Clutching the technique rubbing of the Hundred Bones Resonance, Gu Chengming made his way back to his small courtyard.
He arranged the collection of bottles and jars he'd retrieved from the Sword Repository on the stone table, then flipped open the Hundred Bones Resonance manual with barely-contained eagerness.
The contents were exactly as that female disciple had described — blunt and brutal in the extreme.
No cryptic meridian diagrams. No esoteric formula chants. From cover to cover, it was nothing but detailed instructions on how to stimulate, hammer, and temper every last inch of one's bones and muscles through a variety of extreme methods.
The first layer, "Iron Skin," for instance, required the practitioner to take a hard wooden rod and, following a specific sequence and degree of force, beat every inch of skin across the entire body over and over again — until a fine layer of blood beads rose to the surface — then soak in a specially formulated medicinal liquid to repair the damage. Repeat indefinitely.
Gu Chengming read through these training methods that could only be described as self-torture. Rather than feeling any dread, he rubbed his hands together with excitement.
First, he rummaged through the pile of medicinal pills and found a bottle of Blood Replenishment Pills, tipped two into his palm, and swallowed them down. He waited until he felt a warm current dissolve in his stomach, then took a deep breath, and went to fetch a hardwood rod about as thick as his forearm from the corner of the courtyard.
"Alright then — let's begin!"
Following the diagrams for the first layer, "Iron Skin," he stripped off his upper robe to reveal a torso that was on the lean side, though reasonably well-proportioned.
Then he raised the rod, aimed it at his left arm, and brought it down hard.
Thud!
A dull impact.
Searing pain shot up from his arm in an instant, and Gu Chengming couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath.
But he didn't stop. Gritting his teeth, swallowing the pain, he kept swinging.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The heavy, rhythmic strikes echoed through the quiet little courtyard.
Following the sequence laid out in the manual, he worked his way from his arms to his chest, then around to his back. Not a single inch of skin was spared.
Before long, patches of alarming red welts and bruises had bloomed all across his body.
By the time he'd beaten himself from head to toe, he looked like something fished out of a river — soaked through with sweat, his face drained white, his lips trembling faintly.
Forcing himself upright on sheer willpower, he walked to the stone table, poured a bottle of dark brown medicinal liquid into a wooden tub, and lowered his entire body in.
"Sssss——"
The moment the liquid made contact with his wounds, an indescribable stinging sensation hit him, and he hissed through clenched teeth all over again.
But in the wake of that sting came a spreading coolness — a refreshing relief, as if countless tiny hands were gently massaging his battered muscles and skin.
Gu Chengming soaked in that medicinal tub for a full hour.
When he finally climbed out, the welts and bruises had faded by more than half, replaced by a sense of lightness and ease he had never felt before.
He could clearly feel that his skin had become somewhat tougher than it used to be.
Yet when he opened his panel to check the Hundred Bones Resonance's favorability rating, he found it completely blank.
No favorability reading at all.
That meant he still hadn't passed the entry threshold.
"Are you kidding me..." Gu Chengming stared, dumbstruck.
He had followed every step the manual demanded, without deviation. He'd endured the pain. He'd done the soaking. And he couldn't even get his foot in the door?
He refused to accept it.
For the next several days, Gu Chengming went to war with the Hundred Bones Resonance.
Every day, he ran the same grueling routine on repeat. Beat himself, soak, beat himself again, soak again...
The Blood Replenishment Pills and body-tempering medicinal liquid he'd collected from the Sword Repository were being consumed at a visibly alarming rate.
And yet three days passed.
Beyond trapping him in a daily cycle of "agony and perverse satisfaction," and rendering his skin increasingly reminiscent of well-worn cowhide, the Hundred Bones Resonance still showed not a single point of favorability.
He still hadn't crossed the entry threshold.
It was only at this point that something belatedly clicked for Gu Chengming.
This technique had no cultivation realm restrictions — but his aptitude was, frankly, terrible.
This body had always been frail, with middling talent to match.
Trying to brute-force one's way into a body-tempering technique with extremely high physical demands through sheer self-flagellation... the difficulty of that was obvious when he thought about it.
What a miscalculation.
Gu Chengming slumped to the ground, staring at the fresh crop of bruises covering his body, wanting to cry but finding no tears.
If he'd known it would come to this, he would've just picked a normal technique with lower aptitude requirements.
Instead, here he was — a pile of resources burned through, a considerable amount of suffering endured, and he hadn't even touched the door handle.
And while Gu Chengming was busy agonizing over the Hundred Bones Resonance entry problem, he had completely failed to notice that his recent "change of heart" had caused another party to grow displeased.
[The Huiyuan Sword Art has noticed that you haven't touched it in three consecutive days.]
[So it's true what they say — out with the old, in with the new?]
Gu Chengming blinked at the lines that had suddenly appeared on his panel.
Wait — wasn't this exactly the classic love-triangle drama that showed up in every galgame?!
Here he was, pulling his hair out over getting his new flame to notice him, and his old flame had already started throwing a tantrum.
Before he could even figure out how to placate this "scorned lover," however, the Qingxin Formula abruptly chimed in from the other side.
[The Qingxin Formula is watching all of this unfold with great interest. It finds the whole thing rather amusing.]
Gu Chengming: "..."
He finally understood, once and for all, exactly what type of capture target the Qingxin Formula was.
A pure chaos gremlin. That's what.
Still — as a veteran Galgame Grandmaster, was a little love-triangle drama really going to stop him?
Gu Chengming reacted with lightning speed. Almost the instant those self-pitying lines from the Huiyuan Sword Art popped up, he wiped every trace of expression from his face and replaced it with one of profound regret and wistfulness.
He rose to his feet, walked over to the wooden practice sword hanging on the wall, and ran his fingers gently along the blade with a gaze full of longing and reluctance.
"Ahh..."
He let out a long, heavy sigh, his voice laced with helplessness:
"With the body I have right now, being able to perfectly bring out the true artistic conception of the Huiyuan Sword Art is... still far beyond me."
As he spoke, he turned his head and glanced at the leftover body-tempering medicinal liquid sitting off to the side, a faint, bitter smile crossing his face.
"My original thinking was to use a body-tempering technique to raise my physical conditioning first — so that I could better wield the sword intent of the Huiyuan Sword Art. And yet... was I simply being naive?"
This heartfelt, emotionally resonant performance had an immediate effect.
[The Huiyuan Sword Art has heard the voice of your heart. It is suddenly struck by understanding.]
[So that was it — you pushed it aside only so that you could one day truly possess it.]
[It feels that its suspicions just now were entirely uncalled for.]
[It is a little moved. And a little ashamed.]
[Huiyuan Sword Art Favorability +5]
[Current Favorability: Friendly (50/100)]
Watching that favorability tick upward, Gu Chengming suppressed the urge to make his best keikaku doori face.
This — this — is what it means to be a Galgame Grandmaster. (Leans back triumphantly)
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