Thirteen Taipo Horizontal Training Hard Qi Art

Outside the Black Armor Battalion camp. Shen Monkey and Xu Dog stepped out of the tent and stood side by side. Just as before, they moved as if wandering through an empty plain; not a single patrolling soldier who passed by noticed their presence. After walking for a distance, Xu Dog finally spoke in an undertone, "Your actions today were hardly wise. Not only did you pass on the Thirteen Taipo Horizontal Training Hard Qi Art, you even made empty promises about taking on a new recruit. We don't have that authority. Among the twelve enshrinees, only the First Seat can make that call. You're breaking the rules." Faced with Xu Dog's accusation, Shen Monkey remained entirely unconcerned and chuckled. "What, do you actually think he can master it? It's just to give him something to hope for. The Thirteen Taipo Horizontal Training Hard Qi Art was an extreme technique created specifically by the First Seat to counter those thaumaturges. In essence, it was never meant for human cultivation. To this day, only those like you and me, who stood out among mortals and possess thaumaturge bloodlines, could achieve anything with it. With that kind of difficulty, so what if it's passed out?" At this point, Shen Monkey sighed. "Aside from royal enshrinees like us, no one would practice this kind of martial art at all. The gains simply aren't worth the cost. Besides, that kid has spindly arms and legs, without so much as a callus on his hands. One look and you can tell he isn't cut out for hard arts. Nor does he have secret medicines and precious pills to aid him like we do. How could he possibly master it? It'll be a wonder if he doesn't cripple his own body by rushing after quick results." Hearing this, Xu Dog finally caught on. "So it's just dangling hope before him to make him work more diligently and keep him from dying too quickly—sparing us a stone tossed into water without even raising a ripple?" "What else?" Shen Monkey said nonchalantly. "A man always needs something to hope for." "But what if he actually succeeds?" Xu Dog pressed on. "What if he really masters the art and manages not to die in Longxing County? What do we do then?" "Actually succeeds?" At these words, a faint grin surfaced on Shen Monkey's face. "If he actually succeeds, then we really take him in. At most, I'll recommend him to the First Seat. At absolute worst, it just means draping that cloak of yours over his shoulders." "...Don't talk nonsense." Xu Dog hurriedly tugged at his cloak. Within the Enshrinement Hall, there were ranks and gradations, and the cloak was their defining symbol. From lowest to highest, they were divided into three tiers: black cloak, vermilion cloak, and purple cloak. Without rendering superior merit, none could wear a cloak. The black cloak he wore had been earned back then by staking his life and escaping by a hair's breadth to quell an evil anomaly disturbance. It was not something just anyone could possess. A mere newcomer would be blessed by the heavens just to join the Enshrinement Hall, yet he'd dream of donning a black cloak? Overestimating himself! He had better obediently serve in the Enshrinement Hall for a few years first. Otherwise, one careless step, and he might end up dying in some foreign land like Hai Pig did a while back, where even having someone collect his corpse was wishful thinking. The two figures gradually faded into the distance. Inside the tent, Wang Ping kept his eyes tightly shut, his spiritual sense locked dead onto them. Only after a long while did he let out a relaxed, long breath. *Fortunately, they aren't truly undetectable.* Locked on by his spiritual sense, he clearly perceived the movements of Shen Monkey and Xu Dog and finally understood the secret behind their ability to haunt the military camp like phantoms. *Their boots must be a renowned treasure, paired with a corresponding lightness skill, allowing them to effortlessly slip into people's visual blind spots.* This was no longer something achievable on a purely physical level; it was a miraculous phenomenon granted by a renowned treasure-grade weapon. And because they remained perpetually within visual blind spots, the pair could freely come and go from the Black Armor Battalion camp and even bypass spiritual sense perception to silently appear by his side. *Looks like I'll have to be even more careful from now on.* Wang Ping took mental note: *After this rebirth, I haven't officially begun cultivating immortality yet. The spiritual sense innate to the Desire Realm Deva Body is still too weak. I need to make up for this as soon as possible. As long as my spiritual sense is strong enough to blanket every visual blind spot and counter the renowned treasure's wondrous effect, their presence won't be able to fool my perception.