Charles Bennett turned his head to look at the training grounds. Inside, senior brother Henry Grant was still practicing his sword techniques.

Henry Grant's draw was extremely fast, slashing forward twice in an instant, the two blade shadows almost overlapping one after the other.

Henry Grant could even occasionally perform the Tiger Leap Triple Slash.

Of course, Henry Grant was already at the sixth level of the Body Refining stage and had been practicing the Tiger Leap Blade Technique for over a year. This was not something a fourth-level Body Refining martial artist like Charles Bennett could compare to.

“Tiger Leap Double Slash—two blade shadows strike the same target in an instant. The difficulty is so much greater than the Tiger Leap Slash!”

“Senior brother Grant is really strong, already practicing the intermediate moves of the ‘Tiger Leap Blade Technique,’ the third and fourth forms! I’m still far behind; I have to catch up as soon as possible!”

Charles Bennett knew how difficult this was.

Charles Bennett gritted his teeth and continued practicing his blade work.

The ‘Tiger Leap Blade Technique’ had very few moves—only six in total, and the last two could only be practiced in the later stages of Body Refining. Compared to other blade or sword techniques, it felt even more monotonous.

But that’s how martial arts training was—practicing each move, one by one.

While practicing martial arts techniques, the muscles and bones of the whole body would become coordinated, gradually bringing out the power of the moves. Otherwise, even the top martial arts, if not practiced by a martial artist over a long period, could not unleash much power.

“Beilu Academy has a strength assessment and graduation exam every six months!”

“For the strength assessment, you must reach ‘Body Refining stage six and have mastered the intermediate techniques of a complete martial art’—these two requirements! Then, you qualify for a graduation exam. As long as you pass, you can graduate from Beilu Academy!”

“I’ll spend one month practicing the basic moves of the ‘Tiger Leap Blade Technique,’ and five months on the two intermediate moves: Double Slash and Triple Slash. If I can master these two, I’ll take the academy’s assessment and exam, and try to graduate from Beilu Academy as soon as possible.”

Charles Bennett gripped the steel blade’s hilt tightly, determination showing on his sweat-drenched, youthful face.

If it had been before, he would never have dared to harbor such an almost-crazy idea.

For the past ten years, he had trained every morning, worked odd jobs in the afternoon to earn money, and read a bit at night, hardly ever relaxing for even a day. But he earned too little, and could only afford first- and second-grade herbs to temper his body, barely maintaining high-intensity training. It took him ten years just to reach the mid-stage, fourth level of Body Refining.

Now, he had sixth-grade herbs, which could greatly temper his body. He could spend more than four hours a day maintaining high-intensity martial arts training. Gritting his teeth and giving it his all, aiming for the sixth level of Body Refining and mastering the intermediate blade techniques was no longer an unattainable dream!

Chapter 7: The Artifact Pavilion in the Painting

“After training for over three hours straight, my arms are so sore I don’t want to move! ...I still have to organize old books this afternoon, so I’d better get up and eat!” Charles Bennett left the training grounds and returned to his small room, lying on the bed.

He rested for a short while, gradually regaining some strength, then got up and went to the academy cafeteria for lunch.

On the way, Charles Bennett calculated that he still had two sets of sixth-grade herb formulas left. Although his training intensity was high, the sixth-grade herbs were very effective. Using them once every five or six days should be enough for body tempering, and they would last about ten days to half a month.

He was a bit worried. Now, the “Immortal Mansion” ancient painting scroll had no more field energy, so he couldn’t upgrade the herbs. And for now, he had no idea how to restore the field energy in the painting’s herb garden.

This also meant that after ten days to half a month, he would have no more herbs to use.

“The task of organizing the old book archive can still be done for twenty days, earning twenty taels of silver, enough to buy quite a lot of third-grade herbs for training. The effect of third-grade herbs is much lower, but it’s better than nothing. If I use them sparingly, they should last a month. That’s about two months’ time—hopefully, I can reach the fifth level of Body Refining!”

Charles Bennett quickly finished his meal and went to the basement level of the library, opened the old book archive with a brass key, and began sorting the remaining two-thirds of the old scrolls.

A few hours later.

While rummaging through the pile of old books, Charles Bennett saw a white bone fragment over three inches long, faintly glowing with a soft white light, lying on the ground.

Although there was an oil lamp on the stone wall of the old book archive, the room was still rather dim. If it were outside in daylight, the faint glow of this white bone fragment would probably be almost invisible.

“What kind of bone fragment is this? It’s so cold!”

Holding it in his hand, Charles Bennett felt a chilly sensation. There were more than a dozen strange ancient symbols carved on it—not like the script of Wu Kingdom, but more like the Brahmi oracle bone script used in ancient rituals recorded in some classics. He couldn’t really understand it.

Yunzhou was vast and boundless, with countless kingdoms. The scripts of different kingdoms were bound to differ, making recognition very difficult, especially with ancient symbols. Only a well-learned Wu Kingdom scholar specializing in the study of various nations’ documents might be able to read them all.

But Beilu Academy focused on martial arts training. The students here weren’t interested in studying scripts and wouldn’t spend energy researching the writing of other nations.

“This bone fragment only has a dozen or so characters, and is too incomplete to make up even a single article. It’s completely useless—obviously a severely damaged book, definitely meant to be discarded.”

Charles Bennett muttered to himself.