Chapter 10: Fierce Competition and Level 3 Fitness

Zhang Yu sat down at a random spot, looked at the crowd on the square who were also waiting for work, and felt nothing but mental exhaustion.

"This damn place is way too hard to survive in. Isn't there any place that's not cutthroat?"

No sooner had he sat on the ground to rest for a while than a wave of intense dread surged up from his heart.

"Please abide by the ritual agreement, diligently strive to fulfill the wish, and do not deliberately slack off or delay. 10."

"Damn it."

Zhang Yu cursed inwardly, but under the compulsion of the ritual's power, he could only get back to work.

However, considering that his physical condition had not yet recovered and the upcoming job might also require physical strength, Zhang Yu chose not to practice the Body-Forging Thirty-Six Forms at this moment, but instead opted for the Basic Breathing Method to refine magical power.

With each breath he took, strands of spiritual energy quickly converged from heaven and earth, gradually gathering in his dantian's qi sea, and bit by bit he refined it into part of his magical power.

Time slowly passed through Zhang Yu's breathing, and an hour later arrived.

During that hour, three batches of people had come to recruit workers: some needed temporary security personnel, some had construction sites urgently requiring cultivators for heavy labor, and a courier company was hiring cultivators for sorting packages.

Zhang Yu gradually realized that most temporary jobs hiring Qi Refining stage cultivators were almost always related to physical labor.

After all, Qi Refining stage cultivators hadn't yet achieved a qualitative leap in intelligence or knowledge compared to ordinary mortals; instead, their physical fitness alone made each of them equal to a hundred mortals, allowing them to shine in construction sites, factories, security, and other work, with production efficiency far surpassing that of ordinary people.

Therefore, many places that urgently needed extra manpower would come to hire cultivators.

Although the compensation cultivators demanded far exceeded that of ordinary people, it still worked out to be cost-effective.

After all, if one cultivator could do the work of thirty ordinary people, the employer usually only needed to pay more than ten times the wages.

And the people waiting in this square were each, so to speak, super workhorses capable of sticking to 007 work schedules.

In front of them, Zhang Yu—who still needed to sleep four or five hours a day—was nothing more than an ordinary high school freshman who could still get sleep.

So, after glancing at the way a huge crowd scrambled for work every time, Zhang Yu maintained his breathing state and didn't join the others in the competition.

He knew that with his high school freshman status, he couldn't possibly outcompete those who had already graduated high school.

He was waiting, waiting for the kind of job Old Wang mentioned that specifically targeted current high school students.

Like Zhang Yu, there were a few other high school students; some were reading, some were breathing, some were practicing punches—none of them rushed for job opportunities either, just silently waiting.

Another hour passed in the blink of an eye.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Along with faint explosive sounds in the air.

Feeling that his body had rested enough, Zhang Yu began to practice the Body-Forging Thirty-Six Forms.

The people around glanced at him and then ignored it; there were too many people who practiced cultivation while waiting for work, and Body-Forging Thirty-Six Forms, as a basic technique, couldn't attract anyone's attention.

Body-Forging Thirty-Six Forms Level 2 (18/20)

Body-Forging Thirty-Six Forms Level 2 (19/20)

After practicing the Body-Forging Thirty-Six Forms twice, Zhang Yu felt his entire body's muscles starting to ache, but his spirit grew more excited, because one more round would level up Body-Forging Thirty-Six Forms to Level 3.

This was something Bai Zhenzhen, who ranked first in the grade's total score, hadn't achieved.

Yet he could do it in just two days.

Just as Zhang Yu was practicing the Body-Forging Thirty-Six Forms for the third time, a temporary job requiring high school students finally arrived.

A small car pulled up in front of the square, the window rolled down, and the driver shouted from inside: "Any freshmen or sophomores? Need two martial arts sparring partners."

A martial arts sparring partner means when a cultivator practices actual combat in martial arts, they find someone to accompany the training according to specific requirements.

Hearing the driver's words, the high school students who had been quietly waiting in the square all moved at once, leaving afterimages in the air and rushing to the small car amid the sounds of wind and thunder.

"I'm a sophomore!"

"My physique is at level 2.15!"

The sophomore students had a significant lead over the freshmen in physique. When Zhang Yu rushed over, he found that the spots in front of the driver were almost entirely taken up by bulky students, making it impossible for him to squeeze in.

Zhang Yu thought to himself: "Everyone's scrambling even to get beaten up—do they still have any high school student pride?"

The driver glanced at the many students raising their hands and said, "Any from key high schools?"

The number of raised hands dropped by more than half.

Zhang Yu quickly raised his hand: "I'm from Songyang High School!"

The driver asked again, "Anyone with Combat Martial Arts level 3 or above?"

Looking at the remaining three, the driver asked again, "Three hundred per hour, are you in?"

A student with a crew cut said discontentedly, "Three hundred is too little, isn't it?"

But another student beside him hurriedly said, "I'll take three hundred!"

Watching the car speed away after the other student got in, the crew-cut student cursed, "Three hundred an hour, what the hell were they thinking?"

"Thinking three hundred can get someone to spar in real combat? Can't afford it, don't hire a sparring partner!"

Someone else joined the cursing: "Three hundred and you still take it? Scab! When that kid gets hurt, he'll find out three hundred isn't even enough for medical bills."

With the employer gone, the surrounding students, after a bout of grumbling, scattered back to their own training and studying. Zhang Yu had no choice but to go back and continue practicing the Body-Forifying Thirty-Six Forms.

