The Empress’s Gigolo

After leaving Qingxin Palace, Ren Baqian returned to Pingle Park on his own.

He just found out the name of this residence after he had asked about it on his way back.

He entered his room, closed the door and opened the window. Then, he sat down and placed a thick, animal-hide-covered book on the table in front of him. At this moment, he was feeling slightly emotional.

After all, this book was a martial art manual from this world. This martial art must be a very high-level, otherwise, it wouldn’t be placed on the second level of Qingxin Palace. This wasn’t a manual on [Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms] that was sold on the street.

The animal hide that covered the manual was unknown to Ren Baqian. It made the book look as though it was passed down from ancient times. However, the book was completely intact without any wear and tear.

Ren Baqian carefully flipped open the book. A lake was drawn on the first page of the book. Some land, weeds, and trees were drawn around the lake.

Even though the picture wasn’t drawn in great detail, its charm was still completely brought out, appearing as though it was releasing traces of water vapor directly into Ren Baqian’s face.

Beneath the picture, there was a line of words. After attempting to read it for quite some time, Ren Baqian could only make out one word. If he hadn’t recalled wrongly, the word should be “water”.

After all, every pictogram had many areas in common.

He was caught unprepared by the rest of the words. Every word was like a picture.

The empress did not ask him about his learning progress before, and he himself also forgot about this issue.

“It seems like I have to learn how to read the words well first. For now, I’ll need someone translate this book for me,” Ren Baqian thought to himself. He casually flipped through the book. On the second page, there were numerous small words. On the third page, there was a picture of a forest. On the fourth page, there were numerous small words again.

Ren Baqian continued to flip through the book. Every page that had a picture was followed by a page full of words. There was a total of nine pictures in the book. After the eighteenth page, the rest of the pages were filled with words. On the last page of the book, there was a picture again.

Ren Baqian couldn’t understand anything on the book. It would be a huge joke if he could learn the martial art just by looking at the pictures alone.

Ren Baqian picked up the book and headed to Qingxin Palace.

Showing this book to Lin Qiaole should be alright. He wouldn’t say the same for other people. Therefore, he had to find that lass who was always falling asleep.

With the token given to him by the empress, he could go to many places in the palace without much difficulty. Everything would be alright as long as he did not lose his way.

Along the way, he encountered several palace maids. Every one of them would look at him with curiosity at first and then leave in a hurry.

After all, Ren Baqian was considered a prince-to-be, and this was the first time they encountered a situation like this. As such, they did not know what to do except to maintain some distance from him.

When Ren Baqian pushed open the doors of Qingxin Palace, he saw Lin Qiaole sleeping. Her face was glued to the table.

Other than the days she taught Ren Baqian how to read, she slept at least twenty hours per day. Ren Baqian had already expected to see her sleeping when he arrived at Qingxin Palace.

She woke up with a start after Ren Baqian gave the table a few knocks. When she realized it was Ren Baqian, she immediately yawned. With an annoyed look on her face, she asked, “What are you doing here again?”

“Teach me how to read these words and tell what they mean.” By the time Ren Baqian finished his sentence, Lin Qiaole had already reached out her fair and beautiful palm.

“You have gone missing for so many days. For the past few days, I only dared to eat a few pieces. If you were not back any sooner, I would have to go and find you.”

Ren Baqian took out a handful of candies from his clothes and placed them in her palm. Fortunately, he was prepared for this situation. If he did not bring any candies for this lass, she would definitely not help him.

Lin Qiaole was quite straightforward when it came to Ren Baqian using candies in exchange for her help. Ignoring her urge to sleep, she helped Ren Baqian translate the book all the way until evening.

Ren Baqian visited Qingxin Palace three days in a row before he finally understood [Ruyi Visualization].

This martial art divided a human body into five elements. Using one of the five elements, it allowed an individual to enter a state of emptiness. The first five pictures in the book depicted a lake, a mountain, a forest, a cluster of flames, and a sword.

After entering the state of emptiness, an individual would observe his body and master one of the five elements that corresponded to his body. Doing so would enhance the nature of his body.

This was only the foundation stage.

After an individual had mastered all five elements, he could then unravel and master all the mysteries in his body. At this stage, he had reached the apex of Man Wheel and would be entering the level of Earth Wheel.

After this stage, one had to visualize a goddess named Mother Goddess to continue his cultivation. He would have to draw a connection from his consciousness to the earth and then to the ley lines until he reached the apex of Earth Wheel.

