Chapter 3

Hao Qi felt the system in his mind, and the data clearly indicated that his practice of the Luohan Fist had already reached level ten. As long as he practiced for a little more time, he could advance it to the peak. Once he reached that point, he could start practicing the Yi Jin Jing.

Excitement surged within him, and Hao Qi completely ignored the long-haired beauty standing beside him, watching him practice. He walked past the dazed girl and headed straight for the cafeteria.

Nine years, nine years! To bring this first external martial art to its peak, he had already spent nine years!

Since he had crossed over to this world and chosen the golden finger he came with, the first external martial art in the game system, his initial thought was that it was too easy. He could easily obtain internal energy, thus possessing internal energy, marrying someone, getting something, and achieving something...

But this was not a game. Although there was a game system, this world was ultimately a real one, not a game world. In other words, he could not find any experience points...

Yes, experience points, the least noticeable but most important thing in a game. These experience points could not only level up the character but also upgrade martial arts. After reaching level ten through experience points, one could further advance to the peak by practicing the external martial art in the air. In the game, this took only a few dozen seconds, but in the real world, where could he find experience points!?

At first, Hao Qi thought he could gain experience points by killing. So he took on a lot of work in the orphanage's cafeteria, including slaughtering fish and chickens. Although the numbers were small, they were still there. However, he did not gain any experience points at all. As for killing people... Hao Qi did not think that with his nine-year-old body, he could kill anyone, and he did not want to kill anyone...

The inability to obtain experience points made him depressed for a month. After that, he rallied and realized he could only rely on one method to bring the Luohan Fist to its peak: practicing in the air...

In the system he brought with him, there was a setting that each time he practiced martial arts in an open area without targeting an NPC, he would gain a small amount of martial arts experience. This experience would not level up the character but would increase the martial arts level. This was a method in the game to suppress levels to meet certain plot or martial arts requirements, but here, it became Hao Qi's only reliance. His method was to start practicing this set of martial arts, which many people mocked as garbage, a farming style, and something that could never produce internal energy, with a coefficient of only twenty. It was the lowest in the game but the only Buddhist martial art he could currently practice, the Luohan Fist.

At the beginning of the game, the player could choose the main character's attributes, which were Fist, Sword, Saber, and Odd Techniques. These four external martial arts had additional bonuses when practicing their respective attributes. For example, the Fist character would increase the power of each fist technique and reduce the physical and internal energy consumption when using fist techniques. The Sword, Saber, and Odd Techniques characters also had their own enhancements.

In addition to these four main characters, there were three special characters: Supreme Heavenly Gang, Heavenly Revival Hand, and Invincible Benevolence. These three were not necessarily stronger than the four main characters, but their special effects were different. For example, Supreme Heavenly Gang could practice any internal energy technique and use them to attack... This was the character template that made Hao Qi drool the most. At least in this real world, he absolutely wanted the Supreme Heavenly Gang template, but unfortunately, he did not choose it...

Then there was the Heavenly Revival Hand, which could automatically recover health, internal energy, physical energy, internal injuries, and poison... In the game, this might not seem like much, but in the real world, it would be an invincible body. It was incredibly strong, making Hao Qi drool, but unfortunately, he did not choose this template either...

He chose the Invincible Benevolence template, which was a combination of the strongest and weakest... Before awakening, the Invincible Benevolence in the game was called garbage and the weakest, which was widely acknowledged. It had no special attributes. At least in the game, the Invincible Benevolence started with the highest 100 points of morality, which in the real world was just trash. The real world was not a data-driven template, and a character's morality had nothing to do with data. As for the other attributes of this template, there were none, making it a completely blank character, even worse than an NPC, pure garbage and the weakest...

But the template could carry the word "invincible" for a reason. Once the Invincible Benevolence template awakened, it would have the strongest title skill in the game: Heroic Deeds Across the World! Any attack would inevitably come with one or more of the Six Perfections effects, and any defense would also inevitably come with one or more of the Six Perfections effects, making it absolutely invincible, hence the name Invincible Benevolence!

