“Like a stone,” Jun hummed a little tune, going about his geological duties. What could be nobler than rock? The entire planet was made of it! Already he was priming his mind for the self-gaslighting he was about to do.

It was more difficult than expected to find something hard to ram. The buildings were all protected by formations, and the moment he attacked them, an entire squadron of cultivators would descend on his head. The streets were also neat and orderly—no big rocks anywhere to be found. He couldn’t even get out of the sect without a proper permit.

There was only one spot where he could challenge Mother Nature, and that was the undersect. Jun had never gone there on his own, but now that he had reached the second stage of his self-made system, the flesh stage, he had a bit more confidence.

The undersect, in reality, was a massive human-made cavern. Thus, Jun circled the stone walls, looking for a spot where he wouldn’t be immediately stopped for his hooliganism. Further away from the entrance, the grand and flashy buildings faded, revealing quaint stone houses in all shapes except for squares. Finally, he reached a not-so-recently carved-out section away from most buildings. Only a few recent add-ons dotted the landscape.

‘Alright. Come on, you can do this,’ Jun thought, slapping his face a few times for good measure.

“I am the immortal-god king. Nothing in this universe dares to block my way. Fear me, humanity, for I have arrived.”

Jun loudly barked, jumping up and down in preparation, unaware of the two kids watching his exploits from the inside of the nearest building.

“I am unstoppable!” he roared, charging towards the stone wall with all of his might. Like an arrow released from a bow, he soared through the air, the surroundings blurring together. He squeezed together every last bit of qi from his body and directed it all to his head.

Rapidly, the wall was approaching. It engulfed his entire vision until nothing more was left. He was gaining more speed. More. More! A moment before he impacted the wall, he closed his eyes and lowered his head, headbutting the stone with the force of a thousand dogs.

BANG!

The world went dark.

“Holy crap! The dog just killed itself!”

“Whoa. Don’t get close. It must have some sort of weird illness.”

“Let’s go bring the others. Maybe we can find a long stick to poke it.”

The two kids dashed out of their homes, knocking on nearby buildings.

After an unknown amount of time, Jun stirred from his “sleep”. Vaguely, he saw numerous shadows dart away from him, but as he tried to stand back up, he collapsed to the ground once again. A horrible headache was splitting his brain in half, and he was barely keeping himself from vomiting.

‘What’s going on?’

Fortunately, his increased powers of regeneration meant that he recovered quickly. Mastering the skin stage meant that he was surrounded by a thick layer of armour. In theory, he would be nearly invincible. In reality, the way they dealt with that in the Middle Ages was blunt force trauma to the head, which he had just self-inflicted.

For a few moments, he sat on the ground, contemplating his life choices.

“It’s stupid if I keep ramming into walls. At the same time, it’s stupid if I don’t make use of the technique. What a fucked up world we live in.” He stood back up, staring at the ceiling flickering with runes.

This time, he shortened the running distance significantly. Running at the wall the first time was easier. Now, he knew he was faced with guaranteed failure and pain, which made his legs turn into stone. For a solid few minutes, he stared at the wall, calming his nerves.

The second bang was quieter, but it still shook the ground like a tiny earthquake. Jun was pretty sure it dented his skull and made him lose a few IQ points, not to mention that it hurt like hell. Then, after his body healed itself and the pain went away, there was nothing else to do but to ram the wall again. And again. And again.

“It’s fucking stupid!”

“Hey! My mom said you shouldn’t use words like that.”

“Sorry. It’s freaking dumb!”

“Yeah...”

“Hey, guys. I want to pee. When can we go?”

“Are you crazy? What if it notices you and charges? You’ll get the dumb-dumb disease.”

“Aww.”

Ten kids huddled up by the window, looking on as the dog kept on charging against the wall. They whispered among each other, hiding whenever it looked in their direction. After an hour or two, it finally decided to leave, and that’s when the kids swarmed the wall.

“Ewww. There’s saliva here.”

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“Whoa! Look! It made a dog-head dent in the wall.”

They played there for the rest of the day, and when they went back home, they told their parents about the crazy dog that kept on charging against the wall. Amused by the story, they spread it at work, and soon enough, half the city had heard about the myth of the rabid dog.

“There’s a story out there. They say that there once was a man working in the Lu family, helping expand the undersect whenever the need arose. Well, one day, when was on the job, he found an abandoned puppy lying next to the cavern wall, shivering and all alone. He felt bad for the poor thing and brought it home.

“The next day, he went back to work, but the puppy followed him. It never wanted to be left alone again, so it clung to the man wherever he went. Years passed like the wind, and then one tragic day, there was an accident. They had found a naturally occurring cave, and someone had the bright idea of using a fire technique to light up the place.

“They say the explosion could be felt all the way above. The dog at the time had been eating some leftovers, and thus it was spared the cruel fate. It was frightened by the explosion, and it waited and waited for its owner to come back, but it never happened.

“Eventually, some cultivators threw the dog out of the cave and sealed it back up. The dog scratched at the newly-formed wall every day, knowing its master was somewhere out there, past this horrid stone. Every single day it fruitlessly charges at the wall, hoping to one day break it down and reunite with its master.”