* Wang Ping sat upon the bed, calming his mind and steadying his breath. The next second, as the world ground to a halt and heaven and earth spun, he entered the Mortuary once more, turning his gaze toward the corner of the raised dais. Piled there like a mountain were "vital essence pills." His greatest harvest from the immortal sect world in his previous life, coupled with the Life-Stealing Thief, was enough to make his cultivation advance by leaps and bounds even without a spiritual root! "No time to waste." His mind made up, Wang Ping reached toward the mound of pills. In an instant, the dense sea of medicinal pills transformed into a surging torrent that rushed into his body. *Rumble!* In an instant, popping noises like bursting firecrackers roared out from inside Wang Ping. His calm breathing suddenly grew ragged and acquired a metallic, bloody tang. "Damn, that hurts!" Looking down, his skin across his entire body was stained with a deep crimson. As time wore on, this crimson gradually sank deep into his flesh. Throughout this process, the roaring inside Wang Ping intensified: bones ground together, membranes swelled, muscles thrummed, and his entire frame expanded. The skin suffused with vital energy and blood shifted once more, taking on a pale golden-yellow that progressively deepened until it radiated a brilliant golden luster. "...!!!" This violent upheaval surging from the inside out brought an agonizing itch and ache straight to the marrow of his bones, so intense that Wang Ping nearly shattered his own teeth from clenching them. *Crack!* Accompanied by a crisp snap, Wang Ping registered the strange sensation in his mouth in stunned disbelief. Opening his mouth, he spat out a spray of blood and fractured teeth. He really had bitten them to pieces! Filled with trepidation, Wang Ping hastily felt around inside his mouth. Yet his fingers did not meet empty gums as expected; instead, they brushed against a texture as hard as steel. *Are these... my teeth?* Wang Ping was dumbfounded. He simply probed with his spiritual sense, only to find a full set of finely packed, pearly white teeth—forty in total! Seeing this, Wang Ping couldn't help scratching his head. And then, he completely forgot about the teeth. Because that single scratch left a huge clump of hair clutched in his hand, while a bizarre coolness washed over his scalp... "Holy shit!" Before Wang Ping could react, the chilly sensation spread rapidly, and vast clumps of hair continued to shed, fluttering helplessly to the ground around him. *Am I bald?!* Wang Ping reached up again to touch his head, only to find fresh bristles already sprouting from his newly bared scalp. In no time at all, he was sporting a clean buzz cut. "Am I shedding my mortal shell and being reborn?" Wang Ping finally understood a little. Ceasing to dwell on it, he gritted his teeth and drove the Life-Stealing Thief onward, ravenously devouring the stored vital essence. He knew not how much time passed before he finally leveled off from the violent upheaval. It felt as if countless shackles that had weighed on him had been stripped away. Arms, legs, hands, and feet moved several times more nimbly than before. As his fingers curled and opened, an awe-inspiring sense of power flooded his heart. "Incredible!" Wang Ping inspected his transformed self. His limbs felt slightly elongated, his height had noticeably shot up, and his shoulders and back had grown broad and muscular. Clothes that had previously fit perfectly now clung tightly to his frame. Even his little brother had grown considerably sturdier. "Nails are the tips of sinew, the tongue the tip of flesh, teeth the tips of bone, and hair the tip of blood. Sinew, flesh, bone, and blood... External art perfection is absolute crap compared to this!" Wang Ping stretched his limbs and sinews with immense satisfaction. *Crack! Crack! Crack!* With just two casual punches, explosive power blasted visible shockwave ripples through the air, unleashing sharp sonic booms. Afterward, he closed his eyes and sensed his internal state for a moment. "Sure enough, the Heavenly Peng strength is gone again." Just like in his previous life, because its grade was insufficient, the Heavenly Peng Dragon-Seizing physique collapsed once he formally began cultivating immortality, dissolving back into his dharma body. Therefore, viewed from the perspective of Dashun martial arts, he was currently merely an external art martial artist. "Though compared to ordinary external art martial artists, I should be just a little bit stronger." Wang Ping circulated his spiritual sense, carefully evaluating his current strength. Internal strength martial master? Far beyond that! Wang Ping exhaled