Practice starts with skill points.

Chapter 47: Stygia
Zhong Lin walked out of the hall with an expressionless face, looked at Yun Ye who was waiting in the yard, turned around and walked towards the large copper vat filled with water, and buried his face in it.

Yun Ye, who was in the middle of the yard, twitched his lips when he saw this scene. He looked at Zhong Lin with a little pity, then walked over.

"The Second Young Master just has a unique hobby, you..."

"I am fine."

Zhong Lin shook his head to indicate that he was fine.

"Can I go?"

Yun Ye took out a porcelain bottle from his bosom and handed it over: "This is a reward from the Second Young Master."

"Thank you."

Zhong Lin glanced at the three words "Zhuanggu Dan" on the porcelain bottle, and his depressed mood improved a little.

Damn, I originally thought that the young master of the Du family called me here in the middle of the night because something happened, but who the hell would have thought that he was here to draw him a pornographic picture.

And he was watching the painting on the spot. The protagonists in the painting were Mr. Du and the two maids beside him.

If I am not satisfied with one painting, I will draw a few more, and the posture of each painting is different.

Zhong Lin felt like he had developed stye pimples.

Yun Ye said, "I see that you are quite capable. Would you like to join the Du family and become their guard?"

"The guards of the Du family are all low-rank warriors. Ninth-rank warriors are third-rank guards, eighth-rank warriors are second-rank guards, and seventh-rank warriors can be first-rank guards. With your martial arts skills, you can be a second-rank guard, with a monthly salary of twenty taels of silver. And with the Du family as your backing, no one will dare to target you when you come to the black market to buy medicine in the future."

Zhong Lin was thinking a lot. This treatment sounded good, but Zhong Lin was very unwilling. His goal was to go to Tianyang County to study alchemy, but he was not interested in becoming a bodyguard for someone else's family.

He took a deep breath and said in a deep voice, "Thank you for your appreciation, Master Yun. I'm afraid I'll have to let you down. I'm just a painter. I don't like fighting and killing. I just want to live a peaceful life."

"That's all."

When Yun Ye heard Zhong Lin's refusal, his expression was obviously not very good, and he waved his hand to signal Zhong Lin that he could leave.

"Hmph! You are so short-sighted. Don't you know that in order to surpass the middle third level and cultivate your Qi and blood, you need blood training techniques, and these things are only available in aristocratic families." Yun Ye said coldly.

In his mind, Zhong Lin was a younger generation with good talent in martial arts, and he was willing to be the one to promote him, but he didn't expect Zhong Lin to refuse.

Just refuse!

The one who suffered the loss was not himself, but Zhong Lin. If he missed this opportunity, he would be stuck in the lower third grade for the rest of his life, wasting his whole life.

On the other side, Zhong Lin, who had already walked far away, did not hear Yun Ye's words, but even if he heard it, he probably didn't bother to care.

"Tsk tsk, you're indeed a descendant of an aristocratic family. This time, the reward is actually ten Bone Strengthening Pills."

In the moonlight, Zhong Lin opened the porcelain bottle, and inside lay ten round bone-strengthening pills. At thirty taels of silver each, that was three hundred taels of silver, which could be said to be the most expensive fee Zhong Lin had ever received since he became a painter.

"Dong Yan contributed five bone strengthening pills, and I bought five myself. Add these ten, plus the full level experience to absorb the medicinal power of the pills, and it's almost enough for me to advance to the seventh rank."

The full level of "Iron Mountain Kung Fu" allowed Zhong Lin to understand this technique to the level of a creator. When practicing the technique, he could minimize the waste of the medicinal power of the pills. Ordinary people needed two pills, but he only needed one.

He quickened his pace and quickly returned to the county town.

"Brother, wow! What a big rooster! Can we eat meat tomorrow?"

Little Shitou, who was still waiting for Zhong Lin to come home, suddenly lost all his sleepiness when he saw the big rooster in his second brother's hand. He even started drooling at the thought of eating meat tomorrow.

"You are so greedy. Go find a rope to tie it up. If it runs away, you won't have anything to eat tomorrow." Zhong Lin teased.

"Uh-huh."

Little Stone got up from the bed with his butt sticking out, put on his shoes, and excitedly found a hemp rope in the corner. He tied one end to the rooster's foot and the other to the table leg. "Are you hungry? I also bought eggs. I'll boil them for you."

"eat."

Zhong Lin was not sleepy at this time, so they went straight to the kitchen, added water, put two eggs into the water, and started cooking over high heat.

After a while, the water boiled. I waited for a while before taking out the eggs and then splashed them with cold water.

"Brother, I want this."

Little Stone pointed at a relatively pointed egg.

"Row."

Even if you use cold water to scald the eggs, they are still hot to the touch. Xiao Shitou switches his left and right hands and blows on them to cool them down.

Neither of them ate directly, but looked at each other.

"One, two, three, hit."

"One, two, three, hit."

With a cracking sound, the eggs in the hands of the two men collided with each other, but Xiao Shitou's egg was still intact, while the one in Zhong Lin's hand was directly dented.

"Oh oh! I win, I win."

Little Stone shouted excitedly, holding the egg in his hand like a general who had won a battle.

Zhong Lin looked at the scene in front of him with a smile on his face. This egg... smells so good!

……

Seven days passed in a hurry. During these seven days, Zhong Lin would still sell medicine on the black market at midnight every day. He would use part of the money to buy scarce supplies, and the other part would be used to buy bone-strengthening pills.

During the day he would hide at home to practice martial arts. The Bone Strengthening Pill was indeed a pill specially prepared for those who had reached the eighth level of Yi Jin Realm. Its huge medicinal power was specifically targeted at bones.

After swallowing a pill, Zhong Lin waved his fists in the yard. With every breath he took, he could feel the strong medicinal power acting on his bones.

The human skeleton appears hard, but is actually very fragile and requires years of tempering.

The medicinal power of the bone strengthening pill accelerated the process, but Zhong Lin could feel the pain every time when tempering his bones.

The full-level "Iron Mountain Kung Fu" allows Zhong Lin to temper his bones very efficiently. Even so, it takes a long time to temper them completely. After all, the human skeleton has many parts. If you want to temper them all, you have to spend time and temper them slowly.

After two hours, Zhong Lin felt a little tired and stopped.

Feeling the power contained in his body, Zhong Lin nodded with satisfaction.

"Although I haven't entered the seventh-grade Bone Tempering Realm yet, I can clearly feel that my strength, defense, and stamina have greatly increased, far exceeding the Muscle-Strengthening Realm. Moreover, I have tempered most of the bones in my body. Only a few small details are missing. In three days at most, I will definitely be able to enter the seventh grade."

After washing his face and packing up briefly, he shouted to the inside of the house, "Shi Tou, are you done packing? It's time to go."

"All right."

Today is the moving day. Old Man Xu has already rented a house and has been preparing it for several days. If Zhong Lin doesn't move out soon, Old Man Xu and his family will probably move in.

Now the situation outside is becoming more and more chaotic. The affairs of the bandit Guo Yanhuai can no longer be concealed and have spread a long time ago. Countless disaster victims nearby have fled to the county town for refuge.

As the number of people increased, supplies became more scarce, and there were more disaster victims and beggars on the streets. To Zhong Lin, the entire Heishan County felt like a huge powder keg that only needed the last spark.

(End of this chapter)