Chapter 40: Cafeteria

Zhou Lulu frowned and lamented, "I love reading and wanted to enter the lineage of the Fourth Elder who specializes in Confucian cultivation. But my father insisted that I choose the Peak of a Hundred Refinements, saying the Fourth Elder read himself into stupidity and that I mustn't learn from him."

"Your honorable father is..."

"The Fifth Elder, Zhou Xin."

Lu Yang instantly shut his mouth. The Peak of a Hundred Refinements belonged entirely to her family; of course her father would make her choose their own home.

The main summit of the Peak of a Hundred Refinements was a crimson mountain soaring into the clouds, looking like an erupting volcano that illuminated the heavens.

Whether it was due to long-term weapon refining or because the peak was naturally born this way, the temperature here was slightly higher than elsewhere.

Though it was currently early spring, the Peak of a Hundred Refinements felt as if it had already entered the height of summer.

Lu Yang felt his skin prickle, as though something were trying to bore into his body. His body instinctively circulated his cultivation technique, forming a protective membrane as thin as a cicada's wing over his skin.

Beside him, Zhou Lulu explained in a low voice, "What you are sensing, Junior Brother, is the Jinwu Qi. The Peak of a Hundred Refinements forges too many magical treasures, so the air is permeated with it. However, it does no harm to cultivators; you will get used to it once you are accustomed."

"Still, your reaction was remarkably swift, Junior Brother. Few people manage to react quite like you."

Lu Yang smiled and said, "My cultivation technique is very practical."

Lu Yang could also hear clanging sounds. In his imagination, there should be senior brothers holding massive iron hammers, violently striking refined iron, sparks flying everywhere as a hundred refinements turned it into steel.

Following the sound with his gaze, he discovered that the source was actually the cafeteria.

"Hmm—"

Lu Yang felt that this was not entirely unacceptable either.

He was used to it.

The entrance of the cafeteria was bustling with the smoke of cooking fires and teeming with people. They walked to and forth, laughing and chatting, gesturing with various items of food as if they were holding broadsabers and sharp swords, wandering the land to perform chivalrous deeds.

They looked like students passing by the cafeteria after class to buy food, yet also like martial artists who had just stepped out of a weapon smithy.

"Is Li Haoran here?" Lu Yang remembered that Li Haoran, who possessed the Fire Spiritual Root, had entered the lineage of the Fifth Elder. Theoretically, his realm should not differ much from his own, though he wondered what level his actual cultivation had reached.

Zhou Lulu shook her head. "Junior Brother Li has not yet broken through his seclusion, so he is not qualified to sell food in the cafeteria. Father said Li Haoran has a very good foundation but needs to soak in magma more often to achieve better development."

"I heard others say that at first, Junior Brother Li was still screaming miserably while soaking in the magma, but later there was no sound at all. He must have grown accustomed to it."

"...Is it possible that he didn't grow accustomed to it, but was instead cooked through?"

"Huh?"

Lu Yang realized that his own bath in boiling water was not the most tragic plight after all; the Eldest Senior Sister was still far too gentle with him.

It was somewhat regrettable that he could not see Li Haoran, otherwise they could have exchanged insights on their bathing experiences.

As Zhou Lulu arrived at the noisy cafeteria, her surging enthusiasm vanished without a trace. She began to beat a retreat, quietly stepping back two paces, her words flowing out at an extreme speed like a machine gun: "Junior Brother Lu the food in the cafeteria is excellent in quality and reasonable in price and cheats neither old nor young go buy it yourself."

The moment Zhou Lulu finished speaking, she ran off until she vanished from sight, leaving Lu Yang unable to even discern how she had disappeared.

Lu Yang sighed, realizing he could only rely on himself now.

"Braised fish bones, freshly made braised fish bones, the ultimate choice for sawing trees and hacking people, praised by everyone who uses them!"

"Baked cakes, fresh out of the oven meat-filled baked cakes, cakes that cannot be broken even by punches and kicks!"

"Step right up and take a look, noodles harder than steel reinforcement and iron bones, a must-have for binding people. Once bound, they cannot break free. Buy now and receive a complimentary binding tutorial!"

