Chapter 4
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Chapter 4: As Long as One Digs Deep
Refreshing! Refreshing! Refreshing!
Wang Chen felt as if he had just enjoyed a bottle of ice-cold soda under the blazing sun.
The comfort surged from the top of his head down to the soles of his feet.
This was his first battle since he had crossed over.
Although the enemy was merely a tiny land rhinoceros,
the long period of concentration, brewing, and accumulation led to an exhilarating release in an instant.
A shot that pierced the soul!
The feeling truly could not be described in words.
【Metal Finger Technique · Experience +1】
Seeing the message prompt, Wang Chen instinctively called up his Cultivation Panel.
His gaze swept across, and then suddenly sharpened!
【Metal Finger Technique (Proficient): 0/200】
He leveled up!
The Metal Finger Technique he mastered actually broke through its bottleneck, advancing from entry level to proficient level!!
Wang Chen realized in his heart that having poor root bone and low comprehension was not without hope.
As the saying goes, with enough effort, even an iron pestle can be ground down to a needle.
If one or two attempts can’t break through the bottleneck, then keep trying ten, a hundred, or even a thousand times!
There will always be an opportunity for a breakthrough.
This realization greatly boosted Wang Chen’s confidence.
His fingers tingled; he really wanted to test the power of the proficient Metal Finger Technique.
But Wang Chen quickly suppressed that impulse.
The Metal Finger Technique was the only offensive skill he possessed.
It consumed a lot of magic power to activate.
He currently didn’t know how many land rhinoceroses were still in the spirit fields, and wasting magic power now was not a wise move.
Wang Chen first picked up the insect body that had been sliced in half on the ground and stored it in the storage bag hanging at his waist.
His storage bag was a gift from his friend in Wang Shaoyuan’s sect.
Although it had a capacity of only three feet square,
which was quite tiny,
it was the only magical item Wang Chen had on him.
The land rhinoceros, when roasted and ground into powder, could be used as medicine, with the purchasing price in the Yunshan City pharmacy being three pounds per spirit fragment.
Around twenty in weight.
The land rhinoceros he had just slain was equivalent to five spirit fragments!
Crisis and opportunity intertwined; the emergence of the land rhinoceros was indeed a calamity, but it also presented a chance to earn spirit stones.
Wang Chen continued to scour the remaining spirit fields.
He reminisced about his earlier encounter with the land rhinoceros and attempted to re-enter that heightened state of awareness.
With complete focus, he attuned himself to the faintest rustles and movements in his surroundings.
Perhaps due to his elevated soul attributes, or simply because Wang Chen was deeply concentrated, he swiftly established a peculiar resonance with the spirit rice in the fields.
The spirit rice eagerly "informed" Wang Chen of the enemy’s location!
The second land rhinoceros was effortlessly revealed within his line of sight.
Without a second thought, Wang Chen channeled his energy and unleashed the Metal Finger Technique at the new target.
The energy surged through the air and instantaneously struck the unsuspecting land rhinoceros, cleanly slicing it in two.
However, to Wang Chen’s astonishment, the Metal Finger energy, after dispatching the land rhinoceros, retained its momentum; it brushed past a stalk of spirit rice and plunged into the soil, creating a deep cavity!
Wang Chen was momentarily alarmed—he had nearly damaged the spirit rice.
The proficient Metal Finger Technique was undeniably more potent than its entry-level counterpart.
It was swifter, had an extended range, and inflicted greater devastation!
Furthermore, Wang Chen sensed a profound enhancement in his mastery and comprehension of this technique.
Correspondingly, the mana expended was also more substantial.
【Metal Finger Technique · Experience +1】
【Metal Finger Technique (Proficient): 1/200】
Upon observing the display on the Cultivation Panel, Wang Chen’s pulse quickened.
Activating the technique once granted him 1 experience point.
Did this imply that he merely needed to execute the Metal Finger Technique 198 more times to challenge the bottleneck?
An enhanced skill necklace indeed!
Wang Chen was convinced that while other cultivators honed their techniques and skills, surmounting their bottlenecks might be less arduous for them than for him.
Yet, they could not approach the bottleneck with the same rapidity as he could.