The hardest part of this martial art was its foundation stage. After one had passed the foundation stage, he would have a smooth path to the Earth Embryo Realm.

This martial also had three cons. Firstly, it was different from most martial arts in the world. Most martial arts would cultivate the external of a body first before cultivating the internal or cultivate both at the same time. On the contrary, [Ruyi Visualization] cultivated the internal of a body first before cultivating the external. During the cultivation process, an individual had to take in a large amount of medicinal ingredients to supplement the five elements and temper his body.

Practicing this martial art required various types of rare medicinal ingredients. The amount of resources that this martial art consumed was tens of times more than other martial arts’.

The second one was that [Ruyi Visualization] skipped the process of converting one’s essence blood into qi. This process was usually found in ordinary martial arts. As such, an individual that practiced [Ruyi Visualization] would not to have any qi in his body. It was completely different from other martial arts, appearing as though it could only strengthen one’s physical body.

The third one was this martial art couldn’t provide its practitioner with practical fighting capabilities. Other than allowing one to attain the Ley Line Realm, it had no practical combat uses. Even if one attained the level of Earth Wheel, he could only use his physical superiority to suppress other Earth Wheel experts. A practitioner of [Ruyi Visualization] could be considered as the weakest of all Earth Wheel experts.

Furthermore, without qi, even if he tried to learn other martial arts, he could not utilize them.

Initially, Ren Baqian thought that this martial art could help him become as physically strong as the aboriginals. Lin Qiaole’s words killed his hope. The reason why aboriginals could break through their physical limitations was that they tapped into the power of their blood lineage.

As such, [Ruyi Visualization] was considered to be different from other martial arts. It was a completely unconventional martial art.

The method of cultivation after one reached the Earth Embryo Realm was depicted on the last picture in the book. It was a visualization picture that depicted a fiendish-looking man with eight arms. The book did not say what would happen after one reached the Earth Embryo State. Ren Baqian reckoned that he would only know what will happen after he reached that stage and visualized that picture.

According to Supervisor Lin, [Ruyi Visualization] was found in the imperial library of the Hao Nation. Perhaps even the people of the Hao Nation never practiced it before.

Not only was its foundation stage difficult to master, it also needed consumed a huge amount of resources. Furthermore, even if Ren Baqian mastered it, he would be at the bottom of all Earth Wheel experts, and he could only use his physical superiority to bully other people. What’s point of learning such a martial art?

After all, those who were able to enter the imperial library certainly knew some martial arts.

“Do you still want learn this martial art?” Lin Qiaole asked as she chewed on a piece of candy.

Ren Baqian was slightly hesitant. After hearing from Lin Qiaole for the past few days, he knew a thing or two about martial arts. Learning a martial art wasn’t the same as studying a college major. One couldn’t simply stop practicing a martial art and learn another one just because he or she found it unsuitable.

For other martial arts, if one attained a certain level, for example Earth Wheel, he or she could learn another complementing martial art. For [Ruyi Visualization], it was a completely different situation. Even if he wanted to learn a new martial art after mastering [Ruyi Visualization], he couldn’t do so.

If he chose to learn [Ruyi Visualization], he would have to stick with it all the way. No one knew what would happen after he reached the apex of Earth Wheel. Everything in the future was unknown to him.

If he chose not to learn [Ruyi Visualization], he would have to learn [Great Pan Boxing]. Otherwise, he had to wait for the empress to find martial arts for him from other places.

One could imagine the difficulty of this task. Out of all the book collections in Qingxin Palace, including the books from the Hao Nation’s imperial library, only two martial arts were suitable for him.

If he was to choose another martial art, could he find it in a short period of time? And how much trouble would he cause in the process? Even if the empress was willing to do so, he wouldn’t dare to let her do so.

After thinking it through, Ren Baqian felt that he had no other choice except to stick with [Ruyi Visualization].

The prerequisite being that he could pass the foundation stage.

From start, he never took fighting strength into consideration. He did not want to learn a martial art for the sake of beating people up. If he was weaker than other people, then so be it. At least he would be stronger than the current him.

Furthermore, Earth had a lot of devastating and powerful weapons like rifles, grenades, RPG, etc.

If he had the machine gun of Sylvester Stallone, he reckoned that most Earth Wheel experts would flee in fear.