Chapter 24

As mentioned earlier, the poor pursue literature while the rich pursue martial arts. To achieve some success in cultivating martial arts, it is not something an ordinary poor family can afford.

(Taking the example of Yip Man, the first-generation Wing Chun grandmaster, one of his three criteria for not accepting disciples was that those who could not afford three meals a day would not be accepted.)

Just talking about the external training of martial arts, which involves the strengthening of muscles, bones, and skin, requires sufficient food and nutrients to replenish the body's consumption. Otherwise, if one cannot even eat enough to be full, their limbs will be weak, and they won't be able to train their muscles, bones, and skin. Even minor abrasions or superficial injuries sustained during training would be too costly to treat.

This is just the most basic requirement. Various auxiliary medicines used to improve physical fitness also require a significant amount of money to purchase.

During these days, Zhu Lingwu, in addition to absorbing electric currents to cultivate the Ninefold Lightning Body Technique, also took medicinal baths to refine his physical body.

This method was also arranged by Liu Ping, who instructed his servants to prepare the medicinal baths for Zhu Lingwu. The bathing solutions were secret formulas passed down in Liu Ping's family, which could help Zhu Lingwu adjust his body and integrate the electric currents absorbed into his body.

The herbs used in these formulas were also quite expensive. The daily consumption of herbs alone would be enough to sustain an ordinary family for two or three months.

For example, the initial herbs Liu Ping used to cultivate the Crimson Flame Profound Technique, which contained fire elemental energy, were also very expensive. Some herbs that were a hundred years old could sustain an ordinary person for eight to ten years.

As for the Baghdad batteries Zhu Lingwu used to cultivate the Ninefold Lightning Body Technique, although they seem simple to make, each battery requires a large amount of sour fruit to extract the juice.

Zhu Lingwu needed to consume the electricity from several Baghdad batteries each day, and the cost of the sour fruits used to make these batteries was unknown.

Therefore, many cultivators of martial arts mostly come from wealthy families, which can be considered the middle class below the gentry. Ordinary commoners can at most exercise their bodies but do not have the financial means to delve deeper into cultivation.

Even wealthy families may not be able to fully support the expenses of martial arts cultivation. Only martial arts families like Liu Ping's can specifically cultivate their descendants, but they also have to rely on the gentry for financial support.

However, many cultivators of martial arts, in the later stages, can only find various ways to earn money, just like the adventurers who came to Copper Mountain County.

Fortunately, Zhu Lingwu is a gentry's son, and his father dotes on him greatly, giving him a lot of financial autonomy, so he doesn't have to worry about money.

However, Zhu Lingwu's purchase of spirit beasts is not entirely for cultivating the Ninefold Lightning Body Technique but also for his own cultivation of qi. He values the innate spirit energy within the spirit beasts.

Zhu Lingwu discovered that a capability he had in his previous life now seems to have become his innate ability.

In his original world, when Zhu Lingwu was a lich, he was rather pitiful, knowing only two basic abilities. He had never seen or understood the legendary necromantic magic.

One of Zhu Lingwu's two basic abilities, the most important one, was the lich's signature "Soul Summoning."

In essence, this wasn't mysterious. It involved using his powerful soul force to capture and absorb weaker wandering souls, erasing their original consciousness and injecting his own, turning them into his sub-souls.

These sub-souls could be released like wandering souls, using the connection between souls to act as eyes and ears, allowing him to remotely monitor.

As for whether these sub-souls could condense bones and become the common skeletons in novels, it seemed that insufficient soul force made it impossible. Honestly, even flipping a page of a book could cause them to dissipate, and they could only wander in the dark, avoiding strong light.

In the end, this ability mainly helped Zhu Lingwu refine his own soul force and provided a minor remote spying capability.

These sub-souls were like divisions of Zhu Lingwu's soul, under his absolute control. In emergencies, they could switch the main consciousness, and when his main soul was injured, he could use the sub-souls to survive.

In legends, the lich's main soul is hidden in a phylactery, controlling a puppet body through sub-souls, walking in the world. As long as the main soul is not destroyed, the lich is immortal. This might be the principle.

However, this was still Zhu Lingwu's theoretical research. He couldn't conduct experiments, perhaps because he was a lich for too short a time, and his main soul's soul force was insufficient, let alone his sub-souls.

In his original world, the only benefit Zhu Lingwu gained from using this ability was making money in casinos. Whether it was dice or cards, as long as he could see the opponent's cards, he would win. For him, it was like people were giving him money, and it had no other significant meaning.

Now, Zhu Lingwu's soul force is still somewhat weaker compared to his previous life. Being struck by lightning and transmigrating into a new body caused his soul force to dissipate significantly, and he only controls one sub-soul, the soul of an eight-year-old child.

But this ability already makes Zhu Lingwu surpass ordinary people. At least now, in cultivating martial arts, his assistance is self-evident.

Now, Zhu Lingwu is delighted to find that another ability he once had has also been inherited with his soul memory into this new body.

This ability allowed Zhu Lingwu to hide in human society in his original world and maintain his body without decaying.

At first, this ability made Zhu Lingwu think he was a vampire, not a lich.

Indeed, it was the ability to absorb fresh blood and convert it into the life force needed by his body, thus maintaining his dead body from decaying.

However, Zhu Lingwu gradually discovered that his body did not become stiff like the legendary zombies, nor did it become invulnerable or gain the ability to burrow or fly.

Absorbing blood only kept Zhu Lingwu's body from decaying, making it look slightly pale, but it still allowed him to appear normal and live in human society.

Of course, normal male functions were not possible, and various organs in his body had lost their functions. His heart no longer beat, and his movements were slightly slower.

It was precisely because of this that Zhu Lingwu determined he was a lich, not a vampire.

In this world, Zhu Lingwu originally thought he could only retain the "Soul Summoning" ability, relying on his controllable soul force to absorb the wandering souls in the city and capture weaker souls.

But after Zhu Lingwu officially began cultivating the Ninefold Lightning Body Technique, the first few times were ordinary. Liu Ping only prepared medicinal baths for him. One day, after finishing his practice,

When Liu Ping was preparing the medicinal bath for him, he added a bowl of fresh tiger blood...