Chapter 10: Intense Competition and Level 3 Bodybuilding

Finding a random spot to sit down, Zhang Yu looked at the crowd in the plaza who were also waiting for work, feeling a wave of mental exhaustion.

"This godforsaken place is too hard to survive in. Is there nowhere that isn't a rat race?"

Just as he sat on the ground to rest for a moment, a chill surged through Zhang Yu’s heart.

"Please abide by the ritual agreement and strive to complete your wish. Do not intentionally slack off or procrastinate. 10."

"Damn it."

Zhang Yu cursed inwardly, but under the compulsion of the ritual's power, he had no choice but to join the rat race.

However, considering his physical state had yet to recover and the upcoming work might be physically demanding, Zhang Yu chose not to practice the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms, opting instead to refine mana using the Basic Breathing Method.

As he inhaled and exhaled, wisps of spiritual energy from the world around him quickly surged over, gradually gathering in his dantian and being refined into his mana, bit by bit.

Time slipped away slowly as Zhang Yu practiced his breathing, and an hour passed.

During this hour, three groups of people had come to recruit workers: one looking for temporary security guards, one from a construction site in urgent need of cultivators for heavy labor, and a delivery company hiring cultivators for sorting.

Zhang Yu gradually realized that most temporary jobs for Qi Refining stage cultivators were related to manual labor.

After all, Qi Refining cultivators didn't have a qualitative advantage over mortals in terms of intelligence or knowledge. Instead, their physical fitness was superior, allowing them to shine in construction, factories, security, and other fields, with productivity far exceeding that of ordinary mortals.

Thus, many places in urgent need of manpower would come to hire cultivators.

Although the pay demanded by cultivators was far higher than that of ordinary people, it was still cost-effective in the long run.

After all, if one cultivator could do the work of 30 ordinary people, they usually only needed to be paid ten times the wage.

The people waiting in this plaza were all "super workhorses" capable of maintaining a 007 work schedule.

In front of them, Zhang Yu, who still needed to sleep four or five hours a day, was nothing more than an ordinary high school freshman who could still afford to sleep.

Seeing the way a crowd would swarm to grab work every time, Zhang Yu always maintained his breathing state and didn't go up to compete with the others.

He knew that as a high school freshman, he couldn't outcompete those who had already graduated.

He was waiting—waiting for the work Old Wang mentioned that was specifically for high school students.

There were several other high school students like Zhang Yu; some were reading, some were breathing, and some were practicing martial arts. None of them went up to fight for work opportunities, simply waiting silently.

In the blink of an eye, another hour passed.

*Pop! Pop! Pop!*

Accompanied by faint, snapping sounds in the air.

Feeling that his body had rested enough, Zhang Yu began to practice the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms.

The people around him glanced over and didn't pay it any mind. There were too many people who practiced while waiting for work, and the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms, being a basic technique, couldn't attract anyone's attention.

Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms Level 2 (18/20)

Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms Level 2 (19/20)

After finishing two sets of the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms, Zhang Yu felt his muscles begin to ache, but his spirit was increasingly invigorated, simply because one more set would raise the technique to Level 3.

This was something even Bai Zhenzhen, the top student in the grade, hadn't managed to do.

And he had done it in just two days.

Just as Zhang Yu was practicing the third set of the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms, a temporary job specifically for high school students finally arrived.

A sedan drove up to the front of the plaza. The window rolled down, and the driver shouted from inside: "Any freshmen or sophomores? Recruiting two martial arts sparring partners."

So-called martial arts sparring partners were people hired to accompany a cultivator during their practical martial arts training according to certain requirements.

Hearing the driver's words, the high school students who had been waiting quietly in the plaza all moved at once, leaving afterimages in the air and rushing toward the sedan with the sound of wind and thunder.

"I'm a sophomore!"

"My physical strength is Level 2.15!"

The sophomores were a cut above the freshmen in terms of physical strength. When Zhang Yu rushed over, he found that the space in front of the driver was almost entirely occupied by big, burly guys, making it impossible for him to squeeze in.

Zhang Yu thought to himself, "So many people fighting to get beaten up—do they have any self-respect as high school students?"

The driver scanned the many students raising their hands and asked, "Are there any from key high schools?"

The number of raised hands dropped by more than half.

Zhang Yu quickly raised his hand: "I'm from Songyang High School!"

The driver asked again, "Any with Level 3 or higher in practical martial arts?"

Looking at the remaining three, the driver asked, "Three hundred an hour, you in?"

A student with a buzz cut said with dissatisfaction, "Three hundred is too little, right?"

But he saw another student beside him rush to say, "I'll do it for three hundred!"

Watching the sedan speed away after the other person got in, the buzz-cut student cursed, "Three hundred an hour, they really thought of that."

"Three hundred to hire someone for practical sparring? If you can't afford it, why hire a sparring partner?"

Someone else chimed in, "You'd take 300? Scab! Once that kid gets beaten up, he'll realize that three hundred isn't even enough for medical bills."

As the employer left, the surrounding students grumbled and dispersed, returning to their own practice and studies.

