With less than one week to go for the date of the duel, Yang Shen was planning on killing two birds with one stone.
Defeat whoever this Hao Lin was, and find out all about his past from Song Fei, his love interest.
Hopefully, she knows all about his past and believes that his change could be credited to the memory loss and therefore not cause him any more troubles.
Resisting the urge to click the upgrade button beside his cultivation, Yang Shen chose to enjoy his complimentary free bath and go back to his house before doing anything further.
After all, even though he only needed 6200 XP to reach the peak of Body Tempering, that is the Dantian Opening Stage, Yang Shen didn't want to be hasty and end up with not enough XP to complete the Body Tempering stage in a single go.
…
The Body Tempering stages included the realms of Skin Samsara, Muscle Forming, Marrow Cleansing, Bone Forging, and Dantian Opening.
That is, all the stages in which Qi was only used as a foreign element to temper the body but not store it inside him were included in the Body Tempering stages.
It was only after crossing all these stages and opening the dantian that one could officially be considered as becoming a cultivator, since only after that would they obtain the qualification to store Qi inside them, and use it as they pleased.
To Yang Shen, who had read that cultivating to the peak of the body tempering stage grew harder with every realm they crossed, and knew that the training he needed to do was the same and didn't change, the system's level up function could be considered as a huge boon.
That is, to explain it in simple terms, for Yang Shen who was earning 20 XP after a day's training, if he chose to breakthrough into the next realm, the Muscle Forming Realm, he would be lucky if he managed to obtain 15 XP every day.
After all, while his body had grown stronger, the cultivation manual he was following was still the same due to which he would end up making lesser progress. And the more breakthroughs he made, the lesser XP he'd obtain.
Therefore, to Yang Shen who didn't grow stronger no matter how much he trained since all of it was turned into XP and stored until he wanted to use it, he had decided to accumulate enough XP to breakthrough all the stages of Body Tempering in a single go.
And to do that, he calculated that he would need 6200 XP.
How did he come up with that number?
Simple. Since it was generally considered that every consecutive realm was twice as hard as the previous one, Yang Shen multiplied the XP needed to breakthrough by two times.
200, 400, 800, 1600, and 3200. All together it brought the sum of XP needed to 6200.
In that case, why was Yang Shen still in the Skin Samsara Realm despite possessing 7250 XP?
The answer was because he was worried at the possibility of the required XP being higher due to which he would wait until he possessed a total of 10000 XP or the date for the duel had arrived before starting to level up his cultivation.
…
"So relaxing…"
With almost his entire body submerged inside the water, only Yang Shen's head was outside allowing most of his muscles to moan from the pleasure given by soaking them in hot water.
Given that his cultivation was almost non-existent, Yang Shen was using his mortal body to train in the morning and then massage at least six women on an average.
In a way, it could be said that Yang Shen's cultivation would always remain at the beginning stages of every realm since the upgrade button would only show up after he filled the XP bar.
Due to this, Yang Shen would never be able to experience growing stronger inside a particular realm. That is, unlike others he wouldn't walk the certain distance and simply take one big jump to cross it in a single go.
Letting his body relax and replenish itself, Yang Shen muttered to himself that it wouldn't be long before he increased his cultivation.
"Sorry about that, Yang Shen. That woman was a special client. I'll pay you five extra coppers for today's overtime."
Nodding his head without turning it back, Yang Shen didn't really think much about working half an hour extra.
But to Xia An who didn't receive any verbal reply, she thought that maybe Yang Shen was angry with her.
"Come on little brother, don't be like that. Elder sister really didn't have any other choice. That woman's background is too strong for me to reject her."
Approaching Yang Shen whose eyes were still closed, Xia An squatted down beside him and said, "I'll compensate you however you want, little brother."
Hearing those words, Yang Shen suddenly smiled and titled his head back on the tiny wall made of soft marble that travelled along with the huge bathtub's boundary.
"However I want? You sure?"
Nodding her head profusely, Xia An really wasn't lying when she agreed with him.
Who was she kidding? After Yang Shen's special massage skills and the results it brought out on the women who experienced it was spread around, the number of female customers who visited her bath had more than doubled in number.
At the same time, the massage which she once charged 3 copper for was increased by almost 4 times!
Everyone who wanted a thirty minute massage from Yang Shen would have to pay 10 coppers and hope that they were one of the first five individuals who paid for this service since only five women would be able to experience the massage every day.
And if Yang Shen chose to quit and go somewhere else, Xia An would lose a huge source of income coming from his massages but also a large customer base due to all of the women who would go to whichever bathhouse that he chose to work at.
"In that case, I want you to give me a massage."