Robert Clark maintained his kicking pose, squinting as he said, “I’m waking you up. It’s 5:30 now. If you don’t get up, you’ll be late for school. See how much your old man cares about you.”

William Clark glared at his father with a dark face. The next moment, he shouted even louder, “I have the day off today! Dad, don’t you remember? I’m off today, classes start tomorrow!”

“Oh? You have the day off?” Robert Clark innocently picked his ear, then said seriously, “Even so, you should get up and see your dear old dad off to work.”

“……”

William Clark looked speechlessly at his father, then flopped back onto the bed. “I already saw you off. Hurry up and get to work.”

Robert Clark shook his head in anguish. “Sigh, unfilial child! After all my hard work raising you, this is how you repay me?”

Under the covers, William Clark raised a middle finger, ready to continue his unfinished dream. Suddenly, he remembered something and mumbled, “Dad, was it you who renovated the ancestral house?”

“Of course. The ancestral house was almost destroyed before—I rebuilt it myself.” Robert Clark put his hands on his hips and said proudly, “Well? Don’t you think the layout of the ancestral house is tasteful?”

Tasteful? The ancestral house is just two ordinary wooden rooms, come on.

William Clark grunted weakly, “So Dad, did you hide anything special in the ancestral house? Like antiques or something?”

“Something special?” Robert Clark was momentarily stunned, then after thinking for a second, he grinned mischievously. “Of course I hid something special. Didn’t you find it when you were eight? Those were some old movies. Pretty exciting, right? You thought you could secretly watch them without your old man noticing?”

“……”

Under the covers, William Clark raised both middle fingers high. Sure enough, asking Dad about this kind of thing is like playing music to a cow.

The two adult movies he accidentally found in the ancestral house at age eight—so it was the old man who put them there. With a dad like this, what could William Clark even say?

The sound of the door closing came, and as Robert Clark’s footsteps faded away, William Clark groggily got up, sat on the bed, and unconsciously clenched his fists, feeling the abundant strength within his body.

William Clark quickly became fully awake. Looking at his strong hands, he muttered, “It really wasn’t a dream?”

His senses were so sharp, every cell in his body seemed to be pulsing. William Clark felt as if he could control every muscle, and his mind was incredibly clear. The events of last night at the Starry Sky Combat Arena were etched deeply in his memory.

He jumped out of bed and rushed into the bathroom, stripped off his clothes, and examined himself in the mirror. His body was still the same as before, except now there seemed to be a faint glow on his skin, giving him a strange kind of allure upon closer inspection.

“No change! Nothing’s changed at all!”

William Clark bared his white teeth, looking himself over from every angle, finding no major differences. Looking down at his lower body, he muttered, “Hmm, this part seems to have gotten a lot bigger.”

Recalling what happened last night in the ancestral house, William Clark shook his head hard. “Whatever, as long as my strength has improved, that’s all that matters.” After all, he was still a teenager at heart, and soon tossed all his doubts aside.

“Oh right, that book, ‘Chongxu Gathering Essence Manual’!”

Thinking of the ‘Chongxu Gathering Essence Manual’ in his backpack, William Clark immediately got excited. With a reverent attitude, he washed himself three times, got dressed, rushed into the bedroom, and took out the precious book from his backpack.

The Gathering Essence Manual, as the name suggests, is a key method for condensing internal essence.

The widely circulated Gathering Essence Manuals nowadays are generally simplified versions taught by various academies, which is what most people have access to. But the Gathering Essence Manuals of martial arts families are different—those secret manuals, once practiced, allow martial artists to lay a much stronger foundation.

It’s like building the foundation of a house—the deeper and stronger it is, the smoother the path of martial arts will be in the future.

Opening the cover, the first page was written in bold, elegant calligraphy.

“Internal essence, the marrow of qi, the soul of essence, the power of ultimate refinement and sublimation. The power of internal essence, in subtlety is like a silkworm spinning silk, in greatness can swallow mountains and rivers… To refine the body and gather essence, the most important thing is the sense of qi, to draw in vital energy and nurture it in the dantian…”

William Clark quickly became immersed in the ‘Chongxu Gathering Essence Manual’, each word and sentence seemed to be engraved on a bright mirror, passing through his mind one by one.

According to the book, everyone’s body is a treasure, and the key to unlocking it is the body itself. By tempering oneself from a young age, making the muscles and skin tough and unyielding, and balancing the energies of the internal organs, one completes the body-tempering stage.

Body forging and tempering is the foundation of a martial artist.

Once the body-tempering stage is complete, the key to unlocking the body’s treasure takes shape. At this point, one must, on the basis of body tempering, comprehend the “sense of qi.” With this sense, the body’s treasure can be unlocked, internal essence can be gathered, and one can condense internal energy to become a basic martial artist.

Since the era of interstellar navigation, in order to adapt to the harsh conditions of planetary pioneering and the dangers of interstellar travel, martial civilization has developed rapidly. Coupled with the rapid advancement of technology, various gene serums have been developed, and human lifespan has thus been extended to an average of 400 years.