Chen Jia laughed. "That's right, what you saw was an illusion. It's the 'momentum' that's born when a fighting technique is trained to perfection."
"What use does this 'momentum' have?" Li Xiuwen grew interested and asked humbly.
"Not much use, really. It can slightly affect the enemy's mind and bolster your own presence. In a fight it can make the scene look impressive—like shouting out your moves when you brawl. It's just for show."
"So that's how it is. Thanks for clearing that up, Brother Chen." Li Xiuwen turned it over in his mind.
When it came down to it, this "momentum" was not something that truly existed in reality.
The strength of Xiao Laba, Gaojiao Qi, and the rest was nowhere near the level of altering or interfering with reality.
This "momentum" was merely an illusion produced when a certain spiritual power intertwined with a person's mind.
But its effect was close to zero. It couldn't even affect an ordinary person.
Chen Jia sighed. "We're still too weak, and we know far too little about 'momentum.' From what Senior Brother Tianhong Zai says, the further you go, the more important this thing becomes. Some experts don't need to lift a finger—just unleashing their 'momentum' is enough to crush an enemy who comes at them. But that kind of realm is too far from us. There's no hope of us ever touching it in this life."
"Understood."
Chen Jia went on carelessly, "Senior Brother said the power of 'momentum' comes partly from the power of the fighting techniques themselves,
and partly from martial will and the power of the mind. But those are far too ethereal and elusive—hard to cultivate."
The speaker meant nothing by it, but the listener took it to heart.
Something stirred in Li Xiuwen. "I can cultivate that... Three Castings of the Heart Furnace!"
Qizhou Prefecture, the Thousand Buddha lineage—the Mad Old Man's worth just kept rising!
He looked at the incense burner.
[Elementary Martial Arts General Knowledge proficiency increased by 1%...]
While Li Xiuwen and Chen Jia chatted, Ao Jiu was in a corner, cultivating hard as he watched them, shaking his head slightly with a touch of exasperation at the boy's lack of drive.
From what he'd observed these past days, this new junior brother spent a good deal of his daytime training hours wasting time on miscellaneous books and dawdling in idle chatter.
In a whole day, he'd barely seen Li Xiuwen practice his fighting techniques a few times.
Ah Wen claimed he practiced on his own at home, but with fighting techniques, if you don't spar with people often, it's hard to get real results.
He'd always heard this junior brother was quite diligent in his cultivation. Now it seemed he was nothing special after all.
In terms of sheer effort, he fell far short of Ao Jiu.
At the root of it, he was just leaning on a bit of comprehension and had grown slack.
On top of that, with all the fish balls he ate, he probably took that outside power for his own talent and effort.
In a word: he'd gotten cocky.
Ao Jiu felt some regret. If Ah Wen were to join his austere cultivation faction, his future achievements wouldn't be low.
As he pondered, Lu Yu came to Ao Jiu's side and said with a low laugh, "Brother Ao, that offer I made the other day—have you thought it over?"
She'd been wanting for a while to invite Ao Jiu to be her family's "resident champion." After all, this one-track-minded fellow still had a chance of taking on the Three Gates and entering Tiger Elephant.
Once that happened, the family would have a Tiger Elephant resident champion, and business would go much more smoothly.
"Not interested... I'm an ascetic cultivator. I don't gulp down fish balls, and I don't cost much money. Go find that new medicine pot of yours." Ao Jiu turned her down.
Long'er said half-jokingly, "Brother Ao... you've let my sister down again and again. Don't come to regret it."
"Who do you think you are? I've trained for years and never eaten a single fish ball—that's how I got where I am today. With my martial will, you think I'd regret it?" Ao Jiu couldn't be bothered with a brat.
Lu Yu glared at Long'er and said with an apologetic smile, "Sorry about that, I'll teach her a lesson... Brother Ao, you're welcome to come find me anytime."
She sighed and looked over at Chen Jia and Li Xiuwen, then finally came to stand before Chen Jia. "Brother Chen, shall we discuss something?"
Chen Jia didn't like this woman, but he still put on a fake smile. "What is it?"
Lu Yu glanced at Li Xiuwen beside him and said to Chen Jia, "Brother Chen, let's find a teahouse and have a proper talk."
For now she had no thought of inviting Li Xiuwen. The potential he'd shown was, among the second-floor disciples, only average.
