Alex felt like he had just realized the importance of body cultivation. Everything his master had said until now had barely influenced his thoughts against body cultivation. At best, he would reluctantly accept the pain and cultivate.
But now, he had an incentive to. "Even if I could cultivate more than this with Qi cultivation alone, I still wouldn't get as strong since continuous breakthroughs are bad for your foundation. But, this seems entirely different."
"This is quite exciting."
Now that he knew how strong his Qi-less body was, he decided to check how strong it was with the Qi. "If I'm remembering correctly, my fists did the same damage as my cultivation base. So, with the Body cultivation, it should be higher, right?"
"Although, I don't know how much more damage a simple muscle tempering realm can add to my current strength." Alex let go of the withheld Qi and let it fill his body.
He prepared his fist once more and punched the metallic puppet as hard as he could.
BAM
This was a much louder sound than he was imagining. He looked up at the puppet to see what the result was.
<Organ Tempering 2nd Realm>
"Or-Organ Tempering 2nd Realm?" he blurted out, shocked at the result. "But..how? My body isn't strong enough to show that kind of result. Was I mistaken earlier?" he wondered.
The last time he had tested his physical strength was when he had just gotten the Smiting Blade technique. After that, he had trained under the assumption that all of his damage would always be equivalent to his cultivation base.
"Even master had said the same thing. Due to one's Qi, your strength without any external techniques or artifacts would be equal to your cultivation base under normal circums—"
His eyes went wide. "Is there something more to my strength other than the weak body cultivation right now?" he tried to think of the reasons.
"I see…" he finally said after a minute. "It has to be either because of the Yang Jade, the Mortal Cleansing I went through, or the unknown blood essence, right? But which one? Maybe even all three."
He punched once more just to be sure it wasn't a fluke and the puppet indeed showed 'Organ Tempering 2nd Realm' once more.
He took out the normal sword and used it this time.
<Organ Tempering 1st Realm>
"Woah! Even a normal Common Mortal grade sword's damage increased by so much? What about my actual sword?" he thought as he took out the Steel sword and used it.
<Organ Tempering 3rd Realm>
"Yeah, that's more like it." He went on to test on a few more techniques. He managed to deal a realm higher worth of damage with his Smiting blade. Sadly, techniques like the 2nd and 3rd strike of the Elusive Heavenly sword which were more focused on the Qi were the weakest of the different techniques Alex knew now.
Iron Fist Punch, however, had become amazing.
<Organ Tempering 5th Realm>
"But, it's not even focused on the body. Why is only this Qi-based technique so strong?" he couldn't help but wonder. After going through Mortal Cleansing, his strength had gone a realm higher. But he didn't know that yet.
"I should see if cultivation truly had no influence on body cultivation," he thought as he opened his status page, and pressed on the button, [Breakthrough].
<Congratulations, You have broken through to 'Organ Tempering: 1st realm'>
'Finally, on the 4th minor realm.' Alex once more reeled in his Qi and tried to punch the puppet with just his body strength.
<Muscle Tempering 4th Realm>
"As I thought, it didn't increase."
He went on to test the other techniques and realized that they all had increased by a realm in damage. "I should test defense next," he thought and walked up to the puppet to flip the 'Defense training' switch while switching off the other one.
Out of nowhere, the puppet moved to the side, hitting him with the stick it was holding. His reflexes kicked in as he put up his arms to protect himself, only to realize that it didn't hurt at all.
The puppet returned to its original state, and Alex could see the words 'Skin Tempering 1st Realm' written on it. The puppet moved once more attacking him. This time, it's damage one step further.
Hit after hit, it increased its damage with every hit, returning to its initial position with each one. Still, Alex didn't feel any damage whatsoever.
Even after the damage entered the threshold of the Bone Tempering realm, he was barely feeling any damage. "Is this how good body cultivation really is?" he couldn't help but wonder.
Only around the 5th realm, did he start to get hurt a little. Still, it was more of a pat on the back, than actual damage. Another attack came from the side, dealing a bit higher damage.
Another attack with 7th realm damage came and he finally thought it was a bit substantial in damage. The 8th realm damage started to get him worried.
The 9th realm damage finally hurt him a little. He braced for the next attack.
Finally, an Organ Tempering 1st realm's equivalent damage-dealing attack appeared in front of him and hit him, sending him flying backward.
"Urghh, that hurt. But I can take another one." The puppet was already back to its original position, moving once more. Alex walked forward and braced himself again.
BAM
He was sent back flying. "Arghh," he shouted as that was the highest bit of damage he could take right now. "Urghh…" he stood up once more and waited for the attack to come back.
Qi started flowing through his body as his skin started to get textured, making it look like it was made up of jade. Alex had used the Jade Skin technique and waited for the attack to hit him.
"Umphh," he stopped the attack and felt a little damage. He smiled at the situation as he watched the puppet rotate back to hit him once more.