The proof of Emperor Wu began with daily rewards for diligence.

In the darkness, a message entered Chen Jue's mind.

Tell him that the amazing "Diligence Log" in front of him is his innate talent that he unexpectedly awakened when he was on the verge of death!

With this talent, every drop of sweat will not be wasted!

And for every bit of effort you put in, you can only reap a maximum of three parts of the reward!

One part comes from one's own hard work, one part comes from diligence, and one part comes from external spiritual power.

Chen Jue's hands were empty at this moment, so there was no external spiritual power to provide.

Therefore, his earnings for the day were calculated directly at a multiplier of 1.5 in the Diligence Log.

A golden book floated above Chen Jue's head, absorbing the surrounding free spiritual energy and turning it into golden threads that fell into Chen Jue's body.

[Reward Settlement]

[You used the wound ointment to partially heal your injury, turning a minor injury into a slight injury.]

[After standing in meditation for 1 hour, your Qi and Blood will increase slightly, reaching the ninth level of the Qi and Blood Realm (89.1% → 89.2%).]

[You practiced the sword 3.5 times, increasing your proficiency in the Six Harmonies Sword Technique to (940/10000).]

The cooling medicinal properties help repair gunshot wounds.

It warms the blood and qi, and integrates into the blood vessels.

The experience gained from practicing with a knife is embedded in the mind and muscle memory.

"It's actually true!"

Chen Jue's face flushed red with joy.

He never imagined that such an incredible opportunity would fall into his lap because of a single musket shot!

With this extraordinary talent, from then on, whether he was practicing swordsmanship, stance training, or taking drugs, he grew several times faster than others.

Moreover, these growth processes, apart from consuming external spiritual energy, do not require him to pay any additional costs such as time, manpower, or resources!

This is an absolutely incredibly profitable business!

No wonder martial artists all over the world are trying to awaken their innate talents!

Even awakening this kind of innate talent of "labor mechanism" is so heaven-defying.

I can't even imagine how terrifying those peerless geniuses who claim to have awakened "a certain divine body" or "a certain holy body" really are!

"I'm so lazy!"

"How can I possibly sleep at my age, at this stage of my life?!"

As if injected with chicken blood, Chen Jue jumped out of bed. Despite his still-healing gunshot wound, he stood with his feet parallel and knees slightly bent, actually standing up in the strongest stance of the Divine Dynasty - "Hun Yuan Yi Qi Zhuang".

This stance is extraordinary; it can help martial arts practitioners gather qi and blood and solidify their foundation to the greatest extent.

It was created by Emperor Wuzong when foreign tribes invaded the south and the land was in turmoil. He painstakingly created the army by integrating the foundational martial arts of various schools.

At that time, along with this skill, he was also bestowed many profound martial arts techniques and internal energy cultivation methods.

However, after the world was at peace, 99 percent of the martial arts techniques and skills in the world were recovered by the emperor and aristocratic families.

Only the "Hun Yuan Yi Qi Zhuang" has become a qi and blood standing exercise practiced by all people because of its low threshold and wide dissemination.

And the Hunyuan Zhuang truly deserves its reputation as "the best in the world".

As Chen Jue stood in a perfectly rounded posture, the circular energy generated within his body ground down like a millstone, rubbing against his internal organs, limbs, and bones, causing a barely perceptible "flow of energy" to slowly flow into his blood vessels.

These faint "flows of air" are the blood and qi extracted from the practitioner's body by Hunyuan Zhuang Gong.

Chen Jue has above-average martial arts aptitude, and his stance training has reached a state of perfection. He can extract a wisp of rich qi and blood from his body by standing for just one hour.

However, to perfect his Qi and blood and reach the limits of an ordinary person, Chen Jue needs to accumulate a thousand strands of such abundant and full Qi and blood!

Chen Jue stood until 2 a.m., until the excitement of finding a treasure completely subsided, before finally feeling exhausted and falling asleep.

……

Chen Jue slept very restlessly.

In my dream, the gunfire of the Rat Gang shone through the streets and alleys.

He and a group of inspectors were cornered in a dark alley and shot to death.

There was also a powerful figure in the inner city who discovered the secret of his innate talent, pried open his skull with a blood-red longsword, and took out something that looked like a Taoist book...

The chaotic and intertwined dreams, like a nightmare pressing down on him, reflected Chen Jue's worried and anxious heart, causing him great torment, yet he was unable to break free.

When he woke up in a panic, it was already broad daylight, and the sun was high in the sky.

He sat on the edge of the bed, his back already soaked with cold sweat, silently ruminating on the fragmented images from his dream, which were shocking to him.

"One should not have the heart to harm others, but one must have the heart to guard against others."

"My hard work and talent are my foundation for making a living, and also my biggest secret in this life. I must never let anyone know about it."

"I can develop in a low-key manner, but that would also make people look down on me, bury my talent, and affect others' investment in me. It's really hard to strike the right balance..."

Chen Jue murmured softly, caught in a dilemma.

He actually had a vague idea, wanting to attribute everything to the elusive concept of "enlightenment".

However, due to his limited experience, he couldn't come up with a feasible solution for the time being.

"Phew! I don't want to think about it anymore."

Chen Jue took a deep breath, calmed himself down, and walked out of the study.

The living room security camera sensed his movement and turned around to face him with a rustling sound. His aunt's clever voice came through the speaker.

"Sweetie, there's breakfast left on the table. Go wash up and remember to eat it!"

"Okay, Auntie." Chen Jue waved to the camera and went into the bathroom with practiced ease.

His father died early, and his uncle's family took good care of him.

Especially when he first started attending Linjiang Martial Arts High School, his uncle would pick him up from school every day in his patrol uniform, ensuring that he, an orphan, never suffered from school bullying.

