The next morning at sunrise, Pei Xuan walked out to the newly cleared dirt square on the west side of the village to inspect his growing workforce.
After three days of drinking Sweet-Spring Well water and eating big bowls of Meat-Potatoes and fried scorpions, the five hundred and eighty-five residents of Dry-Well Village looked like completely different people. Their sunken cheeks had filled out, their dull yellow skin had turned healthy and ruddy, and even the skinny teenagers could carry two fifty-pound baskets of sandstone without losing their breath.
However, as Pei Xuan watched twenty young village volunteers practicing with wooden spears under Old Wei's supervision, he frowned slightly.
"Thrust! Keep your feet planted!" Old Wei barked, tapping a young farmer's knee with a wooden stick.
The young farmer, a twenty-year-old named Little Stone who had eaten twenty fried scorpions over the last two days, yelled at the top of his lungs and lunged forward with all his new strength.
WHOOSH—THUD!
Because Little Stone had gained three hundred pounds of raw brute strength in his arms without learning how to balance his waist or channel his breath, his own momentum pulled him right off his feet! He tripped over his own left boot, flew face-first into the dirt, and accidentally swung the butt of his wooden spear backward—bonking the farmer behind him square on the nose.
"Ow! My nose!"
"Sorry, Brother Niu! My arms felt too heavy!"
Within ten seconds, half the spear line had tangled together like a string of clumsy crabs, knocking four men onto their backsides in the sand.
Old Wei rubbed his forehead with his new Blood-Iron left hand and sighed as he walked over to Pei Xuan.
"Young Master, the Meat-Potatoes and fried scorpions are too good," Old Wei said with a wry smile. "The villagers' muscles are swelling with raw strength every day, and thirty of them are right on the edge of Rank 1 Early Martial. The problem is, they are all honest farmers and herders who have never trained a real martial art! They don't know how to sink their Qi into their heels or tighten their skin and tendons. If they run into agile desert wolves or trained mercenaries, having brute strength alone won't stop a blade from cutting them."
"Can you teach them the Marquis family's Iron-Wolf Army Art?" Pei Xuan asked.
Old Wei shook his head. "The Iron-Wolf Army Art requires soaking in three kinds of expensive bone-warming herbs while sitting in meditation for two hours every morning, or else it tears the knee tendons. We have nearly six hundred people to build roads, farm potatoes, and bake bricks. If everyone sits around meditating for two hours a day and drinking expensive herbs, all our village construction will grind to a halt."
Pei Xuan nodded thoughtfully.
Old Wei was right. Dry-Well Village was developing at lightning speed precisely because everyone was working together. What his people needed wasn't some delicate, slow noble-clan meditation technique. They needed a zero-flaw body-tempering art that required zero herbs, caused zero internal injuries, and could be practiced while doing everyday village labor—like carrying bricks, digging ditches, and doing squats!
"Did we find any martial arts booklets when we looted Scarface Wolf's bandit oasis?" Pei Xuan asked.
"Hong Ling locked three worn-out booklets in the loot box," Old Wei replied, though he looked embarrassed even mentioning them. "To be honest, Young Master, they are pure street-stall garbage that bandits bought for two silver taels at county fairs. Practicing them does more harm than good."
"Bring them to me," Pei Xuan smiled. "In Dry-Well Village, there is no such thing as garbage."
Five minutes later, inside his stone courtyard, Pei Xuan laid three dirty, dog-eared paper booklets on his table.
As soon as he looked at them, his RTS Inspection Tooltip popped up with brutal honesty:
[ ITEM 1: Unofficial Woodcutter Axe Swing (Rank 1 Trash Manual) ] * Effect: Builds waist and shoulder power by swinging heavy tools. * Fatal Flaw: Terrible spine alignment! Practicing for 3 months causes a permanent hunched back and slipped lumbar discs!
[ ITEM 2: Lazy Beggar Rolling Skill (Rank 1 Trash Manual) ] * Effect: Toughens outer skin against clubs and stones by rolling on hard ground and taking hits. * Fatal Flaw: Blocks sweat pores! Causes itchy red back-boils and clotted blood bruises inside the chest!
[ ITEM 3: Old Sand-Turtle Breathing Method (Rank 1 Incomplete Page) ] * Effect: Slows down breathing to save stamina under the hot desert sun. * Fatal Flaw: Missing the second half! Practitioners randomly fall asleep while walking and get stiff joints in winter!
Pei Xuan laughed out loud.
No wonder Scarface Wolf's bandits all walked with crooked shoulders and had boils on their backs! One manual gave you a slipped disc, one gave you chest clots and back-boils, and the third made you fall asleep standing up!
In anyone else's hands, combining these three trash booklets would turn a normal person into a paralyzed, boil-covered hunchback in a week.
Good thing Pei Xuan had the Fusion Cube.
Rule number one of the Fusion Cube: Delete all negative side effects, keep only the best strengths, and multiply them together!
Pei Xuan opened the glowing golden Cube in his mind and dropped all three ragged booklets into the slots.
