Chapter 24: Body Strengthening
The next morning, the outer disciples heard about the death of May Stafford and Colton Grey at the hands of Claude Rayforth.
However, they only shook their heads and sighed silently, as they continued on with their daily lives.
"They shouldn't have messed with Claude! Now look what happened."
"Who knew that Claude Rayforth would win the Inner Disciple Exams? No one could've predicted that outcome!"
"Yeah, that was really unexpected! May Stafford and Colton Grey were just unlucky to have messed with the wrong person!"
As they thought about May and Colton, they couldn't help but feel pity for them. The biggest mistake an outer disciple can make was to offend an inner disciple.
The difference of status between an inner disciple and an outer disciple were like Heaven and Earth! The inner disciples weren't someone an outer disciple could afford to offend!
To them, the inner disciples were the sort of people that they could only look up to. Even a hundred of their lives weren't worth the life of a single inner disciple. They were the future of the Academy, and as a result, no one would even raise a finger if an inner disciple killed an outer disciple. This was why Claude had restrained himself from killing Colton during the inner disciple exams. He was still an outer disciple at that time, and he didn't want to bring unnecessary trouble to his side, especially when he had a better method in mind.
This was how the martial world was like. It was a world where the strong ruled, and only with strength could one obtain the respect of others.
Inside the Inner Hall Division, Claude was in the middle of cultivating the new martial arts techniques that the second elder had given him.
He flipped through the pages of the 'Pure Iron Technique', which was the name of the body strengthening cultivation method.
Body strengthening techniques usually needed a long time to train and couldn't be easily learned within a short period of time. It was the type of skill that relied on hard work more than talent.
Claude's forte was his sword skills, experience and speed. This would work well against students, but as the opponents get more powerful, the advantages he previously had will soon begin to decrease. Which is why it's better to have as many advantages as possible. It was an investment for the future!
With these thoughts in his mind, Claude started to cultivate the 'Pure Iron Technique'. This martial arts technique was extremely tough to cultivate, and the duration of this entire process was extremely slow, as he condensed and refined the spiritual energy to match the technique.
As time passed, Claude slowly began to understand the essence of the Pure Iron Technique, and his strength increased. Sometimes, he would even enter a subconscious state of complete concentration for hours as he cultivated. Soon, every breath he took seemed to contain surging levels of energy, spirit, and qi.
"Right, I need to purchase some medicine in order to help me with my training," said Claude after he thought about it for a bit.
Last time, he had used the money he had 'borrowed' from Aldrich's house to buy a bottle of Cultivation Booster Powder. It had helped him get to the six rank of the Earth Realm, but he could only afford one bottle at that time.
But now that he was an inner disciple of the academy, money wasn't an issue anymore. Monthly payments were issued to inner disciples to spend on cultivation training.
And now, there were personal servants that could help him with this. Claude felt that even though his understanding and analysing speed exceeded that of normal people, it was still insufficient.
This was a problem. The only solution to this was to boost up his cultivation using cultivation medicines. That way, he would be able to store up more spiritual energy in his body, which in turn will help him in mastering the body strengthening method.
When increasing one's cultivation speed, aside from hard work, medicinal pills were a necessity as well.
Claude took out a piece of paper and after he finished writing, he gave it to Randall, who was standing outside his courtyard. "Just follow the list on the paper to purchase the medicines. They should be easily found in medicine shops in Dawsbury City."
Randall nodded his head joyfully, "I'll go do it now. Young Master, rest assured. I will accomplish this task beautifully." He said, and disappeared in an instant, as Claude laughed in satisfaction.
It was not bad having personal servants. He did not have to bother with things like running errands.