Three months passed by quickly.
The ocean beyond the cliff roared, the clouds overhead flowing on with their ever changing form. Upon that cliff, a teenage boy was wearing a training robe and holding a great steel sword. He jumped up and down and moved forward and back, making his sword shine with light that danced and weaved.
Perhaps it was just an illusion, perhaps it was the environment, but the scene of the young man waving his sword gave one the sense that he was standing there all by himself, like a lone peak, looking down over the mountains of the world, everything miniscule in comparison. Even though he would be there right in front of you, it would feel like he was far far away on that lone peak, a kind of unpredictable sense of distance that would make one feel like they were helplessly lost in the world.
One by one, he moved from stance to stance, starting from the first stage and advancing to the twelfth stage. After moving through the twelve stages, the young man's gaze became sharp, cutting right through the air. He jumped high up into the air and dove down like he was jumping off a peak. Snap! A small spark appeared . The next second, half of the rock was scorched with a horrifying three-centimeter-deep sword mark. It was clean and neat, yet aggressive and cold-blooded.
Returning his sword back to its scabbard, the young man mumbled to himself: "No wonder the pavilion master wanted me to choose another sword art, it turns out that this Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords was not just some simple Middle-Ranked Mortal manual. It actually contains profound truths, making its actual rank much higher than what the manual had been listed at. Only these truths were not explained in the manual"
This young man was Ye Chen. Over the past three months, he had already finished his training of the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords, due to his extremely strong comprehension. However, he recently realized that there was still something missing. Ye Chen concluded that the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords was incomplete, and that the complete manual had been lost and had its rank drop to the Middle-Ranked Mortal level.
Fortunately, it was Ye Chen who was training in it. After spending some effort studying it, not only had he managed to reach the Conscious Stage, which was not explained in the manual, but his Qi had also been improved. The Conscious Stage was a stage of realization. Imagine a pianist playing a piece of music that she had played many times before, however, instead of just reading the notes and playing as written, she played the piece in a completely different manner, yet still using the same melody and rhythm! The pianist had comprehended the emotion and feeling that caused the composer to write the song. The heart! This was the Conscious Stage of the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords, the true heart and intent. Indomitable and lonely. He believed it would not take long before he would be able to recreate and master his own Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords.
From his training the past three months, the Qi inside of Ye Chen had reached the beginning of Qi Realm Level 6.
"It's time! I should go and return the script now." Remembering the rules of the Sky Cloud Martial School, Ye Chen did not want to waste a second, he immediately started to head back.
On the way back, his ears twitched as he heard grunting from a distance. Even though it was at least five hundred meters away, he still could hear it very clearly, as if the sounds had been pressed together and all occurred at the same time.
"What a loud noise! The body to produce this kind of sound must be wondrous indeed! And from what it sounds like, it seems to be a woman..." Unable to quench his curiosity, Ye Chen carefully approached.
After crossing a few thorny bushes, he arrived at the back of a huge rock.
He stuck his head out and he saw a small forest and a wood cabin with a small pond beside it. Four lotus leaves drifted peacefully in the pond causing the whole place to have a poetic feel.
At the edge of the forest, there was a teenage girl who looked to be about sixteen years old. Wearing white training gear, she was practicing a fist arts which caused her to continuously grunt with a loud sound that could frighten one's soul.
She was a petite skinny girl that looked so weak that she might be blown away by the wind. But each punch and kick of hers gave off such a terrifying aura that one would think it would be able to rip through anything.
"It's senior sister Xu Jing...so this must be a forbidden area?"
After seeing her, Ye Chen realized something.
The master of the Sky Cloud Martial School, and each of the elders, had their own mountains for practicing, and if the others wanted to train their martial arts, they would have to find a different place. However, although the Mountain of Wind was huge, the best training locations were scarce. So usually, the elders and the core disciples would get to pick the good places first and mark them as their own territories. If anyone tried to break in, it was viewed as incredible disrespect, and they would be definitely yelled at or even badly punished if it was a serious situation.
This sister Xu he was looking at was one of the core disciples in the Sky Cloud Martial School, ranked 23rd. Her cultivation had reached the Mid Condensing Reality Realm, and was extremely talented.
