Finding a random spot to sit down, Zhang Yu looked at the crowd of people similarly waiting for work in the plaza, only feeling a wave of mental exhaustion.
“This damn place is too hard to get by in. Isn’t there a single place that isn’t so cutthroat?”
Just as he sat on the ground to rest for a while, a chill surged up from Zhang Yu’s heart.
“Please abide by the ritual agreement, work hard to complete your wish, don’t deliberately slack off or delay, 10.”
“Damn it.”
Zhang Yu cursed inwardly, but could only buckle down under the compulsion of the ritual’s power.
However, considering that his physical condition had not yet recovered, and that the upcoming work might also have physical requirements, Zhang Yu at this moment didn’t choose to cultivate the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering, but instead chose to use the Basic Breathing Technique to refine his magical power.
With each breath he took, wisps of spiritual energy from heaven and earth quickly surged toward him, gradually gathering in his dantian qi sea, being refined drop by drop into part of his magical power.
Time slowly passed as Zhang Yu breathed in and out, arriving at one hour later.
During this hour, three batches of people had successively come to recruit workers: some recruiting temporary security personnel, some construction sites urgently needing cultivators for heavy labor, and express delivery companies hiring cultivators for sorting.
Zhang Yu gradually came to understand that most temporary jobs hiring Qi Refining stage cultivators were almost all related to physical labor.
After all, Qi Refining stage cultivators didn’t have qualitative differences from ordinary people in terms of intelligence and knowledge, but their physical qualities were each capable of matching a hundred ordinary people. They could shine in construction sites, factories, security work, and other jobs, with production efficiency far exceeding ordinary mortals.
So many places that needed to urgently increase manpower would come here to hire cultivators.
Although cultivators demanded compensation far exceeding ordinary people, it was still cost-effective when calculated.
After all, if one cultivator could do the work of 30 ordinary people, they often only needed to pay 10 times the money.
And the people waiting in this plaza could each be called super workhorses capable of maintaining 007 work schedules.
Compared to them, Zhang Yu, who still needed to sleep four or five hours each day, was nothing more than an ordinary high school freshman who could still sleep soundly.
So seeing the posture of a large group of people crowding forward to compete for work each time, Zhang Yu always maintained his breathing state and didn’t go up to compete with others.
He knew that with his freshman status, it was impossible to compete with those high school graduates.
He was waiting, waiting for the work that Old Wang mentioned specifically looked for current high school students.
There were several other high school students like Zhang Yu. Some read books, some practiced breathing techniques, some practiced martial arts, and none of them went up to compete for work opportunities, just silently waiting.
In the blink of an eye, another hour passed.
*Pop! Pop! Pop!*
Accompanied by slight explosive sounds in the air.
Feeling that his physical body had rested enough, Zhang Yu began practicing the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering.
The people around glanced at him but paid no attention. There were too many people who practiced while waiting for work, and the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering, as a basic technique, couldn’t attract the attention of those around him.
Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering Level 2 (18/20)
Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering Level 2 (19/20)
After practicing two sets of the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering, although Zhang Yu felt his muscles and tendons beginning to ache, his spirit became increasingly invigorated, because just one more set would allow him to upgrade the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering to Level 3.
This was something that even Bai Zhenzhen, who ranked first in the grade, had not been able to achieve.
Yet he could accomplish it in just two days.
Just as Zhang Yu was practicing the third set of the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering, a temporary job requiring high school students finally came.
A small car drove to the front of the plaza. The window rolled down, and the driver shouted from inside the car: “Are there any first or second-year students? Looking for two martial arts sparring partners.”
So-called martial arts sparring partners were people found to accompany training according to certain requirements when cultivators conducted practical martial arts training.
Hearing the driver’s words, the high school students who had been quietly waiting in the plaza all moved at once, cutting through the air in streaks of afterimages, rushing to the small car with bursts of wind and thunder.
“I’m a second-year student!”
“My physical strength is 2.15 level!”
The second-year students led the first-year students by a large margin in physical strength. When Zhang Yu rushed over, he found that the positions in front of the driver were almost entirely occupied by big, muscular students, leaving him no room to squeeze in.
Zhang Yu thought to himself: “So many people are competing to get beaten up. Don’t they have any self-respect as high school students?”
The driver scanned the many students raising their hands in front of him and asked: “Are there any from key high schools?”
The number of people raising their hands immediately decreased by more than half.
Zhang Yu quickly raised his hand: “I’m from Songyang High School!”
The driver asked again: “Anyone with Level 3 or above practical martial arts?”
Looking at the remaining three people, the driver asked again: “Three hundred per hour, will you do it?”
A student with a buzz cut said dissatisfiedly: “Three hundred is too little, isn’t it?”
But another student beside him said urgently: “I’ll do it for three hundred!”
Watching the other person get in the car and the sedan speed away, the buzz-cut student cursed: “Three hundred per hour, what a fucking brilliant idea.”
“Three hundred and they want someone to spar in actual combat? If you can’t afford it, why hire sparring partners?”
Someone chimed in cursing: “Taking 300? Scab! When that kid gets injured, he’ll know that three hundred won’t even cover the medical expenses.”
As the employer left, the surrounding students also dispersed amid grumbling and cursing, each returning to continue their cultivation and study.