slowly and circulated his vital energy and blood. His pale-yellow skin shone like gold, while the muscles and meridians beneath gleamed with a lustrous sheen. These were the hallmarks of the flawless true body. "The flawless true body—true to its name, once you possess this trait, whatever you cultivate in the future, it permanently locks in the bodily changes brought by that cultivation." In short: once attained, eternally retained. "Mortals practicing martial arts cannot afford the slightest slack, or they immediately regress. Yet an immortal cultivator with a flawless true body retains every attainment eternally. Once learned, no technique ever degrades. That is the true advantage of a cultivator!" To say nothing of the physical enhancements the flawless true body provided—Wang Ping felt that relying solely on raw physical strength, he was no weaker than Xu Bingzheng! *No, I should be even stronger!* At least compared to Xu Bingzheng that day, Wang Ping felt he was stronger, and that was purely a comparison of raw physical power, without factoring in the classics and spells at his command. "Phew!" Wang Ping let out a long breath, checking his swell of pride. *I need to stay calm. That corrupt official might have been a titled martial master, but he ranked near the bottom of the Dashun imperial court's Weapon Register. He's hardly a benchmark.* Wang Ping thought of Shen Monkey and Xu Dog, whom he had just met. Those two were likely titled martial masters as well, but their strength clearly far exceeded Xu Bingzheng's. He wondered how they would measure up against him now. Perhaps due to his fresh breakthrough, Wang Ping was itching to test his fists against someone. Only after quite a while did he completely calm down. "Not finished yet. I can become even stronger!" The next second, Wang Ping returned to reality, took out the Thirteen Taipo Horizontal Training Hard Qi Art manual Shen Monkey had given him, and studied it intently. As the name implied, this martial art comprised thirteen disciplines: Iron Head Art, Iron Throat Art, Iron Arm Art, Iron Elbow Art, Iron Fist Art, Iron Sand Palm, Iron Finger Art, Iron Knee Art, Iron Leg Art, Iron Foot Art, Iron Cloth Shirt, Iron Belly Art, and Iron Ox Art. Covering the entire body, it left not a single vulnerability. "Every single discipline has a corresponding military art." After reading through the manual, Wang Ping was thoroughly astonished. "Good heavens, was this art designed to forge a person directly into a divine weapon?" Extreme, and pure. Though difficult to practice due to its extremity, it was immensely powerful because of its purity. More importantly, its compatibility with him was extraordinarily high! *Now that I possess the flawless true body, practicing martial arts with a cultivator's dharma body yields twice the result with half the effort. Coupled with the enhancement of spiritual awareness, my spiritual sense has grown tremendously, allowing me to precisely direct the flow of vital energy and blood and supercharge my training efficiency. Any physical strain can also be rapidly repaired with Qi Restriction.* The dimensional reduction strike of immortal cultivation against martial arts was displayed to the fullest here. If there were anything that could slow his training speed, it would only be comprehension—yet for a debt-leveraging prodigy like him, even that posed no problem. "A Promise Worth a Thousand Gold, give me a loan!" ... The following morning. Wang Ping sat upright upon the bed. Having gone entirely without sleep through the night, he was nonetheless brimming with vigor. Morning sunlight fell upon him, faintly resolving into concentric halos. Each halo that bathed him made him appear increasingly solemn and majestic. Copper head and iron brow; arms lifting a thousand jun; an earthbound vajra. Hundred-Step Divine Fist; splitting steles and shattering stone; treading the earth to pierce through steel. Elbows sinking mountains; knees bracing against bronze walls; abdomen hard as armor. Fingers boring through metal and stone; throat locking steel blades; Golden Spear Never Falls. Sinews of steel and bones of iron. A full thirteen military arts were bestowed upon him at this moment, rendering him so imposing he seemed less a mortal and more a deity enshrined in a temple. And when all thirteen military arts merged into one, they coalesced into an entirely new military art: Indestructible Vajra Body! "The person who created this martial art was truly a genius born of heaven!" Only after truly mastering it did Wang Ping understand the core concept behind the Thirteen Taipo Horizontal Training Hard Qi Art, and he felt profoundly shaken by it. "The creator must have wanted to use this art to allow a mortal body to break through the