As his voice fell, the mine shaft returned to dead silence.

  Mo Fan didn't rush to leave this gloomy abandoned mine. Instead, he sat cross-legged back on that flat boulder. He weighed the thick giant bear leg bone in his hand, a glint of fanaticism flashing in his eyes.

  "Sharpening the axe doesn't delay chopping the wood. Going out holding an unprocessed bone club, no matter how powerful it is, will just make me look like an unevolved savage."

  Mo Fan turned and retreated deeper into the cave. With a wave of his hand, he ordered Units 001, 003, and 004 to spread out in a triangular formation, guarding the entrance and blind spots of the mine.

  Then, sitting cross-legged on the flat rock, he officially began his exclusive weapon's "orthopedic artifact refining."

  He placed the heavy, rough [ LV. 8 Earth-Rending Giant Bear Thigh Bone ] across his knees. From his storage bag, he pulled out a few extremely sharp [ Wind Falcon Ribs ] and a bundle of incredibly tough large tendons extracted from high-tier Spirit Beasts.

  "Let's begin."

  Mo Fan's eyes focused. The necromantic Mana in his body surged wildly, pouring unreservedly into his arms.

  [ Skill: Skeletal Armament ] pushed to the maximum!

  Ice-blue death magic lit up in the gloomy mine. This time, it wasn't a simple wrapping. Instead, it acted like a high-temperature blowtorch of several thousand degrees, precisely acting on the bone materials.

  Accompanied by a tooth-aching sound of bone friction and the sizzle of melting, a highly visually impactful morphological metamorphosis began.

  The originally rugged, uneven giant bear leg bone began to soften and stretch under the burning of Mana, becoming well-proportioned and slender. Those Wind Falcon ribs seemed to gain a life of their own, winding and twisting around the top of the bear bone, growing in reverse. Finally, they clasped tightly together, forming a staff head that looked like a blooming lotus—or more accurately, like a pale bone claw tightly gripping the void.

  Finally, that bundle of tough beast tendons was forcibly carbonized by death energy, turning into dense, wild black anti-slip patterns, deeply branded onto the shaft of the scepter.

  "Good heavens..."

  Gripping the gradually forming weapon, Mo Fan couldn't help but comment, "This tactile feel, this transformation of form... How is this any less absurd than a Kamen Rider touching a telephone pole and turning it into a spear?"

  "However, this eerie yet fluid aesthetic of violence is indeed much more pleasing to the eye than that barbaric bone club from just now."

  When the blue light completely faded.

  A heavy scepter, about four feet long, presenting a dull bone-jade luster all over, with a top like a gripping white bone claw, rested steadily in Mo Fan's hand.

  The moment the scepter took shape, a long-absent System prompt box popped up on his retina:

  [ Forging Successful! ]

  [ Basic Weapon: Pale Bone Scepter ]

  [ Quality: Common ]

  [ Skills not loaded... ]

  [ Attributes unactivated... ]

  [ Unactivated █████ (Data Corrupted / Insufficient Authority) ]

  Looking at the string of garbled text and blurred characters at the end of the prompt box, which looked like it had caught a virus, the corners of Mo Fan's mouth—originally raised from obtaining a new weapon—slowly froze. His pupils constricted slightly. Leaning on this heavy Pale Bone Scepter, he fell into deep thought.

  From his transmigration until now, aside from the most basic "killing monsters gives XP" and "leveling up gives stats," this System was practically a mute.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  There was no thoughtful beginner tutorial, no step-by-step quest guidance, not even a smart voice assistant. All the skill synergies—like using [ Skeletal Armament ] as a welding torch for assembly, or using [ Touch of Grave Chill ] for crowd control—were all figured out by him bit by bit with his own life on the line.

  "Unactivated garbled text..."

  Mo Fan stared at that row of black blocks, his eyes profound.

  "What exactly is this System hiding from me? Or rather... with my current Soul Tier being merely Tier 1 (LV. 7), am I completely unworthy of seeing its full picture and underlying logic?"

  His intuition from his past life as an academic researcher told him that the more fragmented the information, the more astonishing the truth hidden behind it.

  But confusion was just confusion. Mo Fan didn't get stuck in a dead end on this issue. He shook his head, burying this doubt deep in his heart.

  If the System didn't speak, he had no way to ask. In this world where the strong ate the weak, only by constantly becoming stronger could he, one day in the future, personally tear apart this layer of mist obscuring his eyes.

  "Store."

