Did the number 103 nail clipper break?

Descending from the cliff, Chen Jue picked up the rock cabbage he had dropped in the grass. Seeing it was undamaged, he wrapped it in a plastic bag and tucked it into his backpack. Checking the time on his phone, he saw it was nearly 2:00 PM. He returned to the small stream he had visited earlier, sat on a large rock to eat his compressed biscuits, and finished his last bottle of energy drink.

While scaling the cliff earlier, he had exerted too much hidden internal energy, and having coincidentally brought one of his finger techniques to perfection, the digestion of food in his stomach had accelerated, causing his physical energy to deplete rapidly. After twenty minutes of rest and replenishment, he felt his strength recover significantly and set off on his return journey. Although he hadn't found the ideal high-grade medicinal herb he was hoping for today, he had at least made some progress by practicing his finger technique and movement skills.

By the time he made it back to Wazhai following his original path, the sky was gradually darkening. He entered the house, peeled off his tattered camouflage uniform—now covered in scratches and holes—and set aside his nearly deformed mountaineering boots. After a round trip of nearly one hundred kilometers through mountains and dense forests, the new camouflage set had been rendered useless by the branches and thorns along the way. As for the boots, despite their decent quality, they hadn't withstood his grueling pace. During the cliff climb, the excessive force exerted by his feet had crushed and warped the boots, making his return journey slightly awkward. Since Chen Jue had been traveling through places rarely frequented by humans, forging his own path through the wilderness, such wear and tear was to be expected. His backpack also bore several shallow scratches, though fortunately, the outer fabric remained intact.

After a hot shower and changing into casual clothes, Chen Jue slipped out of Wazhai before the sky turned completely dark. He went to a local home-style restaurant in town and ordered a large spread: lacquer-oil chicken, stone-pot pancakes, Laowo ham, steamed eggs in bamboo tubes, and hand-grabbed rice. Having burned through so much energy throughout the day, he ate with gusto.

After finishing his meal, he bought a new set of higher-quality outdoor gear: a shell jacket, tactical pants, and more professional mountaineering boots. They looked like the gear worn by foreign special forces in movies; the shopkeeper claimed they were outdoor combat boots, superior to standard hiking footwear. Chen Jue tested the fabric, the toughness of the leather, and the waterproof breathability. They were indeed far better than his previous outfit, and he paid the 3,000-plus yuan with satisfaction. Quality outdoor equipment is expensive, much like skiing or golf—hobbies originally reserved for the wealthy that have only become popular as the economy improved.

Because of its proximity to the Gongshan tourist attractions, the town was bustling with business, with tour buses frequently stopping for lodging or meals. Chen Jue, an outsider wandering through, saw a constant stream of tourists moving in and out of the local guesthouses and restaurants, so he didn't feel at all out of place.

As he walked slowly back to Wazhai carrying his two large bags, a "ding" sounded in his ears. His "Vaulting and Wall-Scaling Skill" had leveled up! After taking nearly two hundred thousand steps throughout the day, this Taoist movement technique, which he had only started learning yesterday, had been maxed out in a single day of grinding.

[Vaulting and Wall-Scaling Skill (Perfected)]!

A warm current surged through his legs. Chen Jue felt the soreness in his muscles dissipate as his legs became more supple and agile, and an indescribable sense of lightness washed over his entire body. He looked at the description of the perfected skill, and the words "Light as a Swallow" caught his eye.

[Light as a Swallow]: Vault over walls and roofs with the lightness of a swallow, skimming through the air!
Bonus Effect: This state significantly increases the user's agility and provides a massive boost to physical actions such as climbing, jumping, and leaping.

With another skill perfected, Chen Jue felt elated. However, reading the description, he couldn't help but think of the famous "Flea on a Drum" Shi Qian from *Water Margin*. That hero also possessed a light-body skill for vaulting over walls, though his conduct was less than honorable, using his talents only for thievery. He wondered how his own skills compared.

"Perfected, just in time! I'll learn a new movement technique next; the more, the better," Chen Jue thought as he returned to Wang Biao’s old house.

He felt that despite not finding any rare wild medicinal herbs, the day’s journey through the mountains had been incredibly rewarding. The rapid perfection of his movement and finger techniques was just as efficient as his training by the sea. Looking at the time, it was past 9:00 PM. He noticed his biological clock was about an hour behind the time in Wenzhou—the sun set later and dinner was later here—but his body felt perfectly adjusted.

Since he had expended a great deal of energy and focus during the day, he didn't continue his training that night. Instead, he boiled some water to soak his feet and trimmed his fingernails. He discovered that after his cultivation, his nails had become tough and thick. With the [Golden Needle Iron Fingers] buff, his fingernails were as hard as iron, and he accidentally chipped the cheap nail clippers he was using.

"Damn it!"

"I'll have to go back to town tomorrow and buy some better quality ones," Chen Jue lamented.

After soaking his feet, he lay comfortably in bed, scrolling through the martial arts manuals and Taoist scriptures he had downloaded until he fell asleep shortly after 11:00 PM.

The next day, he woke up after 6:00 AM, washed up, and looked up the Taoist movement technique he had chosen the night before. This technique, called the "Flower-Dodging and Butterfly-Chasing Skill," was another secret Wudang art that benefited from the [Lu Zu's Enlightenment] buff. Unlike the vaulting skill that focused on the legs, this technique emphasized reactions, focusing on moving forward and backward, dodging left and right—a skill centered on full-body coordination.

After practicing for a few minutes around the laundry poles in the yard, the panel displayed: [Flower-Dodging and Butterfly-Chasing Skill Lv0 (1/100)].

He went down to the town for breakfast. Since it was still early, some shops were closed, and he couldn't find any nail clippers. Returning to the house, he repacked his bag with twice as many compressed biscuits and energy drinks as the day before, and even added a box of Panax Notoginseng oral liquid just in case.

Yesterday’s 100-kilometer round trip was just a minor test to see if he could adapt to the life of cultivation in the primitive forests of the Gongshan Nature Reserve. He found that, aside from the lack of people and paths, it wasn't particularly difficult. Today, he intended to get serious and planned to spend the night in the mountains.

He shouldered his bag and stepped out, locking the door. Looking at the key in his hand, he felt it was a burden; he was afraid of losing it in the forest, especially since his camouflage uniform had been torn to shreds by branches and thorns the day before.

So, finding himself unobserved, Chen Jue employed his vaulting technique. With a leap, he soared over the five-meter-high mud wall and placed the key on the roof, where it would be out of reach for anyone else. While normal people might hide their keys under a doormat or in a corner of the hallway, Chen Jue was likely the only eccentric person on earth to think of hiding his key on the roof.