Chapter 69: A Surge in Progress
Chapter 69: Chapter 69: A Surge in Progress
The next day, Xie Yuan had a good night’s sleep and a hearty meal. Having recovered the stamina he’d spent in the previous day’s battle and feeling fully rested, he walked to the dedicated pharmacy in the Escort Agency’s Inner Courtyard. He identified himself to the old physician inside and requested a high-grade medicinal bath.
The pharmacy was already prepared. Before long, they invited him into an adjacent bathhouse where a large wooden tub filled with steaming, brown liquid was ready.
’All these Chinese medicines look about the same color...’
After the others left, Xie Yuan undressed, took out the white porcelain bottle, and poured a single yellow pill into his hand. He studied it for a moment before tilting his head back and swallowing it.
Then, he stepped into the wooden tub and began his medicinal bath.
Yesterday, in his excitement, Xie Yuan had spent a rather boring amount of time pondering whether to use the Golden Jade Pill or the medicinal bath first. In the end, he decided not to favor one over the other and to use them both at the same time!
After all, the medicinal bath strengthened his muscles from the outside in, while the pill nourished his Blood Qi from the inside out. The two didn’t conflict.
The muscle-training medicinal bath was especially time-consuming; someone had told him yesterday that it would take at least twelve hours.
Unlike the Skin Training baths that directly strengthened the skin, a muscle-training bath—no matter how potent—required a much longer soak to permeate the muscles. Only when he was thoroughly steeped would the effects reach deep inside.
There was nothing to do during this time except circulate his power.
So, Xie Yuan decided that after resting well today, he would use the Golden Jade Pill while in the medicinal bath. He would refine its medicinal energy, combining the internal and external effects to achieve the best possible strengthening.
Once in the tub, Xie Yuan tensed up, slightly nervous, awaiting the extreme, tingling-numbing pain he remembered from previous medicinal baths.
But he waited for a long time, and aside from the heat of the liquid and a faint sensation of it seeping into his body, he felt nothing special.
The Golden Jade Pill in his stomach also produced no immediate reaction. It was as if he had just eaten a jelly bean, one that wasn’t even sweet.
’Did I get fakes? Both of them?’
Xie Yuan was briefly puzzled, then speculated that the medicinal bath’s effects had to be stimulated slowly, only becoming apparent once they reached the muscle layer. An immediate reaction would mean it was only affecting his skin.
As for the pill, assuming the Vajra Sect hadn’t cut corners, it probably also needed to be digested slowly. After all, this wasn’t some Divine Pill or Spiritual Medicine from a novel that would melt in his mouth and turn into a Spiritual Spring. If it were, the Vajra Sect would have to be an immortal sect.
So, Xie Yuan waited patiently, treating it like a hot bath. Sure enough, within an hour, a wave of heat began to spread beneath his skin, and his muscles seemed to start twitching all over.
’A different medicinal liquid, but just as hard to bear.’
Xie Yuan’s brow furrowed slightly. He felt the medicinal effects seep into his muscles. The potent high-grade bath compressed what should have been a cumulative strengthening process into a short period, and the price was the constant trembling and aching of his muscles.
At the same time, the Golden Jade Pill in his stomach was slowly digesting. Its medicinal energy seeped into his bloodstream bit by bit, replenishing his Blood Qi with pure, refined strands that gradually grew stronger before automatically integrating into his muscles, accelerating the muscle-training process.
’That satisfying burn...’
Seeing the progress bar before him shoot upward, Xie Yuan’s brows relaxed. Suddenly, the discomfort didn’t seem so bad.
He activated his Inner Power, focused his mind inward, and silently observed the changes in his body.
「Twelve hours later.」
[Iron Cloth Shirt · 4th Layer: (1573/2000)]
Xie Yuan stared at the numbers that had long since stopped flashing, confirming that the medicinal effects were fully absorbed. He then stepped out of the wooden tub.
Over six hundred, almost seven hundred points!
In a single day, his muscle-training progress had shot up by a third!
The effect of the medicinal bath plus the Golden Jade Pill was just too good!
Even the Second Training seemed to be right around the corner.
Xie Yuan couldn’t help but clench his fists, his eyes shining with excitement.
’Thank you, Escort Agency! Thank you, Vajra Sect!’
At this moment, the Blood Qi in his chest was nearly fifty percent more vigorous than before, and its quality was much higher.