She just wanted to be on good terms with him—she didn't want to recruit him yet.
Chen Jia's potential, in her eyes, was also average.
But Chen Jia did at least have a perfected-grade Iron Cloth Shirt, and he was on good terms with Lion Head Buddha, so he was still worth recruiting.
"Ah Wen, we'll spar again another day... Your palm techniques are improving fast. I have high hopes for you."
Chen Jia patted Li Xiuwen on the shoulder and left with the two women.
Li Xiuwen went back to practicing his fists. He had a rough idea of what the two women were after.
Lu Yu probably wanted to pull some second-floor disciples into her little circle to become her family's "resident champions."
Clearly, as he was now, he hadn't caught this woman's eye.
As for other people's opinions, Li Xiuwen hadn't cared in his past life, and didn't care in this one.
Nor did he have any interest in Lu Yu's circle.
A circle like that only meant something if someone invited you into it.
Shoving your way in and getting your head bloodied for it would only make you a laughingstock.
He continued his cultivation. Now that he knew "momentum" existed, he took Three Castings of the Heart Furnace more seriously.
After gaining entry to this technique, he'd never practiced it, because its efficiency was too low.
His intuition told him that if he could bring Elementary Martial Arts General Knowledge to major success, things might be a little better.
His fighting techniques weren't far from perfection either. He'd comprehend [momentum] soon.
Hone his martial will through Three Castings of the Heart Furnace, and strengthen the power of his "momentum."
Perhaps it could have some slight effect of shaking an enemy's mind in battle—enough to reverse the course of a fight in certain situations, as his trump card.
When experts crossed hands, life and death often hung by a single thread.
...
In the blink of an eye,
another week had passed.
On the rooftop of Chen's Noodle Factory, Li Xiuwen trained facing the morning sun.
[Sea Sand Stake proficiency increased by 8%...]
To keep from pushing the pills too hard and overloading his body, Li Xiuwen didn't take refined fish balls back to back. He used one every other day and cultivated hard in between.
Rounding it generously, that made him half a member of the austere cultivation faction!
The second refined fish ball cut the pain considerably at once.
Correspondingly, its potency dropped by 1%, and it gave him an 8% increase.
The third was also 8%.
The fourth was 7%.
Four refined fish balls down his belly had pushed his road to Black Membrane up by more than thirty percent.
Together with the hard cultivation of these days, his Sea Sand Stake proficiency had successfully reached major success (98%).
Li Xiuwen lowered his head. The skin membrane of both arms glowed with a translucent, black-red sheen.
"Black, with red showing through..."
Li Xiuwen had basically reached the limit of the Skin and Membrane Gate.
"For the last 2%, I'll just cultivate it on my own."
Li Xiuwen looked at the incense burner.
[Li Xiuwen]
[Martial skill]
[Elementary Martial Arts General Knowledge: minor success (73%)]
[Sea Sand Stake: major success (98%)]
[Flipping Sand Palm: major success (81%)]
[Armor-Binding Art: minor success (2%)]
...
[Stage: Black Membrane (98%)]
"Reading books these days has been working pretty well. General martial knowledge has a good chance of reaching major success next month, and then the Illusionary Realm of the Great Void should be able to upgrade too."
"Flipping Sand Palm has been progressing well, but to reach perfection and comprehend the fourth layer, [Giant Whale Swallows the Sea], it'll still take some time."
As for Armor-Binding Art, after minor success, normally a second-gate martial artist would be needed to cultivate it.
Li Xiuwen had forced it to minor success by leaning on the incense burner.
But the cultivation efficiency was too low. Like Three Castings of the Heart Furnace, Li Xiuwen set it aside for the time being.
He would push Sea Sand Stake first, then keep practicing after the gate-crossing breakthrough.
Cultivation is like rowing a boat against the current: if you don't advance, you fall back.
Before a martial art reaches perfection, ordinary people don't dare leave one completely unattended for so long.
With the [incense burner]'s once-attained, forever-attained, he naturally had no such worry.
After finishing the stake practice, Li Xiuwen lay on the rooftop, pulled out that copy of Treatise on Gang Banner Qi and Pulses, found his bookmark, and went on reading.
After a while, his gaze sharpened and a look of interest came over his face.
Chapter 64