owlsbooks Chapter 31 Skin Refining
Chapter 31 Skin Refining
Autumn weather is always unpredictable, with strong winds at first followed by drizzling rain.
Zhou Qiuyuan opened his oil-paper umbrella and, instead of rushing to his master's residence, headed towards various pharmacies in the city.
Since obtaining the body-refining technique Yang Lei Bian, he has carefully studied and pondered it.
The first step in the Body Tempering Realm is external training. There is no specific order to external training; you can train any part of your body, including the skin, muscles, bones, and flesh.
The skin is defensive, the muscles and bones enhance strength, and the flesh and blood increase endurance.
Zhou Qiuyuan wanted to explore the outer city, but traveling alone was dangerous. He decided to first refine Leipi so that he would no longer be afraid of armed thugs.
The skin is the primary target for refining.
Baozhi Secret Dew Pills are general-purpose pills, far inferior to medicines specifically designed to refine the skin.
In this future dream, he also needs to find suitable elixirs to temper his skin and improve his body tempering efficiency.
Zhou Qiuyuan visited Huixianzhai and several pharmacies in the city. After comparing prices repeatedly, he purchased Fire Rat Oil Ointment worth 1,000 coins, Vajra Medicine Oil worth 2,000 coins, and Red Lizard Shedding Pill worth 6,000 coins.
Fire Rat Oil Ointment and Vajra Medicine Oil are external ointments, while Red Lizard Shedding Pill is an internal medicine purchased from Huixianzhai.
Zhou Qiuyuan returned to his sect's separate residence and did not rush to inquire about the mutated turkey. He figured he could ask after he finished his cultivation.
The two senior brothers did not cultivate in the front yard as usual, but instead went into the side room and sat cross-legged in meditation.
Luo Tong was still cultivating when Lu Chengping greeted Zhou Qiuyuan with a smile.
I thought that Lu Chengping would become indifferent to me after this incident, but to my surprise, he was still enthusiastic, as if nothing had happened yesterday.
Zhou Qiuyuan cupped his hands to Lu Chengping, took out a porcelain bottle and handed it over, "Thank you, Senior Brother Lu. If it weren't for the young master of the Fang family giving you some face, I wouldn't have been able to get the Explosive Spirit Pill. This Explosive Spirit Pill should rightfully belong to you, Senior Brother."
"We are all from the same sect, so there's no need to be so formal. Since Fang Shiyun gave you these pills, just accept them." Lu Chengping said calmly, as if he had completely forgotten the humiliation he suffered yesterday.
Once Zhou Qiuyuan had the Thunder Blade in his hands, he began his training for the day.
The Thunder Breathing Technique absorbed the thunderous spiritual energy and stored it in his Yang Thunder Lungs. He absorbed a total of one thousand units of thunderous spiritual energy in three breaths, which was the limit that his Yang Thunder Lungs could hold.
Under Zhou Qiuyuan's control, a thousand bolts of lightning energy transformed into a wisp of Yang lightning energy.
The energy of Yang Lei moved with his mind, and as soon as it touched an invisible barrier, it broke through the restriction without any effort and then surged into his limbs and bones.
A wisp of Yang Thunder energy surged into the skin area, causing a pale purple lightning flash on the skin, accompanied by a faint rumbling sound.
The tempering efficiency of Yang Thunder Qi is better than the combination of Thunder Net and Baozhi Secret Dew Pill. However, the skin membrane is much larger than the lungs. Without the aid of medicine, it will take three months to even initially refine the Yang Thunder Skin Membrane.
This is only the first trial.
How much time does it take to refine nine times?
What about the subsequent bone and blood refining and internal cultivation? When will the body tempering be completed?
After trying the three medications—fire rat oil ointment, diamond oil, and red lizard molting pill—Zhou Qiuyuan found his answer.
Fire rat oil ointment is the least effective, increasing the skin-refining speed by about two and a half times.
Diamond oil can barely achieve four times the efficiency of skin refining.
The Red Lizard Shedding Pill has the highest skin-refining efficiency. After each use, the body will shed the old skin and grow a new one, which can increase the skin-refining efficiency by up to six times.
Red lizard molting pills are the most expensive and have the best effect, while fire rat oil ointment is the cheapest, making them the best choice for saving money.
A normal person would only choose one type of medicine to refine their body.
Zhou Qiuyuan likes to take shortcuts, and he started mixing and matching drugs in his future dream.
The first tests were with Fire Rat Oil Ointment and Golden Oil. Both are topical medications, but the effects of mixing the two were actually reduced.
After several attempts, Zhou Qiuyuan chose the two most expensive combinations: Vajra Medicinal Oil and Red Lizard Shedding Pill. He used the Thunder Net Control Method to deeply absorb the medicinal power and enhance the tempering effect.
The efficiency is nearly ten times that of normal tempering. According to estimates, it will take nine days to initially refine the lightning skin.
When he was refining his Yang Lei Lung, he took two Baozhi Secret Dew Pills and two Breath Protection Pills every day, spending nearly 70,000 coins in half a month.
To successfully refine the skin membrane in nine days, one needs to use two bottles of Vajra Oil and two Red Lizard Shedding Pills daily, costing 16,000 coins per day.
