“Even with the AC on, my feet still sweat. They’re sweating so much the stockings on top are all sticky. I’ll have to get out of bed to wash them again. So troublesome.”

After massaging Lin Zichen with her feet for more than ten minutes in a row, Shen Qinghan discovered that her stockings were soaked through and sticky, which distressed her.

Although the stickiness didn’t feel that uncomfortable—in fact, because of her special constitution it even felt pretty nice—the problem was that once the stockings got wet and dirty she had to wash them clean and that was annoying.

After a few words of complaint, Shen Qinghan took off the dirty stockings and tossed them to Lin Zichen.

“These got dirty from massaging you. You’re responsible for washing them clean.”

Lin Zichen took the stockings and ribbed her.

“So you said all that just to set me up to wash your stockings, huh?”

“Isn’t that how it should be?”

Shen Qinghan pouted slightly.

“I dirtied them for you. Hurry and wash them or I won’t wear stockings to massage you anymore.”

“I never said I wouldn’t wash them.”

Smiling, Lin Zichen poked her cheek, then got out of bed with the dirty stockings and went to the bathroom to wash them.

It didn’t take long—less than five minutes and they were clean.

After hanging the stockings to dry on the balcony, he washed his hands and quickly returned to the room.

As soon as he walked in, he saw Shen Qinghan sitting on the bed with her head down, examining the soles of her feet, rubbing them repeatedly—acting very strangely.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve been using my feet to massage you a lot lately. I feel like I’m getting calluses on my soles.”

Her face was full of worry.

Lin Zichen laughed.

“Don’t invent problems for yourself. It’s not that easy to get calluses. I think it’s mostly in your head.”

She disagreed, her fine willowy brows tightening.

“No way it’s just in my head. Using my feet to massage you all the time, all that friction will really make calluses.”

Saying that, she extended her tender little foot to him as proof.

“Take a closer look at my soles—pink and delicate, very fragile. You can tell at a glance they’ll get calluses easily. If you don’t believe it, feel for yourself and see if there’s any change. I’m sure it isn’t as smooth as before.”

“I’ll feel.”

Lin Zichen sat down on the bedside and carefully ran his fingers over her sole.

After a while, he felt no change—it was as smooth and tender as before, great to the touch.

“Forget it, that tickles. No more touching.”

Unable to stand it, she yanked her foot back, then asked nervously, “Well? Could you tell? Is it less smooth than before?”

“Just as smooth as ever. I told you it’s in your head and you still don’t believe me.”

“Really?”

“Really, cross my heart.”

“Good.”

She sighed in relief. She was afraid her soles would grow rough calluses. Apart from kissing her cherry lips, what Lin Zichen liked most was touching her feet. If they got rough, he might not like touching them anymore.

“It’s almost two. Get up and get ready for class or you’ll be late.”

Lin Zichen patted her now-rounder, perkier butt and urged her.

She didn’t dawdle. Quick as a flash she got out of bed, put on her shoes and headed for the bathroom—planning to use the toilet, wash her face and go to class.

Soon after, Shen Qinghan left for class.

Lin Zichen stayed, planning to temper his body in the dorm through the afternoon and skip the institute.

Going to the institute wasn’t like a class with fixed times. You went when you felt like it. Freedom was the point.

He casually chose a spot in the living room and sat down.

With a thought, Lin Zichen opened his character panel to check his stats.

[Name: Lin Zichen]

[Age: 18]

[Biological Level: Ordinary (Tier 9)]

[Biological Attributes: Use It or Lose It, Heaven‑Human Insight, Survival of the Fittest, Blessing of Water Fusion, Natural Selection, Eye of the Sky, Social Animal, Natural Camouflage, Danger Perception, Rapid Self‑Healing]

[Tempering: Skin (×1), Flesh (×1), Bone (×1)]

Ordinary Tier 9, ten biological attributes and one full round of tempering.

Without even thinking about it—he had to be invincible among peers.

But that still wasn’t enough. He had to get stronger…

Thinking that, Lin Zichen took out his phone, opened the Credit Mall and started browsing for items that could quickly restore vitality.

Ever since beginning the second round of tempering, he’d noticed he was running short on vitality.

During tempering, because the progress was so fast, the consumption of vitality was also fast and his recovery couldn’t keep up—seriously lowering efficiency.

For that, he’d need external aids to speed up vitality recovery.

With that in mind, he browsed the Mall for more than ten minutes.

In the end, one product caught his eye: “Reblood Pill.”

As the name implied, it was a pill for restoring vitality.

The description said it was made from all kinds of pricey centennial herbs and even included spirit plants—extremely costly.

Further down, the effects of taking one Reblood Pill were listed for each biological level.

For someone at Ordinary Tier 9, one pill would fully restore vitality within thirty seconds.

For someone at Advanced Tier 1, it would take half an hour.

Above that, Advanced Tier 2 would need more than three hours.

Lin Zichen estimated that the strength of his vitality definitely exceeded Ordinary Tier 9—probably comparable to Advanced Tier 1.

Which meant one pill would take half an hour to restore him.

That was quite good.

Decision made—buy Reblood Pills.

He glanced at the price: one pill cost one credit. With campus pricing discounts, outside it would be at least 12,000 per pill.

Reblood Pills were generally for emergencies or critical situations—dueling, hunting Aberrant Beasts, special missions.

Using them to recover vitality during tempering was, frankly, extravagant.

But he felt spending credits to speed up growth was worth it.

The faster he grew, the sooner he could take missions with bigger credit rewards.

It was like business in his previous life—you used profits to scale up, leveraged that scale to borrow more, used that to scale further and formed a virtuous cycle.

Business leverage could blow up when the industry turned down and you went bust.

But leveling up never blew up.

Strength never depreciated; it only became more valuable—a virtuous circle without end.

Assuming you could keep growing.

Often, talent capped you at a threshold.

But that wasn’t his problem.

His talent was sky‑high—and he had a cheat. He could keep growing.

So… Reblood Pills it was. No need to overthink.

He bought a hundred at once.

A wave of the hand—one hundred credits gone. Money felt like water at that moment.

After buying Reblood Pills, he checked Aberrant Beast meat.

He had already unlocked the Living Dead Slug Compendium; time to unlock the next one.

He browsed around and soon fixed on meat from an Aberrant Beast called the “Ten‑Thousand‑Poison Mongoose.”

Despite the name, it wasn’t poisonous.

It was so named for its extreme resistance to toxins and its diet of all kinds of venomous creatures.

Based on that, opening the mongoose’s compendium would likely grant an anti‑poison attribute.

He felt he needed that. It would greatly bolster self‑preservation and make sudden death less likely.

Decision made—buy mongoose meat.

The price was steep: twenty credits per jin.

He checked his student account—fewer than two hundred credits left, not enough to buy ten jin.

He could only order one jin to start its compendium progress bar.

With that thought, he placed an order for one jin of Ten‑Thousand‑Poison Mongoose meat.

Done, he put away his phone, went to the well‑ventilated balcony, sat cross‑legged and began the second round of Skin Tempering.

After a little more than two hours of tempering, his vitality was heavily depleted and he was starting to hit a wall. His head spun.

No good—he had to stop and rest. He needed something from the fridge to restore vitality, or he might pass out on the balcony.

He’d cook some Violent Eagle meat.

Aberrant Beast meat was nutritious and restored vitality quickly.

Ding‑dong!

Just as he stood up to head for the fridge, the doorbell rang.

Then a middle‑aged man’s voice sounded outside.