In the dead of night, Wuji came to the Fifth Elder's dojo.
The torches surrounding the training ground flickered weakly as the air grew cooler.
Most of the students had already gone back to their homes, only a few remained, scattered across the training ground like forgotten weights, some were wearing training gear and some were talking amongst themselves.
They watched him enter the dojo, but none of them acknowledged him. He didn't expect them to.
He limped to the back, where someone had stacked the training equipment. He found a pair of crude dumbbells made of stone and iron near the wall, next to it were other equipment.
Looking at them closely he could estimate that each weighed about ten kilograms, "let me start with this little weight if I can't do it then I would drop to the five kilograms,"
He squatted down, gripped them, and began lifting.
The first few lifts were easy, but the more he lifted, the more his arms trembled and his ribs ached. But he kept going.
Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen... Fifteen.
He dropped them to the ground with a thud, causing the students who were chatting to glance in his direction.
After taking a thirty-second pause to catch his breath, he lifted the dumbbells again and continued practicing.
After three grueling sets, Wuji's left hand finally gave out. It trembled uncontrollably, and his fingers refused to close. Still, he pushed through, as if the pain owed him something.
Five minutes later, he dropped the dumbbells with a dull thud and limped toward the edge of the training ground. There, a row of battered trees stood like silent instructors.
Generations of students' rage left scars from fists and kicks on their trunks.
Voices buzzed behind him.
"Is he already tired from lifting ten kilos a few times? My little sister hauls heavier buckets from the well," said Liang, the blacksmith's son. His arms were as thick as hammers from working the forge.
"Honestly, I thought he'd pass out with five kilos given his twig-like build." Lu Bao snorted and added, "I was ready to catch him."
"Look at him shake. Chen Yi did him a favor by breaking his leg. Now he can't even stand straight," said Yulian, her voice sharp with mockery.
"That's just beginner's adrenaline," Ren muttered. "Remember when you started with twenty kilos? The next morning, you couldn't lift a spoon. Even your crush laughed at you."
Liang chuckled. "Oh, yeah. She called you 'Wet Noodle Ren' for a week."
"Tch. Shut it. Don't bring up my dark era," Ren grumbled.
"All right, all right. Let's get back to training," Yulian said, waving a hand dismissively. "We're wasting time gawking at a cripple."
Wuji ignored them. He stood before a tree, staring at the bruises and indentations left by those who had come before him. He raised his raw, trembling fists.
THUD.
The first strike made his fingers flare with pain. The second made his wrist throb like cracked glass.
He froze with his hand against the bark, breathing through gritted teeth.
"Would punching trees really help me catch up to a cultivator who grows stronger just by meditating?"
Doubt crept in like an icy wind.
But then he shut his eyes, let the pain speak, and crush the hesitation.
"No, I can't afford doubt. The moment I question this path is the moment I fall behind forever."
He gritted his teeth and pulled his arm back again.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The other students turned to leave. "Let's go. He'll punch twice more and then collapse. There's no use watching him bleed," Yulian said as they all followed her.
But Wuji didn't stop at two. Or ten. Or twenty.
With each strike, pain bloomed through his knuckles and radiated up his arms as if fire were burning under his skin. The skin on his knuckles tore open. Blood painted the bark.
This was the only way forward. If he couldn't rely on spirit roots or meridians, he would forge a new body with his bare hands.
He remembered the book he had read: "A martial artist trains the flesh until it becomes iron. Bones until they ring like steel."
Then, using his injured right leg, he kicked hard against the tree repeatedly until he scraped off the bark and his shin throbbed with pain and bleeding.
After ten minutes of continuously hitting the tree, he was panting hard. Sweat clung to his back like a second skin and dripped down his face in steady streams.
With each breath, it seemed as if hot needles were stabbing his ribs. His legs shook as he sat on the dirt and his arms were trembling, the knuckles bleeding, but all of this no longer fazed him, his mind was razor sharp.
Ten minutes later, he stood again, fists clenched and body aching.
"If I want to rebuild this body, I have to break it first," he murmured. "With cellular regeneration trait, if I don't push myself to the limit, then I am the biggest fool in existence."
No one had ever taught Yin Li and him to train like this before. Especially Ye Wuji In his past life, he had spent most of his time conducting experiments and studying the body, not exercising his body.
Back then, bodybuilding was a hobby for some and a means to an end for others. Even the strongest men he knew wouldn't last a second against a third-rate martial artist in this world.
What fueled him now wasn't just knowledge anymore, it was pain, survival, and the cold, clear blueprint of revenge.
He picked up the twenty-kilo dumbbells.
He lifted once, then again. But on the third lift, his left arm buckled. The weight slipped from his hand and slammed into the dirt.
His fingers twitched, then went still, refusing to obey.
