The Phantom Groom System

Chapter 5: Kessler's Iron Bone Method Mastery on Equip

Cultivation techniques could be equipped too?

Danny froze for a second, then snatched the manual out of Gloria's hands.

He almost equipped it on instinct, then caught himself and looked up at her, something calculating flickering behind his eyes.

Gloria shuddered, all color draining from her face.

She understood exactly what that look meant. Her former lover was weighing whether or not to kill her.

Squint and Gimpy had known this new Danny longer, but neither of them had quite clocked how much he'd changed. Gloria, though, as a woman, she noticed things. And in this one moment, she knew with total certainty: the man in front of her wasn't the Danny she used to know.

Cold. Composed. Killed without blinking.

Was he possessed? Had almost dying flipped some switch in him? It didn't matter why.

What mattered was staying alive.

She dropped to her knees without a second's hesitation. "Danny, I know Vince did this to you, but I swear I had nothing to do with it! For everything we used to have, please, spare me! I'll do anything"

She was already stripping her clothes off as she crawled toward him.

Danny wasn't moved in the slightest. He watched her, expression unreadable, and simply planted a foot against her shoulder to hold her at a distance.

"You said you used to belong to Boss Cutter, from the Razor Society?"

Gloria froze, then rushed to answer. "Back when I worked the Crimson Lotus House, I spent a few nights with him, that's all"

That tracked with what Danny had pulled from the old memories, the Crimson Lotus was the big house up in the north end. Crossing paths with a man like Cutter wasn't unusual for a girl who'd worked there.

"Is Cutter married?"

She blinked, thought it over. "I... don't think so. But I remember he has a son."

Danny waved a hand, cutting her off. "Fine. Go make some food."

Gloria bolted for the kitchen like she'd just been handed a pardon. Danny rubbed his temples.

He already had a working theory about who Kessler's people had actually meant that bracelet for.

Boss Cutter of the Razor Society, Kessler's sworn enemy. The feud between the two crews had never let up, according to this body's memories.

Which meant Danny had accidentally intercepted a curse meant for someone else entirely.

As for Gloria, she still had her uses. Best to keep her alive for now.

He set his hand on the Iron Bone manual, took a breath, and thought: Equip.

The knife slot cleared instantly, and the manual dissolved into light in his palm.

The Iron Bone Method locked into the first slot.

The second it clicked in, a flood of martial insight crashed into his mind, as if he'd lived out the entire training regimen in a single heartbeat.

Inside him, his bones expanded and compressed, over and over. Nine cycles in the space of a breath.

On the ninth, with a strange crack, Danny grew half a head taller. Muscle, organs, blood, everything strengthened in step with the changing bone structure.

When he came back to himself, he found his own fingers buried in the solid wood table. A table that would've taken an axe to break apart now felt like wet clay under his hands.

He flexed his fingers, feeling the power settle into him, and let a small smile show.

【Danny Reyes】

【Vitality: 30/60 (Status: Cursed Phantom Bride's Toll: -10 Vitality daily)】

【Strength: 13】

【Defense: 1】

【Inner Energy: 0】

【Agility: 8】

【Charm: 69】

【Item Slot 1: Iron Bone Method (Incomplete)】

(Completion Requirement: 10 catties of demon tiger bone)

【Item Slot 2: Locked】

His Strength had jumped clean to 13. With this, he could beat his old self to death with a single punch, no contest.

That was the gap between the first realm of martial arts, Body Tempering at full completion, and an ordinary man.

Body Tempering was the first realm any fighter passed through, split into three schools, Bone, Blood, and Skin. Kessler's Iron Bone Method walked the Bone path.

A normal Kessler recruit would spend months, sometimes years, grinding through brutal conditioning, hauling weights, chanting the mental formula, before their bones finally hardened all the way through nine transformations.

Danny got the same result the instant he equipped the manual.

If that held true for higher-tier techniques too... he could skip straight to the top.

The thought sent a rush through him, followed immediately by a wry, bitter laugh.

The Iron Bone Method had needed 50 Vitality just to equip. Anything stronger would demand even more. His current body couldn't come close to meeting that bar yet.

To equip higher-grade techniques, he had two options. Unlock more slots. Or work his way up, equip something low-tier first to raise his stats, then swap it for something stronger once he qualified.

That second option meant he'd need a lot of open slots to cycle through. Ideally, all six.

But the second slot alone cost a hundred silver coins. God knew what the rest would run.

There was a third path too, technically, solidifying a technique. Meet certain conditions, and its bonuses would fuse permanently into his body, freeing up the slot entirely. The more he solidified, the stronger the baseline version of himself became.

Not either-or. He needed both.

The curse was still ticking down on him, and he had to squeeze every possible advantage out of every path available. Unlock slots to hold more gear and raise his Vitality cap. Solidify techniques to push through realms and buy himself a real shot at breaking this curse for good.

A hundred silver coins. Demon tiger bone. Both urgently needed.

Demon tiger bone, that word alone told him this wasn't something you picked up at a corner butcher shop.

The silver, at least, felt achievable. He'd just inherited Vince's whole territory, after all. Time to have a talk with the block bosses about a new cut of the profits.

While he was turning it over in his head, his ear twitched, voices, out in the street.

People, out at this hour?

Outside, Squint and Gimpy had already dragged the first two bodies off from in front of the house. Now they stood over Vince's corpse, working together to lift it.

A drunken voice cut through the dark.

"Hey! You two! C'mere, got a question for you!"

They turned. Two men strolled up, each swinging a jug of liquor, laughing between themselves.

"Middle of the night and you two are still up... whoa, hold on, murder and looting?"

Squint and Gimpy went stiff, scrambling to come up with something

But the stranger waved it off before they could even open their mouths. "Nah, it's fine, it's fine. Who hasn't done a little of that."

"Just answer my question and get back to it."

"There's a guy who runs this stretch of Blackwood, what's his name again..."

He trailed off, scratched his head, and glanced at the man beside him.

"Vince," his companion supplied, taking a swig from his jug without breaking stride.

As his jacket shifted in the wind, it revealed a row of small blades tucked into his belt.