After chatting for a while, Liang Qu went back to his room to change into his new clothes and returned to the training ground.
"Senior Brother!"
Hu Qi excused himself to the apprentices he was instructing and brought Liang Qu to a quiet room.
Inside stood a wooden cabinet and a low table.
Hu Qi took out a key to unlock the cabinet, retrieved a slender stick of incense, lit it, and set it into a censer on the table. A subtle, indescribable fragrance quickly permeated the room.
Hu Qi then pulled several booklets and sheets from his robe. On top was an anatomical chart, remarkably detailed, illustrating everything from internal organs to blood vessels and membranes. Beneath it lay several sheets of yellow paper covered in dense writing, though it was unclear what was written on them.
"Junior Brother, you can take this anatomical chart back to study closely. The remaining sheets are medicinal recipes—the supplementary formulas for the Three Fists Method.
"Master Yang knows more methods than just the Three Fists Method, but it is exceptionally good for laying foundations. So unless there is an exception, our disciples generally practice the Three Fists Method before breaking through the flesh gate.
"Junior Brother Liang, you are very well-suited to Ape Fist, so you can continue training along this fist art from now on.
"I know you, Junior Brother Li, and Junior Brother Chen are from the same village and quite close, but remember well: this recipe must not be shared lightly.
"You may gather the ingredients to brew medicine for them. On the back of the formula is an alternate version with plenty of useless herbs and altered dosages that still retains eighty percent of the efficacy, but by no means let the true recipe leak out."
Liang Qu sat up straight and said, "Senior Brother Hu, I understand."
"I know you aren't one to act rashly, Junior Brother Liang; I merely wished to mention it."
Hu Qi gathered the sheets, stacked them neatly on the low table, and continued:
"The key to breaking through the skin gate lies in using your qi, blood, and internal force to stimulate the fascia and skin throughout your body, achieving the effect of skin tempering. What we call qi and blood is the qi that gathers in your chest when practicing your fist forms—the condensed essence of the human body and the very root of life.
"Once you break through the skin gate, your skin and membranes will look no different from an ordinary person's on the surface, but they will actually become as tough as ox hide, drastically increasing your defense. And if you activate your qi and blood, that defense will rise to another level entirely."
"Then how do I surge my qi, blood, and internal force to stimulate the fascia and skin throughout my body?"
"It's hard to explain in words, and not easy to do either. I'll guide you through it once directly and you'll understand. Begin by practicing Ape Fist."
Liang Qu did as told.
Around the end of the fourth stance and the beginning of the fifth, Hu Qi stepped forward and pressed a palm against Liang Qu's chest.
Liang Qu immediately felt a warm current seep through his chest, merging directly with the qi in his chest. It swept that qi outward toward all his limbs and bones, and upon reaching his fascia and skin, vanished like a wave of heat.
Gradually, Liang Qu's skin grew warm. At first it was bearable, but soon it grew searing hot, eventually turning scalding!
Steam rose from his sweat as though he were inside a steamer basket!
Hu Qi said in a deep voice, "Don't let up! Burning heat is a normal reaction—that's your qi and blood forging your skin!"
Liang Qu nearly cried out in pain, but hearing this, he gritted his teeth and endured it.
He could feel his skin contracting and tightening in rhythm with the beating of his heart. Only after a quarter of an hour did the searing heat gradually fade, allowing his skin to relax again.
"Did you remember how the qi was guided?"
"Only about half."
"No matter. Let's do it again."
With the experience of the first attempt, Liang Qu was far calmer the second time around.
However, because the qi in his chest had been depleted in such a short time and had not yet recovered, his skin didn't feel much on this second pass. Instead, Liang Qu was able to remember all the better how to disperse the qi and merge it into his skin.
He began to grasp why one needed their qi and blood to be as thick as a pinky finger to break through the gate.
"You felt it, right? If your qi and blood haven't reached a certain level, trying to break through the gate produces negligible results. What's worse, constantly burning through qi and blood to temper your skin prevents it from growing, causing a deficit in your body.
"Years ago, when Senior Brother Xu was at the martial hall, he taught it early a few times. Many people weren't willing to accept failure and kept trying even after leaving the hall, ruining their health as a result. That's why unless your qi and blood have reached the mark, the martial hall generally doesn't teach you how to temper your skin.
"Try it one more time and see if you truly remember."
Liang Qu nodded. Closing his eyes, he practiced Ape Fist. Once he generated a sliver of qi and blood, he followed the sensation Hu Qi had previously conveyed, instantly dispersing the qi and blood within his body and slowly guiding it toward his fascia and skin.
As the qi and blood dissolved and sank in, his skin grew slightly warm, completing one round of skin tempering. He opened his eyes. "Thank you, Senior Brother Hu. I've committed it to memory."
"Good. What I lit earlier was Mind-Calming Incense; it makes guiding your qi and blood much easier. Without it, the flow might feel more sluggish.
"With sufficient food, you should be able to break through the gate within twenty days, Junior Brother Liang. When that time comes, you'll be a true martial practitioner."
Twenty days wasn't long at all.
Liang Qu was eager to see what it would be like when he truly became a martial practitioner.
"Junior Brother, do you want to keep practicing here or go back to practice? If you plan to head back, take the Mind-Calming Incense with you."
"Third Senior Brother asked me to drop by his place tonight to look over the blueprints. I'll just practice here; heading back and coming all the way here again is too far."
"All right, but let's eat first. It's time for lunch."
"Okay."
He had left Yang Manor shortly after nine in the morning, bought a few things, and trained for a bit, so it was indeed mealtime—especially after depleting so much qi and blood just now, his stomach was running on empty.
