On the night of the third day, Fang Yuan finally finished reading it for the one hundredth time.

When he finished reciting the very last word of the final iteration, he was sitting cross-legged in the corner of the communal sleeping quarters, his quilt having slipped down to his knees.

The "Dushi Sutra" in his hands had its page corners curled from repeated turning, and the three characters on the cover had been rubbed somewhat blurry by his fingers.

He closed the book, shut his eyes, and was just preparing to collapse and sleep as usual when suddenly, a warm current surged out from his Dantian.

The sensation was like a scalding hot spring suddenly erupting from three inches below his navel, pouring through his internal organs and into his limbs and bones.

Fang Yuan's sleepiness was instantly washed away; he snapped his eyes wide open, mouth agape, yet unable to make a sound.

The heat flowed through his body as if someone were dragging a red-hot iron rod through the gaps in his bones over and over again. It didn't hurt, but it was scorching, making him break out in a sweat all over.

Late at night, cold wind blew in through the cracks in the wall, yet Fang Yuan felt hotter than crouching under the midday sun during the dog days of summer, his clothes soaked through from the inside out.

After an unknown amount of time, the heat gradually subsided, receding like a tide, and finally retreated completely back into his Dantian.

It gathered there heavily, warm and cozy, like a small lump of glowing charcoal tucked inside.

Fang Yuan tried exhaling a breath of stale air, which, under the moonlight, condensed into a thin white line that shot out over half a foot before dispersing.

He looked down at his hands.

They were still the same skinny, bony hands with dirt lodged under the fingernails, yet he couldn't quite say what was different about them.

He tried clenching his fist, and his knuckles popped with a crisp crackling sound, like gripping a handful of dry bamboo joints; that surge of strength coursed all the way from his palm to his shoulder.

Fang Yuan climbed off his bunk with movements so light that even he was startled; it felt as if he were stepping on cotton, or perhaps not touching the ground at all, his whole body feeling weightless.

The others in the communal sleeping quarters were snoring like thunder, and no one noticed.

Fang Yuan pushed open the door to the communal quarters and walked into the courtyard.

The horizon was vaguely turning gray; it was almost dawn.

Fang Yuan stood still, his gaze falling upon the stone mill.

This stone mill was usually used for pressing soybean meal and weighed four or five hundred jin; normally, the steward would have two or three third-class servants push it together.

They never called for Fang Yuan when picking people, because with his physique, it would be useless for him to push, and he might even throw out his back, delaying other work.

Fang Yuan walked up to the stone mill, bent down, spread his arms, and hugged one end of the mill.

The stone mill was ice-cold, the chill seeping through his sleeves and into his skin.

He took a deep breath, and the lump of charcoal in his Dantian flared up, a current of heat pouring through his waist and back into his arms.

Gritting his teeth, he let out a low shout: "Rise!"

The stone mill left the ground.

It didn't just shift, nor did one end tilt up; the entire thing left the ground, held in his arms at chest height.

Fang Yuan stared wide-eyed, not bothering to catch his breath, and bounced the mill up slightly. His fingers locked into the dents on the stone surface, his legs slightly apart, and with a bend and stretch of his knees, he stood steadily.

The mill pressed against him, heavy, but the weight transferred to his body felt as if it had been mostly dissolved by the heat from his Dantian, and he could handle the remaining heft.

On his thin, gaunt face—the result of long-term malnutrition—there was first bewilderment, then disbelief, and then, his mouth slowly widened, revealing two rows of uneven teeth.

When he put the mill down, it slammed onto the base with a dull thud.

Fang Yuan stood to the side, panting heavily, the breath he exhaled forming clouds of white that were dazzlingly bright.

"I... I really succeeded."

He muttered, his voice trembling.

He rolled up his sleeves to look at his arms.

They were still those two thin arms, with almost no visible change.

But only he knew that beneath this skin and flesh, things were already different.

He remembered those eight words again: Read the book a hundred times, and the divine skill will manifest itself.

So, it was true. Not a single word was false.

"I will never again have to..."

His voice choked, and he stared at his own hands—the ones that could lift a stone mill—tears welling up in his eyes.

"Never again have to be bullied."

A feeling he had never experienced before surged up from Fang Yuan's heart, warm and scorching, hotter even than the charcoal in his Dantian.

He straightened his back, stood in the courtyard for a long while, and wiped the tears from his face.

He was no longer the third-class servant that anyone could punch a few times.

From now on, no one could bully him at will again.

