In the scorching embrace of the relentless sunlight, sporadic echoes came—the unmistakable resonance of a force colliding with something.

Beneath the unforgiving sun, a black-haired youth charged at Ning, an illusory flame accompanying his relentless barrage of punches.

"Take this. Illusory Fire Fist!" The youth shouted as his punches neared Ning with imperceptible speed.

[Eyes of the Hawk]

Ning's eyes darkened a shade, his gaze following the slightest twitch on the youth's shoulder, his mind working in overdrive predicting the path of attacks. His body swayed as he bobbed through the blows with practiced ease.

Eyes of the Hawk was too undervalued a technique for the myriad of uses it possessed. As someone accomplished in this martial art, Ning brought out the greatest strength of the technique as he carefully moved across the arena with grace.

"Ch! Not this time! Take this." The youth shouted, his eyes taking a ghastly glow, as the spiritual qi surged in the air.

"Illusory Fist!" The youth charged with unprecedented vigor, his great circle fourth-stage cultivation at full display.

Ning's eyes narrowed, his nimble steps evading the incoming frontal punch, only to find it was a mere phantom. Simultaneously, a punch was unleashed towards Ning's face from a tight angle.

The youth grinned, witnessing the shocked expression on his opponent's face. Suddenly, he felt a force striking his body.

"Ack!" Glancing down, the youth realized Ning had landed a blow to his stomach, seemingly dodging the illusory strike while launching a counterattack at the same time.

[Bone Forging Fist]

"What?!" The youth fell down, coughing up blood like every xianxia person ever.

A few seconds went by as the youth tried to get up, only to fall. The match was over.

"Victor: Ning! The courtyard challenge has ended. The 60th courtyard is now possessed by Ning." A whistle sounded before the referee announced. Then, as if suddenly realizing something, he stopped and asked, "Do you want to take his courtyard?"

"No, I just wanted a good challenge. I like my own courtyard the best." Ning declined, as he had been doing for the past month.

Ning had started to challenge other courtyard owners to refine his ability to fight close quarters and train his techniques further. But unlike others, he did not take his opponent's courtyard after winning.

The reason was simple.

It was not worth it. There was not much change in spiritual qi density up to the sixtieth courtyard compared to his own, so he did not want to change his residence.

So, choosing not to take over others' courtyards as almost all others did, Ning could easily snuff out the enmity that his opponent might harbor. He knew full well the pain of moving residences.

Of course, the primary reason was that he liked his 69th courtyard. It was a 'noice' courtyard, all things considered.

Ning's thoughts turned quickly as he lent a hand to his fallen foe. "That was a good match, brother Shang Xin."

"Ah, shit! I lost again." Shang Xin sighed in lament but still took the offered hand. "I was sure I had you with my Illusory Flame Fist technique. How did you even dodge that?"

"I dunno, brother. You tell me. Why do you like to shout your technique name?" Ning was genuinely curious at this point.

People in this sect liked calling their attack name as if it were a Pokemon battle.

"Eh? I just feel like the technique becomes stronger when I use it while shouting. Plus, it is cool, is it not?" Shang Xin answered with ease.

"It is," Ning answered as he pondered if what Shang Xin said might really hold true in this cliche world.

Ning had never tried shouting an attack name, since it was not in his nature to do so, but he should try it sometime. Even though this was dumb as hell.

Ning was able to dodge the final blow because of the shout. Hearing the illusory part that Shang Xin shouted, he had quietly released his spiritual sense.

Normally, his spiritual sense would have worn out quickly due to its time limit, but over the course of this month, Ning had worked on it enough to make it usable.

[Bandwidth throttling technique.]

Though cheesy sounding, it was the technique he had developed in the past month through which he could slow down the information overload.

Narrowing down his bandwidth of spiritual sense to 45 degrees in front of him instead of 360 in only an eighth of the area, and limiting his perception, Ning could reduce the strain of his spiritual sense.

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In fact, the reason he had been fighting against others was to further refine this ability. In combat, not only could he refine his in-moment awareness to expand and shrink his spiritual sense, but the added pressure certainly helped him get comfortable with this new sixth sense of his.

After all, in this cliche world, what better way to develop quickly than punching your way through?

"I will win next time!" Shang Xin vowed, his eyes burning with youth, as he turned towards Ning. "So, are you going to move onto the fiftieth courtyard? Everyone above me is in the fifth stage of Qi condensation, so they would certainly give you a beating."

"I think it's time to stop; I now know where my limits are. This time the fight was too close for my comfort." Ning didn't lie; this was one of the closest matches he had since he started his challenge speedrun.

Of course, that was if one ignored the weight-increasing talisman he had stuck on his chest, slowing him down in the entire fight.

"Also, brother, please take this healing pill. Please don't refuse; you know my master is the sole tier two alchemist in the sect after all." Just like that, Ning started to build connections.

After all, just like he said before, the grind never stops, even the social ones.

...

Ning stood bare-chested. Beads of perspiration adorned his form like precious jewels, tracing sinuous paths down the rugged terrain of his well-sculpted physique. Nonetheless, it looked quite pleasing to the eye.

"Ha!"

