Forge a path to success.

Chapter 80 The Courage to Eat Stones!
In the blink of an eye, Chu Hengkong... eel... eel Chu Hengkong used his tentacles to hook Xiang Fuzi's basket and swallowed the mushroom plant roots and the wooden basket whole!
His bite force was astonishing; he could even bite through a basket reinforced with wire. In the blink of an eye, the basket disappeared into the eel's mouth, breaking into several pieces and flowing down its long head. Xiang Fuzi only heard a few gurgling sounds, and when she looked up again, the basket had vanished without a trace, leaving her only with a pair of hungry and innocent eyes.

Xiang Fuzi gaped, exclaiming, "How...how could this be? How could this happen?!"

"Eel." Chu Hengkong responded in a low voice, casually tossing the last piece of wood into his mouth.

He looked around and realized there wasn't much food left, so he leaped up and flew into the sky like a winged fish, disappearing out of the church.

"What is he going to do?" Xiang Fuzi asked in astonishment.

"Stop him!" Vande and Qisu ran over, trembling. "He used demonic power and still hasn't eaten his fill."

"Why didn't you say so sooner?" Xiang Fuzi was shocked. "Where did you go just now?"

Vande trembled: "That guy eats so ravenously, I'm afraid I'll be used as reserve food..."

Xiang Fuzi felt like her head was about to explode: "You... Ugh...! Demonic power! Is this something a human can use?! Won't this cause a disaster?! Come with me and chase after him!"

The two dashed out of the church and saw the townspeople gathered in the square, their faces filled with shock and panic. A sense of foreboding washed over them. Van der panicked and rushed into the crowd: "Chu Hengkong, wake up! Don't let hunger control you! No matter how hungry you are, you can't eat... um..."

Van der squeezed through the crowd, frozen in place. Qi Su, shorter than him, couldn't get through and grew increasingly anxious: "What did he eat?!"

"It's nothing..." Van der said weakly, "It's just that it's a bit impolite..."

Qi Su squeezed through the crowd, his heart pounding with fear, when suddenly everything went black. At the west end of the square stood a large tree, once a place for townspeople to rest and cool off. This tree had survived nearly two hundred years of wind and rain, but today it finally succumbed to its fate: a mysterious creature with an eel's head was perched on the tree, its long head pounding down like a woodpecker, sending splinters flying with each swing. It gnawed at the tree while circling it, and the tree shrank as if it were being peeled, shrinking to almost nothing in less than half a minute, becoming a sapling.

Qi Su shrieked, "Stop biting! Find another one!"

"Eel." Chu Hengkong got up from the wood chips and nodded apologetically to her. He curled up his tentacles, flew away from the tree trunk, ran towards another marker in the square, and climbed to the top of the Sakura Dragon statue.

Amidst a series of gasps, the eel head opened its mouth toward the head of the Sakura Dragon God.

"You wretched creature! Get down here right now!!"

Qi Su dashed to the statue and desperately tried to pull at Chu Hengkong's clothes, but couldn't budge them. Seeing the statue about to be destroyed, Fan De stepped forward, steeling himself, and unleashed his ultimate technique: Hypnosis!

"Dude, we should have some principles, at least we can't eat stones!" In desperation, Vande pointed west, "Go outside town! There's plenty of grass to eat outside!"

Chu Hengkong, already dazed and confused by the demon's mask, was now completely affected. "Eel!" A loud roar rang out, and the eel monster dashed towards the west side of the town, disappearing from sight in a few leaps. The townspeople breathed a sigh of relief. Qi Su, looking at the Cherry Dragon statue that had escaped death, discovered it was covered in eel saliva and burst into tears.

"Lord Sakura Dragon is impure!!"

Vande was furious: "Don't use such misleading language! Lord Sakura Dragon just got washed and is as clean as can be!"

Xiang Fuzi gazed into the distance, his eyes filled with a profound sense of weariness. A terrible thought lingered in his mind.

This grassland outside the town... could it be renamed wasteland from now on?

·
Two hours later, in a small wasteland outside the town.

"Eel eel eel eel eel eel eel".

Chu Hengkong sat cross-legged on the muddy ground, rubbing his head as he rested. Within a hundred-meter radius of him, not a blade of grass grew; anything edible had already been digested by the eel-head mask. After two hours of frantic eating, he had finally stored enough energy to remain normal for a while.

He walked back into the town, cupped his hands in greeting to Qi Su and Fan De, who were watching, and sighed, "Eel..."

Vande handed over a wooden sign: "It's really not an eel. I can't understand eel language. Can you write something?"

Chu Hengkong quickly carved a few words and held up a sign: 【You can move now, but not yet】 Qi Su felt a headache coming on: "You've been eating way too much! Does practicing bone-forging kung fu really require that much energy?"

