Ren Baqian stood in the arena with his upper body exposed. Over the past few months, he had grown quite a lot of muscle ma.s.s. At the very least, his original "spare ribs" couldn't be seen anymore.

At this moment, his eyes were full of unswerving determination and he stared closely at his opponent. Even if Chen Qing was at the side, he wouldn't be able to recognize this sharp and piercing gaze of Ren Baqian. This man, whose aura was just like a sword and had a ruthless vibe now, was actually his good friend who seemed ordinary and mediocre in the eyes of many.

The laptop behind him, which was connected to the stereo system, was currently playing the OST of Crows Zero, "Into the Battlefield". At the time when he watched the movie, this song practically made him all fired up.

[Crows Zero - A 2007 j.a.panese action film based on the manga Crows by Hiros.h.i.+ Takahas.h.i.+.)]

The intense rhythm and dense drum beats at this moment gave Ren Baqian an adrenaline rush and his battle fervor raged. It gave him the feeling that if he had a gun at this moment, he would be able to carry it onto the battlefield.

And the attention of Ren Baqian's opponent at this time, was evidently attracted by the thing that was giving off a sound. His gaze wandered and landed on that stereo system.

"An opportunity!" Ren Baqian's eyes glimmered. He jumped off the ground and like a wild dog without a leash, he dashed towards his opponent.

"Bang!"

Then, Ren Baqian flew backwards and fell heavily on the ground at a faster speed than when he dashed towards his opponent. His chest was imprinted with a footprint of a size 46 shoe.

"Oh, ah~!" Ren Baqian lay on the ground and let out a long moan, "Your Majesty, I need a change of opponent."

"You can choose any guards in the palace!" the empress, who was seated and eating popcorn not far away, said generously.

"Is it possible to lower their age? I have yet to even achieve the Man Wheel level!" Ren Baqian lamented.

"How do I lower their age?" Currently, the guard that Ren Baqian was up against, was approximately 30 years old. For the aboriginals, this meant that they have yet to reach their peak. Moreover, the skills of the guards in the palace weren't the highest. The winged cavalry was still slightly more powerful than the imperial guards.

The youngest guard in the palace should be 22 years old. To be able to become an imperial guard at the age of 22, his original ability shouldn't be weak in the first place. Thus, Ren Baqian's request wouldn't actually make any difference to his current situation.

"I feel that, an opponent about 10 years old would be okay for me to try," Ren Baqian expressed his request in with a sincere look on his face.

The empress nearly chuckled out loud upon seeing that he had no sense of shame.

Qing Yuan and Hong Luan looked down on him. Could he save some face for himself?

And his opponent was looking at the sky at forty-five degrees.

I didn't even use half of my strength just now, what else do you want me to do?

"A reciprocal relations.h.i.+p would then be considered a sparring practice, am I right? Even if this person's legs and hands were to be tied together, I will still not be his match," Ren Baqian got up from the ground and earnestly pleaded.

The empress gave him the side-eye for a long time before she finally said, "Fine!"

Upon hearing what the empress said, he was elated, "Your Majesty's wisdom and strength are unparalleled. Your compa.s.sion for the commoners helps deliver all living creatures from their suffering!"

"We will continue today! From tomorrow onwards, I will change the opponent for you."

"Sigh!" Ren Baqian sighed. He struck a pose and then tapped along to the rhythm of a song from the j.a.panese band Nightwish. Once again, he dashed towards the opponent like a wild dog.

"Bam!"

…

This was the seventh day since the empress had taught him the boxing technique. It could be said that his face was filled with tears during these seven days.

The eight moves alone from the [Boxing of Death] made Ren Baqian suffer to no end.

Ren Baqian's bones already taken form many years ago. As such, he absolutely couldn't do many actions at all.

Then, the empress got two guards to push his shoulders down so that he could manage a split. At that time, his voice was similar to a pig being slaughtered and was spread throughout the palace, lingering for three days.

For three consecutive days, Ren Baqian walked with his legs splayed out and felt that they were as flimsy as cooked noodles.

Having to train every day, this was still okay. At most, he would be more tired. However, in addition to all the training, he still had to endure getting beaten up every alternate day. This made Ren Baqian feel extremely regretful.

Today, he finally couldn't help but raise the issue that he had been pondering over the past few days.

At night, another female official came to help decongest the bruises on his body. A layer of Indian G.o.d oil, which was a term given by Ren Baqian, was applied on his body. After the oil was applied, his entire body reflected light. But, the result was extremely good. Every time he was coated with a layer of Indian G.o.d oil and given a good ma.s.sage to decongest the bruises it was indescribably comforting from head to toe. Whenever he looked at his body the next day, there wasn't a single bruise at all.

However, he didn't know that only the minority of the aboriginals could afford this Indian G.o.d oil. Although it wasn't considered invaluable, it was extremely costly. Even the big shots in the imperial court could only use the oil occasionally. Moreover, it was impossible for them to use it every alternate day to rub their entire body just like Ren Baqian.

