, and force the main family to take me back. But if I do that, as a 14-year-old what sort of underworld activities should be involved in. Where is source of my knowledge? Family would still try to marry me off to someone else, maybe even a girl from a powerful family."

He sighed. "Fighting, scheming, being careful—it's all so exhausting. Even if I save her from the accident, she'll still be engaged to my cousin unless I can take on two major families. And even if I succeed, why would she choose me? In her eyes, family comes first. She's loyal to them, even after they abandon her and leave her to depend on her husband."

He shook his head. "Making her fall for me? Sure, that's possible. But she lives in another city. I'm only 14—how am I supposed to get to her, win her over, and compete with all those young masters who'll do anything to get what they want? And even if I manage to do all that, one decision from the main family could ruin everything. She's too loyal to them until they betray her, and by then, it might be too late."

He leaned back, frustrated. "No wonder the protagonists in those novels just beat people up and collect a harem of beauties. Thinking through all this is too hard. The whole process is... degrading. Why do there have to be so many rules and moral ties?"

He paused, then continued. "Even though there's no heavenly dao here, luck and causality still exist. My luck is better because of my past life, so things might work out in my favor. But I'm not a saint—I can't save everyone. This is my reality now, and I can't just sit back and watch. Even if I can refine the heart demon later, why create more trouble for myself? If I become powerful enough, maybe I can rewrite my own cause and effect, like the System said."

He took a deep breath. "For now, I'll let things play out. I need to gather strength first."

Over the next few days, Han Chen threw himself into learning everything he could about computer science. After a week of nonstop studying, his head buzzed with ideas—plans for new apps, clever algorithms, slick designs, database systems, online tools, and even hacking tricks. He scribbled all these thoughts into a notebook, saving them for when he'd have time to build them later.

To him, this was child's play. Back in his old life, he'd mastered immortal formations—magical patterns so complex they could twist the laws of the universe. Human technology? It felt like stacking blocks compared to that.

Next, he dove into advanced math and physics, hoping it might help him understand his visualization powers better. But he quickly realized something frustrating: the cultivation world had already solved most of these theories ages ago.

Besides he himself just needed a moment to compute and derive anything with his heaven defying understanding. Recently he heard from his parents that in martial arts circle, some people started optimization using new computing technologies to progress their understanding.

Immortal world scholars had billions of years to study stars, reshape planets, and crack the secrets of existence. Meanwhile, this world's scientists were still crawling toward the same answers.

The only thing that stumped him was human history and how societies worked. In the cultivation world, ancient knowledge was sacred.

People guarded spells and techniques like priceless treasure. Here, though, humans kept losing bits of their past. They'd forget old discoveries, only to reinvent them centuries later.

Besides the discoveries of old times is nothing worthwhile. Significant progress has been made in the last few centuries. Progress felt messy, like building a tower while half the bricks kept vanishing.