It took years to break through to the Muscle Refinement Layer for most. Even an Inner Disciple would have to spend a minimum of a year to do it, if Shadow’s words were to be believed, but Adrian had made it a point to not depend on the fickle ghost too much.

It didn’t teach him and he had someone to help him along the way now, unlike before.

He’d learned two of the seven techniques on the Jade Slips, each one exponentially growing more difficult.

While the Cloud Body Technique was easy to learn, which meant it took him a week, the second one took him a month. It was safe to assume that the next one would take six months or even more.

But before that, he needed to learn how to fight properly.

Even with a great cultivation base, if he couldn’t fight, then the same fate as Diana and Eric would be waiting for him: he’d be defeated by someone less powerful than himself.

Perhaps not in a real fight where there were no rules or ring-outs, but still.

Adrian looked down at his palms, now trembling.

His fists were cracked, but not shattered like before. There was no need for a Bone Mending Elixir and it didn’t hurt as much. There was a big difference between shattering the bones into a hundred pieces and simply cracking the tips of them.

It was time to cultivate now, and he could do that without sitting down.

Adrian closed both eyes and focused on the nature around him, currently standing in the backyard of the Beaumont Estate. While it appeared as a colorful mist to the eyes, it was a completely different substance for the body.

The warmth enveloped his body as he focused on gathering Qi, the specks of Ambient Qi moving at his beck and call.

Rather, it was like the gravity that affected the Qi was now aimed at Adrian, so with the elegance of a glass marble falling to the ground, which was barely any, they slammed into his body.

But it was only the Ambient Qi that came from plants that was like this.

The Qi in the mountains was refreshingly cold, like a mint leaf on the tongue while the Qi in the Shadow’s tomb was a different kind of refreshing cold, like ice-cold spring water passing through the throat on a hot summer day.

Slowly, but surely, the Qi was redirected toward his hands: only his hands.

The warmth that had been enveloping his body faded, forcing him to involuntarily shiver for a second as the summer breeze passed right through him.

The warmth turned to an unbearable heat around his cracked knuckles, pushing away all sensation of pain from before to replace it with a burning sensation.

It wasn’t actually burning him, for raw Qi could do no damage, but very much like Killing Intent and Martial Intent, it could cause sensations.

Adrian grunted.

He’d never focused this much Qi in merely two spots before.

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Back when he used it on his Cartilages, it was split between every joint that he had, and that was more manageable. This time, it was focused on both of his knuckles.

He feared what would happen if he focused everything on a single spot.

It felt like he was rubbing his knuckles against red hot iron, whereas his cartilages felt like they were in almost boiling water.

Mortals would barely see any difference but Adrian knew that pain was an essential part of attaining Perpetuity, and he preferred the path of least pain with the most effectiveness.

It was a contradiction in the truest sense.

Then it happened.

The heat stopped being as oppressive as the warmth entered his bone. It surged into his knuckles, but the respite was short.

Rather than touching hot iron, it was like the bones of his knuckles started to burn him from the inside: the phalanges that connected his fingers to the metacarpal bones, as well as the metacarpal bones themselves.

They were figuratively on fire, only because the Qi couldn’t damage his body.

Tears streamed down his face but he grit his teeth to silence himself, but he failed at it and let a shout out.

It was less a scream of pain and more one of irritation. It contorted into that on the way out of his throat due to his stubbornness not letting anything other than that out.

He stopped pooling Qi into his bones but it didn’t leave his bones as he expected them to, and Adrian stared down at his hands in horror.

They’d healed.

With nothing on his mind other than breaking his knuckles to let out those bones, he slammed his fists into the dirt but the ground couldn’t break it, for the dirt acted very much like a dampener.

Tears streamed down his face and he growled. His eyes wandered around wildly, looking for anything that could break his fists. His eyes didn’t even take note of several servants staring at him from the distance and out the windows. Instead, his eyes could only see the manor.

Stone walls.

They had to be hard.

Within a moment, he hopped back to his feet and elected to slam his fists into it, but Adrian stopped halfway through as he fluttered in the wind, his body flailing like his bones were gone.

The pain subsided as the Qi within his bones got drained along with all the other Qi in it, dampening the pain into nothing more than a slight distraction.

Adrian was breathing hard by the time the session ended.

“This is ridiculous,” he mumbled in-between breaths, “I hate it already.”

“You can always give up,” suggested the Shadow softly, “I would rather come back to life earlier than later.”

“In your dreams,” said Adrian with a smirk and his breathing grew faster, “I can regulate the pain now. That means it’ll be easy.”

The Shadow only chuckled.

“That’s a painful method. More often than not, it is also a waste of time,” stated a deep voice that could be easily distinguished as that of a woman.

Adrian turned around and saw a woman with an eyepatch and a missing arm, her hair dark gray not from age, but due to an injury from years prior. Everyone in the city knew Dame Michelle for her valiant sacrifice during the previous war in which she defended Lord Beaumont.

Despite her injuries, she seemed to be doing well, a wide grin on her face, revealing fangs that you’d think couldn’t possibly belong to a human. She didn’t wear armor, for most forms of it would serve as nothing more than a chunk of iron that wasn’t even harder than her own flesh, but she still had her blade sheathed to her hips: it was the falchion she was known for, which was one of the two Giant-class Weapons in the city.

“It’s the fastest,” he said.

“Maybe, but you’ll have to break all the bones in your body. You’ll want to die or leave the Martial Path because of it. It’s dumb,” she said and shrugged, “Maybe not if you chug down enough Sense Severance Elixirs, which you could afford. Just take it slow, kid.”

“But I want to get there fast,” Adrian said through his teeth, but he didn’t hiss.

She deserved a degree of respect, like most nobles and knights. Especially knights who’d survived a war.

“Slow and steady always wins in the long run. Just bide your time and cultivate properly,” said the Dame and gave him a wink with her single good eye. Then she added slightly quieter than before, “You’re already doing too good.”

Dame Michelle mumbled something underneath her breath but Adrian couldn’t overhear it.

“Well, whatever. Don’t get too ahead of yourself. You might end up ruining your base,” she shouted out and left after giving him a wave after turning around.

Ruining his base…

He didn’t even know how he could ruin it, but others used that term a lot.

That was a question for Emma in a few days’ time…