Tian Can Tu Dou - Wu Dong Qian Kun

“Wuu.”

When Lin Dong gathered every ounce of strength to open his heavy eyelids, a simple, crude yet tidy room appeared before his eyes. This familiar scene caused him to blink distractedly, unable to make sense of why he was here, though soon after, he promptly turned his head in a flash of understanding. Sure enough he saw the two figures of a man and a woman seated at a table in the room.

“Father, mother……”

As Lin Dong gazed at the two figures, he grew spirited and let out a soft cry.

“Dong-er, you’ve woken?”

Hearing his cries, the woman first turned her head, as she saw Lin Dong finally opening his eyes, she immediately exclaimed in happiness.

Dressed somewhat plainly and about thirty years in age, the outline of her cheek gave a sense of elegance to her face and also a type of sweet-tempered and gentle feeling. This was Lin Dong’s mother, Liu Yan.

“Unskilled and yet you pick fights with others, you are literarily asking for trouble.”

Seated besides the woman was a man who looked to be about thirty or forty years old. His body was slightly frail yet he had a bit of sternness in his brows, he also seemed to be suffering from serious injuries as his face was pale which in turn masked up a large part of his sternness. This was Lin Dong’s father, Lin Xiao.

Turning to face his often-times stern father, Lin Dong ostensibly displayed a sliver of fear, pulling back his neck, though soon after he somewhat defiantly declared: “Who asked them to call my father useless right in front of my face…”

As he spoke, Lin Dong reached to feel the still aching wound on his chest, and clenched his teeth. Today was merely one of the tests for the Lin Family and he had only went down to gauge his progress. Today’s setback hardly dented his faith in himself because he had only been training for about half a year and he did not expect to make much progress. He remained confident that given the same time and conditions to train, he would not lose out to anyone.

Nevertheless, right after the test ended, as Lin Dong was preparing to make his way home, he encountered a fellow which he had some bad history with. His original plan was to ignore that chap, however after a few rounds of deliberate provocation, he could no longer stand it and in a moment of fury, the young and hot-blooded Lin Dong attacked the provocator. Nonetheless, the results were clear as day as he was immediately soundly knocked out by a heavy punch……

“Lin Shan, you had better remember this! The next time, I vow to smash your head into a pulp, or my name is not Lin Dong!”

Lin Dong ground his teeth together. The Lin Shan mentioned, was the perpetrator of this incident, and also the number one enemy in Lin Dong’s heart. Because their fathers had bad blood between them, Lin Shan constantly tried to inconvenience Lin Dong, and the latest incident was just one of many.

One moment he was resolutely clenching his jaw, yet the next, Lin Dong was hanging his head dejectedly. Though Lin Shan was extremely vile, the fact remained that he was currently already at the 4th layer of Tempered Body. In the Lin family, this kind of achievement was considered better than average. Compared to the 2nd layer that Lin Dong was at, it was indeed much better.

In the path of training, the body should be trained first as everything begins with one’s body. After all, the human body is the most wonderfully mysterious thing in the world.

Simply said, Tempered Body was the cultivation of one’s body, allowing one’s body to gradually strengthen and eventually grow stronger from outside to within. When the muscles and bones within the body have strengthened to a certain level, it will give rise to a seedling of Yuan Power. Only when a seedling of Yuan Power naturally appears in the body, can one then be called a true practitioner.

Tempered Body is divided into 9 layers, the difference between the first 3 layers is not significant as it only improves one’s physical body and foundations slightly. Only when the body has been cultivated to the 4th layer, will the advantages of training gradually surface. At that level, the skin will slowly harden to become as tough as wood or rock, and both one’s strength and speed will be substantially upgraded.

Since Lin Shan was currently at that level, Lin Dong, who had only mastered the 2nd layer of Tempered Body, was clearly outclassed.

As for why there was such a disparity between the two, although they were both of similar age, it was not due to a difference in their potential. For the Tempered Body levels, talent was not a key factor, in fact it could be said that anyone could train in it. However, how far they were able to progress, would depend on one’s wealth and affinity.

Nonetheless, to reach the 9th layer of Tempered body is an extremely difficult and tiring affair. This was because only by constantly pushing the limits of one’s physical body, could one’s body gradually grow stronger.

Yet this way of testing one’s limits was akin to squeezing out the potential in one’s body. If one’s body was not sufficiently restored after the ‘squeezing’, one’s body would be injured due to the strain. At that time, not only would the training be affected but the whole body would be riddled with injuries. An overall loss.

Thus, as one attempts to master the Tempered Body, they would need various nourishing elixirs to supplement their body before they can progress with their training. However, as these elixirs are mostly expensive commodities, those without adequate wealth would not be able to afford it.

And this is the so called wealth!

The reason why Lin Shan was able to surpass Lin Dong by 2 layers was not because he had trained for half a year more but largely because his father was in charge of the finances in the Lin family. In comparison to Lin Dong who lacked this good fortune and therefore the access to elixirs to nourish his body. Thus his training progress was naturally much slower than the former…….

Suddenly, as Lin Xiao heard Lin Dong’s mutterings, his palm that was resting on the table clenched tightly, as his expression grew a shade darker. To the side, Liu Yan who had seen this change promptly signalled to Lin Dong with her eyes before the latter hastily shut his mouth.

“No need to whine, concentrate on training and others will naturally shutup.”

Lin Xiao waved his hands as he said: “Liu Yan, take that Red Ginseng and pass it to Dong-er, with the Red Ginseng, his training should go slightly faster. There’s only half a year left till the family competition, if he doesn’t make the most of this time to train, he will only bring shame to us.”

“Xiao-ge, that Red Ginseng is for your injuries……” Liu Yan hastily said before she fell into a quiet stupor.

“I am already a useless person, no matter what kind of remedies are used, it would all be for naught. In the future, I will spend more time finding elixirs in the mountain for Dong-er.” Lin Xiao declared in a self mocking tone as he shook his head.

“Father is not useless, Father used to be the strongest practitioner in the family excluding grandpa!” Hearing Lin Xiao’s words, Lin Dong exclaimed, red-faced. As a child, his father was the biggest figure in his heart.

“Strongest Practitioner……”

Lin Xiao’s subsciously clenched his fist tightly as a deep pain flashed across his face. A moment later, he stood up and tiredly walked outside the room.