Data-Driven Daoist

“Did you know there’s a Spirit Beast in your yard?” the Senior Sister from the Law Enforcement Hall said. She was the one who had blocked their path before.

“It appeared one day,” Yu Han replied. He bowed to the ‘police officer,’ saying, “How can I be of help?”

The lady turned his way. She appeared in her late twenties, with long hair in a ponytail, mismatched red and green jewelled earrings, and dark pupils. She was about five inches taller than Yu Han. Yu Han spotted no obvious weapons but had no doubt that a punch would fold him.

“What happened in the Stone Sewage Tank 21?” she said. “Report everything, not missing a single detail.”

“Maybe we can go ins—”

“Here is fine,” she interrupted. “Speak.”

Yu Han reported everything he could while omitting all the crucial details. Not to mention Fang Zhao’s storage ring—he had no reason to mention the 108 odd fruits either.

The lady nodded away, stopping him from time to time to ask for clarifications. After a while, her eyes closed, and she asked, “How have you benefited?”

“We killed the big Filth-Eating Ghoul and harvested a better core.”

“And?”“The favour from the Gorge-Crawling Earthworm Tribe shouldn’t be small.”

“What else?”

Yu Han made a motion of thinking. “Elder Chang said he’d give us a potent healing elixir made from the Lanterns of the Blue-Veined Underspores.”

“Keep speaking.”

“Uhh—” Damnit, lady, go away! Was he being profiled here? For what? Being fat? “All of us got more Arts True Qi because the fight was intense. I levelled up my Cultivation Art and my primary Martial Art.”

“Which is?”

“Ox Tail 72 Sweeping Forms.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a Martial Art based on the movements of a sweeping ox tail as it slaps away the flies.”

“How else have you benefited?” the woman pressed on.

“I dunno,” Yu Han said.

The woman nodded. “Remember that if you’ve orchestrated the incident for personal gains in cahoots with Worm Daoist Feral Spot, he might get away without punishment. You won’t.”

“The Law Enforcement Hall is so fair,” Yu Han said with a smile. “I’m sure it’s working tirelessly to actualize the sect leader’s vision.”

Ponytail Police stared at him. For a whole minute, she didn’t blink. Yu Han got creeped out. Was it a bad idea to be sarcastic? Wait, did he just make her lose face?

Note to self. Try not to be snarky. Yu Han sweated. The Johan part of him felt a demonic pleasure after a successful gotcha moment. Perhaps not the best of ideas against superpowered drug addicts.

“How’s Wen Liujie?”

“There’s something profoundly wrong with him,” Yu Han said. “But he’s a good Senior Brother.”

“I have a message for him,” Ponytail Police said. “Tell him it’s from Tan Ruoxuan.”

“I-Is that Senior Sister’s name?”

Tan Ruoxuan nodded.

“And what might this message be?” Yu Han asked.

“Level up,” she said. “That’s all. You should be questioned two or three more times by different Law Enforcement Hall disciples. Unless we have reason to suspect foul play, you probably won’t be dragged to the Law Enforcement Hall.”

“This one has a clear conscience,” Yu Han said. The five of them, including Feral Spot, had gotten their story straight. Unless someone messed up or had the ability to peer into Fang Zhao’s storage ring, they wouldn’t find anything.

Tan Ruoxuan left. She appeared to only take a few steps but had already crossed over a hundred metres.

That has to be a lightness skill. Is she in the Qi Gathering Realm?

Yu Han went into the yard. The day was young; he had the whole afternoon left. He brought out the halberd and went to train.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

From form number one of the 72 forms, he went at it, cycling through the eight variations. He focused more on the offensive, defensive, and mixed variations, rather than the five meant solely to condition the body.

Yu Han had noticed a problem with his coordination while analysing the battle in his Dreamscape. Sometimes, when he was panicked, his arms would move in the way the form demanded, but not his feet. They said footwork was seven-tenths of any Martial Art, even fist arts. Yet if Yu Han kept losing his footwork mid-fight, it would severely hamper the effectiveness of his Martial Arts.

So he trained.

**Ox Horn Pierce!**

**Heavy Ox Swing!**

**Stone Cutting Chop!**

**Swift Hoof Lunge!**

**Grass Cutting Hook!**

One form after the other. But in between, he closed his eyes. He imagined the scenes from the Echoing Dreamscape simulations.

The ghoul jumped. He pierced it, taking care not to hook the corpse on the blade. Another ghoul tackled his leg. His arms shook. Painful. He chopped down. **Stone Cutting Chop.** His feet remained still, as if forgetting to move.

Yu Han opened his eyes. He roared. His feet moved back.

The imaginary foe was chopped down. Yu Han dragged his feet in a semi-circle, turning with his left shoulder. The chop transitioned into a **Heavy Ox Swing.**

“Phew,” he sighed. That sequence was the most common attack sequence he had. But it was also the place where his footwork would falter the most, especially if a ghoul attacked at his feet. They were tiny creatures; they couldn’t attack his arms or head unless they jumped. And they needed considerable wind-ups for such high jumps that Yu Han could see it coming.