Xu Jing continued taking steps. Between the movements of her fists and legs, she pressed her tongue on the back of her teeth, gathered the Qi inside of her body together in her lower abdomen and grunted repeatedly, all of which increased the power of her fist art.
After a few rounds of punches, her power seemed to have reached its peak. All of a sudden, she jumped up in the air, her fists moving fast like lightning, murderous like a tiger attacking its prey. The next second, she threw a punch right on a massive branch of a big tree.
Pow! Pow! Pow!
Something unexpected happened... Out of nowhere, there was a golden light shooting right out of Xu Jing's fists that was so bright it could almost blind anyone who looked at it. Soon, the bright gold light turned into something solid and caused the big tree, and the directly adjacent trees, to explode without any visible effort... its power was absolutely frightening.
Ye Chen squeezes his eyes. It must've been done by pushing her Qi out!
When a Qi Realm warrior was able to convert the Qi in their body into Real Qi, it meant that he (or she) had officially reached the Condensing Reality Realm. Not only was the power of their attack largely increased, but Qi was actually pushed out of the body and attack people through the air.
"Still not going to come out?" Xu Jing had already noticed Ye Chen's arrival a while ago. And now, she stared sharply in the direction of his location.
Ye Chen swallowed and revealed himself as requested.
"You are an outer disciple." Xu Jing says.
"Yes."
"Why are you spying on me practicing my fist art?"
"I'd heard your voice from far away, and came to have a look out of curiosity."
Xu Jing studied Ye Chen carefully, his confident attitude made her curious, if it was any other disciple, they would normally already be stuttering speechlessly in front of her, but he spoke with logic, in a calm and confident manner. She couldn't find any deceit in his bearing, thus she bore him no ill will.
Not planning on giving him any trouble, Xu Jing calmly said, "Please leave now, and don't return unless I give you permission."
"Okay."
Leaving the place, Ye Chen let out a breath.
When facing Xu Jing, he had felt an immense pressure, one that he hadn't felt from other, higher ranked core disciples. It seemed that there would be some changes in the ranks of core disciples soon.
Ye Chen chuckled.
If it was before, I would probably have had a hard time putting a sentence together in front of her. It must be due to my increased soul power that I can stand in front of her so calmly.
But the most memorable part of encountering Xu Jing had to be her personality. She was so cold and unfriendly and yet had such fierce and powerful martial arts, that she was very easy to remember.
Ye Chen arrived at the Pavilion of Martial Arts.
The pavilion master looked up from his desk and recognized Ye Chen instantly, he spoke up, "How was it?... you failed to master that Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords, right? It's not too late for you to choose another sword art."
Ye Chen smiles, "there's no need, I came to return the script."
"Okay, just sign here."
After signing, Ye Chen turned to leave.
Looking at him, the pavilion master asked curiously: "Only two months to go, then it will be the challenge of Mu Ren Gang, you sure you are not going to trying something else?"
Mu Ren Gang was a traditional challenge held once every six months in the Sky Cloud Martial School, the contestants mostly being outer disciples. If one did well, it meant one's combat skill was very high; and if one failed, then one could identify one's lacking skills. In his memories, he saw his previous self taking the challenge almost half an year ago, he had vomited blood after taking a three breath long beating, which turned him into a huge joke among the entire school.
"I imagine the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords should be of a high enough level for me to pass that." Ye Chen thought that if he could train his Qi to the late stage of Qi Realm Level 6 in just two months, even if he didn't make it into the top ten, his rank should still be fairly good, but it was a fact that he hadn't been in an actual combat yet, so he was still not too sure about his combat skills.
The pavilion master nodded subconsciously, then he looked up, full of surprise, "You mean you've mastered the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords? How is that even possible?"
"More or less, I guess." Ye Chen replied.
I wonder what he would think if he knew that I have not only mastered the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords but also realized its mental realm and achieved a higher level of Qi Realm.
Ye Chen did not want to reveal too much, so he walked out of the pavilion.
After he left, the pavilion master couldn't believe what he had just heard. He knew that the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords was not a complete art, it was created by the third master of the Sky Cloud Martial School, its rank was truly at the top of the mortal class. But, because of some unknown reasons, the real script was lost, leaving only this unfinished script.
Despite all this, the Lone Peak of Thirteen Swords itself was still very hard to master, since its basics still belonged to the top mortal class, which was impossible for an outer disciple to understand.