==================================================================== [ FUSION CUBE — MARTIAL MANUAL SYNTHESIS ] * Slot 1: [Woodcutter Axe Swing (Waist & Spine Power)] * Slot 2: [Lazy Beggar Rolling Skill (Tough Outer Skin)] * Slot 3: [Sand-Turtle Breathing (Endless Desert Stamina)] -------------------------------------------------------------------- * Fusion Cost: 100 Loyalty Points (LP) * System Processing: Deleting [Slipped Disc], [Back-Boils], and [Random Sleepiness]... Merging labor movements with turtle breath and skin-toughening circulation... >> FUSE NOW? [YES / NO] ====================================================================
"Fuse!" Pei Xuan commanded.
[-100 LP! Current Balance: 1,100 LP.]
A crisp golden light flashed across the table. The three dirty, torn booklets dissolved into specks of light and wove back together into a thick, indestructible manual bound in dark-bronze leather, with clear diagrams of a smiling farmer lifting bricks, squatting with water buckets, and swinging a pickaxe!
==================================================================== [ FUSION SUCCESS! PERFECT CIVIC BODY MANUAL CREATED! ] >> [ Iron-Anvil Body Art (Rank 1 to Rank 2 Perfect Manual) ] << -------------------------------------------------------------------- * Requirement: Zero Spirit Root needed! Zero herbs needed! Can be practiced by men, women, and elders from age 8 to 80! * How to Train: Automatically circulates blood-Qi whenever the user breathes deeply while lifting heavy bricks, digging earth, kneading dough, or doing horse-stance squats! * Stage 1 (Rank 1 — Bronze-Hide Stage): Turns outer skin and muscles as tough as three layers of soaked cowhide! Immune to wolf bites, scorpion stings, and ordinary iron knives! (+500 to 1,000 lbs force) * Stage 2 (Rank 2 — Iron-Anvil Bone Stage): Condenses bone marrow until bones ring like a blacksmith's anvil when struck! (+3,000 lbs force; can smash boulders barehanded!) * Special Civic Bonus: Every 200 squats or 2 hours of bricklaying completely refreshes the body, curing all back pain and fatigue! ====================================================================
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Pei Xuan picked up the bronze-bound [Iron-Anvil Body Art] and flipped through the pages.
There were only six simple breathing rhymes and nine basic body postures—such as The Brick-Carrier's Step, The Bucket-Lifter's Squat, and The Dough-Kneader's Palm. The rhymes were written in rhymes so simple that even an illiterate village grandma could memorize them after hearing them three times!
Even better, when Pei Xuan tried taking a single breath using the first rhyme while lifting the corner of his heavy stone table, he felt a warm, tingly current start at the soles of his feet, travel smoothly up his spine, and spread out across the skin of his forearms. The slight soreness in his shoulders from yesterday's long march vanished in a single breath!
"With this manual, every construction site and potato field in Dry-Well Village becomes a martial arts training hall," Pei Xuan said, his eyes shining.
Why stopped there? If he built an official Village Martial Yard to go with the manual, the RTS Territory System would grant a village-wide training aura!
Pei Xuan walked back out to the open dirt square on the west side of the village and called Foreman One-Eyed Jack over.
"Foreman Jack, bring two hundred Cool-Breeze Bricks, forty heavy sandstone blocks trimmed to fifty and one hundred pounds each, and twelve thick Iron-Wood posts," Pei Xuan ordered. "Have your crew lay out a hundred-yard square training ground right here."
"Right away, Young Master!" One-Eyed Jack blew his bone whistle, and forty blue-vested and yellow-vested masons came running over at a jog. Because they had spent the last three days clicking stone houses together, laying a flat hundred-yard brick square and sinking twelve wooden striking posts took them less than an hour!
As soon as the last corner brick clicked into place, Pei Xuan opened his RTS Building Menu, selected the new [Iron-Anvil Body Art] as the yard's core manual, and spent another 100 LP to activate the structure.
[-100 LP! Current Balance: 1,000 LP.]
BOOM!
A warm, invisible wave of earthy golden Qi rippled outward from the twelve Iron-Wood posts, settling into the gray stone bricks of the square. On the wooden archway at the entrance, four bold characters appeared in dark-red relief: DRY-WELL MARTIAL YARD.
==================================================================== [ NEW BUILDING ACTIVATED: VILLAGE MARTIAL YARD (Lv.1) ] * Bound Core Manual: [Iron-Anvil Body Art (Rank 1–2)] * Building Aura 1 (Shared Sweat, Shared Gain): When 50 or more citizens practice squats or lifting in the Martial Yard at the same time, everyone's training speed increases by +30%! * Building Aura 2 (Lord's Siphon): As Territory Lord, Pei Xuan automatically receives 5% of all Body-Tempering progress generated inside the Martial Yard without lifting a finger! ====================================================================
Pei Xuan couldn't hold back his grin when he read Building Aura 2.
Five percent of all training progress from the entire village?!
There were nearly six hundred people in Dry-Well Village! If five hundred of them practiced in the Martial Yard every evening, five percent of five hundred people was equal to twenty-five full-time martial artists training for Pei Xuan day and night! He could literally drink tea and eat watermelon while five hundred villagers pushed him through the martial realms!