By the end of the day, the story was being told by drunks in taverns, causing tears to flow like waterfalls. Of course, most treated it as nothing more than myth, and the dog went about its day, unaware of the stories being spread.

‘There has to be a better way.’

Jun scribbled a message for Wang Lei for him to look into body tempering methods and stone qi in general. Both of his “colleagues” were already working hard to bring him any information about bloodlines, but the progress was slow. After that, he copied down the entire body tempering manual into several bamboo slips—he even redrew the lion in a completely different style. Then, he held them up and circulated his inner qi, focusing on his chest. A thin connection appeared in his mind of a larger space, and with a simple mental command, the bamboo slips disappeared.

Around Jun’s neck was a small pouch of pink and purple, tied together with a red string. Engraved in the middle was a word written in gold. Benediction. This storage pouch had the space of a small room inside of it, and despite being the smallest one possible, it still cost several hundred spirit stones. It was all worth it—he could carry his writing supplies, his private stash of spirit stones, and his small pile of bones wherever he went. After all that, he made his way to the outer edges of the sect, to the house where Xu Peng stayed.

Jun knocked on the door a few times, and a scrawny boy with dishevelled hair answered.

“Oh. Is it time already? I was just reviewing the notes,” he absently said, inviting Jun in. The dog unceremoniously dropped the bamboo slips on the ground, having taking them out beforehand.

“The Stone Lion Technique? Is this what the elder was talking about?” Xu Peng said, grabbing one and reading the title.

Jun had promised the kid a manual that would grant him strength, and here it was. Never let it be known that he was a liar and a cheat, even if he was.

“Don’t mention it. The whole painting thing was an accident,” Jun barked, heading over to greet Xu Mei.

The poor girl could barely move out of her bed, so he rubbed against her hand and licked her cheek as encouragement. She smiled at that.

“Alright. Be careful, I’ll be back soon,” Xu Peng said, waving his sister farewell. She was lying on a series of overlapping formations that surrounded her from all sides, barely visible to the untrained eye.

‘Linked Primordial Lightning Formation, the boy has talent,’ Jun nodded upon seeing that. Then, they headed further into the sect.

There was not much to say about the looks of disdain the boy got because he wasn’t wearing robes. Largely, the duo was ignored until they arrived at a particular stone building and knocked three times. There, a cultivator of no more than twenty years quickly ushered them in. One had to step lightly here lest they trigger hundreds of buried and hidden formations.

The man who greeted them had short, frizzy brown hair and a pair of thick spectacles. His face was dotted with freckles, and his cheeks were plump. In general, the man was slightly overweight. His whole appearance was a mystery to Jun. He had always thought that cultivation fixed all the imperfections in the human body, yet here stood a man who at best was average-looking. Him and the butcher lady were the rare outliers. Maybe this was already a massive improvement to what he looked like before.

The house was barebones—lots of space for formations, archaic books, slips, and notes lying on the floor, and a dizzying amount of magical artifacts for precisely drawing the tiniest of lines. Carving on stone like Jun was doing was the most primitive way of utilising formations. The true experts could inscribe thousands on a simple steel sword.

“Alright. Let’s get started. You’ve memorised the runes for change, illusion, direction, and fog?”

Xu Peng nodded.

“Those are the basics needed for the Boundless Fog Formation. In many ways, entrapment and illusion formations are better at dealing with enemies than barrier or attack formations. Of course, the true problem lies in adding mixing in concealment runes to hide the existence of such a thing.”

Jun listened intently to the lecture, his mind briefly wandering when their tutor touched upon a subject he already knew. Considering that his entire business relied on formations, the free lessons from the Hall of Formations were not enough anymore. Unfortunately, his identity was special, and he couldn’t just receive one-on-one guidance from an elder.

Thus, Jun had an idea. Xu Peng’s “master” finally recognized his immense talent in formations and decided to sponsor him with individual lessons. The only condition was that he bring along Jun, the elder’s loyal guard dog and messenger, who would protect him from any harm outside. In a way, it was like killing two birds with one stone. Both of them were diligently learning the art of formations for the price of one.

When the lesson was done, the sun was starting to set, and they both returned to the boy’s house. Along the way, some prior customers of his waved their way. Jun had suggested that the boy sell his formation services for the poorer residents of the sect, and while it didn’t bring in as much as his own business, the boy was certainly doing better than before. Soon enough, they would be able to afford to rent their own house.

After seeing today’s progress, Jun had one last message to deliver to the boy. It was short and simple.

“You should join the Zhao family. Family members take care of one another.”

Previously, they wouldn’t have taken in a nobody like Xu Peng, but now that he had the basics of formations down, he would be able to apply. Jun wasn’t quite sure what the process involved, but He Ming had always said that the best way to make money and get some safety was to join a family. That way, the boy could move up in the world and take better care of his sister. The fact that he would be able to access more information for Jun was only secondary.

After spending a bit more time with the brother and sister duo, he started waddling down the street, his golden fur shining in the dim sunlight. It was time to head back to the inn and see how Chen Hao’s plan was coming along.