The Nine Cauldrons

“Chi!””Hu!”

One slide, followed by a kick with his leg and then a punch with his fist.

The Three Body Postures looked very simple and mediocre. If someone didn’t have a deep enough understanding of Xing Yi Martial Arts, as well as the Three Body Postures’ breathing techniques and their meanings, it would be impossible to discover the profoundness hidden within.

The surrounding people noticed that Teng Qingshan was practicing the Three Body Postures, but they didn’t find anything special about them.

“If I take this cannon fist’s meaning and evolve it into a spear art, how should it be displayed? This kind of instantaneous explosion of power, how can it be brought forth in a spear art?” Teng Qingshan hoped to find the answer within the three body postures and so he repeatedly practiced them while contemplating on it, “My Tiger Cannon Fist is the strongest punch from Xing Yi Martial Arts, but if I cannot even transfer the meaning of Cannon Fist into my spear arts, how will I be able to recreate the Tiger Cannon Fist?”

Among the Five Elements Boxing, the Smashing Fist, the Crossing Fist and the Drill Fist were already converted into his spear arts. However, Teng Qingshan had yet to evolve his Cannon Fist and his Chopping fist as it was too hard.

The difficulty was just too high.

“Hm?” Teng Qingshan suddenly caught a glimpse of Teng Qinghu walking in the distance.

“I wanted to transfer cousin to my hundred man team, but that lieutenant Bai Qi was making things difficult for me. Cousin Qinghu will probably be somewhat disappointed,” Teng Qingshan stopped his practice of the three body posture and walked towards Teng Qinghu.

“Qingshan, Qingshan!” Teng Qinghu called out with a happy face.

“Cousin,” Teng Qingshan reluctantly replied, “Bai Qi did not agree to transferring you to my hundred man team.”

“Ah,” Teng Qinghu hesitated a bit and glanced at lieutenant Bai Qi, who was practicing his spear art in the distance, before whispering, “Is that lieutenant Bai Qi? Is he not giving us any face? I heard that of the seven brothers of Gong Yangqing, three of them were transferred into his hundred man team.”

Teng Qingshan also knew that it was lieutenant Bai Qi who was making things difficult for them.

However, even if he knew, what could he do?

Once an officer opened his mouth, did it matter what a subordinate said?

“Forget it, let us not talk about it anymore. Qingshan, I need to tell you of a joyous occasion,” Teng Qinghu said happily.

“Hm?” Teng Qingshan was somewhat surprised, what could this joyous occasion be?

“Qingshan, when we wanted to join the Gui Yuan Sect, was it not mention that the soldiers of the Black Armored Army would all get a secret inner strength technique to practice? Hehe...... have you found out what kind of secret inner strength technique the Black Armored Army is practicing yet?” Teng Qinghu intentionally pretended to be mysterious.

Teng Qingshan’s eyes suddenly lit up.

Secret inner strength technique?

Teng Qingshan had never seen a secret inner strength technique, not even in his previous life. His secret technique, 《Crossing Worlds》 was a Qing Gong technique that consumed one’s inner strength and could not be used to cultivate one’s inner strength. Teng Qingshan had no idea what a real secret inner strength technique looked like!

“Qinghu, do you know about it?” Teng Qingshan felt his heartbeat accelerate.

“Haha! I even know where this secret technique is located,” Teng Qinghu proudly announced, “This secret technique is called, 《Vigor of the Reckless Bull》!”

“Vigor of the Reckless Bull?” These words made Teng Qingshan’s blood boil in excitement.

Finally!

He could finally practice a secret inner strength technique!

“Where is it?” Teng Qingshan urgently asked.

“Look over there, that tall stone!” Teng Qinghu pointed towards the north of the school ground. When Teng Qingshan followed the direction that Qinghu pointed at, he saw a big black stone, vaguely in the distant.

“Let us go!” Teng Qingshan grabbed the Reincarnation Spear next to him and immediately ran toward it.

He had waited for this secret inner strength technique for a very long time!

That huge stone was completely black, the wind blew and the sun shone on it all year long and time had covered it with a layer of dust. However, the writings carved onto it were extremely clear, and on the top of his stone were five big words – Vigor of the Reckless Bull!

Both Teng Qingshan and Teng Qinghu stood in front of it and stared.

It was not only only them there, others who had recently joined the Black Armored Army were also looking at the stone, some were even using pen and paper to record the writings.

“Vigor of the Reckless Bull!”

Teng Qingshan’s eyes lit up and he started to read the contents on the stone.

“《Vigor of the Reckless Bull》 was created by the 12th generation’s sovereign of my Gui Yuan Sect. It is the technique with the strongest power in my Gui Yuan Sect of those within the Human Class.”

Teng Qingshan also heard about it, that secret techniques were mainly divided into four categories, Heaven Class, Earth Class, Human Class and the unpopular. However to many people, there wasn’t any difference between the Heaven Class, Earth Class and Human Class, because...... Compared to the Human Class, the Heaven Class and the Earth Class were cultivation methods that could be practiced after reaching the Innate Realm.

How many people were able to reach the Innate Realm?

Therefore, a good secret technique of the Human Class was, for the overwhelming majority of people, completely sufficient.

“This 《Vigor of the Reckless Bull》, although it has enormous power, it is extremely difficult to cultivate it. Therefore, although its power is very high among the Human Class, it can only be counted as a medium levelled Human Class technique because of its high difficulty. This “Vigor of the Reckless Bull” is divided into nine stages. Once one reaches the fifth stage, one can increase one’s strength to that of ten thousand Jin and be considered a First Rated Warrior. Going forward, with every increase on stage, the strength will also increase by leaps and bounds. When achieving the ninth stage, it will be hard to find a worthy opponent within the Postliminary Realm!”