His muscles, meanwhile, had been completely "reforged," now as solid as iron.
Looking closely, his once rather lean physique now seemed a size larger with his muscles engorged with blood. Though still very well-proportioned, his entire body radiated a sense of power.
With every movement, Xie Yuan could feel that his strength had increased significantly, especially his explosive power, which was a good thirty percent stronger than before.
A single medicinal bath had resulted in an almost meteoric rise in his strength. No wonder so many people had looked at him with envy when he received his reward.
With an effect like this, you could forcibly raise the strength of even a Martial Artist with inferior talent.
’If I were to fight that Monto again now, I wouldn’t have to slowly bleed him out with hit-and-run tactics. If I found an opening, a few slashes would be enough to break his defense and deal a fatal blow.’
Recalling his fight with Monto yesterday, Xie Yuan had used footwork enhanced by his Inner Strength to keep Monto from even touching his shadow. The victory hadn’t been difficult, but Monto’s defense had left a deep impression on him.
It wasn’t just that Monto was naturally powerfully built; the Vajra Sect’s Rock Skill was also something to be reckoned with. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have become a major power dominating Yunzhao on the strength of their hard-style techniques.
In comparison, the Iron Cloth Shirt that Xie Yuan was currently cultivating seemed somewhat lackluster.
’If I had a Cultivation Technique of the same caliber, I wouldn’t have been so afraid of letting him even touch me.’
Xie Yuan mused.
You had to be able to stand your ground to deal damage. With a powerful hard-style technique, his margin for error in a fight would be much higher.
But that wasn’t urgent. He didn’t have enough merits right now anyway. He could continue practicing his Iron Cloth Shirt and think about it after he broke through to the Second Training.
The training methods for the External Training stage could be switched at any time. After all, the enhancements to his Blood Qi and body were his own and had no special attributes, so changing his Cultivation Technique wouldn’t cause much of a conflict.
Many energetic Martial Artists would even practice a hard-style technique like the Iron Cloth Shirt on the side.
It wouldn’t be too late to switch to a better Cultivation Technique once he had enough merits.
For now, the priority was to master muscle training as quickly as possible, become a Second Training Martial Artist, and let his strength undergo another qualitative leap!
The medicinal bath was so effective that Xie Yuan decided to save up his merits. By the time he had enough for another bath, the medicinal properties in his body would have been mostly digested. He could then use that second bath to break through in one go, just as he had when he broke through to the First Training.
For the first two of the four stages of External Training, at least, the aid from medicinal baths was extremely effective. It was only in the latter two stages of "stretching tendons and Bone Forging" that ordinary medicinal baths became less useful.
’I still need to accumulate more merits for Cultivation Techniques, medicinal baths, even weapons and treasures... The poor pursue literature while the rich pursue martial arts. The path of a Martial Artist is a resource-intensive one.’
Xie Yuan shook his head and sighed, deeply feeling his own poverty.
After cleaning up and leaving the bathhouse, the sky was already growing dark.
Xie Yuan was about to head back to his room when he ran into Kong Chun, a man from his first escort mission. From a distance, Kong Chun clasped his fists and congratulated him.
"Xiaoxie, congratulations, congratulations!"
"Thanks, Brother Kong."
Xie Yuan thought he was congratulating him for winning the spar and receiving the reward, but he didn’t understand the next sentence at all.
"Aiya, Xiaoxie, now that you’re a Darts Master, you have to take me on more missions! I feel safe with you."
"Huh? What Darts Master?"
Xie Yuan was completely baffled.
Seeing his expression, Kong Chun was also taken aback.
"You don’t know yet? Today, Boss Zhao went to the Head Darts Master and said that with your strength, even if you don’t have enough merits, you should be made a Junior-level Darts Master directly. The Head Darts Master agreed."
"Xiaoxie, you’re a Junior-level Darts Master now! Eh, ten taels of base silver a month, plus extra merits for missions... Eh, it really makes a guy envious..."
Kong Chun was both envious and emotional, but Xie Yuan was still a bit dazed.
It wasn’t until he got back and found that a servant boy had already packed his things and moved them to a larger Darts Master’s residence, and had even informed him, "Master Xie is requested for an escort mission tomorrow," that Xie Yuan, having experienced this mid-level treatment, finally snapped out of his daze as if waking from a dream.
’Just like that, I’m a Darts Master?’
’I haven’t even shouted the escort chant once...’