Zhang Yu had no choice but to go back and continue practicing the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms.

At this rate, he felt he might not find work today.

Ten minutes later, someone else drove up to recruit high school students, specifically requesting freshmen.

But this time, the job content was drug testing. It was said to be testing a newly developed drug from a laboratory intended for beginners in the Immortal Path.

Zhang Yu thought about his physical condition and simply didn't go up to apply, continuing his 20th set of the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms.

A moment later, accompanied by a *pop* sound, Zhang Yu threw the final punch of the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms, successfully raising this martial art to the third level.

Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms Level 3 (0/30)

At this moment, countless memories of practicing the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms flooded into Zhang Yu's mind, making him feel as if he had practiced it hundreds or thousands of times more.

Among these memories, there was not only pure muscle memory but also the memory of mana circulating through his body on its own.

"The Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms have reached the third level. While practicing this technique, one can now induce the internal mana to circulate through the meridians, accelerating the repair and strengthening of the body."

If the first and second levels of the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms were just about constantly damaging the flesh during the exercise and forcibly squeezing out internal mana to participate in the training, then the third level was about the movements driving the mana to circulate throughout the body, constantly nourishing the flesh while exercising, which greatly improved the training effect.

At this very moment, as Zhang Yu began a new set of the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms, streams of warmth flowed through his limbs and bones with his movements, silently increasing his physical strength and moving him step by step from an ordinary person toward a superhuman.

Nourished by the warmth, his flesh, which had begun to ache and feel sore, seemed to become much lighter, allowing Zhang Yu to persist in his training more easily.

Suddenly, Zhang Yu felt his muscles contract and expand.

Physical Strength 0.84 → 0.85

Glancing at the change in physical strength on his Feather Book, a trace of joy flashed in Zhang Yu's heart.

At this moment, even without the compulsion of the ritual's power, he was invigorated and continued to train.

While Zhang Yu was practicing the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms, the drug testing recruitment on the other side continued.

However, faced with a job like drug testing, not many freshmen were willing to try.

Although the recruiter wanted to hire 5 students, they only managed to get 2 after calling out for a long time before leaving.

As time passed, the night deepened, and the number of employers coming to recruit dwindled. Zhang Yu still hadn't found a job opportunity and could only continue practicing the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms.

Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms Level 3 (6/30)

When Zhang Yu finished his sixth set of the Thirty-Six Body-Strengthening Forms, he felt he couldn't wait like this anymore.

Zhang Yu walked back into the human resources company and saw Old Wang still sitting behind that desk, as if he hadn't moved in the past few hours.

He took out a pack of cigarettes he had bought, handed it to the other man, and asked, "Brother Wang, is there any work I can do?"

Old Wang glanced at the cigarettes Zhang Yu handed over and said nonchalantly, "Didn't I tell you? If there's work, they'll call out outside."

Zhang Yu didn't give up: "I mean, besides those outside."

"It's impossible that all the temporary jobs in Songyang City require driving here to recruit, right? Is there anything else?"

Old Wang was pestered by Zhang Yu for a while and said impatiently, "If you don't believe me, see for yourself. It's not that I won't let you do it, but are those other temporary jobs easy to do?"

Zhang Yu looked at a screenshot on the other man's phone, which listed rows of long-term recruitment jobs.

Some involved signing a contract to participate in long-term drug testing.

Some involved participating in long-term cultivation technique research as a test subject.

Others involved going deep underground into the Kunxu ruins as a helper for an exploration team.

There were also those assisting patrol teams in cracking down on criminals.

Looking through these one by one, Zhang Yu found them either too dangerous or both dangerous and impossible for him to do.

"These long-term jobs that can't even fill their quotas are definitely traps."

Suddenly, Zhang Yu looked at one of them and asked, "Brother Wang, is there any danger in this 'participating in cultivation technique research'?"

Old Wang said casually, "It's just having you be a test subject for techniques newly developed by big companies. They record what side effects you have while practicing, what injuries you sustain, where you become disabled, and finally how you die..."

Zhang Yu swallowed hard. Suddenly, his eyes moved, and he looked at another temporary job: "Then what about this 'introductory technique testing'? Ten thousand yuan per session? Why only recruit high school freshmen?"

Old Wang thought for a moment, then said, "Oh, that. It seems the Immortal Rhyme Group developed a technique that has already been tested for cultivation; it has no side effects and won't kill anyone."

"But the introductory process is too difficult. If you fail to master it, you're prone to internal injuries, so they've been looking for people to test it."

"Because it's a technique intended to be sold to beginners in the Immortal Path, they specifically look for high school freshmen to test it..."

At this point, he looked at Zhang Yu, who was listening intently, and frowned: "You don't want to do this, do you? Last time, a student went and ended up with mana out of control, suffering internal injuries. He asked for two weeks off from school and still hasn't recovered."

"That ten thousand yuan isn't easy to get."

Zhang Yu shrugged helplessly: "I have no choice. I need money urgently, so I have to give it a try."