Before this feeling of vindication had even passed, Fang Yuan's thoughts began to shift elsewhere.

He fished the "Dushi Sutra" from his bosom and used his fingers to smooth out the curled corners of the pages, bit by bit, as if treating it like an incredible treasure.

He knew clearly in his heart that since he had successfully cultivated this ability, it meant the scripture was real.

There were countless people under heaven who were bullied more than him, and even more who had lives harder than his.

He couldn't help everyone, but he could help those third-class servants who were just like him.

"I must spread this."

After saying this, Fang Yuan recalled the sentence at the back of the book.

"Those who master this divine skill must pass it on to one hundred people, otherwise, they will surely suffer the retribution of Karma."

Fang Yuan tucked the book back into his bosom and said to the stone mill with a serious expression, as if swearing an oath to it: "I will definitely spread it."

He turned and returned to the communal quarters, lying back down on his bunk.

In his heart, he was already calculating who to talk to about this after dawn, how to say it, and whether those people would believe him.

He was so excited that he tossed and turned, only closing his eyes in a daze once it was completely light out.

Meanwhile, over these two days, Zhou Ming's life had been quite routine.

In the early morning, he followed Empress Su Mingyue to the main courtyard, and after the Eldest Miss led the maids and matrons into the inner residence, Zhou Ming dove straight into the study nearby.

Sitting before the desk, eyes focused on his nose and heart, with his wrist suspended in the air, he transcribed the three thousand words of scripture from his mind onto the pages, stroke by stroke.

Transcribing books was a grueling task.

The characters could not be sloppy, and there could be no errors or omissions; after finishing each page, he had to proofread it word by word, and only after confirming it was correct would he turn the page.

Sitting for the entire morning, his wrist ached so much he couldn't lift it, and ink had accumulated in a black layer between his fingers.

But Zhou Ming knew clearly that every character he transcribed could potentially be a Causal Chain for someone else in the future.

These books were not waste paper; they were seeds. The more seeds he scattered, the greater his future harvest would be.

Over the two days, he transcribed books in the morning and followed the steward to do miscellaneous chores like sweeping and carrying things in the afternoon.

At night, he would tuck the "Dushi Sutra" he had copied during the day into his clothes, slip out through the dog hole, and hug the shadows to toss the books into various mansions in the city.

In two days, he had finished copying six books and had distributed them all.

Lying in bed at night, Zhou Ming closed his eyes; the Causal Chain between his brows had transformed from the mere few strands at the beginning into a dense, fine patch.

Most of those newly born threads were still very faint, like freshly spun spider silk that would break at a gust of wind.

But among them, a few had condensed and gained substance—one belonged to Fang Yuan, and there were two or three others of unknown origin that were vaguely thicker than the rest.

At this moment, he stared at one of the Causal Chains and suddenly frowned.

It was Fang Yuan's.

Just a moment ago, this Causal Chain had suddenly thickened significantly, as if someone had poured molten iron into the thread, causing it to solidify instantly from a weak spider silk into a heavy iron wire.

It hung steadily within the Causality Web between Zhou Ming's brows; compared to the other threads, it was like a thin cotton thread placed beside a hemp rope.

Zhou Ming sat up abruptly from the bed, his heart thumping once.

"This is..." He narrowed his eyes, the corners of his mouth slowly curling upward to an angle he couldn't suppress, "Qi Refining Realm?"

His cheap Golden Finger had told him that the higher a Cultivator's cultivation base, the thicker and stronger their Causal Chain.

This change in Fang Yuan clearly meant he had finished reading the one hundred iterations, cultivated magic power, and officially stepped into the ranks of Cultivators in the Qi Refining Realm.

A third-class servant who, just a few days ago, was a boy with no strength to truss a chicken, who could only hide and cry when bullied.

Now he was a Cultivator; Cultivators were different from Martial Artists.

For a Martial Artist to enter the Skin Refining Realm, without three to five years of tempering the body, becoming a Skin Refining Realm expert was out of the question.

For a Cultivator to generate a sense of Qi, they must possess a Spiritual Root and a cultivation method.

The "Dushi Sutra" broke this rule; regardless of whether you had a Spiritual Root, as long as you recited it one hundred times, you would naturally enter the Qi Refining Realm.

Zhou Ming had never seen a Qi Refining Realm Cultivator, nor had he seen a Skin Refining Realm Martial Artist in action, so naturally, he couldn't estimate who was stronger or weaker.

But Zhou Ming could foresee that the appearance of the "Dushi Sutra" would inevitably stir up stormy waves in this world.