Chapter 4: The Inscription on the Stone!

  Tang Lin gazed at him eagerly.

  "There is a knife blade." Xiaohui dug out a black knife blade from behind a stone and said, "You use it every day to carve words on the stone. The font should be based on ancient seal script, which emphasizes strokes such as na, gōu, and héng. Later when you draw talismans, you will often use these strokes, so practice them in advance."

  Tang Lin bent down to pick up the ordinary iron piece, and said in surprise: "Using it to engrave words on stones can exercise finger strength?"

  "Hmm." Xiao Hui said unequivocally: "Let's start now, today must be filled with ten complete characters, only then can we rest. From tomorrow on, increase by two each day!"

  "Ten!" Tang Lin was shocked. If it were just writing with a brush, ten thousand characters would be no problem. But using this small iron piece in his hand to carve on the hard stone, let alone ten, even one character would be a challenge.

  "Do you find it difficult?" Xiao Hui looked at him indifferently.

  Tang Lin nodded and smiled, "Although it's difficult, I'll work harder. My father said, 'Where there is a will, there is a way'!"

  "Then let's get started." Xiao Hui said with satisfaction.

  Tang Lin picked up a fist-sized stone from the ground beside him, placed it on his leg, gripped the blade tightly with his left hand, and fiercely carved at the stone.

  Hehe~~

  A sharp blade scratched a faint white mark on the stone, and Tang Lin's hand added its greatest strength, quickly scratching out a shallow horizontal bar.

  Fine white stone powder drifted onto his body, but Tang Lin didn't mind, still focusing intently on carving, several minutes passed...

  "Done!" Tang Lin let out a gentle breath, gazing at the "Tang" character on the stone.

  Xiao Hui walked over to take a look, nodded and said: "The engraving is not bad, although the handwriting is a bit ugly, but it's still complete. However, it's engraved too shallowly, it needs to be deepened three times!"

  "Too shallow?" Tang Lin lowered his head to look at the words on the stone, indeed, just now when he was carving the characters, although it was a bit laborious, but he didn't spend too much effort, how could these ten characters exercise his fingers?

  Three times is three times!

  Tang Lin continued to pour in.

  Xiao Hui nodded silently, each character's stroke count was different. Although he didn't specify which character to carve, seeing Tang Lin choose a character with complex strokes himself made him feel relieved in his heart.

  The afterglow of sunset shines through this forest.

  Tang Lin's entire body was bathed in the warm orange glow of the sunset, completely undisturbed by the passage of time, still intently carving away at the stone, on which four more characters had now appeared.

  Tang Lin! Tang Lin!

  "My hands are so sore." Tang Lin felt his wrists were aching and numb, and his neck was also sore from constantly lowering his head to draw characters. He shook his hands and stopped to rest.

  "Don't be lazy, keep going!" Xiao Hui said sternly.

  Tang Lin let out a bitter laugh, gazing at the warm sunset in the distance. Suddenly, his father's desolate face appeared before him, and he couldn't help but feel a pang in his heart. He clenched his fists tightly, gritted his teeth fiercely, and once again applied force to his carving.

  After nightfall, Tang Lin went to the kitchen to eat quickly and brought some leftover food for Xiao Hui to eat. Then he picked up the stone and continued to carve it.

  One stroke, another stroke!

  Tang Lin's bones seemed to have a fierce energy, his teeth clenched tightly as he continuously carved. The place where his fingers gripped the knife had already been rubbed raw and blistered, soon the blisters burst and oozed water vapor.

  Xiao Hui did not expect Tang Lin to be so diligent, originally thinking that he would complain about being tired and even give up halfway, he had thought of ways to coax Tang Lin, but unexpectedly Tang Lin has not said a word about being tired until now!

  "Hard work is the most important step to becoming a strong person." Xiaohui thought to herself: "However, talent is also indispensable. Unfortunately, you are not a born genius with a photographic memory, otherwise you would have achieved great things in the field of talismans. But if you continue to practice like this, there is still hope for you to become an excellent demon-trapper in the future. At least your skills in talisman-making won't be too bad."

  Deep night, moonlight is cold and clear.

  Tang Lin brought the stone back into his house and continued carving until after midnight before he finally finished engraving all ten characters.

  "Ah!" Tang Lin let out a long breath, twisting his neck and making cracking sounds with his bones. "It's finally done, my neck and hands are sore to death."

  Tang Lin had never suffered such a great hardship before.

  However, he could feel today's progress. Although his fingers were worn out and aching, the strength in his wrists seemed to have increased significantly.

