033 Shaolin Inner Strength Youth Technique

“These experts on the forum really love to joke around! Truly, everyone in there is a genius! They speak so well, I just love spending time there…” In his mind, Chen Jue pictured a man who looked uncannily like Che Guevara, someone named Zhou, and couldn’t help but chuckle as he read a few more reasonable suggestions in the comments.

“But what on earth is this Shaolin Boy’s Skill?”
“Is it really possible to master it quickly?”

Having already learned two Shaolin techniques, Chen Jue now had an inexplicable confidence in anything bearing the name Shaolin. It was as if some kind of authoritative standard had taken root in his mind.

He closed the forum and searched online, discovering that such a martial art truly existed. However, it seemed Shaolin Boy’s Skill was meant to be practiced from childhood, with remarkable effects on strengthening the body, building stamina, and improving constitution. Now, at the age of twenty-seven, was he still able to start learning it?

As for the “boy’s body” requirement, Chen Jue still qualified. After all, he had remained single for twenty-seven years… ahem, single for twenty-seven years, a confirmed bachelor! His family had fallen on hard times when he was young, forcing him to mature faster than his peers. Yet when it came to matters between men and women, he was extremely conservative, even a little insecure, always feeling his family’s situation would burden anyone close to him. So at his age, he was still single. He had dated in college, but the most intimate he’d ever gotten was holding hands or a chaste kiss—pure as could be!

“Maybe I should give it a try?”
“There’s still a week left. It can’t hurt to experiment.”

Chen Jue began browsing the detailed training methods for Shaolin Boy’s Skill. Also known as Internal Fortification Boy’s Skill, this technique was divided into three parts: external, internal, and flexibility training. It belonged to the same group of seventy-two Shaolin supreme skills as the Iron Body Technique he had just learned.

Since it was designed for children to practice, the movements weren’t particularly difficult, and thanks to his mastery of the Twelve Forms of Muscle-Tendon Changing, he found the stretching and flexibility exercises especially intuitive.

After barely ten minutes, Shaolin Boy’s Skill appeared in his skills list: [Shaolin Boy’s Skill Lv0 (1/100)].

“I actually learned it!”

Chen Jue’s interest was piqued. The more he practiced, the more comfortable he felt, and the skill proficiency increased at a startling rate. Perhaps because the technique was created for children, it was extremely simple to pick up and easy to practice.

In less than an hour, his proficiency had climbed by over thirty points. It seemed that if Chen Jue devoted a whole afternoon to it, he could reach level one without even having to allocate extra points!

“I didn’t expect it to be such a rapid-mastery technique!”

“This proficiency rises several times faster than Boat Fist or Eight Immortals Stance,” Chen Jue muttered.

He hurried into the kitchen and started brewing the tonic soup he’d bought earlier, then, striking while the iron was hot, returned to increasing his proficiency in Boy’s Skill.

By the time it was past four in the afternoon, Chen Jue, sweating lightly from his training, saw the Shaolin Boy’s Skill leap up to Lv1. He felt a warm current gathering in his lower abdomen, and his constitution attribute increased by 0.01.

He went to the kitchen, drank a large bowl of the tonic soup, and pressed on with his training. When his constitution rose another 0.02, the physical transformation from the skill’s level up finally subsided.

“My constitution is at 1.66 now!”
“If it works, I’ll keep practicing!”
“I love techniques you can master quickly!”

Chen Jue felt as if he were playing a game with cheat codes, savoring the joy of taking shortcuts. The more he practiced, the more enthusiastic he became.

At dinner, after drinking plenty of bone broth, gnawing on meaty bones, and finishing three bowls of rice, he rested for only half an hour before continuing to practice until nine in the evening. In one continuous effort, he pushed Shaolin Boy’s Skill up to Lv2!

Taking advantage of his breakthrough, Chen Jue finished off the remaining tonic soup, watching as his constitution attribute jumped another three small increments.

He glanced at his attribute panel:

Player: Chen Jue
Age: 27
Health Index: 95%
Strength: 1.06
Agility: 1.05
Intelligence: 1.23
Constitution: 1.69
Skills: [Boat Fist Lv2 (12/500)] [Twelve Forms of Muscle-Tendon Changing Lv1 (10/200)] [Eight Immortals Stance Lv2 (9/500)] [Shaolin Iron Body Technique Lv0 (2/100)] [Shaolin Boy’s Skill Lv2 (22/500)]
Assignable Free Attribute Points: 0.28

Because Shaolin Boy’s Skill combined movement and stillness, it not only improved constitution like the Muscle-Tendon Changing technique, but also helped accumulate additional free attribute points. After an afternoon and evening of practice, he’d gained 0.06 extra points. Though this was less efficient than Eight Immortals Stance, for a rapid-mastery technique, earning this much was quite impressive.

The more he practiced, the more invigorated Chen Jue felt, his energy overflowing.

After a hot shower, he lay on his bed, practiced the Muscle-Tendon Changing technique to calm his blood and soothe his sore muscles, and resolved to dedicate another day to grinding proficiency in this rapid-mastery Boy’s Skill.

...

The next morning, Chen Jue rose early and immediately noticed changes in his body.

“Damn!”
“It really lives up to its name! I feel so full of energy and vitality after mastering it!”

After his morning routine and changing into exercise clothes, he started brewing a new pot of tonic soup. From yesterday’s experience, he realized that combining the medicinal tonic with training the Boy’s Skill significantly accelerated proficiency gains.

Determined, Chen Jue resolved to push the skill to Lv3 today!

No hesitation—he got to work.

Two hours of morning exercise left him refreshed and spirited. He jogged to Linjia Village for breakfast, bought two racks of pork ribs, and returned. Yesterday’s bone broth and marrow had worked wonders for the fracture in his right hand. This morning, he no longer felt any sharp pain, thanks largely to the increase in his constitution attribute, which had boosted his body’s recovery.

When he checked his health index that morning, it was already back up to 96%. In less than two days, he’d likely be fully recovered, perhaps even stronger than before his injury!

After grocery shopping, he returned home to find the tonic soup ready. He drank a bowl and resumed training.

With the medicinal buff, his hourly proficiency gain shot from +30 to over +50! By noon, his Boy’s Skill proficiency had climbed to (273/500).

After lunch and a ninety-minute nap, he was back at it by two-thirty. As the pot of tonic soup dwindled to its last third, by six in the evening, Chen Jue finally maxed out Shaolin Boy’s Skill at 500 proficiency!