He closed his eyes again. The halberd handle felt so at home. Like a broomstick? He used to be more obedient as a kid, doing a lot of chores. More like, he couldn’t be bothered to argue. Chores were boring. But Mum and Dad paid them. It was small, just an extra on top of their allowance. Most of the time, it was in snacks.

**Mountain Root Stance.**

**Stone Cutting Chop!**

The blade of the halberd went down, the handle rose up. He was supposed to move his left leg out of the way while keeping balance. But many times, he would lose it.

Because **Mountain Root Stance** was a defensive form. It would block the attack with the long pole of the halberd. The impact of the attack wouldn’t let Yu Han smoothly transition into a **Stone Cutting Chop.** He was supposed to have moved his leg while blocking the attack, dissipating the hard force with soft resistance. Oftentimes he would forget or miss the timing, messing up the sequence.

So he trained again and again.

It rained. In the marketplace, there must be a sea of oil-paper umbrellas by now. Womenfolk preferred it. But guys, he noticed, liked to just shrug the rain off. Was there a reason for it?

The water washed away his sweat. The blade arced in mid-air, drawing a line in the curtain of rain.

He liked the rain too. After each shift as a Night Soil Collector, if it rained, the grime would be washed off. After the rain, it didn’t take much time for the clothes to dry either. Maybe less than fifteen minutes even. Yu Han didn’t know why. This place was pretty humid, so such fast drying made no sense. Were the clothes made in a special way? Were they magical?

The rain stopped. The grassy yard couldn’t totally stop the mud from forming. His trousers were splattered with mud all over.

Yu Han finished the defensive variation. He huffed, breathing deep and exhaling slow. His arms trembled, the halberd too heavy. He didn’t have the strength to wield it for hours on end uninterrupted yet. He had to place it down and rest from time to time.

But he was improving. From not being able to do even two push-ups, he could do nearly 80 now. Two hundred squats were easy, but jumping jacks still wore him out. Especially the knee joints, which would hurt like crazy even after fifty.

He was still around 140 kilos heavy. He was sure that the body composition had changed. Before, it would have been more fat. Now, after training and conditioning his body, he must’ve gained quite a few pounds of muscle? He couldn’t be sure. Muscle growth depended a lot on diet too, and his diet had been alchemy brews. Granted, the Deep Sea’s Spites used a lot of poisonous insects, and insects were always a good source of protein.

Yu Han found a puddle. He flexed. It wasn’t his imagination that his biceps got just a bit bigger. Right? He flexed his neck.

Half-foot tubby. Yu Han cursed.

The triple butt chin was on the way to becoming a double butt chin. That was improvement, right? He jumped on the puddle.

He then went to cool off. A hundred slow **Grass-Cutting Hooks.** Then he slung the halberd over his shoulders like a barbell. Because the blade made one side heavier, he had to carefully position the halberd’s centre of gravity. Slow squats.

**One.**

**Two.**

**Three.**

He carefully placed his arms. His right hand was quite close to the blade-head, and if he was careless, he might injure himself.

After finishing the cool-down sequence, Yu Han changed into a cleaner set. He got his notes out and wrote down the improvements.

Arts True Qi + 4

[Ox Tail 72 Sweeping Forms]

Type: Martial

Grade: Elite Level 2

Mastery: Initial Step Level 2 (+1)

True Qi: 33 (+4) / 300

“Huh.” Yu Han placed the charcoal pen down. Sometimes, he did gain True Qi during the day. Very rarely though. It was almost always after he’d wake up. It might be a good idea to check why.

In *The Four Meditations,* the author had mentioned talented disciples breaking through to the next level mid-fight. That’s levelling up, gaining True Qi. So True Qi gain didn’t have to be limited to the time of waking. Yu Han had a guess that maybe that was the time the Dao did its ‘system update,’ so to speak. Or perhaps, True Qi was gained through the day but was only shown the next morning? These outliers, where he gained True Qi after waking but during the day, had Yu Han leaning more towards a third possibility.

The Dao doesn’t work like precision clockwork.

Yu Han closed his eyes, sitting cross-legged on the bed. He breathed according to the Calm Before the Storm Breathing Technique. At the same time, he concentrated on the feelings of the breath going in and out with *Thousand Petals Awareness.* Touch and taste, forgetting sight, sound, and smell.

They say the human body has 22 to 33 senses. Can *Thousand Petals Awareness* affect them all, and not just the five most common ones?

He met up with Huang Niuniu that evening and went to the Night Alchemist’s Yard.

“Did you save the Body Tempering Pill?” Wen Liujie asked.

They both nodded. Wen Liujie passed over two vials. Yu Han watched the solution inside the glass. In his pocket, there was a small box with the pill.

Tonight, he would take both.