[Energy is prioritized for the bones] Chu Hengkong peeled off a layer of bark with writing on it, like peeling fruit, and added, [Only 30% goes into the stomach].

Vande noticed a problem: "Aren't you martial arts cultivators able to control every part of your body? You should be able to adjust the absorption efficiency, right?"

【…】

The eel-headed man silently turned away, while Qi Su grabbed his clothes and demanded, "Tell me! What happened?!"

[The more you eat, the better your bones will be.] Chu Hengkong put down the wooden sign and picked up a new one: [Progress is rapid, I can't bear to stop.]

"I really want to smash this martial arts idiot's head open with a stick..."

“That won’t do.” Vande shook his head and sighed. “The power of demons is a terrifying thing; using it for too long can lead to dependence. In the worst-case scenario, the Gluttonous Demon will be resurrected from Chu Hengkong’s body, and then…”

It stared at Chu Hengkong and said in a sinister tone, "You will really turn into an eel!"

Chu Hengkong was startled upon hearing this and couldn't help but take a bite of the writing board.

Qi Su snatched the writing board and slapped him hard: "Stop eating, you idiot! Forget about eel, you're practically turning into a pig!"

"eel……"

Chu Hengkong put down the sign and fell into deep thought. He had used the remnant flames of the demon before and naturally knew the dangers of such power, but the problem at hand was not only hunger, but also cultivation.

Regardless of the method, the bone-forging process has already begun; interrupting it midway is like forcibly suppressing growth, which will only do harm. To completely resolve the crisis, it is necessary to address the root cause of the problem…

He used his tentacles to write and draw on the ground, and soon produced a rough sketch of a human skeleton. A dozen or so bones were drawn too thick, making the whole drawing look very incongruous.

[Hunger stems from disharmony; if the bones are trained evenly, balance can be achieved even without training the spine.] Chu Heng wrote on the ground, [Since things have come to this, let's go all in and use this momentum to completely complete the bone-strengthening until we are no longer hungry!]

"But this ridiculous method you came up with yourself only works if someone beats you up," Vande said listlessly. "You beat yourself up all night yesterday and only managed to break a dozen or so bones. Where are we going to find 20 Shadow Giants to beat you up and feed you at the same time?"

Chu Hengkong pondered for a long time, then turned to look north, towards the mountains that isolated the town from the outside world. Thinking of the foxes dwelling on the mountaintop, he raised the wooden sign.

I have a plan.

·
boom! boom! boom!
Three booming sounds echoed up the mountain range, reverberating through the empty valley and rousing the Jade-Faced Fox and numerous other strange beasts from their slumber. The Jade Fox climbed to the summit, its beastly eyes piercing through the mist, instantly pinpointing the source of the noise. The sound indeed came from Singularity Z-3000-3; the tentacle-wielding man was lashing his tentacles against the mountain wall, clearly intending to take the opportunity to ascend the mountain.

The jade fox flicked its tail, a flash of yellow light appearing at the tip, and instantly a round stone fell from the summit of Yingluo Mountain. The stone raced down the cliff, growing larger and larger like a snowball. The boulder, carrying immense force, hurtled down the mountain, sending the tentacle-wielding man, who had sought his own death, flying far away!
Jade Fox listened with satisfaction to the sound of bones breaking and returned to the mountaintop to rest. But after only a short while, the sound of bones hitting the mountain wall came again. Jade Fox stared down the mountain and saw the tentacle man wearing a huge, disgusting headgear, not only shaking his head from side to side but also howling defiantly at the mountaintop: "Eel!"

The jade fox pushed down three huge rocks in one go, hoping to crush the monster to death this time. It listened intently for about ten minutes, making sure there was no more noise before returning to its den. But no sooner had it crouched down than the roar came again, accompanied by the man's incredibly arrogant shout: "Eel! Eel!"

"Awoooooo!!"

The jade fox howled to the sky, and rocks rained down the mountain with a series of crashes. Chu Hengkong was once again sent flying hundreds of meters by the rocks. He got up from the ground, satisfied with his improved muscles and bones, and then pounced on the rocks with the force of a tiger descending the mountain, manipulating the eel head to bite down!
The jade-faced fox could never have imagined that humans not only had the audacity to smash mountains, but also the courage to eat stones. So stones came pouring in, knocking the tentacle man away time and again, only to rise again after eating them, fearlessly facing the challenge amidst the fox's despairing howls…

“The more you get beaten, the stronger your bones become; the stronger your bones become, the more stones you can eat,” Van Der said. “The more stones you eat, the more beatings you can take.”

"He is truly a rare genius." Qi Su clapped in admiration.

"eel!"

(End of this chapter)