At this rate, he felt he probably wouldn't find a job today.

More than ten minutes later, someone else drove up to recruit high school students, specifically requesting first-year high school students.

But this time the job was drug testing, supposedly for some newly developed medicine from a lab, meant for beginners on the immortal path.

Zhang Yu thought about his own physical condition and decided not to even apply, instead continuing his twentieth round of the Body-Forifying Thirty-Six Forms.

A moment later, with a crisp cracking sound, Zhang Yu threw the final punch of the Body-Forifying Thirty-Six Forms, successfully elevating the martial art to the third level.

Body-Forifying Thirty-Six Forms Level 3 (0/30)

At that instant, countless practice memories of the Body-Forifying Thirty-Six Forms seemed to flood into Zhang Yu's mind, making him feel as if he had practiced it thousands of times over.

And among these memories, there were not only purely physical memories but also memories of a trace of magical power circulating on its own within his body.

"Body-Forifying Thirty-Six Forms has reached Level 3. While practicing this martial art, it can now induce the circulation of magical power through the body's meridians, accelerating the repair and enhancement of the flesh."

!

If Levels 1 and 2 of the Body-Forifying Thirty-Six Forms were merely about constantly damaging the flesh during training, forcibly squeezing out the magical power within the body to participate in the exercise,

then reaching Level 3 meant that the movements guided the magical power to roam throughout the entire body, continuously nourishing the flesh during training, greatly enhancing the training effect.

At this moment, as Zhang Yu began a new round of the Body-Forifying Thirty-Six Forms, streams of warmth flowed through his limbs and bones with each movement, silently increasing his physical strength, step by step leading him from an ordinary person toward a superhuman.

Under the nourishment of that warmth, the muscles and flesh that had started to feel sore and painful became much more relaxed, allowing Zhang Yu to persist in training more easily.

Suddenly, Zhang Yu felt his entire body's flesh contract and expand.

Physical Strength 0.84 → 0.85

Glancing at the change in physical strength on his Feather Script, a flicker of joy passed through Zhang Yu's heart.

At that moment, even without the compulsion of ritualistic power, he felt his spirit invigorated and continued training.

While Zhang Yu was practicing the Body-Forifying Thirty-Six Forms, the drug-testing recruitment on the other side continued as well.

However, faced with a job like drug testing, not many first-year high school students were willing to try.

Although the recruiter wanted to hire five students, after shouting for a long time he only got two and left.

In the time that followed, the night deepened, fewer and fewer employers came to recruit, and Zhang Yu still hadn't found a job opportunity, so he could only keep practicing the Body-Forifying Thirty-Six Forms.

Body-Forifying Thirty-Six Forms Level 3 (6/30)

When Zhang Yu had practiced the Body-Forifying Thirty-Six Forms six times, he felt he could no longer just wait around.

Zhang Yu walked back into the human resources company and saw Old Wang still sitting behind that desk, as if he hadn't moved for the past few hours.

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes he had bought, handed it to the man, and then asked, "Brother Wang, is there any work I can do?"

Old Wang glanced at the cigarettes Zhang Yu offered and said casually, "Didn't I tell you? If there's work, they'll call it outside."

Zhang Yu didn't give up: "I mean besides the stuff outside."

"It's not possible that all the temporary jobs in Songyang City come driving here to recruit, right? Is there anything else?"

Old Wang was pestered by Zhang Yu for a while and said impatiently, "If you don't believe me, see for yourself. It's not that I won't let you do it; do you think those other temp jobs are easy?"

Zhang Yu looked at a screenshot sent from the other person's phone, which listed row after row of long-term recruitment opportunities, some big and some small.

There were positions for signing a contract and then participating in long-term drug trials.

There were positions for being a test subject and participating in long-term cultivation method research.

There were also positions for going deep into the Kunxu underground to work as a helper for exploration teams.

And there were positions for cooperating with the police to fight crime.

Zhang Yu looked over each one—either they were too dangerous, or both dangerous and impossible to do.

"These long-term recruitments that can never fill their positions, sure enough, every one of them is a trap."

Suddenly, Zhang Yu looked at one of the entries and asked, "Brother Wang, what's the danger in this one about participating in cultivation method research?"

Old Wang said casually, "It means they make you a test cultivator, trying out the latest cultivation methods developed by those big companies. During your training, they record what side effects you get, what injuries you sustain, what part of you becomes disabled, and finally how you die..."

Zhang Yu swallowed his saliva. Suddenly his gaze shifted as he looked at another temporary job and asked, "And what about this entry-level cultivation test? Ten thousand yuan a pop? Why are they only recruiting senior high first-year students?"

Old Wang thought for a moment, then said, "Oh, that one. It seems the Xianyun Group developed a technique. They've already done cultivation tests on it—no major side effects, and it won't kill you from practicing."

"But the entry process is too difficult. If you can't master it, you're prone to internal injuries, so they've been looking for people to keep testing it."

"Since it's intended to be sold to beginners in the immortal path, they specifically recruit senior high first-year students to test it..."

Speaking up to here, he looked at Zhang Yu, who was listening intently, and frowned. "You're not thinking of doing this, are you? Last time a student went, his mana went out of control from practicing, he suffered internal injuries, and after taking two weeks off from school, he still hasn't recovered."

"That ten thousand yuan isn't easy to get."

Zhang Yu shrugged helplessly. "No choice. I'm in urgent need of money, so I'll have to give it a try."