Martial Arts Master

Just when Lou Cheng was watching Peng Chengguang’s competition video, Yan Zheke sent him a message,

“Cheng, are you looking at the information?”

“Yeah.” Lou Cheng “snickered.”

“Me too…” Yan Zheke replied with a similar “snickering” emoji.

There was no need for additional words. Through their short exchange of words, Lou Cheng could feel the synchronicity and the tacit exchange of romantic feeling between them, which made him warm within.

His QQ chat window and the tournament video window were placed diagonally at each corner of his computer screen, as if they were customized and adjusted before. At this moment, he was rapidly typing on his keyboards as he sent a “sit up and listen attentively” emoji. “Coach Yan, what’s your opinion on Peng Chengguang?”

Yan Zheke answered with her favorite “in deep thoughts with arms interlocked and hand supporting chin” emoji, “Peng Chengguang is currently in a period where his body refining state is at its peak. His body is in good condition. His qi and blood show no signs of weakening. There’re no weaknesses in his strength, speed, techniques, and experience. He is someone who can keep calm during the critical period, mature enough to handle a tough situation and courageous enough to seize opportunities. Furthermore, his punches and kicks have started to display a slight sense of ‘harvesting’.”

“But he might have just one problem. The martial arts skill that was passed down to him is too way common…”

“Indeed, though the difference between Jiuyang Punch and Jiuyang Godly Punch is only one word, one’s characteristic is like Heaven, the other like Earth.” Thinking of it, Lou Cheng could not help but “roll on floor laughing”.

Mingwei Martial Arts School was indeed too small, and too common, especially from its name, which could be heard of anywhere. Lou Cheng remembered that there was one as well in Xiushan.

Peng Chengguang was an orphan adopted by the former owner of Mingwei Martial Arts School, and he was a disciple of the former owner. Unfortunately, due to serious injuries from a Challenge Tournament, the former owner had passed away young. Peng Chengguang was only 16 when he had to carry on the heavy responsibility of the martial arts school. Slowly, he made his way and achieved his success today, purely depending on Jiuyang Punch and still stance skill, which he paid to learn. Now, he had become Songcheng highly wanted Mighty One with a body refining state.

In these years, many large martial arts school and martial arts aristocratic family saw his potential. They wanted to make him their disciple, or invite him to join their forces. They were all rejected by him.

Many thought of him as the next Liang Yifan, and were waiting for the right time to seize the right opportunity, so he could succeed and soar into the sky.

Though Lou Cheng felt that the knockoff of Jiuyang Punch was amusing, he would never look down at Peng Chengguang. While watching at Peng Chengguang’s tournament videos, he discussed the details with Yan Zheke.

When it was near bedtime, he finally concluded a point:

Other than the Dan stage Mighty One Wei Shengtian, Peng Chengguang might be the next strongest opponent he met in battle, and this time, there would be no Lin Que to support him!

…

Next morning, while the sky was still dark, Lou Cheng arrived at the Old Meeting Place beside Weishui Lake.

Geezer Shi appeared five minutes later, and he whistled an awful and off-tune opera song while he approached Lou Cheng.

“Went through the materials?” He said with a cheeky smile.

“Yes.” Lou Cheng answered honestly.

“Confident to defeat Peng Chengguang?” Geezer Shi asked in a relaxed tone.

Though Lou Cheng was looking forward to this battle and did have the urge to win, he would not be arrogant and blinded himself. He answered in a low tone, “If Peng Chengguang was to go against my Thunder Roar Zen continuously, I have the confidence to defeat him.”

Obviously, Peng Chengguang would not be such a fool. Based on his experience and the quality of his body, he knew that after getting a strike of Roar Zen, his body would become rigid. Moreover, it was not like he had no experience with such strikes in the past, so now, he would know how to stop Roar Zen at least once or twice forcefully.

Lou Cheng knew the quality of his body was not as good as his brother-in-law. It was especially obvious when using such skill where the initiator would depend on his tightened body muscles to launch an explosive strike, rather than, using the rebound force.

“Hey, that’s like not saying anything!” Geezer Shi rebutted. He then took out two pieces of neatly folded paper and handed them to Lou Cheng.

Lou Cheng took and unfolded them. He was shocked to discover that the two pieces of paper were actually Visualizing Blueprint!

These were must-haves for fighters who wished to train for higher level skills!

The visualization for the fundamental Still Water skill, Thunder-Fire still stance, Brutal Blizzard and Mega Avalanche were rather simple. With his knowledge and Geezer Shi’s explanation, he could swiftly get the idea and shape them in his mind. However, to obtain a higher level of visualization, these were insufficient. Fighters would either need these Visualizing Blueprints to help, or have a great sense of feeling with the nature to enter a higher level, else there were no other options!