The higher the level, the more formidable the cultivation of techniques became.
Wang Chen instinctively clenched his fists.
He had discerned a fragment of the enigma surrounding the Cultivation Panel.
With his resolve fortified, Wang Chen successfully concluded his search of all the spirit fields, leveraging his unique connection with the spirit rice.
He had slain a total of seven land rhinoceroses!
Wang Chen’s Metal Finger Technique was not infallible; he had missed his mark twice during the endeavor.
Nevertheless, he still accrued experience for his skills.
However, the exertion left him nearly paralyzed, his dantian utterly depleted, and his magical energy almost entirely drained.
As Wang Chen sat beneath the shade of a tree, sipping spring water, he delightedly sifted through the spoils in his storage bag.
Old Sun arrived in haste, accompanied by a tall, robust middle-aged man.
Trailing behind them was a youth of about seventeen or eighteen years.
Wang Chen recognized the man as Zhang A-Da of the Zhang family.
Zhang A-Da, a cultivator at the sixth level of Qi Training, was renowned among the spiritual plant farmers in the outer sect of the Yunyang Sect.
Not only was he adept at farming, but he had also wed the cousin of an alchemist from Yunshan City.
It was common knowledge that alchemists held a far superior status to spiritual plant farmers.
Thus, within the vicinity, Zhang A-Da was a figure of considerable repute.
Wang Chen pondered what price Old Sun had paid to enlist Zhang A-Da’s aid in eradicating the land rhinoceroses.
He had never interacted with Zhang A-Da, but he had had some past disagreements with Zhang A-Da’s son, Zhang Xiaoshan.
Old Sun, Zhang A-Da, and Zhang Xiaoshan all took note of Wang Chen seated in the shade.
Old Sun acknowledged him with a nod, while Zhang A-Da paid him no heed.
Zhang Xiaoshan snorted disdainfully.
What a buffoon!
Wang Chen chuckled inwardly as he watched them proceed to Old Sun’s spirit fields.
In truth, Wang Chen was rather curious about how Zhang A-Da would handle the land rhinoceroses.
But with Zhang Xiaoshan present, he chose not to invite unnecessary trouble.
Noticing the sun nearing its zenith, Wang Chen returned to his abode.
He set about kindling a fire to prepare a meal.
After placing the spiritual grains into a pot to boil, he extracted all the land rhinoceros meat from his storage bag.
With a small skinning knife, Wang Chen meticulously excised the white flesh from the rhinoceros’s body.
Within the land rhinoceros lay a piece of exquisite meat, as white as jade, with a delightful elasticity and a rather pleasant flavor.
This piece had to be removed prior to roasting; otherwise, it would compromise the quality of the dry powder and fetch a poor price.
Having extracted all the worm meat, Wang Chen added soy sauce to a bowl to marinate it, thereby eliminating the meat’s fishy odor.
Once the grains in the pot were half-cooked, he placed the bowl within to stew together.
In no time, the small kitchen was suffused with the enticing aroma of Grain Rice mingling with the savory scent of meat.
It was enough to make one’s mouth water.
Wang Chen couldn’t help but drool!
“Zhi zhi!”
Suddenly, a faint squeak drew his attention.
Wang Chen glanced towards the sound and spotted a white-furred mouse emerging from a corner.
It crouched on the ground, twitching its paws and whiskers, its red nose sniffing the fragrant rice and meat.
It was quite an amusing sight.
Wang Chen’s finger twitched slightly, but he refrained from acting.
Had it been an ugly black mouse, Wang Chen would have already unleashed his Metal Finger Technique.
But this white-furred mouse was rather endearing and had done nothing to provoke him.
Thus, he decided to spare the little fellow.
Unexpectedly, emboldened by Wang Chen’s inaction, the white mouse ventured forward two feet, then sat down, its tiny eyes fixed eagerly on Wang Chen.
Wang Chen was amused.
After a moment’s thought, he rose, lifted the pot lid, and with chopsticks, picked up a piece of nearly cooked worm meat.
He tossed it before the white mouse.
“Zhi zhi!”
The white mouse chirped joyfully twice.
It seized the worm meat, turned, and swiftly vanished into a stack of firewood against the wall.
