Zhang Yu looked at the tank top, shorts, wrist bands, and ankle rings laid before him, plus the two big jars beside them.
These were the weighted training suit and the demon-beast meat powder he'd bought.
The weighted suit: a durable, cheap body-forging rig you could wear anytime. It let you train in secret without classmates noticing, and doubled as the classic "strip it off mid-battle to flex" effect — a classic of the immortal path you simply had to try. This one weighed 150 kilograms total, exercising his flesh during everyday movement.
The demon-beast meat powder was a nutrient supplement, replenishing what his body's blood-and-flesh loss and growth consumed daily — helping a kid grow taller, faster, stronger.
Together they cost over four thousand, cutting his savings to just over fifty-nine thousand.
"Ah, still too broke. All I can afford is this poor-man's gear."
What Zhang Yu really wanted when browsing was an external spirit root called the Gluttony Spiritual Root. Supposedly, once inserted, it frantically drove metabolism and body reinforcement daily, absorbing every nutrient it could to feed the flesh. As the ad put it, even eating excrement every day would make you stronger. But one cost forty million — far beyond him for now.
"Ah well. Next free-rental window, I'll try the school's Muscle-Growth Spiritual Root."
Slipping the weighted suit on piece by piece, Zhang Yu felt his body grow heavier. Bending, walking, raising a hand all met extra resistance, and movement grew far harder.
"Whew..."
Before he'd taken a few steps, a shout came from downstairs: "Who the hell is tearing down the building at this hour?!"
Realizing his noise was too loud, Zhang Yu headed to the unfinished building in the suit.
As he walked, it felt like layer after layer of shackles weighed on him, discomfort radiating from every part of his flesh. But once he ran the Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art, dwelling on his hope of raising his strength day and night, the discomfort was suppressed — replaced by a satisfaction that his body was being trained every moment.
"So the Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art works on this too."
His goal now: maintain the Heart Art as close to every waking second as possible, resisting the suit's discomfort while using it to raise his Dao Heart level.
"Every one of the 24 hours, train both the Dao Heart and the flesh."
If he could pull it off, he could level his Dao Heart faster and train his physical strength on the side. Thinking that, with nobody forcing him, he'd voluntarily added this much weight to himself, Zhang Yu couldn't help a wry smile.
"Can't be helped. Those rich bastards at the three great schools are each more outrageous than the last. To survive, to get into the Top Ten Elite Universities, to join the great sects... there's no choice but to grind..."
Back in the unfinished building, in the weighted suit, Zhang Yu sat cross-legged — maintaining the Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art, tracing that image of an old ox tilling land in his mind, while letting his body rest.
In theory, so long as a cultivator could hold on, a Heart Art could be maintained indefinitely — like listening to a novel while playing a game, a display of splitting one's attention. But a weary spirit and external stimuli could interrupt it. And complex mental work — sitting an exam, thinking through combat moves — made it far harder to sustain.
His Dao Heart teacher had claimed a Heart Art could run at all times, that a powerful cultivator could keep it going while his consciousness stayed clear. But the original Zhang Yu had never managed it. Lately, though, since pushing the Wild Bull Soul-Suppressing Heart Art to level 10 and his Dao Heart to level 2, he found it easier and easier. If before, maintaining it was like constantly doing math in your head, now it felt more like counting from one to a thousand — far simpler.
"I should be able to do all sorts of more complex training now while keeping the Heart Art going."
So this was his experiment: practice keeping the Heart Art running under more and more conditions. After resting, he stood and paced while maintaining it — feeling as if he'd tossed away half his brain and half his muscles and had to relearn every movement from scratch.
The second night, he did simple warm-ups while holding the Heart Art. On the third day, growing adapted, he began practicing the Boundless Cloud Hand in the weighted suit while maintaining it. At level 6, the hand technique was like tens of thousands of rehearsals burned into his mind — every move unleashed naturally, without thought. His mind held the Heart Art's visualization while his flesh, under the suit's pressure, drilled the forms. Mana surged with fierce momentum, folding and unfolding in repeated tremors, pouring out as strands of the Formless Cloud Qi.
But splitting attention for the Heart Art, plus the suit's weight and the mana drain, slowed his practice a lot. A full three days passed before he finally forced the Boundless Cloud Hand to level 10.
Listen to that — "finally." Clearly Zhang Yu still found it slow.
"Ah, the Feather Book still isn't pulling its weight. It's capping my potential and my self-discipline."
In the unfinished building, Zhang Yu's mana rose from his dantian and, soundlessly, completed a series of seven tremors before scattering into his limbs and bursting out all over his body. In that instant, white clouds of mist curled around him from head to toe — a true immortal's bearing.
"So this is level 10 of the Boundless Cloud Hand — the Formless Cloud Qi is no longer limited to the hands. It surges from every part of the body, fusing offense and defense."
But the mana drain climbed severely. Zhang Yu felt he could barely last minutes, so he stopped.