Seeing these words Teng Qingshan couldn’t help but get startled.

Even the fifth stage would increase one’s strength by ten thousand Jin. Going forward, with every increase on stage, the strength would increase by leaps and bounds. If that was so, then how strong would the ninth stage be?

Teng Qingshan couldn’t bear it and sighed after seeing these words: “If one compares people who became First Rate Warriors while still in the Postliminary Realm, one will see that practicing different secret techniques sets apart their powers like day and night dependingly. That Yue Song, with a one Bending Wave Technique, he could probably easily kill a group of First Rated Warriors.”

This was the effect of practicing a secret technique.

“Where is the difficulty in practicing this Vigor of the Reckless Bull?” Teng Qingshan looked at it.

“It is easy to practice the Vigor of the Reckless Bull in the beginning, but the more advance it becomes, the more difficult it becomes. Because...... after each breakthrough, one has to open up a new meridian.

In order to practice the ninth stage of the Vigor of the Reckless Bull, one had to completely breakthrough all of the eight extra meridians! However, even among the powerhouses of the Postliminary Realm, only a few of them had managed to open up all the eight extra meridians!”

Reading this, Teng Qingshan came to a realisation: “No wonder that despite its power, it can only be counted as a medium leveled secret technique of the Human Class! Opening up all of the eight extra meridians? According to the cultivation method of this secret inner strength technique, with each meridian one opens, more and more impurities will block the ones yet not opened. The more one proceeds, the harder it gets. To open up all of the eight extra meridians is indeed as difficult as ascending the heaven!”

“Even powerhouses of the Postliminary Realm have only open up a few of the eight extra meridians?” Teng Qingshan understood this from reading it.

Reaching the Innate Realm and opening up all of the meridians were not related!

Furthermore...

Even most powerhouses of the Innate Realm didn’t open up all of the eight extra meridians, let alone all the meridians on their whole body.

“Haha, it is difficult for others, but for me...... Let alone the eight extra meridians and the twelve regular meridians, even the branches of the regular meridians are already all opened.” Teng Qingshan’s heart was filled with joy. It was a wise choice that he wasn’t willing to join the Gui Yuan Sect during his childhood.

These years, he practiced Internal Martial Arts and reached its pinnacle.

All the meridians in his body were now open.

With his kind of qualification, he would have a terrifying speed, no matter what kind of secret technique he practiced.

Teng Qingshan continued reading: “It is important that the practitioner must be calm and find a peaceful place where out bystander could affect him during the practice of the secret inner strength technique. Otherwise, once affected and one’s mentality is disturbed, the inner strength will enter one’s meridians, forcing them to break. Once the meridian are broken, the practitioner will turn into a disabled person, or could in worst case end up dead!”

“《Vigor of the Reckless Cow》 first stage: Gather......”

In front of this huge stone, Teng Qingshan started to practice the Vigor of the Reckless Cow.

A possible failure through outside disturbance?

Teng Qingshan didn’t fear a failure as all the meridians in his body were already opened. His inner strength could instantly access everywhere. For others, it would be a nightmare if their meridians broke! However, it had little to do with Teng Qingshan.

In accordance to the writings, Teng Qingshan started to practice the Vigor of the Reckless Bull’s first stage.

“This secret inner strength technique is indeed different when compared to Internal Martial Arts.” Teng Qingshan followed the instruction of the writings and started to circulate his inner strength within the twelve regular meridians, sometimes slow and at other times quickly, while forming a small circulation in Hand Taiyang. It was as if a sanitation engineer was cautiously operating within these meridians and was scrubbing the walls, stimulating them.

Meanwhile, the inner strength within the small circle of the evolutive automatically absorbed the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth.

Internal Martial Arts used the breathing gateway to refine Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth. However, this secret inner strength technique allowed the inner strength to actively refine it and the absorption efficiency was much higher.

“Chi, Chi” the inner strength was rapidly swimming forth like a flood dragon and Teng Qingshan’s meridians were wide and spacious channels.

During lunch time, Teng Qingshan started to practice the Vigor of the Reckless Bull’s second stage.

In fact, because Teng Qingshan’s meridians were all completely opened, he could directly practice the highest stage. However, this was his first time practicing a secret inner technique after all. In order to understand it from experience, Teng Qingshan decided to prudently practice it from the first stage and gradually advance.

“Ah! The speed of absorbing the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth accelerated by a lot.” Teng Qingshan was extremely happy, the circulation path became longer and the absorption and refining rate became much faster. “The speed of refining inner strength is more than ten times faster than when I use Tiger Fist.”

And this was only the second stage!

Teng Qingshan finally understood the difference between Internal Martial Arts and secret inner strength technique.

Internal Martial Arts was mainly focused on a healthy and strong body, and based everything on increasing one’s health while strengthening one’s body. As for a secret inner strength technique, it would just plainly absorb the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth like crazy while refining it into inner strength.

“Fortunately he was in the ancient era now. Otherwise, if he was in the modern era where the Spiritual Qi Heaven and Earth had already dissipated, having a secret inner strength technique would be useless.” Teng Qingshan practiced at crazy speed and within a few minute, he finished the second stage. His practicing speed was absolutely the most exaggerated speed in the entire history of the Nine Prefectures.

“Ah, the beginning of the third stage!”

Teng Qingshan quickly started practicing the third stage and the refining speed of the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth immediately surged again. The inner strength started to diverge and stream into two different meridians, before merging once again. Flowing along the majestic channel, it slightly slowed down from time to time and stimulated the acupuncture points.

“What a marvelous feeling!” Teng Qingshan could clearly perceive that it had some influence on his meridians, but it was extremely low.

“Fourth stage!”

Teng Qingshan didn’t hesitate the slightest and started to practice the fourth stage.