The Visualizing Blueprints were in Lou Cheng’s hands. One of them depicted a flat field covered with thick snow as written in calligraphy. The moment he saw it, he could feel a chill that passed through his bones, giving him the feel of an endless vast expanse of whiteness. The other showed a scene of an ice-bounded large river, drawn in details using a fine brush. The fine lines of the frozen waves were even drawn in the picture, making him feel the hidden force by the surging waves and the frightening feeling created by the ice-bounded river.

There was an instance where Lou Cheng felt his hands turned ice cold, as if he had touched a piece of ice that was frozen for almost hundreds and thousands of years. He almost wanted to jerk his arms away and drop the Visualizing Blueprints.

Ahem! Geezer Shi’s cough had instantly pulled him back to reality, and he no longer felt the chill that pierced into his bones.

“First take a look at the Freezing Cold Blueprint, get its essence and the charm it wants to bring out. Then, using the still stance to visualize what’re the muscles, fascias, organs that would be affected and remember what kind of changes occurred. Next, without any visualization, try to get the feel again, so that during actual combat, you could visualize Frozen River Diagram. This would help in your Power of Frost, and together, you mix it with the tiny changes that occur to your body, you’d then be able to launch the Frost Force from Ice Sect.” Geezer Shi explained and added, “Of course, this is just the very basic as compared to my Ice Spirit Force.”

He cackled with laughter and said, “Even so, don’t look down on this. It’s not easy to master. Just to grasp the essence of the Visualizing Blueprint and feel the charm in it. You’ll need to spend some time to understand it. Even if you’ve mastered meditation and can do inward vision, you may not be able to get it!”

“Slowly, no rush, try to master Frost Force within half a year. By then, I’ll teach you the weaker version of physical invulnerability movements. Haha, without Frost Force, and if that Lin chap also failed to master his Meteor force, even if you guys have entered Dan stage, you guys could never defeat Peng Leyun. His Thunderclap Force is not a joke.”

Lou Cheng knew that secret skills like Frost Force, Thunderclap Force and Meteor force were not as simple as Flaming Force, which produced lesser impact. Thus, it was normal for them difficult to train. However, he did not quite believe what his master had said about it being difficult to grasp the fundamental of visualization.

A skill such as Ice Mirror usually required two to three years before one could master its basics. He had already managed to somewhat understand it by himself with the help of his advanced meditation skill. So what so difficult about this?

Yet, after a while, he had to admit that his master was right.

In the past, his visualization would never consider the essence and the charm of it, so he could never understand the difficulty in visualizing them. Now that he had experienced it, he had mixed feeling. Indeed, it was hard to grasp it, and certainly, it was not something that he could master within a day.

After taking a glance at the Visualizing Blueprints again, Lou Cheng somewhat understood the meaning of the mentioned essence and charm. For instance, his current visualization of Brutal Blizzard only had its form and aura. However, how brutal the blizzard was, and to what extent the brutalness was, it was not shown in his visualization.

He suppressed his anxiety through deep breathing as he continued his training today. He had only managed to experience the Visualizing Blueprint for 20 to 30 minutes.

After the training, Geezer Shi took back the Visualizing Blueprints and did not let him bring them home. This showed how rare and precious these Visualizing Blueprints were.

…

Time flew and soon, it was the weekend again. Many people were gathered outside the Songcheng University Martial Arts Club.

The tournament last week had given many students a good impression of the Club. Through words of mouth and self-advertising, there were twice as many spectators than before who came to support the club in the tournament.

Moreover, this was under the circumstance where there was no formal promotion of the tournament!

“Songcheng University martial arts aura doesn’t seem as bad as what the rumors have said…” A muscular-looking man commented with his arms interlocked and placed in front of him. He silently stared at the entrance of the arena as he sighed and spoke to the partner next to him.

In such a cold and chilly weather, he only wore a black t-shirt with a pair of tight jeans.

With him, were three other friends. One of them had a Mohican-looking hair which gave people a deep impression. He chortled in reply, “So what? No matter how good their martial arts club aura is, can it be scarier than the aura that Yimo exudes?”

“As if you’ve been to Yimo…” Another bald muscular man with beard on his face mocked.

“That’s just an example. Anyway, our objective today is to observe Lou Cheng’s battle and understand more about Songcheng University Martial Arts Club. After the Amateur Ranking Event, it’s our turn to be here. Whether we have a chance advance this year, will depend on that battle…” The man with Mohican-looking hair chuckled and said with a relaxed expression.

They all had a green dragon head tattoo on their neck!