"The outer disciples nowadays are way too full of themselves." The pavilion master shook his head. It was obvious that he didn't believe what Ye Chen said at all.
Back in his courtyard, Ye Chen was sitting silently. Seemingly lost, he pondered on Xu Jing's fist art as he began to try the King Kong Fist.
He threw punches slowly and quickly, before stopping as he realized something was not quite right.
If I am correct, Xu Jing was training the 'Monster Executing Fist', a top mortal class martial art of unlimited power. And although the King Kong Fist is not as good as the Monster Executing Fist, it should be based on the same principle. However Xu Jing's fist seems so much more powerful and frightening compared to my fist, what did I do wrong?
Standing silently in the middle of the yard, with his eyebrows twisted together, Ye Chen couldn't stop thinking about Xu Jing practicing her fist skills, again and again.
Right! Xu Jing's grunting was heard more than five hundred meters away, such a noise must come from her strengthened body. While I have strong comprehension, my physical body is still too weak to master that powerful fist skill.
After realizing the key to the problem, Ye Chen sighed. He was not afraid of not being able to master it, he was afraid of not knowing why he could not master it.
The first thing he needed to do was to practice his horse stance, a strong punch can only be performed when you have a firm base, otherwise you might lose your life when you go head on against the enemy.
The horse stance required that you place your feet a little wider than your shoulder and take a half squat. Because the posture looked like riding a horse and was stable as a stilt in the ground, it was called the horse stance. A strong horse stance could strengthen one's kidneys, the back, and muscles which in turn would improve the Qi. A stable lower body would provide an unwavering balance, plus improved reflexes as well. A firm horse stance was one of the basics that everyone must learn before learning martial arts. It was like the saying: "You would never reach your destination without learning how to walk first". To copy the moves from the manual without actually training the whole body to endure the gravity and pressure would just end up being a bunch of fancy moves with no real power behind it.
With both his legs spread wide and bent at a ninety degree angle, Ye Chen looked straight ahead as he breathed in and breathed out while throwing punches at a controlled rapid pace.
Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! ...
His punches were like bullets, fiercely stirring up the air around them. After about fifteen minutes of punching, he focused on his tensed lower abdomen for another fifteen minutes.
Then, in the evening, he repeated it all over again, but this time his speed was slowly increasing as he tried to break his previous pace each time he threw a punch.
After another two weeks had passed, Ye Chen was no longer seen practicing throwing punches. Instead he started to practice the low horse stance. He would stand there still in his low horse stance position quietly for half an hour at a time.
Soon, he realized it was way too easy, so he tightened his hands into fists facing forward, with straight elbows, as he placed them as parallel as he could to the ground while doing the horse stance. With his back relaxed and his chest forward, he began to lower his upper body as far as he could without falling over. After every hour, he would tense his lower abdomen and swing his upper body the other direction for another fifteen minutes.
After a whole month of training, Ye Chen's body had changed noticeably, he could almost lift half a ton and run so fast that it looked like he was flying. Also, his Qi could be seen emanating around the back of his body, full of energy. And the most noticeable change was the increase in his appetite. During each meal, he could eat three huge bowls of rice plus a whole barbequed chicken and still sleep like a baby. By the end of the month, his Qi could even float around his whole body freely without any restrains, it was almost like he had endless energy to spend.
But the most important thing of all was that Ye Chen finally managed to reach the state of heart and palm unity so he could keep himself at his peak the whole time during his fight with others. The heart and palm unity was simply the state where a martial artist was able to accurately move his arms and legs in a fluid manner effortlessly and without much thought.
Today, after practicing his horse stance, Ye Chen frowned and said, "My body strength did improve, but the strength is still not enough. Sister Xu Jing's power is at least a few times stronger than mine, especially when practicing the Fist of Monster Killer! She's so powerful, so strong, almost invincible ..."
Looking around the yard, his eyes suddenly lit up when he saw the huge hundred-pound rock in the corner.
Without a doubt, lifting could increase one's upper body strength, but could easily injure one's muscles and tendons, therefore was not a very wise thing to do. However, running while carrying such a weight was a completely different case, with the constant changing of the center of gravity and the shifting pressure, one could train every bone and muscle of one's body along with endurance.
