Grinding
The next day came quickly.
Li Fan had no intention of leaving his small cottage, but he had a clear plan for himself.
Thanks to his rapid recovery, he finally felt confident enough to try cultivating again.
Today's goal was simple: alternate between activating the Stone Palm Technique to raise what he now called skill points, and meditating to recover his Qi—progressing both his martial technique and his cultivation technique in tandem.
The first thing he did was swallow another fasting pill.
The original Li Fan had been broke. There was some food left in the cottage, but barely enough to last a few days. The pill tasted bitter, but it would keep him from feeling hungry. That was good enough.
After stretching his limbs and loosening up, Li Fan sat back down on his bed.
He took a deep breath… then began forming the seals.
It was time to grind.
First off, he tried out the effect of the Stone Palm Technique at [Small Success] mastery.
Li Fan's fingers formed the now-familiar seals with ease.
Qi surged forth with less resistance.
It flooded his arms like molten syrup, saturating his muscles with condensed power. His palms flared with a deeper grey-red glow.
Li Fan clenched his fists and raised one hand again.
This time, he didn't tap the wall.
He struck.
Crack!
A loud snap echoed through the room as the wooden plank splintered under his palm. A jagged dent marred the wood, deeper than the hairline fracture from yesterday.
Li Fan stared at it, heart pounding.
He hadn't used even half of his strength.
"The boost… it's real," he muttered.
At [Small Success], the Stone Palm Technique not only boosted his striking power noticeably—it also activated faster, with smoother Qi flow, and lasted longer than five minutes, all while consuming the same amount of Qi as it did at the [Beginner] level.
He'd need to test the exact limit, but even a minor increase in duration would make the technique far more usable in a real fight.
Li Fan took a few deep breaths to steady himself.
Like that, Li Fan waited.
Eight minutes later, he opened his status again.
> [Stone Palm Technique – Small Success – 1/200]
"One point…..," he noted.
That confirmed it. The grind hadn't changed. Even at higher mastery levels, repetition still worked.
He would need 199 more activations to reach [Great Achievement]—assuming the point gain didn't scale.
Daunting? Maybe. But in a world where everyone relied on talent and fortune, being able to brute-force improvement was practically divine.
Li Fan allowed himself a grin.
Today would be long. Repetitive. Painful.
And he couldn't wait.
Li Fan then activated the Stone Palm Technique four more times, continuing until his Qi was completely depleted.
> [Stone Palm Technique – Small Success – 5/200]
Li Fan leaned back against the wall, still catching his breath from the last Stone Palm activation.
After calming his state a few minutes later, he shifted his position into a proper meditative pose—back straight, legs crossed, palms resting lightly on his knees. His eyes slowly closed.
Then he began.
> [Clear Mind Breathing Technique – Beginner – 58/100]
A faint shiver ran through him.
As soon as Li Fan began circulating the breathing technique, he felt it—the telltale chill that always accompanied its use. It wasn't uncomfortable, but sharp and piercing, like breathing in cold mist from a frozen lake.
The [Clear Mind Breathing Technique] was a low black-grade water element cultivation art. It emphasized clarity, stillness, and gradual accumulation—like a stream trickling into a vast reservoir. His predecessor hadn't gotten very far with it, and no wonder.
The technique was slow and required immense patience, especially for someone without high-grade spirit roots.
A bad combo in Li Fan's opinion.
But Li Fan now had something his predecessor didn't.
A cheat.
He drew in a breath—slow and steady—and guided the Qi along the pathway recorded in the technique. From the dantian, then branching through the meridians to his limbs before slowly returning again.
It wasn't smooth. His Qi stuttered along the path, like a cart bumping over gravel. Still, it moved.
The process took minutes. But Li Fan kept at it.
After the third round—an hour later—his Qi had recovered by a quarter.
His breathing was sharp and controlled, his pulse steady.
Li Fan opened his eyes and checked his status panel.
[Clear Mind Breathing Technique – Beginner – 61/100]
A bright smile spread across his face.
"To think cultivating would progress faster than the Stone Palm Technique."
"Three points gained…"
"A single round of cultivation takes about twenty minutes, and I managed three in an hour."
"So that's one point per round?"
Li Fan was a little surprised by the revelation.
Earning points in a cultivation technique—he had thought was supposed to be slow.
Yet here he was, seeing fast progress.
And the best part? It could only get faster.
As a technique's mastery improved, so did its efficiency.
Higher mastery in a cultivation technique meant faster Qi circulation, which meant faster recovery, which in turn meant more cycles—and more progress.
Li Fan's heart sped up before he forced himself to calm down.
"To fully recover my Qi, I'll need nine more rounds. That's nine more points."
"Once I'm full, I'll grind Stone Palm again… then repeat the cycle."
He paused, eyes flicking back to the number on his panel.
"At 61 now… I need 39 more points to reach Small Success in my breathing technique."
"I might not hit that today since I need to rest in-between—but tomorrow, definitely."
As for Stone Palm reaching [Great Achievement]... that was a bigger mystery.
Still, if he could consistently earn 20 skill points per day, then in just over ten days, he might make it.
Even if it was just a Low-Grade Black-rank technique, progressing this quickly was only something top geniuses could do and it had to be the exceptional ones.
Most cultivators wouldn't see that kind of improvement in a decade—and that was already considered fast.
A breakthrough in his cultivation technique would also mean faster Qi recovery—which in turn meant he could activate the Stone Palm Technique more often.
So realistically… he might not even need ten days.
Li Fan felt the excitement bubbling inside him.
"All three of my techniques are low black-grade… ."
Li Fan remembered the ranking structure.
Black, Yellow, Profound, Spirit, Earth, and Heaven.
Each tier had sub-ranks—low, mid, high. The gap between each step was massive. And above Heaven Grade? He didn't know.
Maybe there was something even higher. But that was a concern for the future.
The current Li Fan?
He just wanted to grind this low black-grade technique until it broke under his will.
And like that Li Fan spent the rest of the day grinding.