  The most important thing is...

  "After training for so long, I didn't even pass out." Tang Lin's eyes shone brightly. In the past when he trained, he would often faint, but today he was perfectly fine.

  "Not bad." Little Gray looked at the stone covered with words and said, "Let's rest for today and continue tomorrow. Tomorrow we will carve twelve more characters."

  "Deal with a dozen or so." Tang Lin didn't have the energy, and directly lay down on the bed, "That's tomorrow's problem, let's talk about it after sleeping."

  Xiao Hui's eyes widened, and she could only force a bitter smile, unable to say anything else. After all, Tang Lin was only twelve years old, and today he had carved ten characters, which really exhausted him, not just his fingers, but also his mind and body. When carving characters, people will unconsciously concentrate their mental energy, so even if the body is not tired, the brain will still be fatigued.

  "Sleep." Little Gray waved its paws and helped Tang Lin cover himself with a quilt.

  ……

  The next day, Tang Lin came to the academy, his fingers still hadn't recovered, and were aching slightly, trembling when holding the pen holder, this was due to overexerting himself too much yesterday.

  Thinking of the twelve words after going home today, Tang Lin felt a little powerless. He only realized that the real difficulty was not the first day's training, but the following days when his body couldn't adapt and would produce thoughts of collapse, giving up, and retreating.

  The difficulty lies in overcoming these thoughts and bravely persisting.

  Ten days later.

  In the small woods beside Wò Lóng Pool, Táng Lǐn's small hand grasped a knife blade, exerting great effort to carve. After ten days of tempering, he can now carve as many as twenty-eight characters!

  The fatigue from practicing finger strength every day, after five or six days, he gradually got used to it. Nowadays, although he still feels struggling, he will not have the idea of giving up or being lazy.

  After so many days of practice, Tang Lin could clearly feel the growth of his finger strength. When holding the pen holder, it was as if there was no weight, and his calligraphy had made great progress. The strokes were like clouds flowing in the sky, elegant and free-spirited, without any hesitation.

  There is motivation with effectiveness.

  Tang Lin is now very diligent in his daily training.

  "I didn't expect you to make progress so quickly." Little Grey looked at Tang Lin writing the 28th character, with elegant and neat strokes, without any deviation, and nodded, "Now, your finger strength is already comparable to that of a young adult. From tomorrow on, when training your finger strength, you will also need to train your arm strength!"

  "Arm strength?" Tang Lin's eyes lit up.

  "When your arm strength and finger strength reach five times that of an adult, you can start carving talismans." Xiaohui glanced at the moonlight, "It's not early today, let's rest first, tomorrow's training will be much more difficult."

  "Five times that of an adult?" Tang Lin's heart was filled with anticipation.

  After ten days of painful training, he felt as if he had been through hell, and several times he almost cried from exhaustion, but when Xiao Hui said that his finger strength had reached the level of a young person, his heart couldn't help but feel a surge of warmth.

  The strength of his own fingers was actually comparable to that of an ordinary young man!

  Exercise arm strength?

  I'm really looking forward to it!

  ……

  The next day after returning from the academy, Tang Lin knew how to exercise his arm strength. He listened to Xiao Hui's instructions and found four small sandbags in the martial arts hall, each weighing about five kilograms. He tied two sandbags together and lifted them with his arms like a carrying pole.

  Each hand holds ten catties!

  "You must stand and carve characters, ten every day, just like before, increasing by two each day!" Xiao Hui looked at Tang Lin's sandbags on his hands, "With these sandbags hanging from your hands, your mind will be fully focused on carving characters, and your arm strength will increase imperceptibly, the effect is even better than doing push-ups."

  "Indeed." Tang Lin thought carefully and felt the same way too.

  Doing push-ups is a form of exercise, but concentrating one's mental energy on it can make one feel tired and the arms themselves will ache, requiring frequent rest.

  While hanging sandbags directly on your arm, focusing your mind on other things, your body will automatically adapt to such weight.

  Adaptation is human instinct.

  Moreover, this method does not require intense exercise and is the only way to train people with congenital qi and blood weakness.

  At once, Tang Lin took Xiao Hui through the small forest and saw a straight arched bridge. On the west side of the bridge was a fake hill, in front of which was a pond about three zhangs in size. The water was clear and bottomless, with several lotus leaves floating on its surface.

  This was once a famous place called "Dragon Elephant City", but now it has become an ordinary swimming pool.

  Tang Lin couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

  ……

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