The routine took shape quickly.
Morning: assist at Master Feng's school, teaching the under-tens their basic stances with a patience that surprised him
Afternoon: second class, merchant apprentices who were older and more self-conscious and therefore more annoying.
Evening: the city, the market, watching.
And on the three evenings per week when Master Feng let him leave early, the outer fields.
The universe points were not going to accumulate fast enough through beast hunting alone — not at three or four points per Level 1 beast — but he didn't have access to spiritual tools and he had exhausted the pushup missions, and the system had given him a clear breakdown of his options. So beasts it was.
The problem was that Level 1 beasts were, as the system diplomatically phrased it, {diminishing returns after a point.} He had already extracted most of what they could give him in terms of technique practice. Hunting them now didn't push him.
{You need to go after Level 2 beasts,} the system said on his fifth evening out. {The universe point yield is significantly higher and the experience gain will push you toward Level 6.}
"Level 2 beasts are bigger and faster."
{Yes. That is generally the point of a higher level.}
He found one an hour into the outer fields — a bear-adjacent creature the locals called a stone-back, named for the hardened ridge of calcium deposits running along its spine. It was Level 2, which meant it had a trace of natural Qi in its body and moved with a speed disproportionate to its bulk. It was also, Jelani quickly discovered, significantly more durable than anything he had fought before.
His first strike landed clean on its shoulder and the stone-back turned and looked at him with an expression of genuine offense rather than pain.
He ran.
Not retreating — repositioning, he told himself, which was the same thing but felt better to say. He circled the creature through the high grass, making it turn to track him, studying how it moved. It led with the right shoulder. It had a blind spot on the lower left when it was in mid-turn. Its skin was tough but the underbelly ridge where the calcium deposits didn't reach would be vulnerable to a focused strike.
He came back in from the lower left.
Mountain Shattering Fist, full Qi channeling, aimed not at the hide but through it — the system had explained once that the technique worked best when you visualized the target as not the surface but whatever was two inches beneath it.
The stone-back made a sound like a large piece of pottery breaking and sat down heavily.
He hit it twice more before it stopped moving.
He stood over it, breathing hard, one hand braced on his knee, and looked at the screen.
Level 2 Beast Defeated: Stone-BackUniverse Points Gained: 12Experience Gained: 85Total Experience: 340/500 (Level 5 → Level 6)
{Better,} the system said.
"Much better," he agreed, straightening up. His knuckles ached in a satisfying way. The blind spot trick had worked. He filed the observation about leading shoulders and Qi-distribution patterns away and started looking for the next one.
He found two more stone-backs before dark and took both of them down cleaner than the first, the process already sharpening from encounter to encounter. By the time he was walking back toward the city walls with the last light going orange over the plains, he had accumulated 86 universe points total.
Enough for another clone deployment, with thirty-six to spare.
He checked his experience total.
Total Experience: 490/500
One more beast.
He stopped walking, turned back toward the fields, found a lone Level 1 wolf grazing near a cluster of shrubs, and ended the encounter in four seconds.
DING.
Level Up: Level 6 Body Refinement
He felt the familiar warmth and stood still and breathed through it until it passed. Then he turned back toward the city and kept walking.