One more catty, one more attribute point

Su Lao Yezi, the patriarch of the Su family, bent down with some difficulty to pick up the chopsticks that had fallen to the ground.

He intended to replace it with a new one, but since the rest had been broken by Su Heng, he had no choice but to give up and haphazardly wiped the chopsticks on the tablecloth a couple of times.

Su's mother was the first to come back to her senses.

"Could that martial master surnamed Zhao, whom you hired for a hefty sum, do something like this?"

"Um... probably not," Su Lao Yezi, looking at his precious son, was also somewhat bewildered.

"And to think he claims to be a top-notch expert in the Jianghu, costing us so much money every year." Su's mother murmured her complaint, reproaching her husband for squandering money. She looked at Su Heng, her face breaking into a gentle smile, "My son has only been practicing for two or three months and has reached such a level; you must have suffered a lot. Eat more meat so you can grow, look how much you've slimmed down..."

"Thank you, Mother," Su Heng devoured his meal.

Nevertheless, he didn't forget about his silent little brother sitting beside him, pretending to be invisible. After showing off with a couple of bites of food, Su Heng threw down his chopsticks and patted Su Shang's head. The latter's slender frame began to tremble like a quail being strangled by the neck.

"Su Shang..."

"Here!"

"Did you remember what I taught you?" Su Heng asked leisurely.

"I remembered!" Su Shang stood up and said loudly, "I was wrong; I should not have challenged my second brother's authority. From now on, in the Su family, if second brother tells me to go east, I won't dare go west; if he tells me to go north, I will never head south."

"Not bad, not bad," Su Heng's face lit up with a smile, "You're teachable."

"Alright, don't frighten your brother, he's still young," Su's mother said, looking at Su Shang's earnest demeanor and chuckling behind her hand.

"Oh yes,"

she began again in the candlelight, "I received news today that next month, your eldest sister Su Li will be coming home for a visit. Prepare for her arrival accordingly."

"Su Li is coming back?"

Hearing this name, both brothers, Su Heng, and Su Shang, lit up at the prospect.

Su Li was two years older than Su Heng and had been studying at the Bailu Academy in the capital city since adulthood. The Great Zhou Dynasty did not favor sons over daughters, so even women could enter the court as officials. Su Li was always the child of someone else's family, knowledgeable and reasonable, and also very beautiful. Moreover, despite her young age, she had passed the academy examination with the top score.

The most crucial point was that she was incredibly strong, naturally possessing physical strength and power beyond ordinary people.

Brothers Su Heng and Su Shang had often been bullied by Su Li.

Yet she could still outwardly maintain the appearance of a gentlewoman, leaving the two brothers with grievances they couldn't voice.

...

After dinner,

Su Heng returned to his room to rest.

Although it was already nighttime, Su Heng felt not a hint of sleepiness.

On one hand, his cultivation of the Pure Yang Skill had broken through to a new realm, a change at the level of life itself, filled with abundant energy, like a wild fire raging, refusing to die down. On the other hand, it was only about eight or nine o'clock in the evening by the time of his previous life, indeed still too early to rest.

Su Heng sat cross-legged on the bed and continued to cultivate the Pure Yang Skill.

By the sixth level of the Pure Yang Skill, one no longer needed to rely on stance training and breathing methods to advance the cultivation, but rather had transitioned to a different method.

Su Heng closed his eyes, visualizing in his mind the sun mural he had seen in the martial arts training hall, imagining himself standing on a peak with the strong wind howling around him, looking up at the rolling dark clouds, as a beam of golden sunlight pierced through the darkness and slowly painted the entire sea of clouds in a glorious golden red.

Hu~ exhale!

Su Heng's breaths were long and sustained.

Every breath extracted from the outside world soaked into his abdomen, flowing through various organs within his body.

Considering Su Li's inborn strange strength, and Ning Zhibai's assessment, even without the Golden Finger, Su Heng's martial arts talent also belonged to the highest of levels. He quickly entered a state of cultivation and noticed the differences brought about by the breakthrough in the Pure Yang Skill.

A subtle itch spread through his muscles, those veins that could only be felt but not controlled seemed to grow with life under the visualization chart of the Pure Yang Skill. Like the roots of a plant, deeply rooting in the soil, drawing nourishment rapidly from the vastness of the earth and sky.

Su Heng felt the same at this moment.

He felt as though he had become a robust tree, rooting in the earth, reaching for the sunlight.

During this process, the veins in his body became more resilient, and a greater number of fine veins branched out, spreading throughout his body. His muscles became more powerful, his internal organs more flexible, his vitality extraordinary.

With every breath, Su Heng could feel an elevation in the essence of his life.

Such cultivation fascinated him.

The joy it brought even surpassed the many pleasures of consorting with women.

"Gurgle!"

The hunger emanating from his belly interrupted Su Heng's cultivation state, bringing him back to reality. Su Heng rubbed his stomach, the gray and white attribute panel materializing before his eyes.

Vein Mutation had increased from three percent to four percent.

The remaining attribute points increased from zero to one.

The Pure Yang Skill was still at the sixth level. Su Heng did not know whether this Cultivation Technique had a seventh level, or even higher realms.

"Vein Mutation must be a kind of realm," Su Heng began to ponder the values that appeared on the attribute panel and the things they represented, "I wonder what changes will happen after Vein Mutation reaches one hundred percent. Will it be a breakthrough to the next level, or will I obtain some kind of Innate Divine Ability?"

Then there were the attribute points.

Attribute points were not immediately obtained upon eating food.

They had to be digested and absorbed by the stomach and intestines, becoming a part of one's body, increasing body weight, only then could one gain an attribute point. Moreover, attribute points could not be obtained repeatedly through means like fat loss and muscle gain; for example, now Su Heng weighed 216 pounds, he must increase his weight to 217 pounds to and only then could gain one attribute point.

As his level increased, so did Su Heng's digestive ability, but the energy from food was limited, hence he often felt hungry. There are only twenty-four hours in a day, he couldn't just eat, sleep, then eat again all day.

"Therefore, finding a higher-energy food is essential."

Su Heng pushed open the door.

Looking up, his gaze passed over the black eaves. The starlight was dim, and the distant sky began to brighten with a belly-like whiteness. The sun had not yet risen, and the moon had already set. This was the darkest time of the day, and gusts of cold wind blew, making Su Heng's stomach grumble.

Thinking that there might be some leftovers in the kitchen, Su Heng decided to eat something to fill his stomach first and then have breakfast after some time.

With this in mind, he began to move.

However,

He had not taken two steps before he heard a piercing scream coming from the neighboring courtyard.

"That is... Su Shang's voice!"