"Delicious! Genuinely good." Fang Yu could not help marvelling. "I really do wonder how they grow these natural treasures."
Nothing on Blue Star had ever been reported to produce so many marvellous treasures — otherwise the grandmasters of the ancient world would not have had such low Life Tiers.
Was the Primordial Star truly that miraculous?
As the Ice-Heart Marrow-Cleansing Fruit went down it dissolved at speed, and Fang Yu's Innate Divine Ability, Devour, went straight to work; strand after strand of strange, freezing force surged along his four limbs and hundred joints, rushing swiftly into every part of him.
Overbearing indeed!
"For sheer potency the Ice-Heart Marrow-Cleansing Fruit is far above the Myriad-Form Genesis Fruit, and it costs less. No wonder everyone says it's because the potency is too overbearing." Even at Level 16, Fang Yu found it a little hard to take.
Like an old man with a frail constitution who cannot swallow tonics at random.
It was the same for warriors. To a low-tier warrior or an ordinary person, some natural treasures were not miracle drugs but poisons, and taking one carried a risk of death.
What suits you is what is best.
"And besides!"
"My Innate Divine Ability can bring a drug or a treasure to its full strength and absorb it faster," Fang Yu thought. "This one Ice-Heart Marrow-Cleansing Fruit is probably worth two to an ordinary man, if not more."
"No Cell Vitality Serum or Vital Regeneration Serum for now. No sense wasting them."
Fang Yu began at once on the basic fist forms, settling into the posture of Opening the Dragon Spine, circulating blood and qi, driving hidden force through his whole body, tempering it.
As time passed he came to see more of what made the Ice-Heart Marrow-Cleansing Fruit special.
"Most of the potency is going into the bones and the organs — and a small part of it has pushed up into the brain." Fang Yu was privately startled.
As the saying goes: the young should not train for strength, the old should not train the sinews.
The young grow fast, and squeezing the body too hard sets the height and the bones early, which severely limits future potential. That was why the Blue Moon Alliance had an explicit rule that martial training could only begin gradually at thirteen, and the early stage was mainly about nourishing — which was what foundation-building meant.
Only after eighteen did the tempering of the body go further.
That was exactly why Fang Ping'an wanted Myriad-Form Genesis Fruit for Fang Siyue and Fang Long... miss these few years, and once the bones set, growing taller or deepening the body's foundation became very hard.
The foundation treasure Fang Yu had taken back then was not the equal of a Myriad-Form Genesis Fruit, but it was far from ordinary, and it left his sinew and bone foundation good by the standards of his age group.
And the Ice-Heart Marrow-Cleansing Fruit.
It could build further on a young frame that was already sound, and even strengthen the brain a little.
"No wonder they call it marrow-cleansing." Fang Yu smiled. Cleansing the marrow, put scientifically, meant strengthening the cells of particular parts of the body.
Even improving the body's genes.
Star Force did the same, and kept on doing it, which was why powerful warriors could break their limits again and again... but Fang Yu still could not absorb Star Force.
"It's enough."
"These serums and treasures my father gave me are far beyond Blood-Qi Compound and Bone-Strengthening Pills. I've never fought a battle this well supplied." There was an edge of anticipation in Fang Yu's eyes. "Together with my Innate Divine Ability and a body at Great Completion in Subtlety."
"This month."
"Let's see how far I can push my Life Tier."
And not for his own sake alone.
He would not fail what his family had given, or what they hoped for.
***
July 15th, a little after three in the morning.
When Fang Yu got up on schedule and came down to the basement martial arts hall, he switched on the light and found Fang Long and Fang Siyue already there, fully dressed.
Both of them looked at him, thoroughly excited, and said together, "Brother!"
"What's all this?" Fang Yu had no idea what was going on.
"From today I'm getting up at three to train, the same as you," Fang Siyue said first. "You work this hard. We can't slack off either."
"Same here," Fang Long put in at once.
Fang Yu did not know whether to laugh or scold, and scolded. "Nonsense! You want to train the martial path, fine, but who told you to get up at three in the morning to do it? What time did you go to bed?"
"Nine," said Fang Siyue.
"Half past nine," said Fang Long.
"Not enough." Fang Yu shook his head, his face stern. "I know you signed with the Star River Group yesterday, and the first batch of development resources has already arrived at the house."
"But even with expensive Spirit-Settling Incense, your own spirits are far too weak to hold deep sleep for long."
"And you're still growing."
"You want to train alongside me? You may!" Fang Yu said. "Then you do it to my schedule. Bed at half past eight every night, up at five. No exceptions, ever."