Through these days of bitter cultivation, all his abilities rose. His mana, via day-and-night breathing, reached 16.9. The weighted suit and the Cloud Hand training pushed his physical strength to grade 1.28. His Dao Heart, under the near-unbroken level-10 Heart Art, was still fastest — now at level 2 (65%).
...
One day, not long after Zhang Yu reached the classroom, he saw a middle-aged woman with a weathered face packing things at a desk.
Puzzled, he heard Zhou Tianyi say, "Liang Qin dropped out. That's his mom, packing up his stuff."
"Why?" Zhang Yu asked in surprise.
Zhou Tianyi sighed. "Sounds like he owed over a hundred thousand in gambling debts. Once his parents found out, they came straight to drop him out. Word is they made a scene in the teachers' office yesterday — Liang Qin kept kneeling and knocking his head on the floor, but they insisted."
Zhou Tianyi shook his head. "His parents did the right thing. Once you sink into gambling, you can only ever be a mortal. You'll never amount to anything on the immortal path. Even a real immortal would come crashing down — betting away every bit of cultivation, going bankrupt, starting over as a mortal."
Zhang Yu fell silent. In debt, this Liang Qin resembled his body's original owner. Had he not transmigrated, the original Zhang Yu might well have ended up the same.
Just then Bai Zhenzhen dragged him out of the classroom. "Those tightwads finally have news. Sign the electronic agreement they sent."
Not long after he signed, a transfer notification chimed. Seeing twenty thousand come through, both of them perked up.
Bai Zhenzhen: "Those tightfisted bastards actually coughed up twenty grand in one go. Looks like they really value you. Transfer eight thousand to my account — I've got a use for it."
Zhang Yu didn't ask why. After sending it, he only asked, "What have you been doing? You vanish the second school lets out every day?"
She smiled faintly. "Trying to find a way into the Ten. Since those tightwads are taking us this seriously, let's make them help lighten our load."
Then she seemed to remember something. "Once next week's monthly exam ends, Zhou Chechen should be round to coax us into signing again. If we refuse the student council again, they'll pile on more pressure — especially you, kid, taking fourth in the Mana Competition. They'll try hard to force you. Can you hold?"
Zhang Yu wasn't confident himself, but at her worried gaze he laughed. "I can definitely hold. Just don't you quit halfway."
He was thinking of the Ritual Contract's compulsion — he'd either be killed by it or get into the Ten. There was no third choice. Just then that familiar chill welled up inside him, pressing him to hurry back and train.
"Ah well, my own strength matters most. I'm heading back to cultivate."
Bai Zhenzhen pressed his shoulder. "Remember, when you refuse, push it off on Purple Cloud High and White Dragon High — tell them they're courting you, and keep bargaining with the student council to drag out time. And remember: never, ever let them catch on that you're aiming for the Ten."
Watching him rush off, she sensed his urgency. "Yu's been working harder lately. He's anxious too. But that's fine — I'm almost onto that guy... As expected of me. Yu's a bit better than me at the Mana Competition, but for getting into the Ten, he still needs me looking out for him."
...
Inside the meditation room.
Zhang Yu, who'd rented the Muscle-Growth Spiritual Root, felt that with every breath of Spiritual Machine, the root fed back a strand of even livelier Spiritual Machine. This was its growth energy. As it was absorbed by his flesh, his body seemed to writhe on its own, wolves devouring every nutrient. With the root's continued effect, this state would last six to twelve hours, greatly amplifying his training results.
Wei Xin's voice came over the intercom: "Student Zhang, want to extend the session?"
Zhang Yu let out a breath. "Extend it by an hour."
...
In the Training Ground, the martial arts teacher Lei Jun was drilling Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen for next month's Martial Arts Competition.
To crashing booms and crackling snaps, two figures collided again and again, tearing in like a pair of beasts. Zhang Yu's Boundless Cloud Hand blasted surging aegis energy. But Bai Zhenzhen joined her fingers like a sword and stabbed a flurry of shadows into the aegis's most critical weak points, scattering it instantly.
Lei Jun barked: "Zhang Yu, the Boundless Cloud Hand is all about adaptation. Move with the flow — stop relying on overwhelming force."
Zhang Yu didn't want to win by raw power either. Bai Zhenzhen's combat experience was simply far beyond his; had he not suppressed her head-on with martial aegis by instinct, he'd have been driven back the whole fight.
"How the hell is Zhenzhen this good?"
Though Zhang Yu wasn't going all out, he'd been using a level-1 Boundless Cloud Hand, yet she ground him down with a few basic combat arts. He seriously suspected she was cheating.
*Wallhacks or aim-lock? Or reading my inputs? How does she keep hitting my weaknesses, keep seeing through my moves?*
...
Days passed in Zhang Yu's endless studying, cultivating, and supplementary lessons. In a blink, another week was gone, and Songyang High's monthly exam arrived again.
Classmates, teachers, the student council... all sorts of people Zhang Yu did or didn't know, were gradually turning their eyes toward him and Bai Zhenzhen.