With a deep inhalation, Ning summoned every ounce of his remaining qi, channeling it into the focal point of his being, and then sent out the last punch.

The spiritual qi in the air seemed to roll away as a silent shockwave echoed out in the courtyard.

"Finally, the Bone Forging Fist is completed!" Ning muttered, feeling a creaking sound emanating from his body—the bone-strengthening effect after reaching the culmination of the Bone Forging Technique.

Doing a one-two in the air, he tried to get adjusted to his newfound strength.

"Feels good, man," Ning smiled, clearly high on his improved strength.

"Also, I can finally stop chugging down milk now." Ning had been drinking milk to see if it had an effect on the Bone Forging fist.

It was certainly quite extra. But hey, if someone gave him options, he would take all of them, okay?

"I almost forgot about the talisman." Ning then pulled out a yellow piece of paper that was pasted on his chest.

It was a Tier One Weight Regulation Talisman.

Normally, such a talisman was used to lower the weight of a large amount of goods to make it easier to be carried out. Since a low-grade space pouch only had a relatively small amount of space, when needing to transfer a large amount of goods, such a talisman was preferred.

Of course, the way Ning used the talisman was vastly different from its intended purpose. Others used it for transportation, while he used it to train his body to the max.

According to some experiments, Ning found that the talisman could lower or increase the weight of something by approximately 100 kg. So, he used this talisman to create a faux-gravity increment chamber only applicable to his body.

While the price of a thousand low-grade spirit stones was quite expensive, after looting the foundation building cultivator Li Tianhe, he could afford this training regime. Thankfully, this talisman could be reused up to five times for three hours continuously after charging with spiritual energy.

Especially, combined with the modern strength equipment, Ning felt he had hit a new high in his physical training.

So, while to live is to hoard, Ning did not hesitate to use the accumulated fortune to increase his strength. After all, improving strength was still the most important thing currently; he did not want to delay his practice being stingy for a few spirit stones.

"It's hard work," Ning muttered, sipping the spiritual rice wine he brewed with the spiritual rice in hand.

As wine seems to be the best catalyst to get closer to those old foxes in the sect, his master included, Ning used the rice to brew wine. While it didn't have much impact on his cultivation, it helped him relieve all the accumulated fatigue.

Plus, it tasted sweet, perfect after bitter practice.

"It was not in vain to use the spiritual rice I had to brew a few batches of wine," Ning savored the sweet taste.

But in the end, Ning could not just slack off. It was best to quench his exhausted spiritual qi by practicing at once, so as to obtain the maximum benefit.

With that, Ning began his daily cultivation practice. With the vortex of spiritual Qi centering around him, he gradually fell into the comfortable cultivation cycle.

After a few hours, Ning exhaled the turbid air and called mentally.

'Status.'

With a command, the panel materialized.

[

Name: Ji Ning

Spiritual Root: Mid-grade Spiritual Root

Attributes: Five Elemental Attributes

Talent: Extreme Space-Time Sensitivity

Realm: Small Circle of 4th Stage of Qi Condensation

Cultivation Method: Golden Heaven Stream (1st Floor: 23/100), Clear Soul Technique (1st Floor: 13/1000)

Martial Arts: Bone Forging Fist (Mastery: 600/600), Shadow Steps (Mastery: 600/600), Turtle Breathing (Mastery: 600/600), Eyes of the Hawk (Great Accomplishment: 502/600), Heaven Shattering Fist (Starting: 209/300), Spiral Arrow (Starting: 49/200), Flame Controlling Technique (Starting: 60/200), Wood Spring Nurturing Technique (Starting: 52/200), Lightning Palm (Small Accomplishment: 208/500)

Buff: Blessing Of Heavenly Dao. Cultivation speed increased by 99%, Comprehension increased by 99%. Duration: 6 days, 2 hours, 3 minutes, 00 seconds

Specialty: Soul Ferrying Scripture

]

...

..

"This Golden Heaven Stream is really a pit," Ning couldn't help but say after viewing his status.

The proficiency of the Golden Heaven Stream was stuck. The reason was quite simple: Ning did not engage it with a strong heaven and earth material, besides a few initial investments.

Originally, Ning wanted to find some kind of trick to increase his proficiency, but all of it ended in naught. With the help of the jade that the pavilion elder gave him and his own comprehension, he also realized the crux of the matter.

The essence of this technique was to use different elemental heaven and earth materials to breed the corresponding type of Qi into the body, so as to attach different attributes to the innate Qi of the body.

Ning glanced at the small pool he had built in his courtyard, and the three red fish swimming in it as if contemplating something.

"No! The preparations are still not complete," Ning controlled his impulse and retracted his gaze.

While his cultivation grew to the small circle of the 4th stage relatively quickly, with the stagnation of his cultivation technique, his cultivation speed also gradually slowed down.

The progress in cultivation was mostly tied to the cultivation technique they practiced. When satisfying all the conditions of the technique, one would naturally improve fast relying on the resonance of the cultivation technique.

Ning, who was stuck on the cultivation technique, could only rely on his own spiritual aptitude and a few tricks to improve his cultivation realm.

Still, Ning was not disheartened, because the true gain of this month-long training was the technique he had bought from his master.

Because that technique was a treasure.