But still, this was the real world, where there were no experience points. Hao Qi had no idea how to awaken and obtain the strongest internal energy technique of the main character template, the Six Perfections True Dragon Technique. If he could not awaken the Invincible Benevolence... he might as well give up.

Regardless, he still had to live. Even though Hao Qi complained a lot, he still started practicing the Luohan Fist. Practicing the Luohan Fist every day, spring turned to autumn, and nine years passed. The game martial arts, which only required a few hundred swings in the game, needed 18 million swings in the real world. That meant 5,000 swings a day, which would take about ten years...

Hao Qi walked down the road, carefully examining the system in his mind. Although he was already very familiar with the system, the character template, and the martial arts manuals, he still examined them meticulously, not missing any detail. After a long time, as the cafeteria came into view, he sighed and his consciousness left the system, returning to the real world.

(The Luohan Fist has already reached level ten. To reach the peak, I only need to level up one more time. Calculating the time, it should take about ten years. In other words, I can start practicing the Yi Jin Jing around my 19th birthday. I hope the Yi Jin Jing is powerful. In the game, internal energy does not require experience points; it just needs to be equipped to level up. Moreover, except for the Supreme Heavenly Gang, other character templates cannot practice in the air... I hope the system doesn't screw me over. If internal energy also requires experience points, I might as well die.)

Hao Qi thought to himself and then walked into the cafeteria. He touched his empty wallet, sighed, and used the remaining coins to buy a large amount of the cheapest food, steamed buns. He could not afford meat or eggs. However, since he exercised a lot, he still needed to eat more. Besides steamed buns, he chose bean products and bought a lot of soy milk...

(The scholarship is almost used up. The food consumption is too high. After all, I practice 5,000 punches a day, each punch requiring full strength to gain one experience point. If even random punches could gain experience points, I could easily do hundreds of thousands of punches a day... Sigh, heavy physical labor. My body is already at its limit. If I increase the training load, I might urinate blood. If my body collapses, I'm dead. I hope my friend's business is doing well and can support me more.)

Hao Qi was very thin, which was actually uncommon among martial artists. The saying "poor scholars, rich martial artists" explained everything. To practice martial arts, a material foundation was absolutely necessary. Even if you did heavy physical labor every day, if you couldn't eat fatty meat, your body would collapse in a week. How could you practice martial arts? Moreover, in this world, internal energy was produced by the body reaching its limit and then generating great strength from the inside out. If the body was not in good condition, how could it produce internal energy? Therefore, although the common people were not forbidden from practicing martial arts, the number of common people who could produce internal energy was likely not one in ten thousand, but one in a million or even ten million. Besides the various secret training techniques monopolized by wealthy families and officials, the biggest difference was that the common people lacked the money to support their training to the limit.

"Bang!"

A large bowl was slammed in front of Hao Qi. Although it was slammed down, the person who did it was very precise, and not a drop of the meat soup spilled. The bowl seemed to stick to the table, not even shaking. This was an astonishing skill, making Hao Qi's eyes narrow.

Looking closely, Hao Qi saw a beautiful girl sitting in front of him, the same long-haired beauty who had watched him practice in the forest. She looked at him with a slight anger and said, "I called you, but you didn't respond. I thought you were going to do something, but you came here to eat? What's wrong with you? You've already brought a set of martial arts to its peak, and you're eating this? Where's the meat? The soup? The bones? Don't tell me that at your age, you don't know what martial artists need to eat? With what you're eating, you might as well let your body collapse?"

Hao Qi looked at the girl, then at the bowl of meat soup in front of him, and laughed. He was not angry or embarrassed but picked up the bowl and drank the soup, swallowing the bones and meat in a few bites.

Seeing this, the girl did not find Hao Qi crude but instead looked at him with admiration. This was the way of martial artists. A thought suddenly came to her, and she could not help but say, "I see you have good talent. Why don't you learn martial arts from me?"

"Huh? Learn martial arts... not cooking?"

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