  Mo Fan stowed the Pale Bone Scepter into his storage bag and subsequently packed up all three skeletons. He took off the wild Shadow Leopard Cloak and changed into clean cyan clothes, ending this half-month of "savage" living, and strode out of the mine.

  Evening in the servant district. Cooking smoke curled upward.

  Carrying two pots of excellent burning wine and two greasy roast chickens he had casually bought in the market, Mo Fan knocked on Old Lü's door.

  "Who is it... Xiaoqi?!"

  Old Lü opened the door. Seeing Mo Fan standing outside, he was so shocked he almost dropped his tobacco pipe.

  At this moment, although Mo Fan was still dressed plainly, that mental fortitude tempered in life-and-death struggles, and the imposing aura of "standing deep as an abyss and towering like a mountain" faintly seeping out from his abundant Qi and blood, made him look nothing like a bottom-tier servant waiting to die.

  "Uncle Lü, what? Haven't seen me in half a month and don't recognize me?" Mo Fan smiled and waved the roast chickens in his hand.

  "You kid! Come in quickly, come in!"

  Under the dim oil lamp, the two drank wine with the roast chicken.

  After a few rounds of drinks, Mo Fan casually asked about the recent situation in the servant district. He learned that Steward Wang was currently busy accommodating various errands from the inner sect and had no time to manage this place; everything was calm and peaceful.

  Before leaving, Mo Fan conveniently stuffed a dozen low-grade Spirit Stone fragments into Old Lü's hand.

  "Uncle Lü, take this. This is the 'grease' I skimmed off the top from being the 'proxy steward' this half-month. It'd be a waste not to take it."

  He didn't dare give too much; giving too much would arouse suspicion. A dozen shards perfectly fit the reasonable embezzlement scope of a bottom-tier minor steward.

  Unable to decline, Old Lü could only accept it.

  "By the way, Uncle Lü, has A-Song sent any letters back recently?" Mo Fan asked seemingly casually.

  He had thought A-Song, after settling in, would write a letter to boast about the luxurious life in the inner sect's Dao Asking Palace.

  But Old Lü shook his head and sighed. "No. Half a month, not a single word. Who knows if that child is getting enough to eat over there, or if he's being bullied."

  Mo Fan understood in his heart.

  "It seems the competition and rules in the inner sect are far more brutal than I imagined. 'Sect Master's Personal Disciple'—these four words are a mountain of gold, but also a heavy burden that can crush a person to death. A-Song... is also trying his absolute best over there."

  Since everyone was moving forward, he, Mo Fan, naturally couldn't fall behind.

  After saying goodbye to Old Lü, the night had thoroughly enveloped the mountains.

  Mo Fan didn't return to his own hut. Instead, carrying bags large and small of body cultivation materials, he plunged headfirst into the back mountain.

  This time, he didn't go to the danger-filled Buffer Zone. Rather, he familiarly arrived at the logging waste area he had cleared out last time.

  Although this place was filled with the smell of rotting wood, its advantage was that it was virtually devoid of human tracks—a perfect, long-forgotten place for secluded training.

  "Two months until the outer court Grand Tournament."

  Mo Fan walked to the center of the clearing and opened his bundles.

  He took out the heavily invested props—the [ Gravity Sandbags ]—and strapped them to his four limbs one by one.

  Hum!

  The moment they were secured, the miniature gravity arrays on the sandbags activated. Mo Fan felt as if a small mountain had suddenly been pressed onto his body. It was so heavy that even breathing became difficult. With every step, he left a deep footprint in the hard dirt.

  Next, he dragged out a large wooden barrel and poured the bone-chillingly cold basin of [ Frost Sand ] into it.

  He took off his shirt, revealing his lean, solid, bronze muscles.

  Without a shred of hesitation, Mo Fan plunged his hands deeply into the basin of Frost Sand that felt like it could freeze even the soul.

  Extreme, piercing cold instantly spread from his fingertips through his entire body. It was a torture far more prolonged and bone-deep than the bites of the Rotting Bone Ants.

  The prelude to the second layer of the Body Forging Record—[ The Iron Bones Stage ]—officially opened.

  This orthodox method was no longer blind self-mutilation like the incomplete manual. Instead, it emphasized using the stimulation of extreme gravity and extreme cold to gradually force Qi and blood into the marrow, completing a metamorphosis from the inside out.

  Amidst the biting cold wind and severe pain, Mo Fan's muscles trembled crazily.

  But he raised his head, facing the cold moon, and revealed a brilliant yet savage smile showing his white teeth.

  "Body Cultivator Lu Xiaoqi, officially online."