Of course, first he had to get all five hundred villagers—including the old aunties, the stubborn refugees, and the lazy prisoners—excited to do horse-stance squats after work.
Pei Xuan climbed onto the instructor's stone platform at the front of the Martial Yard and nodded to Old Guo.
Old Guo and four kitchen helpers wheeled out two huge steaming barrels of thick, golden-brown Spiced Roasted-Lamb & Scorpion Gravy, along with stacks of freshly baked flatbread. As soon as Old Guo lifted the wooden lids, the rich, mouth-watering smell of cumin, garlic, and melted lamb fat rolled across the square.
Every single villager, refugee, and yellow-vested bandit within three hundred yards stopped what they were doing, their noses twitching in the air like hunting hounds.
"Citizens of Dry-Well Village!" Pei Xuan called out, holding up the bronze manual. "The Red-Sand Wastes are full of wolves, scorpions, and greedy bandits! In other towns, the lords forbid common folk from learning martial arts because they want to keep you weak and obedient. Here in Dry-Well Village, I want every single man, woman, and elder to have skin like bronze and bones like iron!"
The crowd murmured in shock and excitement.
"Young Master, can common farmers like us really learn martial arts?" Little Stone called out, rubbing his bruised nose from earlier. "Don't martial arts manuals cost fifty silver taels and require rich family bloodlines?"
"Not this one!" Pei Xuan laughed, pointing to Old Wei, who stepped onto the platform and casually lifted a two-hundred-pound stone lock with one hand while doing a deep, steady squat. "Uncle Wei will teach everyone the six breathing rhymes of the Iron-Anvil Body Art right now for free! You can practice it while carrying bricks, hoeing potato fields, or kneading dough!"
Pei Xuan then pointed to Old Guo's steaming barrels of spiced lamb gravy.
"And to celebrate the opening of our Village Martial Yard, I am issuing a permanent village law!" Pei Xuan announced loudly. "Every evening before dinner, anyone who comes to the Martial Yard and finishes two hundred Iron-Anvil Squats while chanting the breathing rhyme gets a free iron ladle of Old Guo's thick lamb gravy over their Meat-Potatoes—plus two extra fried scorpions!"
The entire square erupted!
"A full ladle of lamb gravy AND two fried scorpions?! Just for doing two hundred squats?!"
"Get out of my way! Move aside, young fellow, let this old lady take the front row!"
Sixty-eight-year-old Grandma Zhang, who had walked with a crooked jujube-wood cane for ten years, shoved her way straight past two burly ex-bandits, tossed her cane onto a brick bench, and planted her feet wide in a horse-stance squat right in front of the platform!
"Granny Zhang, be careful of your knees!" her grandson shouted in panic.
"Shut your mouth and squat, boy!" Grandma Zhang glared at him, inhaling deeply through her nose just as Old Wei demonstrated. "Do you know how much a ladle of lamb fat costs in the city? If I do two hundred squats and my grandson does two hundred squats, that's four scorpions and two scoops of gravy for our house! Breathe in—HA! Squat down—HO!"
To everyone's utter amazement, the moment Grandma Zhang chanted the first breathing rhyme of the [Iron-Anvil Body Art] and sank into her first squat, the golden aura of the Martial Yard wrapped around her frail legs. A gentle pop-pop echoed from her stiff knees as thirty years of cold wind-dampness dissolved into warm blood-Qi!
By her tenth squat, Grandma Zhang's cheeks were pink, her back was straighter than a pine tree, and she wasn't even breathing hard!
Seeing an almost seventy-year-old grandma squatting like a warhorse shamed every young man and bandit in the square.
"If Grandma Zhang can do two hundred, Team One can do four hundred with bricks on our shoulders!" One-Eyed Jack roared, grabbing two gray Cool-Breeze Bricks and dropping into a deep squat.
"Team Two! Grab the fifty-pound stone locks! Don't let Jack's crew beat us to the gravy barrel!" Scarface Wolf bellowed.
Within five minutes, five hundred and fifty villagers, refugees, and bandits were lined up in neat rows across the hundred-yard brick square, chanting the Iron-Anvil breathing rhyme in thunderous unison as they rose and sank together:
"Feet like roots in desert sand—HA!Back like iron in the land—HO!One squat drives the sickness out—HA!Two squats knocks the bandit out—HO!"
Up on the stone platform, Pei Xuan stood with his hands behind his back as streams of invisible, warm golden Qi flowed from the five hundred squatting citizens straight into his own body through the [Lord's Siphon] aura, pushing his cultivation steadily toward Rank 1 Peak!
==================================================================== [ MARTIAL YARD TRAINING SESSION COMPLETE! ] * 540 Citizens completed 200+ Iron-Anvil Squats! * Village Overall Health & Strength +15%! * 10 Strong Refugees broke through to Rank 1 Early Martial! * Loyalty Increase: All remaining Doubtful Refugees crossed 60+! >> NEW DAILY INCOME: +1,150 LP/day! ====================================================================