At night, in Stone House Number Seven, Sector C.

Su Ming sat cross-legged on the meditation cushion, the bronze fragment placed on the low table before him.

The restrictive formations within the stone house were fully activated, and he had even temporarily lowered the sensitivity of the "Earth Hearing" device to avoid interference.

"How do I do this?" Su Ming looked at the fragment that seemed as if it might crumble to dust at any moment, somewhat at a loss.

"Its current state is like a piece of paper half-burned by fire, it'll shatter at the slightest touch," Lin Yu floated opposite him. "Nurture it. Use your water spiritual energy, seep it inside, 'support' those formation lines that are about to collapse and scatter."

Lin Yu gestured with his hand. "It's like... like when you played with mud as a kid, if you wanted to knead a lump of mud that was about to dry and crack back together, you had to add water. But you couldn't add too much, and you couldn't rush it. You had to moisten it bit by bit."

Su Ming nodded thoughtfully.

He took a deep breath, adjusting his breathing.

Within his Dantian's Qihai, that pool of deep blue spiritual liquid began to slowly rotate.

Su Ming extended his right hand, index and middle fingers pressed together, hovering three inches above the fragment.

"Go."

A strand of water spiritual energy, ten times finer than a strand of hair, slowly descended from his fingertip.

It didn't directly touch the fragment, but instead swirled around it, forming an extremely thin layer of blue mist.

The moment the mist made contact with the fragment's surface, the previously dead, inert bronze material actually emitted an extremely faint, almost inaudible "hum."

It was the sound of a traveler parched for a thousand years encountering the first drop of sweet dew.

"Steady!" Lin Yu barked in a low voice. "Don't give it too much!"

A layer of fine sweat instantly beaded on Su Ming's forehead.

This was more exhausting than repairing formations on the battlefield.

He had to constantly sense the structural changes within the fragment. One iota too much spiritual energy, and the fragile internal balance of the fragment would be broken. One iota too little, and he couldn't stop the dissipation of its spiritual nature.

That strand of spiritual energy was like a silkworm spinning silk, bit by bit, extremely slowly, seeping into the fragment's interior.

One quarter-hour, two quarter-hours, one full hour...

Su Ming's face began to pale, a sign of excessive mental exertion.

His fingers began to tremble slightly.

"Hold on," Lin Yu didn't let him stop. "This kind of extreme tug-of-war, though exhausting, is the best way to temper your character. Your 'Like Water Art' has always been stuck at the 'soft' stage. Actually, water isn't just soft."

"What is water then?" Su Ming gritted his teeth, the words squeezing out from between them.

"Water is tenacity."

Lin Yu's voice seemed to carry a certain rhythm. "Draw a sword to cut the water, the water still flows. The reason water isn't severed isn't because it's soft, but because it has viscosity, tension, a kind of unending 'tenacity.' You need to turn your spiritual energy into a net, a net that's soft but absolutely unbreakable."

Su Ming closed his eyes.

Within his Consciousness Sea, that strand of spiritual energy thread, which had originally been somewhat insubstantial, began to change under the control of his will.

It was no longer a simple flow of energy, but began to solidify, becoming like a transparent string of a zither.

This string probed into the invisible cracks within the fragment, not to fill them, but to connect. To "bridge" those broken lines together using spiritual energy.

The night passed.

When the morning light shone through the cracks in the stone house, Su Ming still maintained that posture.

The surface of the bronze fragment was now covered with a faint, deep blue luster. The previous feeling of brittleness, as if it might crumble at any moment, had disappeared, replaced by a warm, smooth texture.

Su Ming slowly withdrew his finger.

He didn't feel tired. Instead, he felt a warmth within his Dantian. The previously somewhat sluggish circulation of his spiritual energy was now flowing with an incredible smoothness.

"This feeling..."

Su Ming looked down at his hands, gently clenching his five fingers.

There was no spiritual energy fluctuation in the air, but he could clearly feel that the moisture in the surroundings seemed to have become an extension of his fingers.

"Is this 'tenacity'?"

Su Ming murmured to himself.

For the next seven days, aside from clocking in at the warehouse and necessary patrols, Su Ming spent all his time on this fragment.

He was like the most patient seamstress, using spiritual energy as needle and thread, slowly stitching up the wounds left by time.

This monotonous and high-intensity micro-manipulation brought his divine sense to the brink of exhaustion several times. But each time at the edge of his limit, his comprehension of the "tenacity of water" deepened by one degree.

Until late at night on the seventh day.

"Click."

An extremely crisp sound came from within the fragment.

It wasn't the sound of shattering, but more like the sound of some lock being opened.

Su Ming's eyes snapped open.

He saw the bronze fragment slowly float up, hovering in mid-air. The three previously blurry lines now glowed with a silvery-white light.

The light wasn't dazzling, but carried an indescribable depth. It was as if they were three miniature stars, slowly rotating within the stone house.

An invisible gravitational field instantly expanded.

The teacup on the table, the brush stand, even the dust on the hem of Su Ming's clothes, were all subjected to a certain pull, tilting slightly towards the direction of the fragment.

"Succeeded!"

Lin Yu slapped his thigh. "Star Attraction Lines! These are the most primitive gravitational formation lines!"

Su Ming didn't speak.

He stared fixedly at those three silver lines.

Under the illumination of that light, the "Like Water Art" within his body seemed to receive some kind of summons, operating on its own.

His spiritual energy, originally like a trickling stream, now began to spin wildly within his Dantian, forming a huge vortex.

The rotation of this vortex resonated in a wonderfully strange harmony with the rhythm of the "Star Attraction Lines."

Boom—

There was no earth-shattering roar, only a dull thud that only Su Ming could hear.

It was like a dam being gently overtopped by rising water—natural, inevitable.

Qi Refining, Eighth Layer.

The bottleneck that had troubled him for so long was, at this moment, gently yet firmly breached by that incredibly tenacious, endlessly enduring water spiritual energy.

Su Ming slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air.

That breath condensed in the air without dispersing, transforming into a white ribbon that only slowly dissipated after hitting the wall.

"This is the Eighth Layer of Qi Refining."

Su Ming clenched his fist.

If his spiritual energy before was like scattered mist, then now, his spiritual energy was like viscous mercury.

Higher density, stronger permeability, and... much harder to sever.

He extended a finger, gently tapping the floating fragment.

The previously wild gravitational field instantly became docile under the pacification of his spiritual energy.

With a thought from Su Ming, those three "Star Attraction Lines" transformed into three silver runes, deeply imprinted into his Consciousness Sea. Then, the light on the fragment dimmed, and it turned back into a piece of scrap metal.

"Congratulations, disciple."

Lin Yu looked at him with a beaming smile. "Not only did your cultivation break through, but you also got three ancient runes for free. This cleanup mission was a bloody jackpot."

The corners of Su Ming's mouth lifted slightly, revealing a somewhat sly smile.

"Master, you're right."

Su Ming carefully stored away the fragment that had now lost its spiritual nature, stood up, and stretched his somewhat stiff muscles and bones.

"With these 'Star Attraction Lines,' combined with my water spiritual energy, I can prepare a real 'big gift' for those Rock Marrow Demon Earthworms underground."

Su Ming walked to the corner, lifted the floor tile, and looked down at the "Earth Hearing" device that was still vibrating slightly.

His eyes gradually turned cold.