The cafeteria resembled a mortal marketplace, with stall owners straining their throats to cry out their food items. The only difference was that the cafeteria was far noisier than a marketplace—the stall owners possessed high cultivations and thus had loud voices.

Lu Yang spotted a senior brother holding a braised fish bone in one hand. The fish spines were as sharp as blades; a gentle scrape looked as though it could mimic the deep wound of a vicious shark bite.

The senior brother selling the braised fish bones passionately promoted his wares: "Junior Brother, would you like a fish bone? This comes from a fish demon of the Bibo Pool, which possessed the peak of the Foundation Establishment stage during its life. The remaining fish bones are incredibly hard. I spent a long time refining just these few. They can serve as weapons during battle and as food when you are hungry."

With that, a crisp snap was heard as he bit off a piece of a fish bone.

One could only wonder how he had trained his teeth.

Lu Yang looked at the very practical fish bone, then looked at the price.

Well, he could not afford it.

Seeing Lu Yang smile apologetically, the senior brother did not force the issue and continued to promote it to others.

Lu Yang watched another senior brother reach directly with his bare hand into a deep fryer to pull out some fried dough sticks, draining the oil.

"Would you like one, Junior Brother? We have those for the Foundation Establishment stage and those for the Golden Core stage. The ones for the Foundation Establishment stage cost only one hundred and fifty contribution points."

In terms of price, it was indeed cheaper than the Mountain-Shaking Hammer on the exchange list. The Mountain-Shaking Hammer cost two hundred and seventy contribution points, while the fried dough stick was only one hundred and fifty, making the price nearly half as much.

"The advantage of my fried dough stick is not just its hardness; it contains three layers of hidden force. When a strike lands, the three layers of hidden force erupt in succession with astonishing power, capable of catching an enemy completely off guard."

"If you are hungry and want to eat it, that is fine too. The shelf life is very long."

Having said this, the senior brother selling the fried dough sticks took a bite. The three layers of hidden force erupted inside his mouth, but aside from his cheeks bulging slightly, nothing else happened.

"Senior Brother, I am a newcomer and there are things I do not understand. Why can our fried dough sticks serve as both weapons and food? Can one truly chew them?"

The senior brother discerned Lu Yang's cultivation level. Since he was a Foundation Establishment junior brother, he was bound to be from the newly admitted class. It was only normal for a newcomer to have questions about this.

"This is a method to train and verify the results of one's body refining."

"The so-called body refining naturally requires the internal refinement of the viscera, bones, and tendons, and the external refinement of the skin and the seven orifices. Only then can one be deemed a true body cultivator. Besides these, the teeth are also an indispensable link."

"I have heard that some body cultivators only refine their bones and skin to the absolute limit. Beneath their brutal impact, even mountains tremble, earning them the title of excellence. When others faced these invulnerable body cultivators, they were deeply troubled, so they devised a solution."

"What solution?"

"They utilized body-altering spells like the Great and Small Size Variation to shrink their forms and attack these body cultivators from the inside. Because those body cultivators had not trained their internal organs, they were easily defeated by others using this kind of method."

"Those people cannot be counted as true body cultivators; they are merely unorthodox body cultivators."

The senior brother's teeth clicked together, producing a sound akin to clashing metal.

Those of them who refined weapons counted as half-body cultivators; their physical strength could not compare to true body refining martial artists, but they had refined both their interiors and exteriors.

"Ordinary cultivators use magical treasures as weapons, while a body cultivator's body is their strongest weapon. Since it is the strongest weapon, eating a fried dough stick or the like is naturally no difficult matter."

Lu Yang understood completely. The food in the cafeteria was highly functional and could be divided into two purposes: one was to be sold as weapons to non-body cultivators like himself, and the other was to be sold as food to body cultivators.

"Meng Jingzhou entered the lineage of the Third Elder and is a genuine, proper body cultivator. He should be able to chew this."

Thinking up to this point, Lu Yang bought a fried dough stick and swung it twice with a shout. It felt heavy and held a considerable sense of weight.