As personal disciples, what they ate was different from ordinary apprentices.
Inside a private little room, a square table held a massive basin of braised beef, a basin of boiled mutton, a basin of steamed vegetables, and an ample serving of white rice. Each basin was as large as a washbasin, steaming hot.
Liang Qu was astonished. "The three of us are going to eat this much?!"
"What's so strange about that? Once you break through the skin gate, Junior Brother Liang, you'll see just how much you can eat. Sit down, no need to be polite—we're all brothers here."
Xiang Changsong hitched up the hem of his robe, sat on a bench, handed out bowls and chopsticks, and shoveled rice into his mouth voraciously. Hu Qi did the same.
As soon as Liang Qu picked up his bowl, Xiang Changsong dropped a large chunk of beef into it.
"Eat! Cook Liu's stewed beef is tender and flavorful, and the mutton doesn't have a hint of gaminess. Help yourself; I'm only serving you this once."
"All right."
Swallowing a piece of beef, Hu Qi said, "By the way, Junior Brother, watching you fight Lu Tingcai and his gang last night, your fighting technique was really terrible. Your physical conditioning was clearly a cut above those seven, yet you ended up taking quite a beating."
Liang Qu set down his chopsticks. "I haven't learned fighting methods yet, and I rarely get into fights. Master mentioned that."
"No need to put down your chopsticks. We're on our own here; talk while you eat."
"Oh, all right."
"I know you haven't learned it, so I'm reminding you not to study only refining methods. Martial practitioners exist precisely because of the need to fight and kill. While overwhelming strength can make anything fly, skill still matters.
"You've mastered Ape Fist well, and Ape Fist's combat techniques emphasize dragon form and snake waist, fish-scale stepping, and moving as if over slick ice. Its sliding steps and ground-fighting maneuvers are unique. If you could have applied them last night—striking while evading, keeping them off-balance—you could have ended that brawl at a far lower cost."
"I'll remember that."
"Once you break through the gate in a few days, I'll teach you the fighting methods. When that time comes, dealing with the likes of Lu Tingcai, even with twice as many men, won't be a problem.
"Don't be shy. If something comes up, speak up; if you have questions, ask. All of us senior and junior brothers went through the same thing.
"I was trained by Senior Brother Xu, and Junior Brother Xiang was brought up by Senior Brother Cao. Now that Master has entrusted you to me, it's just the same."
"Thank you for your guidance, Senior Brother. I will keep it in mind."
After that, silence fell over the room, filled only by the sounds of three grown men wolfing down their food and chopsticks clattering against porcelain bowls.
In just over a quarter of an hour.
Those three massive basins of food were genuinely polished off by the three of them—though Liang Qu had eaten only a fraction before feeling full.
*So becoming a martial practitioner increases your appetite too. If I had had this kind of appetite back when I was eating that crab, wouldn't my fusion already be maxed out?*
Liang Qu thought to himself.
In the afternoon, training continued.
After dinner, Liang Qu bade farewell to his two senior brothers and followed the directions given by Third Senior Brother to find the residence with an anvil outside its door.
It was also a grand estate, but at first glance, its style was completely different from Yang Manor. It sprawled across a vast area with an entirely rugged aesthetic.
Standing outside, he could see several massive chimney flues billowing dense smoke into the air.
As Liang Qu stepped inside, a wave of blistering heat hit him square in the face.
Several burly men were hammering iron stripped to the waist. Enormous forges roared with blazing fire, and shimmering waves of heat warped the air everywhere. There wasn't the slightest chill of winter here; inside and outside seemed like two different worlds.
He also noticed that at the bottom of one furnace, what burned was not charcoal, but some unknown ore about the size of a heart. It was definitely not coal—the black stone was laced with orange-red veins, resembling flowing magma.
The one using that furnace was none other than Lu Gang. Seeing Liang Qu, he turned around, produced a stack of blueprints, and waved. "Ninth Junior Brother! Perfect timing. Come take a look at the design for your spear."
Liang Qu cared deeply about his spear. With a spear, his underwater combat strength would leap forward significantly, so he hurried over to inspect them.
The blueprints were drawn in charcoal, surprisingly clean and meticulous.
Each drawing was done to a one-to-one scale, annotated with the spear's dimensions, form, and estimated weight. There were more than a dozen sheets. Liang Qu browsed through them one by one until his gaze was suddenly arrested by a blueprint of a spear with exquisite patterns.
A tiger head styled into cloud patterns coiled around the spear's collar, and from the tiger's maw jutted a twelve-cun blade resembling half a sharp sword.
The metal casing extended down the shaft for nearly two chi five cun. Such an integrated, lengthened spearhead made it resemble a long lance or pike, which suited Liang Qu's preferences all the more.
"Senior Brother, would this one work?"
"If it wouldn't work, why would I have brought it out? You certainly have an eye for quality, Junior Brother—you picked the best one at a single glance."
Lu Gang spoke neither quickly nor slowly, his tone steady, giving off an impression of immense dependability.
"The tiger-head spear is fairly intricate. It should take about twenty days. When it's ready, come take a look, and if you're satisfied, I'll lacquer and glue it."
"Thank you for your trouble, Senior Brother Lu."
Lu Gang shook his head. "We're fellow disciples, no need for formalities. Look around as you please; I'll get back to work."
Liang Qu was just about to look around when he suddenly froze, and immediately afterward took his leave of his senior brother.
Lu Gang nodded, assuming his smithy was simply too filthy and hot, and merely told him to be careful on the road.
Liang Qu offered a quick apology, rushed out of the smithy, and sprinted back toward Yixing.
Damn it, Ah Fei found yet another treasure fish!
Chapter 42