"Even my nerves are quitting on me now," he muttered, jaw clenched.
But he didn't stop. He grabbed the fifteen-kilo pair instead, forcing his muscles to move.
One rep. Five. Ten.
Twenty brutal minutes passed in silence, broken only by his heavy breathing and the dull thud of the weights rising and falling.
He didn't count the reps. He just kept going. His muscles tore, but he didn't stop. He lifted until the pain blurred. Until his arms felt hollow. Until his body begged him to quit.
Even then, he didn't listen.
Fifteen minutes later, his arms finally gave out, and he dropped the dumbbells with a dull clunk. But he still wasn't done.
Limping and stumbling slightly, he made his way to the thick wooden post near the dojo wall that students used for hardening their fist.
He stared at it for a moment, then clenched his fists.
"Let's see how much pain I can take," he said.
He got into position and struck first with his right hand.
Thud.
Again.
Thud.
And again.
Each punch sent a sharp jolt up his arm. After the tenth punch, his knuckles started bleeding again. By the thirtieth punch, he could no longer make a proper fist.
He didn't have any gloves. No wraps. No technique. It was just bones meeting wood.
He turned toward the old tree at the edge of the training ground and started limping toward it. He stopped in front of it, then started kicking it.
His shin struck the bark. And again.
The bark peeled away, revealing red scrapes on his leg. After kicking the tree for some time, he stopped. "I can't aggravate my broken leg any further. Even if I can heal," he murmured.
Then he dropped into a horse stance, keeping his thighs parallel to the ground, his back straight, and his arms extended.
"Hold until failure," he told himself.
One minute. Two. Five. His thighs trembled. His body wavered. He gritted his teeth and lowered himself further.
By the tenth minute, he knelt down, struggling to breathe. His ribs ached as he took shallow, quick breaths.
Eventually, his arms gave way, and he fell backward into the dirt, his sweaty, dirty clothes sticking to his skin.
He looked around and saw the training ground deserted. The others had returned to their beds long ago. Only the moon kept him company now, watching through slowly drifting clouds.
He stared up at it, his eyes half-lidded.
"I'll follow this routine for two weeks," he thought. "The fifteen gold coins I set aside for food will last me that long, providing all the meat and high-protein foods necessary for regeneration."
He exhaled slowly, feeling the pain in his ribs flare up.
"Maybe I should buy herbs, too. Martial artists use them after intense training sessions. They might help speed things up... if I can afford them."
Thirty minutes passed. He didn't move. He just lay on the cold ground, staring at the beautiful, starry sky. His limbs were too numb to move.
"I wonder if cultivators ever go into space," he thought. He imagined flying up past the clouds and beyond the stars. "I want to see that one day."
He focused on the blue panel in front of him.
[First Trait: Cellular Regeneration — Low Tier]
[Status: Active]
[Time Until Next Healing: 10:00]
"Ten minutes, huh?" he exhaled, breath fogging in the cold. "I guess I have to lie in this cold dirt a little while longer."
He studied the timer. This was the first time he had tracked the trait's cooldown actively.
"This is was a significant change, how smart of me," he thought.
"If I map out how the trait functions, when it activates, and how much it heals, then I can train smarter and maybe heal myself at crucial moments during a fight."
Ten minutes later, a familiar chill began to spread through his exhausted body.
The coolness seeped into his marrow like mist into dry earth. Beneath the surface, his body repaired itself at a frightening speed. Knuckles realigned. Fractures fused. Torn muscles stitched themselves back together from within.
But the surface of his body told a different story.
Scabbed skin remained raw. Swollen joints still throbbed. The regeneration was neither clean nor complete; it was fast and brutal.
He felt everything: nerves flaring like lightning and bones grinding as they reformed.
His body didn't thank him for it. It screamed with every pulse. After a few minutes, most of the injuries he sustained were healed, whether from Chen Yi or the practice tree.
But then, the feral and primal hunger struck him. It was as if his body were screaming for sustenance to replenish what it had just expended.
His stomach twisted violently. His vision was hazy, but he caught sight of a stray cat prowling in the shadows. For a fleeting second, he salivated. If not for his willpower, he might have lunged at the cat like a starving beast.
"Why did it burn through my reserves? Was it because I pushed too far? Or maybe it's because my body's strength increased, so I needed more energy."
He didn't have the full answer yet, but he had a theory.
"If I destroy my body faster than I can replenish it, it'll consume all my energy just to keep me alive. This trait doesn't cheat the laws of biology; it leans into them."
He stood up unsteadily and trudged toward the hut.
"I need food," he said. "A lot of it at that. If I'm going to do this for two weeks straight, I'll need more than just meat."
Glancing at the sky one last time, he slipped into the shadows.