Grade-A After A Year

After the scar-faced man left, the prison gradually returned to normal.

New prisoners came, and old prisoners left.

There was both joy and sorrow.

The prison was a place where people could be reborn, but it was a place where people could fall into the abyss.

Over the next few months, Yuchi kept fishing at the shore. He basically stayed at the beach every day. The intensity of all his different types of training was increased to the maximum.

In the blink of an eye, one year of his sentence had passed.

"I haven't discovered any good skills recently."

"Although I've encountered a few slightly stronger ancient monsters, their strength wasn't really anything to shout about."

"I didn't meet the Three-headed Naga Siren again either."

[Name: Yuchi]

[Constitution: 5028]

[Strength: 5028]

[Speed: 5028]

[Skill 1: Devour. A Faceless Anaconda can devour its prey and gradually evolve itself, resulting in a permanent increase in strength.]

[Skill 2: Gluttonous Mouth. Use the Nightmare's mouth to bite others, causing great pain while restraining the enemy.]

[Skill 3: Hellfire. Hurl clusters of blinding hellfire to burn your enemies like maggots!]

[Skill 4: Parasitism. Create a parasite that can burrow itself into the enemy's body to suck away their vitality!]

His skills were the same as the ones from a few months ago. Although there were more than 60 skills in the skill pool, only these four skills were worth using.

The other skills were more or less useless.

For example, one of the skills was actually to sacrifice one's own vitality to heal the wounds of others.

What was wrong with that, you ask?

When fighting with the enemy, would you be so kind as to strengthen the enemy by healing them?

Another skill was really powerful, but required him to sacrifice his life to blow himself up.

When Yuchi fought this ancient monster, he had experienced the power of this skill for himself, and had almost been blown to pieces.

However, it was not very practical for him to use this skill to perish together with the other party.

Still, in the end, the increase in his three attributes was still quite good. From the previous 1812 points to the current 5028 points, this kind of increase in strength could be said to be monumental.

As he was fishing, Yuchi frowned and pondered a problem that he was now facing.

"I've caught quite a few triangular cone nightmares recently."

"Originally, each triangular cone nightmare would give me a 1-point increase in all my attributes, but I haven't been getting any attribute boosts from fishing up these triangular cone nightmares lately."

"It seems that my body has also reached its limit."

"The limit should be around 5000 points."

Yuchi himself did not know much about cultivation. He was only very good at fighting. Given those circumstances, he was a bit hesitant.

Now, the increase in all his attributes could be said to be rather slow.

Some of the Ancient Ones were quite powerful.

If he had not reached the 5000-point threshold, he would have felt that his body was full of power.

However, it was different now. Many ancient monsters had no way to increase all their attributes by a large margin, so they could only struggle to advance forward haphazardly.

"Perhaps my physical fitness has reached a certain limit?"

"Mm..."

"I need to find some books on martial arts warriors to read. At the very least, I need to identify what kind of situation I'm facing and what I should do next."

At this moment, the fishing rod in Yuchi's hand moved. He then glanced at the notification in his mind.

[Fishing difficulty: A]

He did not say anything after seeing the notification.

He dived down into the Netherworld Sea and arrived at a dreamlike world. He then saw an ugly ancient monster in front of him.

His body flickered rapidly like an afterimage!

It was like a dream!

There was a burst of explosions!

Yuchi instantly appeared in front of the ancient monster and punched its head.

The ancient monster's head caved in.

Then...

It died.

Jumping out of the Netherworld Sea, Yuchi examined his body's increased attributes.

Logically speaking, the A-grade capture difficulty monster that he had encountered should be very powerful, and should also increase his attributes by a lot. However, this time, his attributes had only increased by a mere 10 points.

It seemed that he had really reached a bottleneck.

There was no way he could continue to improve his physical strength rapidly. His entire body had been tempered to the point where there was no flaw or weakness.

However, even if all his attributes did not increase, he could feel that his body was constantly accumulating power, as if it was charging up for something.

This was a key point in the transformation from a quantitative change into a qualitative change, so he could not afford to slack off when it came to fishing.

He could especially feel a burning stream of heat surging around the position of his heart.

It was as if a flame had bloomed in his heart and, as he absorbed more and more energy, this flame seemed to be nurturing something.

…

"There are three major realms for martial artists!"

"Body refinement!"

"Qi refinement!"

"Soul refinement!"

Yuchi was reading a book.

According to the book's contents, he was probably at the bottleneck of the body refinement realm.

If this had been in the past, when martial arts was at its peak, his current cultivation level could be considered equivalent to a regional hero!

However, the book's description of the body refinement level was not exactly the same as his current cultivation level.

According to the description, a peak body refinement realm martial arts warrior, when martial arts was at its peak, was roughly equivalent as strong as Yuchi when he had 1000 points in all of his attributes.

The reason for this was simple.

As Yuchi had fought with these ancient monsters too many times, the meridians in his body were already completely opened.

If he had just been fishing without fighting, he would never have been able to reach the 5000-point limit of the body refinement realm.

Just like tonics, it was indeed useful to take tonics, but only with strict training could the full effect of the tonics be displayed.

"That should be the reason why things are like this."

"If I had just been fishing up ancient monsters out of the water, it wouldn't have gotten this far. But since I was fighting them head on, my body has been in a constant state of activity, which allowed it to absorb more energy. So, my love for fighting has come in handy this time."

Yuchi was sitting by the sea while reading the book in his hand. He had thought that this kind of book would be very difficult to find but, in the end, he discovered that these kinds of generic martial arts books were everywhere.

However, martial arts had been defeated, and many books related to martial arts techniques were lost. 

It was the era of beast tamers now, while martial artists were degraded as worthless.

However, Yuchi was not afraid at all. He could fight against the ancient monsters and obtain many battle techniques from them. Not to mention that, after he emerged victorious, the ancient monsters would "willingly" help him temper his body. Given those circumstances, his talent could be said to far exceed any other ancient martial art practitioners!

Through this book, Yuchi gained a rough idea of his strength among the beast tamers.

"A-grade!"

Yes!

He was as strong as a terrifying A-grade beast tamer!

The strength of a traditional martial arts warrior who had reached the peak of the body refinement realm was basically equivalent to that of a B+ grade beast tamer.

Yuchi's current attributes were more than 5000 points!

It was not an exaggeration to say that he was an A-grade combatant!

Based on his combat experience and overall fighting style, he did not even need to fear an A+ grade beast tamer.

This was the result of his 200 or so battles in the past year. Although they had almost died in some battles, while others left him in extreme pain, the results were quite satisfactory.

"I just need to stabilize my mind and continue to temper my body!"

"When my body reaches its limit, it will be able to produce vigorous true qi!"

"When my true qi blooms, my strength will instantly increase by a large margin."

"As for how much my strength will increase, that depends on how much I accumulate during this bottleneck period."

"My previous judgment was not wrong!"

"I don't need to panic now. My body is fine."

"I just have to stabilize it!"

Yuchi looked at the Netherworld Sea and smiled. Who knew how many more ancient monsters were going to suffer at his hands.