Zhang Yu could only return to continue practicing the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering.
At this current pace, he felt he might not find work today.
More than ten minutes later, someone else drove over to recruit high school students, specifically requesting first-year students.
But this time the job was drug testing, supposedly testing some newly developed drugs from a laboratory for beginner immortal cultivators.
Zhang Yu thought about his physical condition and simply didn’t go forward to apply, instead continuing with his 20th practice of the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering.
A moment later, accompanied by a crackling explosive sound, Zhang Yu threw the final punch of the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering, successfully upgrading this martial art to Level 3.
Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering Level 3 (0/30)
At this moment, countless training memories of the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering seemed to suddenly pour into Zhang Yu’s mind, making him feel as if he had undergone thousands of additional practice sessions.
And within these training sessions, there were not only pure muscle memory, but also memories of wisps of magical power circulating within his body.
“With the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering reaching Level 3, practicing this martial art can simultaneously mobilize the magical power within the body to circulate through the meridians, accelerating the repair and strengthening of the physical body.”
If Levels 1 and 2 of the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering merely damaged muscle tissue during training while forcibly squeezing out magical power from within the body to participate in the training.
Then the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering entering Level 3 meant that movements drove magical power to circulate throughout the entire body, constantly nourishing the muscles and flesh during training, greatly improving training effectiveness.
At this moment, as Zhang Yu began a new round of practicing the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering, streams of warm current flowed through his limbs and body following his movements, silently increasing his physical strength and gradually transforming him from an ordinary person into a superhuman.
Under the nourishment of the warm current, the muscles and flesh that had begun to ache and feel sore seemed to become much more relaxed, allowing Zhang Yu to persist in training more easily.
Suddenly, Zhang Yu felt his muscles and flesh throughout his body contract and expand.
Physical Strength 0.84 level → 0.85 level
Glancing at the change in physical strength on his Yu Shu, Zhang Yu felt a flash of joy in his heart.
At this moment, even without the compulsion of the ritual’s power, he continued training with renewed vigor.
While Zhang Yu was cultivating the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering, the drug testing recruitment on the other side continued.
However, facing drug testing work, not many first-year students were willing to try.
Although the recruiter wanted to hire 5 students, after shouting for a long time, they only managed to recruit 2 before leaving.
In the following time, as night gradually deepened, fewer and fewer employers came to recruit, and Zhang Yu still couldn’t find work opportunities, so he could only continue practicing the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering.
Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering Level 3 (6/30)
When Zhang Yu had practiced the Thirty-Six Forms of Body Tempering for the sixth time, he felt he couldn’t continue waiting like this.
Zhang Yu walked back into the human resources company and saw Old Wang still sitting behind that desk, as if he hadn’t moved for the past few hours.
He took out a pack of cigarettes he had bought and handed them to the other person, then asked: “Brother Wang, is there any work I can do?”
Old Wang glanced at the cigarettes Zhang Yu handed over and said carelessly: “Didn’t I tell you? When there’s work, they’ll call from outside.”
But Zhang Yu didn’t give up: “I mean besides those outside.”
“It can’t be that all the temporary work in Songyang City comes here by car to recruit people, right? Isn’t there anything else?”
Old Wang, pestered by Zhang Yu for a while, said impatiently: “If you don’t believe me, look for yourself. It’s not that I won’t let you work, but do you think those other temporary jobs are easy to do?”
Zhang Yu looked at a screenshot sent to the other person’s phone, with rows of long-term recruitment jobs listed in large and small text.
There were those who signed contracts and participated in long-term drug testing.
There were those who served as test subjects for long-term martial arts research.
There were also those who went deep underground in Kunxu, working as helpers for exploration teams.
And there were those who cooperated with police to fight criminals.
Zhang Yu looked through these jobs one by one – they were either too dangerous, or both dangerous and impossible for him to do.
“These long-term recruitment jobs that can’t fill their quotas are indeed all traps.”
Suddenly, Zhang Yu looked at one of them and asked: “Brother Wang, what’s the danger in this martial arts research participation?”
Old Wang said casually: “You’d be a test subject for practicing martial arts, trying out the latest techniques developed by big companies. They record what side effects you have during practice, what injuries you suffer, where you become disabled, and finally how you die…”
Zhang Yu swallowed and suddenly his gaze moved, looking at another temporary job: “What about this beginner technique testing? Ten thousand yuan per session? Why do they only recruit first-year students?”
Old Wang thought for a moment, then said with an “oh”: “That one, it seems Xianyun Group developed a martial art that’s already been tested for cultivation, with no side effects and won’t kill you from practicing.”
“But the entry process is too difficult. If you can’t master it, you easily suffer internal injuries, so they keep looking for people to test.”
“Because it’s a technique prepared for sale to beginner immortal cultivators, they specifically look for first-year students to test…”
Speaking to this point, he looked at Zhang Yu, who was listening seriously nearby, and frowned: “You’re not thinking of doing this, are you? Last time a student went and practiced until his magical power went out of control, suffered internal injuries, and took two weeks off from school but still hasn’t recovered.”
“This ten thousand yuan isn’t easy to earn.”
Zhang Yu helplessly shrugged: “No choice, I urgently need money, so I can only give it a try.”
