Henry Harper touched his nose, feeling a bit embarrassed. He didn’t have the temperament that Sarah Sutton described. To be honest, if the system hadn’t locked him in, and if his fist technique coefficient allowed him to practice something other than Arhat Fist, he would have switched to a more powerful martial art long ago. If it weren’t for the fact that martial arts in this world only possibly produce inner strength, unlike the system where you can directly cultivate inner strength, he might not even bother practicing the martial arts of this world.

But Sarah Sutton didn’t know any of this. She just didn’t want a true martial artist like him to live an unremarkable life. She immediately said, “I just watched you, and the fist technique you practice is really quite ordinary... Even though you’ve reached mastery, in terms of combat, it’s about the same as an average third-rate martial art—maybe even inferior to the few third-rate techniques handed out to freshmen at school. And I also looked closely just now: your technique mainly trains the waist, legs, and forearms. Only these three areas are really worked; the rest of your body gets too little training. If you keep practicing like this, you’ll never develop inner strength. It’s a pity, but since you could spend so much time mastering this technique, you can definitely master other martial arts too. The broad road is right in front of you. You could start tomorrow by practicing the sets of martial arts distributed by the school, and then decide what to focus on based on your progress.”

Henry Harper’s face turned a bit red. Luckily, his skin was tanned from training outdoors, so it didn’t show. He could only awkwardly say, “But...”

“I know, I know.” Sarah Sutton immediately said, as if she’d confirmed something, “You don’t have enough money—I can see that. Martial arts are for the rich, not the poor, so I can’t blame you for that. But you should know, right? Banks now offer martial artist loans. You just need to go to the bank and prove that you’ve mastered your technique, and you can get a sizable loan, no problem. I’m not too familiar with the Blue Shadow Republic, but I doubt it’s much different. These loans don’t have many restrictions, the amounts are pretty large, and you just need to check in at the bank each month to confirm your training progress. Whether you eventually develop inner strength or become a quasi-inner-strength fighter who can take on a hundred men, you’ll easily be able to pay back the loan.”

Henry Harper still looked embarrassed. In fact, he’d known about these bank loans for a long time and had considered them before. But the loans require monthly checks on the borrower’s martial arts progress. Since he can’t give up Arhat Fist, there’s no way he could let anyone verify his progress, so the loan was never an option.

Seeing Henry Harper’s expression, Sarah Sutton said knowingly, “I get it, I get it. It’s about pride, right? That’s understandable. It’s not like being in prison, but having to get your progress checked every month would be unbearable for me too. After all, martial arts are a personal matter, and being inspected like that really goes too far—it completely restricts a martial artist’s free spirit. I understand... But besides banks, some big companies, many martial arts sects, or martial arts families also offer similar contracts. They won’t check your progress; you just have to not disappear. Sign a contract, and once you succeed in your training, work for them for a while. The money isn’t as much as a loan, but it’s still income. If you’re interested, I can help you pick out some reputable companies or martial arts families.”

As for this, Henry Harper had thought about it too, but such contracts have a big problem: you have to practice the martial arts provided by those companies, organizations, or sects.

You have to understand, in this world, even though there are guns and cannons, the main force is still inner strength experts. Although Henry Harper had never seen an inner strength expert and couldn’t imagine how someone with inner strength from a martial arts novel could stand up to modern military weapons—this isn’t cultivation, after all, it’s just martial arts and inner strength—but that doesn’t stop people in this world from believing it. Because of this, about seventy percent of the world’s martial resources are focused on inner strength experts. Any martial artist who hasn’t developed inner strength, if they want to participate in battle, their main role is to support the inner strength experts. There are joint training techniques, combined attacks, formations, and so on, all with the sole purpose of boosting the combat power and survivability of inner strength experts. Once you sign a contract with these companies or organizations, practicing their martial arts becomes an absolute requirement. Unless you really become an inner strength expert, your role is just to be a cog in the machine.

That’s what Henry Harper couldn’t tolerate. All his energy every day was focused on Arhat Fist; he had no spare energy to practice any other martial arts in this world. To have to practice the techniques handed out by these companies or organizations, taking time away from Arhat Fist, was something he absolutely could not accept!

So that way of making money was also out. As for other options, like underground fighting, joining dojos or sects, they all had their own drawbacks—none of which Henry Harper would accept. In the end, after spending nine years, the only path he chose, which had almost no side effects, was to study, get into university through exams, and earn a scholarship. That was it. The money was little, but there were no other restrictions or side effects.