activa-t Chapter 34 Hard Bone Kung Fu!
Chapter 34 Hard Bone Kung Fu!
Zhao An could see clearly that after entering the city, the county magistrate had a livid face, veins throbbing on his forehead, and an extremely cold expression.
"Get out of the way!" the county constable shouted at the people blocking the street, ignoring their cries and wails, wishing he could whip them open the path.
He did not linger in the outer city for a moment, but hurriedly went straight into the inner city.
With the magistrate's death and the fall of the county seat, he, as the county constable, bears inescapable responsibility.
If things went wrong, the prefectural government might investigate and not only strip him of his county magistrate position but also subject him to imprisonment. How could this not infuriate him?
After the cavalry led by the county magistrate entered the city, a long time passed before the county soldiers who had been suppressing the bandits returned and re-guarded the city gate.
Fortunately, after the magistrate's death, his subordinate, the county clerk, survived the chaotic battle and temporarily took over the magistrate's position, allowing the magistrate's office to continue operating.
In the following days, the county magistrate traveled extensively, actively arranging the reconstruction work.
This wave of looting has severely damaged the entire Lianjiang City, but life must go on.
Meng Wanyi returned to her clinic the following day.
At this time, the whole city was full of wounded people. Although her clinic was not burned down, it was almost overwhelmed by the wounded.
She disregarded the need for rest and immediately threw herself into the treatment.
As for Zhao An's injuries, they were not serious; they were merely some superficial wounds.
Even without medical treatment, he can heal himself thanks to his strong physique.
......
April passed quietly, and early May arrived, with the weather becoming increasingly hot.
Fortunately, there has been no sign of drought so far.
The Great Wu Dynasty is currently in a state of turmoil and frequent wars. If a drought were to sweep across the land, leaving it barren and desolate, countless people would surely die.
In the small courtyard.
Zhao An, shirtless, transformed his hands into snakes, moving at will, his palms striking out continuously.
With his internal energy circulating, his palm strikes emitted a snake-like flickering force, producing continuous crackling sounds in the air. His moves were sometimes fierce and powerful, and sometimes soft and unpredictable, leaving Li Gou'er and Zhao Chunzi dazzled.
Even with their eyes wide open, they couldn't catch the trajectory of Zhao An's attack at all, only feeling bewildered yet awe-inspiring.
Most importantly, the palm techniques he used possessed an unusual sense of completeness and smoothness!
After a long while, Zhao An finally stopped and rested, feeling thoroughly satisfied.
"It took three batches of soul slaves, a total of eight, and nearly thirty years of arduous training to finally master the Silver Serpent Hand technique from the second realm to the third realm of perfection. It was truly no easy feat..."
Fortunately, the outcome was good; he acquired a second set of perfected martial arts palm techniques.
His sword and palm skills improved simultaneously, and his strength had greatly increased compared to that turbulent night.
In addition, his internal energy has also increased significantly.
The internal circulation has reached four hundred strands, which is almost catching up with the strength level of those two powerful enemies back then.
This is roughly the maximum growth rate of his internal energy.
He couldn't simply accumulate and consume soul slaves to obtain a massive reserve of internal energy in one go; the limits of his physical body also had to be taken into account.
Just like eating, you need to eat three meals a day to allow your body time to digest and absorb the food. You can't eat a month's worth of food in one meal.
This is also the experience that Zhao An has summarized after exploring and learning over this period of time.
In fact, even this method of maximizing internal energy growth still results in some waste.
If the cultivation results of multiple soul slaves are absorbed at the same time, some of their inner energy will not be absorbed and digested in time, thus being wasted.
It would be better to have a single soul slave absorb the results of cultivation every few days, thereby maximizing the benefits. However, this would require sufficient patience and a longer time commitment.
With a sufficient number of soul slaves, Zhao An allowed himself to waste some resources in order to become stronger in a short period of time.
"Brother Zhao, your palm technique is amazing! I've never seen anything so powerful!" Li Gou'er praised from the side.
It may sound like flattery, but it was a genuine statement from him.
Zhao An's Silver Serpent Hand technique, at its perfected state, is truly unmatched in the outer city.
With Li Gou'er's perspective, he felt that his elder brother was the most capable.
"Alright, enough with the useless nonsense. How's the matter I asked you to inquire about?" Zhao An asked.
"Brother Zhao, I've pretty much figured it out, and I was just about to give you a report," Li Gou'er chuckled.
"Speak." Zhao An sat on the stone bench, drank two large bowls of tea, and then wiped himself down.
"The three most famous martial arts academies in the outer city are the Zheng Family Martial Arts Academy in the east, the Tang Family Martial Arts Academy in the north, and the Huang Family Martial Arts Academy in the south."
"These three families have the most disciples, and the three masters are all extremely powerful. It is said that even many famous and powerful families in the inner city have sent people to visit these three martial arts masters many times, hoping to recruit them."
"But none of these three masters were willing to work for those aristocratic families..."
"Get to the point," Zhao An interrupted, seeing Li Gou'er rambling on.
Li Gou'er coughed lightly before pulling him back.
Master Zheng of Zhengshi Martial Arts Academy uses a set of Kaishan Fist, which is an external, fierce, and hard fist technique that uses force to overcome skill, and is deep, fierce, and domineering.
When practiced to a high level, one can gather destructive power in their fist. With just one punch to the head, even if the opponent is fully armed and wearing a helmet, they will not escape the fate of having their head turned to mush!
The Huang Family Martial Arts Academy's Gale Palm is as powerful as a gale, striking with lightning speed, using speed to defeat the enemy, combining both strength and ferocity.
"Finally, there's the Tang Clan Martial Academy's Horizontal Hard Bone Technique. Brother Zhao, I've heard it's an eighth-grade martial arts training method!" Li Gou'er said with an air of importance.
He specifically mentioned the Tang Clan Martial Academy last because the martial arts taught there were of a higher grade, not ninth grade, but eighth grade!
Eighth-grade martial arts are extremely rare in the outer city area.
"Oh!" Upon hearing this, Zhao An was indeed most interested in the Tang Clan Martial Arts Academy mentioned last.
The name "eighth-grade martial arts" sounds impressive!
But then he realized something was wrong.
"Since this person practices an eighth-grade martial art, unique among the three major martial academies, why is he still stuck in the outer city, yet still listed as one of the three major martial academies along with the other two?"
"As expected of Brother Zhao, he spotted the problem right away," Li Gou'er laughed.
"I spent some money to consult some disciples in the martial arts academy. I heard that this eighth-grade hard bone skill is very difficult to learn, not only taking up a lot of time but also a lot of money."
Unless one possesses extraordinary talent, investing a hundred or eighty taels of silver would be like throwing money down the drain. Even after ten years of training, one would only have mastered the basics, which is not worthwhile at all.
Therefore, this martial arts academy has the fewest disciples, and countless people give up halfway through; it relies entirely on Master Tang to keep the school afloat.
After hearing this, Zhao An suddenly stood up.
"Brother Zhao, what's going on?" Li Gou'er was taken aback.
"Lead the way, let's go and meet those martial arts academies."
He was worried that he had perfected both of his ninth-grade martial arts techniques and had nothing new to practice.
Therefore, he set his sights on the martial arts academies in the outer city early on, and specifically asked Li Gou'er to investigate them in the next few days.
He wanted to see just how difficult it was to master the Hard Bone Technique, how the Gale Palm compared to his Silver Snake Hand, and whether the Mountain-Splitting Fist was more domineering and fierce than his Fierce Tiger Saber.