I loaded the Mysticism panel.

Chapter 128 Stone Fist

After class in the afternoon, Richard followed Warren through the corridor behind the gymnasium.

A handwritten poster was pasted on the door, with "Greenwood Fighting Club" written in thick black marker, and a clenched fist drawn next to it.

The fist wasn't drawn very well; the five fingers were uneven in thickness, making it look more like a string of sausages.

Warren pushed open the door, and a mixture of sweat and leather odors hit him.

The activity room is small, about the size of two classrooms put together.

Two sandbags hung against the wall, and several dumbbells and barbells were piled up in the corner.

The bar plates vary in size, and some are even made by pouring cement themselves.

There were five or six people in the room.

Two people were hitting the punching bag, one was doing push-ups in the corner, and three others were sitting around a mat chatting.

Of the two hitting the sandbag, one was particularly muscular, with shoulders as broad as a door panel.

Each time he punched the canvas sandbag, it made a dull "thud".

"Fraser!" Warren called out to the burly man.

The door panel stopped its punches on its shoulder and turned around.

Frazier wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his bandaged hand and looked Richard up and down.

"Who is this?"

"My classmate, Williams," Warren introduced, "the one who came in second place in the Cicero Cup."

Frazier's eyebrows twitched.

"The Latin one?"

"right."

Frazier glanced at Richard from head to toe, his gaze lingering on Richard's arms and shoulders for a couple of seconds.

"What are you doing at the fighting club? Want to learn how to fight?"

"I'd like to borrow your equipment to work on my strength," Richard said honestly.

Frazier's expression changed from scrutiny to confusion.

"Strength training?" He looked at Richard's physique: "With your current build..."

"I know my foundation is weak," Richard said without hesitation, "that's why I came to borrow equipment."

Frazier shrugged.

"Okay, use it as you like."

He pointed with his thumb to the pile of dumbbells in the corner.

"Take any dumbbells and barbells you like, line up to hit the punching bags, and don't eat while sitting on the mat."

"The club doesn't have membership fees, but we have to pay five pence a month for equipment maintenance to buy bandages and repair sandbags."

"no problem."

"There's one more," Frazier added.

"If you get injured here, take responsibility for it yourself. Don't go to the principal and complain that we beat you up."

"clear."

Frazier nodded and turned back to continue hitting the sandbag.

Richard walked to a corner and picked out the lightest set of dumbbells from the pile.

He sat on the edge of the mat and began doing dumbbell curls.

The movements were slow, with each curl being deliberately controlled in terms of speed and range of motion.

Breathing rhythm and movement frequency are synchronized; lower down when inhaling and raise up when exhaling.

The first set of ten reps left my arms slightly sore.

The second group of eight, my biceps started to burn.

The third group had six people, and the last two were made through sheer grit and determination.

He put the dumbbells back on the ground and swung his arms.

The guy next to him who was doing push-ups looked up at him.

"Seven pounds?"

"Um."

The man didn't say anything, and lowered his head to continue doing push-ups.

But his mouth twitched, probably because he was trying to suppress a laugh.

What weight class would a seven-pound dumbbell be in a fighting club?

It's roughly equivalent to kindergarten children walking into a construction site with plastic shovels.

Richard didn't care.

Everyone has a starting point. Even if someone's starting point is lower than others, their recovery speed may be faster.

After completing three sets of curls, he did two sets of dumbbell presses and one set of dumbbell rows.

I used seven pounds of force in total, and pushed myself to exhaustion.

After the entire training session, his upper body, from his shoulders to his fingers, was trembling.

He sat on the cushion and caught his breath for a while, as a healing warmth began to flow into his arms.

After finishing hitting the sandbag, Frazier walked over, picked up the water bottle, and took a big gulp.

He looked down at Richard, who was sitting on the ground.

"Your breathing rhythm is quite steady."

"What?"

"Your breathing rhythm remained consistent while you were doing dumbbell exercises."

Frazier wiped his neck with a towel: "Most beginners hold their breath when they reach exhaustion, but you didn't."

Richard did not explain the reason.

"A steady breathing rhythm indicates that your core control is good."

Frazier draped a towel over his shoulder: "Strength can be trained, but core control is innate."

He thought for a moment, then added:

"If you're interested, we have one last practice session before the Christmas holidays, you can come and take a look."

"it is good."

After Frazier left, Warren came over.

"How is it?"

"The equipment is sufficient."

Warren had just tried out the equipment and was now swinging his sore arms:

"Last time, there was a new guy who wanted to go on the punching bag on his first day."

Frazier punched him onto the mat, saying, "Do fifty push-ups before you touch the punching bag."

"What happened to the student afterward?"

"I've never been back."

Richard chuckled.

He put the dumbbells back in their place and stood up from the mat.

My arms are still trembling, but the healing has already begun.

By tomorrow morning, these micro-tears will be repaired, and the muscle fibers will be slightly thicker and stronger than they are today.

Come back the day after tomorrow, use the same weight and do the same number of sets, and the time to exhaustion will be a few seconds later than today.

A few seconds, a few seconds, and a few more seconds, little by little, it adds up.

He jogged home, and his [walking] skill was only one step away from reaching level two. His [breathing] and [eating] skills also improved.

