Chapter 7: Cultivating Qi as a Martial Artist
Of course, it's not 18,000 years ago now. There aren't as many powerful people as there used to be. Over the past 18,000 years, the world's martial arts have undergone tremendous improvements and transformations. Especially since the Western Journey 800 years ago, short weapons represented by swords have gradually become popular. Compared to 10,000 years ago, martial arts now place more emphasis on techniques. However, long-range weapons have not been eliminated and are still thriving, but they have been divided into two completely different worlds. In the world of military generals, armies still mainly use long-range weapons, but among some wandering warriors, short-range weapons are more popular.
But no matter how it changes, the essence of qigong practice remains unchanged, still relying on qigong to assist and temper the body.
Qigong practice is important, but martial arts are equally important.
A good martial art can make a mediocre internal energy practitioner stand out and defeat opponents stronger than themselves. However, martial arts do not represent everything, as spiritual powers and magical artifacts play a more decisive role. Nevertheless, spiritual powers are difficult to cultivate, and magical artifacts are hard to find. Since the sealing of the gods 18,000 years ago, magical artifacts have been rarely heard of in the mortal world, with only some cultivated techniques being passed down. These can be self-cultivated, but in this era, heaven-sent materials and earth-based treasures are scarce. Even if one manages to cultivate a few magical artifacts, their power is often not as desired. The evil cultivator from Dongling who caused such a commotion had a black banner that was his own cultivated artifact, which could easily deal with ordinary constables. However, when faced with the masters of the Six Panels Gate, it was broken by a single sword strike, revealing its limited power. Moreover, cultivating magical artifacts requires time, materials, and energy; if one has the time, they might as well focus on improving their internal energy and martial skills, which would be stronger than anything else.
So, everyone gradually put their minds on the skills and martial arts, the way of martial arts made rapid progress, compared to more than 10,000 years ago, there was a huge improvement. However, in Chen Jiu's eyes, the greatest development of martial arts over the past 10,000 years was the emergence of ultimate moves, and others were just adding some tricks and cleverness.
The so-called ultimate move is actually a killer in a school of martial arts.
In general, martial arts, when applied, the strength of the body is evenly distributed. For example, a set of spear techniques consists of 81 moves. When facing an enemy, these 81 moves can be performed in sequence, which is the behavior of a novice. A true master, however, will break down these 81 moves according to the opponent's tactics and respond with corresponding moves. This is flexible application. However, whether it's breaking down or performing in sequence, one thing is certain: it's impossible to put all one's strength into a single move. The result of doing so would be that there would be no energy left for the next move, rendering even the most clever techniques useless. Therefore, when applying these moves, the strength is evenly distributed, but at the end of this set of spear techniques, there will always be one or two moves that require all one's strength to execute. These moves are many times more powerful than ordinary moves and are therefore called "ultimate moves".
The ultimate move is powerful, but it can't last long. Therefore, unless absolutely necessary and without an 80% guarantee of success, it will not be used. That's the ultimate move.
In eighteen thousand years ago, that is to say during the time of the war of sealing gods, the number of ultimate moves was not many. However, with the development of the times, in today's world where martial arts skills are increasingly emphasized, more and more ultimate moves have been developed, and even many martial arts consisting entirely of ultimate moves have emerged. The specialty of these martial arts is that they have few moves but great power, and of course, they are also very precious.
The demonic suppression technique that Chen Jiu understood was a product of 18,000 years ago. Its power was not bad, but it didn't have many ultimate moves, only one move, which was used to fight for life and death. In Chen Jiu's eyes, it had already fallen behind the times. However, he had become a yin spirit body, so learning martial arts was useless. Therefore, in these tens of thousands of years, his mind was not on martial arts. He missed many opportunities, and as for the development of martial arts, he only coldly observed from the sidelines, without going to learn any new martial arts. This made Tie Jian somewhat disappointed, but for him now, it was already enough.
Compared to his family's traditional swordsmanship, this set of hammering techniques far surpasses it in subtlety. Moreover, Chen Qi's cultivation of the "Western Wilderness War King's Breath" qigong has already greatly enhanced his strength.
Qigong is a very troublesome thing.
Although Qigong has undergone significant changes since Laozi's reform, it is still fundamentally different from what existed 18,000 years ago. However, this Qigong ultimately originated in the Fēng Shén era and its system remains the same.
Like ancient qigong, modern qigong, when cultivated to a certain level, will also touch upon a new dimension, the soul.
In Tie Jun's eyes, the soul is very mysterious, but in this world, it's actually easy to understand, isn't it just a ghost!!
The soul and body are also the same, they have their own strength.
The body is physical strength, and the soul is spiritual power, also known as mental strength.
In the realm of qigong, whether or not one can come into contact with spiritual power is a dividing line. Those who have made contact with spiritual power are called pre-heavenly and also referred to as cultivators of qi, while those who have not made contact with spiritual power are called post-heavenly and referred to as martial artists.
Compared to innate Qi cultivators, the number of acquired martial artists is much larger, and their social status differs greatly. In the imperial court, all innate Qi cultivators are either great generals guarding a region or powerful individuals dominating a region.
Even many warriors' lifelong wishes are to be able to step into the Xiantian Lianqi realm.
Ironically, so is iron.
In this world, after achieving the Innate Realm, there is still a great significance, but being able to interfere with yin and yang, many gods and spirits, such as mountain gods, land gods, and even city god-level gods, are also inferior in front of Innate cultivators. This is also why in Journey to the West, so many land and mountain gods were treated as slaves by those demon kings, because they couldn't beat them!
In the past, for Tie Jian, Xiantian was just an unattainable dream. However, now that he has obtained the memories of Chen Jiu, the Land Master, Tie Jian has gained enough confidence to perhaps enter the realm of Xiantian in the not-too-distant future.
Of course, it's still too early to talk about this kind of innate thing now, and this is just a wonderful ideal.
Ideals are plump, reality is bony.
The iron club finally couldn't bear it and rubbed his nose, falling into a deep sleep.
He slept until noon on the second day before waking up.
"Dad, why didn't you call me at all!" He felt that he had overslept and was somewhat resentful as he said to Tie Dan.
"You sleep too soundly, waking you up will be harmful to your body!" Tie Dan was a martial artist, of course he knew how important deep sleep was for someone like Tie Jian who had just suffered serious injuries and was in the recovery period.
"How about it, feeling better now?!"
"It's not just good, it's extremely good!" Tie Jian stretched out his body, giggling as he ran to the table, grabbed a greasy chicken leg from the plate and stuffed it into his mouth.
"You little scamp, hurry up and wash your face!" Tie Dan laughed and cursed, pulling his son's ear, seeing that he was fine, he was undoubtedly the happiest.