Without hesitation, Ye Chen ran to the corner, using both of his arms, lifting up the huge rock, turning around and started running out of the yard.
The Windy Mountain had ten hills, and encompassed an area of ten miles. Besides the tops of the mountains which were covered by different buildings, the rest were rarely visited by anyone. But at the bottom of the mountain, there were many disciples from the Sky Cloud School guarding the entrance, not allowing anyone from the outside to enter.
On the path of the mountain, there was a human figure lifting a rock above his head and running so fast it looked almost as if he was flying. And if you paid attention, you would notice that there were no Qi fluctuations which signified he did not even use his Qi at all, it was completely due to his true body strength.
"Look, isn't that Ye Chen?"
"Yah! What's the heck is he doing instead of practicing?"
The Sky Cloud School had three thousand prospective disciples, and five hundred outer disciples, most of whom did not like to just stay in their own yard, they liked to come out here in the middle of nowhere and practice their own martial arts just like Ye Chen, and sometimes some of them would come out here with training buddies and maybe have friendly matches with each other.
Ye Chen kept focusing on the road, he didn't care about their discussions.
But sometimes you couldn't avoid trouble even if you wanted to.
Out of nowhere, another figure suddenly jumped out and landed in front of Ye Chen, cutting his way. It was a fourteen-year-old bulky-looking teenage boy.
Ye Chen stopped, "Wang Gang, what can I do for you?"
The bulky teenager was called Wang Gang, just like Ye Chen, he was also a outer disciple. However, his skills were considerably higher than Ye Chen, and had already reached Early Qi Realm Level 7. He was known for his mastery of different martial arts and his extremely strong body strength. The two of them had a conflict before, in which Ye Chen was beaten up by him and had laid in bed for half a month.
Wang Gang laughed at him, "You can't just practice like a mad person to be gain strength, it will never work. Just like last time, I could beat you into a dead dog using only a third of my strength."
Ye Chen sneered. I wasn't planning this, but since he came directly in front of me, obviously I will not just let him go like this. Half a year ago, I said one thing accidentally, and the next second I was being punched, and had ended up with two broken ribs. Luckily my family is rich and had many different medicines for wounds so that I could heal in less than a month.
"Is that right? So how do you think I should practice then?" Ye Chen dropped the huge rock.
"Cut the crap, let me teach you how!" Wang Gang suddenly leaned forward and after few steps, he appeared right in front of Ye Chen. Wang Gang threw out a huge palm, which suddenly swelled two times larger than a normal palm, and chopped down like a iron plate, making one clearly hear the loud sound of it cutting through the air.
Looking at the opponent's huge palm coming at him, Ye Chen stood still, as he lifted his left hand like he was holding a ball, and met it head on.
Suddenly, it sounded like a rock had just hit a piece of wood. Ye Chen was still standing there without having moved an inch, while Wang Gang's lower body began to wobble, full of weaknesses.
"How could this even be possible? His Qi skill was clearly below me, how could he take my Breaking Stone Palm and be completely fine? I'll be damned..."
Wang Gang immediately realized something was not right and ignoring all the weaknesses in his stance, he turned his right fist into a palm and chopped straight towards Ye Chen.
He didn't expect that Ye Chen had already seen it coming and would retaliate with an awfully strong fist right at the chest before he could even make his second attack.
"King Kong Fist, fifth movement: King Kong Smash!"
Snap! Wang Gang was punched into the air while vomiting blood, his body rolled a couple of times until it finally stopped moving. He looked like he had just lost all his power, he couldn't even push himself up.
Everyone was shocked. They couldn't handle the fact that Wang Gang, who had always been famous for his powerful strength had just lost in a head on collision with Ye Chen, and was wounded badly just like a dead dog...
Only Ye Chen knew what had actually happened. While Wang Gang's strength and Qi skill were both higher than his, but because Wang Gang had never paid attention to his martial arts skills, he had many gaping flaws and weakness in his stances. That Breaking Stone Palm was definitely powerful but Ye Chen had chosen not to contest head on with him. Ye Chen had actually used two moves! He began with a slight push to Wang Gang's palm first, making it lose some power, before he drew his fist back and then used all his strength to push it which made his opponent's lower body started to wobble. All of this happened so fast that it created this whole "head-on" illusion.
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GOT IT