The three skills gained synergistic effects during these training sessions.

Training consumes energy → eating replenishes nutrients → breathing optimizes oxygen supply and repairs damage → physical condition improves → the upper limit of the body's ability to withstand the next training session is raised.

A positive cycle has begun to take shape.

Physical training is on track, but Stone Armor training has been stuck at a bottleneck lately.

Mr. Hutton's standard for him was that he could stably cover the entire arm for more than 30 seconds without dissipating, and the covering could be done without touching the gargoyle, only then could he be considered to have fully mastered the technique.

He could barely manage to cover his arm without using gargoyles, but he could never complete the full arm armor by observing and imitating the gargoyle's ethereal layer after unlocking [Perception].

He finally found a breakthrough after unlocking the [Healing] trait at Breathing Lv.3.

That night, Richard was practicing nail-covering in his bedroom.

He first performed three complete breathing cycles to stabilize the ether's operation.

After taking three breaths, he released his hands, turned them over so that his palms faced up.

The introductory chapter begins.

It solidifies in the palm of the hand, forming a thin layer of glaze.

He tried to make the ether continue to extend to his wrist and forearm.

As before, the ether began to dissipate in the middle of the forearm.

Richard did not immediately stop and start over this time.

He remained in a tucked-in position, slowly focusing his attention on the inside of his forearm, carefully "looking" at the location where the abscess was occurring.

There's an old injury here, from when I fell down the steps as a child and braced myself with my elbow.

According to Richard's current understanding of the ether theory, physical defects and diseases will affect the ether conduction rate.

He even wondered if a hunter would be rendered completely incapacitated if he suffered a broken limb.

Richard hadn't previously considered repairing his old wounds.

However, the medical level in this world is limited, and he has no access to special medical methods in the mystical realm.

But now, I have the combination of healing and perception.

Richard removed his armor, and his right arm hung down naturally.

Use [Perception] to accurately locate the old injury and let [Healing] begin.

He could feel the ether flowing through his forearm, repeatedly "brushing" over that tissue.

Richard allowed the etheric cycle to continue for a while before stopping it.

The next day, Richard tried the full-arm pull-up again.

Ether originates from the palm, passes through the wrist, and slides down the inner forearm.

Upon reaching the old wound, Richard held his breath and carefully felt the area.

The ether flowed away.

Forearm, elbow, upper arm... layer upon layer of nails are applied, spreading from the fingertips all the way to the shoulder.

He tapped the nail plate on his right upper arm with his left fingernail.

Ding! A crisp sound of porcelain.

Richard stared at his fully armored right arm and silently counted in his mind.

When they counted to thirty, the armor was still on.

When counting to forty-five, slight signs of dissipation begin to appear.

He stopped insisting and took the initiative to reclaim the ether.

The nail plates peeled off layer by layer, fading from the fingertips toward the shoulders.

Richard sat in his chair and let out a long sigh.

Mr. Hutton's standard at the time was "stable coverage of the entire arm, lasting for more than 30 seconds without dissipation".

Forty-five seconds, which is longer than the standard.

This is just the beginning; he has more than one old wound on his body.

I also fell and hurt my knee once; there is slight calcification around the patella.

There is a scar on the bridge of my nose near my brow bone, from when I bumped into the handrail.

There's a small, hardened patch of scalp tissue on the back of my head. It happened a long time ago, and I don't even remember how it got there.

Each old wound corresponds to an etheric pathway with low conductivity.

Each part can be gradually sorted out.

Richard gathered the ether from his entire arm and brought it back to his palm and knuckles, forming a "stone gauntlet".

I tapped the back of my right fist with my left fingernail; the sound was almost metallic.

At the end of the slag alley, in that dead-end alley, stands an old street lamp post made of mixed iron.

The pillar has been abandoned for many years, and the lamp heads have been removed, but the main body remains sturdy.

On his way home from school in the afternoon, Richard skillfully turned into Nail Lane.

The winter wind howled through the alleyway, and the white breath he exhaled clung to his scarf and floated upwards.

There was no one in the alley.

He walked up to the iron pillar and first touched the pillar with his left hand.

The metal beneath the rust layer is significantly harder than that of ordinary brick walls.

Draw the fist over and concentrate the energy.

He took a half step back and adjusted his breathing.

I didn't dare use my full strength for the first punch.

Armor can provide cushioning, but it cannot completely eliminate reaction forces.

The fist landed on the pillar.

Bang!

A dull metallic clang.

The iron pillar trembled slightly, and a piece of rust was shaken off, but the fist surface remained undamaged.

He went around to the other side of the pillar, adjusted the angle, and began to increase the force.

Bang!

This time, the reinforced concrete pillar was directly dented.

Richard looked at his unharmed fist with some surprise.

This is iron alloy, which is much harder than human bones.

If the armored fist were to strike someone with the same force, he would have to worry about whether he could break their bones with a single punch.

Richard reclaimed the ether, and the armor layers peeled away one by one.

Full-arm armor serves as a defensive measure, protecting against conventional cold weapons such as swords and clubs.

The concentrated armor plating on the fist surface serves as an attack method, and the destructive power of a single punch is quite good.

But then again, I'm a scholar, not a hunter. Is there really going to be a situation where I have to throw a punch?