Nine days would cost 144,000 coins; this was the price of accelerating cultivation.
Two bottles of fire rat oil ointment daily can reduce the time for skin tempering to thirty-six days, but even so, it will cost seventy-two thousand coins.
In this way, it only cost 144,000 coins to refine the Yang Thunder Skin Membrane in nine days, which was extremely cost-effective.
After a day of cultivation, Lu Chengping once again extended an invitation to the restaurant.
"Senior brother, I have something to discuss with Master today. We'll meet again another day." Zhou Qiuyuan took the Thunder Blade and headed straight for the backyard.
He had been studying martial arts under a master for nearly a month, practicing in the front yard and rarely going to the back yard alone.
Zhou Qiuyuan arrived at his master's room and knocked on the door. "Is Master in?"
"Come in!"
Zhou Qiuyuan pushed open the door and entered, and saw Qiu Niang watering the flowers in the vase. He respectfully bowed to her and said, "Master's wife!"
Qiu Niang nodded lightly and strode away from the room.
She didn't like going to the front yard. Apart from Luo Tong, who had always lived in the mansion, she was somewhat distant from the two disciples who joined later and didn't interact with them much.
After Zhou Qiuyuan paid his respects, he saw Wei Jin, who had just gotten up from his bed.
Wei Jin's eyes were slightly dark, perhaps from overworking at night, and he looked very tired.
"Master, I have come here today to report something important."
Important matters?
Wei Jin was slightly taken aback, and blurted out, "What new method of refining the skin have you invented?"
His shock at the lightning control method had not subsided. After mastering this lightning control method, Wei Jin used the time when his three disciples finished their training to improve the secret technique.
This has also led to excessive mental strain and extremely poor sleep in him over the past two weeks.
Zhou Qiuyuan, being in a future dream, was not worried about the risks and truthfully said, "My disciple's family has just hatched a mutated turkey. This creature might be worth raising. I wonder if Master could help protect it?"
Wei Jin's expression turned strange. "A mutated turkey?"
"Mutated creatures are divided into ordinary beast mutations and demon beast mutations. A few ordinary beasts mutate due to demon beast blood, acquiring some demon beast bloodline. The latter will alarm the Immortal Master, and neither you nor I can protect this opportunity."
"If it's the former, with Master's strength, he could protect this item."
"However, once the information about the mutated turkeys is leaked, there will always be people trying to steal the breeding stock, making it impossible to guard against."
"I'll give you two choices. One is for me to help you make connections and sell the mutated turkey for a good price; the other is to raise the mutated turkey in my villa, where I'll provide people to take care of it and give you 50% of the profits."
"Ahem!" Wei Jin coughed lightly and continued, "My health is deteriorating, and I don't know how much longer I can live. If something happens to me, you won't be able to control the mutated turkeys I keep in the other courtyard."
Wei Jin lived for over fifty years, witnessing countless ups and downs, and could vaguely guess what would happen after his death.
He himself is gone, but his wife is still alive.
Once she takes an interest in the mutated turkey, a single, casual remark will force it to change its name and identity. Zhou Qiuyuan will not only want to reclaim it, but also bear the infamy of bullying his master's widow.
Wei Jin expressed his views clearly and without concealment.
As an old man with little time left, he was no longer interested in material possessions except for things that could save his life, and he had no intention of taking his disciple's opportunity.
Zhou Qiuyuan hadn't expected his master to be so insightful, even considering the possibility of keeping his master's wife for himself. This showed that his master genuinely cared for him.
This also reminded him of the ancient saying: "A teacher of virtue and learning should be treated as a father."
Zhou Qiuyuan bowed to Wei Jin and said, "Master, you flatter me..."
"I still need to investigate the specifics. You can hand over the Thunder Blade to me now." Wei Jin finished dressing and, before Zhou Qiuyuan could hand over the Thunder Blade, he reached out and grabbed it from afar, and the Thunder Blade landed in his palm.
The two were seven or eight zhang apart, and Wei Jin's ability to retrieve objects from a distance was astonishing.
Wei Jin took a deep breath, and the Thunderclap Blade glowed with purple lightning before disappearing into his palm. The patterns of the Thunderclap Blade appeared on the back of his hand, then vanished.
The old and frail Wei Jin straightened his back, and purple lightning seemed to flash in his eyes. He seemed to have become ten years younger, like a sword drawn from its sheath, giving people a sense of sharpness.
This reminded Zhou Qiuyuan of the purple vertical mark between the eyebrows of Wang Sichen, the eldest son of the Wang family, which seemed to be a manifestation of the Vajra Realm being able to integrate weapons into the body.
Otherwise, Lu Chengping would not have dared to utter a single word after losing face in public.
Lu Chengping had not yet left when he and Luo Tong were startled to see their master carrying an umbrella as he went out.
"Master, has something serious happened?"
Wei Jin did not hide anything and said with a smile, "Your junior brother has discovered an opportunity. I will go and take a look."
Zhou Qiuyuan and Wei Jin walked ahead, and Luo Tong and Lu Chengping followed to join in the fun.
For the first time, the four members of the Thunder Blade lineage acted together.