limits of external arts, so that at complete perfection, it could rival the dharma body of an immortal cultivator." With his spiritual sense probing his own physique, Wang Ping's appreciation of the art's enhancements was deeply felt. By his estimation, if even an ordinary mortal could master this art, the result would likely come close to a cultivation trait like the flawless true body! Entering the Dao through martial arts—it was nothing less than this. "Incredible, truly incredible." Amidst his marveling, Wang Ping was in high spirits. After all, this was a tremendous fortune for him. "Sure enough, one must never underestimate the people under heaven. Though it falls short of immortal cultivation, Dashun martial arts still have their merits. Those standing at the pinnacle might not necessarily be inferior to cultivators." With that thought, Wang Ping looked back at the manual in his hands. Before mastering it, he hadn't noticed, but now that he had completed it, he could sense with crystal clarity that this martial art was incomplete—at best the upper volume. *There should be a more profound lower volume.* Wang Ping's eyes lit up slightly. *Above external arts lies internal strength. From the looks of it, could the lower volume be a corresponding physique chart?* "...I'll ask about it another day." Recalling Shen Monkey and Xu Dog from yesterday, Wang Ping felt a spark of anticipation. *With their seniority, as long as they mastered the upper volume, they must have obtained the lower volume.* Granted, unlike him, they were mortals, but this Thirteen Taipo Horizontal Training Hard Qi Art wasn't all that difficult; surely they couldn't have failed to master it? ... Meanwhile, outside the Black Armor Battalion camp. Shen Monkey and Xu Dog, who had likewise gone without sleep and trained bitterly throughout the night, opened their eyes. In the depths of their gaze lay unmistakable exhaustion, alongside the disappointment of wasted effort. "Still short." Xu Dog let out a sigh. "Why on earth is this damn art so hard to practice? Even the First Seat who created this monstrosity probably couldn't master it, right?" "Take it easy," Shen Monkey said, equally helpless. "Military arts of the same category clash with one another. How to suppress those conflicts is the single greatest hurdle in practicing this damn art. You've barely mastered seven disciplines, and I'm only slightly better at nine. Even that is considered quite an achievement. After all, you and I are titled martial masters and can use divine intent to reconcile the clashes. For martial artists who haven't even formed divine intent, the difficulty skyrockets another tier." Hearing this, Xu Dog frowned deeply. "Is there really no other way?" "Not necessarily," Shen Monkey sneered. "The clash between military arts ultimately comes down to the body failing to adapt to the drastic upheaval wrought by them, unable to withstand their bestowed might. If you let the conflicts run wild and allow them to batter your body, and then take precious medicines afterward to slowly nurse your wounds, allowing the body to adapt to the metamorphosis during recovery, you can indeed greatly mitigate the harm of the clashes. However, as the old saying goes, it takes a hundred days to mend cracked bones and torn sinews. Even with precious medicine, boosting oneself through self-harm is agonizingly slow, and it risks leaving incurable hidden injuries. That's why it can only be used when all other methods have failed and there is no other way forward. Chen Dragon, for instance, has recently gone into secluded cultivation trying to charge at the thirteenth layer with that method, though I reckon his chances of success are slim." Xu Dog was left speechless. "In other words, to cultivate this art to the thirteenth layer and achieve completion, one must first possess an extraordinarily powerful physique, followed by physical control on par with or even far exceeding divine intent, then means of rapid bodily recovery, and on top of that, remarkable comprehension?" Shen Monkey nodded. "Exactly." "This..." Xu Dog felt his scalp go numb and couldn't help saying, "Are you kidding me? This art wasn't meant for humans to practice at all! Maybe a thaumaturge could manage it." "Dream on." Shen Monkey sighed. "Those thaumaturges have their own celestial pills and wondrous medicines to bolster their physiques. Why would they waste precious time on crude methods like ours?" Xu Dog fell silent. Shen Monkey continued with a heavy sigh: "And so, ever since the First Seat created this martial art, aside from the First Seat himself, not a single person has ever cultivated it to the grand completion of the thirteenth layer. None in the past, and I doubt there ever will be in the future."