"Right now, nourishing comes first."
"During the day, I'll draw up training plans for you." Fang Yu barked it at them. "Now get back to bed, both of you. Go!"
"Oh." Brother and sister retreated to their rooms in disarray.
But a trace of a smile showed on Fang Yu's face.
***
By day, at nine in the morning, Fang Siyue and Fang Long began training under Fang Yu.
The first item was still stance work.
"Stance work is the foundation."
"In the ancient martial arts there were the Round Unity Stance, the Three-Body Form, the Rise-and-Fall Stance, the Wuji Stance and so on, each with its strengths. After the Great Sky-Burning Era, when Aspects appeared — and especially after the New Calendar — they were unified into the Heavenly Circuit Star Stance, which takes the best of each school... but the core purpose of it is to help a warrior open the Star Apertures as soon as possible," Fang Yu explained to his brother and sister.
Fang Siyue and Fang Long both listened.
They had studied all of this before, but never as seriously as now.
"Train the stance as you lay out stars; move the body as the heavens circle," Fang Yu said. "In plain speech: through the stillness of standing, you build a baseline coordinate system for the body, and from there you bring it into accord with the Aspect you visualize."
"You adjust every sinew, bone and joint of the human frame into the state best suited to absorbing Star Force."
"They say."
"On the New Moon they already have holographic training pods that can project a semi-transparent body star-chart around you and correct you against the data — posture deviation, the flow rate of force, bodily stability, the angle your centre of gravity shifts, changes in how efficiently the apertures absorb Star Force, and so on," Fang Yu said.
That was something Fang Yu had learned from a teacher at the junior college.
The New Moon's strength was not simply a matter of having more powerful martial artists; it was a comprehensive superiority over the old soil of Blue Star in training environment, in technology, in the quantity of treasures — in everything.
By the most recent count, a population of only a hundred-odd million produced three-tenths of all the Earth Warriors and Sky-Patrol Warriors in the Alliance.
"That miraculous?" Fang Siyue and Fang Long privately clicked their tongues.
"Don't sell yourselves short," Fang Yu said, shaking his head.
"It's the same principle as tempering the body — too much is as bad as too little." Fang Yu smiled. "Sometimes absolute precision is the error, and vagueness is the truth. So whether it's a holographic calibration stance or the projection inside a training pod, the calibration rate is only ninety percent. The other ten percent you still have to feel out for yourselves."
"Remember."
"The civilization's strongest, Ye Xinghe, said that the greatest truth in this world is that there is no absolute truth," Fang Yu said.
***
Second floor, in Fang Zhiyuan's room.
"That's more like it."
"Brothers of one mind have an edge that cuts metal." Fang Zhiyuan watched the three of them training on the monitor feed and smiled. "Once you're all standing steady, I can lie back that much more comfortably."
"That boy of mine has worked himself to the bone his whole life. With these three, he might get to lie down a while himself one day."
He shut off the monitor.
Fang Zhiyuan put on a VR headset, settled into his specially made and extremely comfortable chair, and muttered to himself, "Now, what shall I play today? 《Surrounded by Other Men's Wives》, or 《The Young Wives Alliance》?"
"What a fine age this is!"
"Nothing like the days before the New Calendar..."
"They say they've started selling full-immersion headsets on the New Moon. I've got to live long enough for those to reach Blue Star." Fang Zhiyuan sank into his game. "Oh — and I'd better order dinner in advance."
"Meals on time."
***
The days of high summer went by in training.
Beyond his own work, Fang Yu concentrated on coaching his brother and sister, and he did not feel it wasted his time; he found it a pleasure.
What delighted him was this.
This time his brother and sister did not cry off tired and sore the way they always used to; they still cut a corner now and then, but on the whole they worked with real ferocity, well beyond most of their age.
Their own will to train had risen sharply.
And in the fist forms, both showed a decent instinct.
"Good!"
"Upper Aspects, plus hard training, plus a decent instinct." Fang Yu was delighted. "If they keep this up, Siyue and Xiao Long can both hope for something great."
Time.
In a blink it was August 15th, a little after four in the morning.
"Five Ice-Heart Marrow-Cleansing Fruit."
"Twelve doses of serum. All of it used, not a drop wasted." Fang Yu stood in the basement martial arts hall, feeling the force surging inside him, and the corner of his mouth lifted. "This month has remade me, bone and skin."
"The second transfer recommendation list? Let's see who can compete with me."
Hoo!
Fang Yu drove out a punch, and it slammed into the punch-force tester, which broke into a howling alarm... As a basic instrument, its upper limit for punch force was 2,000 kilograms.