When Chen Jue finished washing up and reappeared in the living room, the surveillance camera broadcast his uncle He Yuanshan's voice again.

"A-Jue, since you were injured on duty this time, the director has approved 10,000 yuan for your medicine and a week of leave for recuperation."

"Stay here with your uncle for a few days and don't wander off."

"Alright, Uncle. I'll wander around during the day and pick He Tang up from school for you in the afternoon." Chen Jue readily accepted his uncle's invitation to eat and drink for free and lifted the lid on the dining table.

A bowl of fragrant tomato and beef brisket, served with five boiled eggs, and a large bowl of blood-nourishing and qi-boosting longan, red date, and millet porridge as the main course.

His aunt treated him exceptionally well, even more so than his cousin He Tang, as if he were her own son.

The aroma of the food made Chen Jue's mouth water and his appetite whetted.

After a restless night, his stomach was completely empty. He picked up the still-warm millet porridge and gulped it down in a burst.

After breakfast, Chen Jue went to a nearby park to practice the Hunyuan stance method.

Now, with his hard work and talent, he has something to strive for no matter what he does.

Therefore, when practicing the standing meditation method, one must exert extra effort.

"Sink your Qi to the Dantian—strengthen your foundation!"

"Empty your spirit and keep your head upright—guard your mind!"

"Loosen your waist and tuck in your hips—stabilize your stance!"

"Sink your shoulders and drop your elbows—gather your energy!"

Chen Jue had already memorized the four key words of the Hunyuan stance, and they were ingrained in his muscle memory.

If stance training, like martial arts, has levels of entry, mastery, minor success, major success, and perfection, then his stance training is at least at the perfection level.

When a person stands in an open space, the blood and energy in their body are like boiling water condensing and continuously generating, endlessly.

Chen Jue's stop lasted another three hours.

This extraordinary perseverance and effort attracted many onlookers.

"He's so handsome and works so hard, who's dating him anyway?!"

Someone posted a video of Chen Jue practicing standing meditation online, along with some strange captions.

As noon approached, Chen Jue began to feel hungry and weak.

This is the body giving a warning, indicating that the body's surplus energy has been exhausted, and continuing to exploit it will damage its foundation.

The best way to restore physical strength is naturally to eat and rest.

Chen Jue then stopped practicing the standing meditation and went to a nearby cooked food shop. He spent sixty baochao (a type of currency) to buy three jin (a unit of weight) of cooked meat to eat with steamed buns.

The delicatessen is not a restaurant; its main customers are ordinary martial artists. Every day, it stews thousands of kilograms of meat in a pressure cooker, using only salt as a seasoning.

Therefore, although the price is attractive, the taste is predictably disappointing.

Chen Jue walked along the bustling street lined with tall buildings, eating a steamed bun and a piece of meat as he walked.

The texture of the meat was... indescribable.

It's soft, sticky, greasy, and a little fishy.

It was like a zombie that had been sealed in a freezer for a long time and was finally seeing the light of day.

However, martial artists are known for their iron stomachs, and Chen Jue actually loathed the fishy smell of meat even more than the age of flesh.

While eating the barely edible meat and steamed buns, Chen Jue pondered the future.

As the saying goes: "The poor study literature, the rich study martial arts."

The meaning is that in the Ming Dynasty, studying would lead to a lifetime of poverty, while only practicing martial arts offered the possibility of becoming rich overnight!

But if one wants to make great progress on the path of martial arts, one must be courageous and diligent.

The first thing to face is three meals a day, or even four or five meals a day.

After all, no matter how gifted or talented a person may be, their energy intake and strength growth must still adhere to the dynamic conservation principle.

You can't expect to raise a superhuman hero like the Monkey King by feeding him three meals a day of vegetable porridge.

"A 2,500 yuan internship salary isn't even enough to eat zombies for three meals a day, let alone having to stand around and eat extra meals..."

"No wonder most of the garrison inspectors are secretly connected with gangs... Without illicit income, honest people can't achieve anything by practicing martial arts."

As Chen Jue was thinking to himself, he happened to pass by a landmark building in the inner city that looked like an ancient palace and was magnificent in appearance—the Jiangnan Wanhu Mansion!

This is the most violent official institution in the entire Southern Province, with three thousand soldiers under its command, all of whom are highly skilled martial artists.

They are the banner of imperial power against local power. Without their suppression and deterrence, the taxes from the southern provinces will not be delivered to the capital next year.

Oh, right!

When one reaches the ninth rank of clerk and is promoted to official, one can choose to join the Jiangnan Ten Thousand Households Prefecture and become a ninth-rank auxiliary soldier!

He heard that the soldiers in the town were paid very well and had bounty missions such as patrolling the mountains and suppressing demons.

If you want to eat meat to your heart's content, you can simply go to the mountains and get it yourself!

"However, before that, securing the initial seed funding is crucial!"

Chen Jue finally reached his destination.

It was a towering office building located in the heart of the city's bustling inner district.

The azure glass curtain wall reflects the autumn sunlight, and the four characters "Pei's Bank" are written in extremely standard regular script on the side of the building, making it exceptionally grand.

Chen Jue felt a little uneasy, took out his phone, and opened the recently popular AI intelligent agent.

"Doubao, Doubao, I have a project here with a 200% return rate that I need to invest in with a loan. Do you think it's reliable?!"

A clear female voice immediately came from the other end of the phone.

"This time I'll speak plainly and give you the most straightforward and accurate answer—this project is 99% a scam, and I absolutely do not recommend investing with a loan."

"Would you like me to teach you some tips on avoiding scams?"

"?!" Chen Jue laughed angrily, shut down his AI, put his ID card in his pocket, and strode into Pei's Bank.

What scam? This is where the dream begins.