A bottle of this type of medicine cost 100 taels of silver. If he used a bottle every alternate day, it would cost more than 10,000 taels of silver in a year. Even the empress would consider this costly.

Caretaker s.h.i.+, who was a Secondary, Rank 9 official, only took home 6 taels of silver every month. Also, the annual rent of a shop on Jingyang Road wouldn't exceed 100 taels of silver.

As for the medicine used in the medicinal bath, the cost was even higher. The cost of each medicinal bath he took was 1000 taels of silver. Each time, the medicinal bath could only last him for seven days.

Just based on the two items which Ren Baqian used, the annual expense amounted to 50,000 taels of silver.

Dayao wasn't well-to-do and the entire palace's annual expense doesn't even exceed 400 taels of silver. The majority of this expense was spent on the imperial guards', female officials', as well as the palace maids' salaries. The money spent on Ren Baqian was so much more than the total annual expenses of the entire palace.

The empress solely relied on the imperial family's profit on gold and silver mines with only a slight surplus. With the additional expenses on Ren Baqian, the imperial family's profits immediately became a deficit.

...

…

The next day, Ren Baqian hurriedly left and gathered Overseer of Military Arms Feng Hou as well as Junior Official of the Department of Construction before hurrying over to Jingtian Furnaces. In the morning, he received news that the pile of bricks which were fired in the furnace previously, had all turned into broken pieces.

Throughout the entire journey, Ren Baqian was thinking deeply as to why the bricks broke while he was being jolted up and down by the walking motion of the fork-horned cow. Since they were able to produce cement, that meant the composition of the ores in this world should be similar to the ones on Earth. Not to mention the fact that baking bricks contained mostly clay, all the more that such a situation shouldn't happen.

When they arrived at Jingtian Furnaces, the supervisor, Tie Mu hurriedly came to welcome them, "Sir, the fire was extinguished yesterday and we wanted to take the bricks out. Only then did we discover…"

"Hang on, let's take a look at the situation first." Ren Baqian waved his hands and then hastily rushed to that furnace. The bricks inside had practically not been taken out yet. Ren Baqian went down the ladder and there was only half a brick left. The rest of the bricks had turned into fragments and fell to the bottom of the furnace.

As for the remaining half a brick, it could be seen from the surface that it was completely cracked, and many parts bulged as well. Touching it would immediately cause it to break into pieces.

Ren Baqian's eyebrows lifted.

What was going on?

"Sir Ren, how is it?" Tong Yan, who was on top him asked.

After the last drinking session at the brothel, everyone became familiar with one another.

Ren Baqian knitted his eyebrows and crawled out of the furnace with dust all over his body. He then said to Tie Mu, "Do it again, I will watch for what exactly went wrong."

After which, he said to Tong Yan, "I'm unsure of the reason, let's wait it out before we talk about it."

When the craftsman of Jingtian Furnaces was working, Ren Baqian fished out a piece of paper and did a step-by-step comparison to see what went wrong.

"There's no problem?" Ren Baqian muttered to himself. He personally watched the craftsman of Jingtian Furnaces do everything step-by-step, from crus.h.i.+ng to mixing and even kneading the shape of the bricks. There was no problem at all.

"Could it be that the information on this paper is wrong?" Ren Baqian began to doubt the information which he had found online.

Perhaps, there was something that wasn't written on this paper.

"Sir Ren, what is this?" Tong Yan and Feng Hou gathered together. Just now, they saw him holding onto the piece of paper while muttering to himself.

"For me to remember some things," Ren Baqian casually replied. In any case, the neither of them could understand what was written on that paper.

"I have never seen such writings before." Tong Yan took a glance and shook his head.

Ren Baqian ignored him. If Tong Yan had seen those words before, it would be really strange.

"Eh, what are you all doing?" Ren Baqian looked at the craftsman as he placed the bricks back into the furnace.

"Like what you said Sir, we have got to fire them." The craftsman was at a loss.

"Dry it, dry it in the shade first, how is it possible to fire it if you send it in like this?" Ren Baqian's eyes were opened wide as the instruction was obviously written on the piece of paper.

"Sir, this is the way you had us to fire them the previous time." Tie Mu was dumbfounded.

"How can it be? These aren't dry, how can it turn into bricks?" Ren Baqian's eyes widened in astonishment.

"Sir Ren, the previous time you didn't say anything about drying it in the shade. We fired it like this," Feng Hou spoke out of justice for the workers.

Ren Baqian looked at Feng Hou with disgust, "How can it be?"

In his heart, he was thinking, "My foot, could it be that I really didn't say it the previous time?"

He thought about it carefully. It seemed like the previous time, the entire processes of producing cement and baking bricks were completed in a day. Where could they find the time to dry those bricks in the shade?

Ren Baqian's expression turned solemn. "This time, you all better not foul up. Firstly, dry the kneaded bricks in the shade. Remember to dry them in a cool place and not directly in the sun. After which place them back into the furnace to fire them. It will be best to turn on a few furnaces at the same time, so that we can experiment with baking them at different temperatures as well as the duration."