Eagle Claw Iron Shirt at Perfection

Eagle Claw Iron Shirt at Perfection

"What?!"

"Zhao Gang is an inner disciple with more than ten years of cultivation, yet he actually lost."

"Zhou Shan has only been in the Iron Shirt Sect for two months, yet he already has such strength. It's simply terrifying."

"Innate Divine Strength—this is Innate Divine Strength."

"..."

Seeing Zhao Gang sprawled on the ground and howling in pain, the Iron Shirt Sect disciples present looked at Zhou Shan differently. Every face bore an expression of awe, while Zhao Gang's other lackeys all lowered their heads, not daring to meet Zhou Shan's eyes.

"Now, you will all follow my orders. Any objections?"

Zhou Shan swept his gaze around and spoke coldly.

"No objections, no objections."

"We'll follow Senior Brother Zhou's arrangements in all things."

"That's right. Whatever Senior Brother Zhou tells us to do, we'll do."

The disciples spoke up one after another.

"Very good. Then you few, go patrol with Zhao Gang."

Zhou Shan pointed at more than a dozen people and spoke blandly.

The dozen or so people he pointed out were basically all Zhao Gang's lackeys. They did not dare utter a word and immediately left with Zhao Gang.

After revealing a portion of his strength, Zhou Shan became the captain of one of the Iron Shirt Sect's three squads. Naturally, he no longer needed to handle patrols personally; he only had to send his subordinates. Every day, he simply cultivated.

Time passed.

In the blink of an eye, a month had gone by.

Name: Zhou Shan

Talent: Nine Breaths Assimilation

Cultivation Technique: Eagle Claw Iron Shirt (sixty years of cultivation/Perfection) Traits: Bronze Skin Iron Bones, Pierce Stone Through Metal

Zhou Shan opened the panel and checked it.

The Eagle Claw Iron Shirt he cultivated had already accumulated sixty years of cultivation and reached the Perfection realm.

Even when Zhou Shan generated new Internal Force within his body through the Nine Breaths Assimilation talent, he could only store it. He could no longer increase the Eagle Claw Iron Shirt's cultivation. Sixty years of cultivation was the limit of Eagle Claw Iron Shirt.

After Eagle Claw Iron Shirt reached Perfection, its original Solid as a Rock trait disappeared, replaced by two new traits: Bronze Skin Iron Bones and Pierce Stone Through Metal.

Of these, Bronze Skin Iron Bones was an enhanced version of Solid as a Rock.

Both his defense and strength could increase severalfold.

The other trait, Pierce Stone Through Metal, manifested in the Eagle Claw skill.

When Zhou Shan circulated Eagle Claw Iron Shirt throughout his body, not only would his flesh attain Bronze Skin Iron Bones, but his fingers would also gain the power to Pierce Stone Through Metal. He could bore through stone and dig holes into metal—truly terrifying.

Even thick iron armor could be clawed full of holes by Zhou Shan.

"Eagle Claw Iron Shirt has reached the limit of its cultivation. I need to acquire a new martial art as soon as possible."

Zhou Shan thought to himself.

He possessed the Nine Breaths Assimilation talent and could increase his Internal Force without limit.

However, that rested on the premise that his body could withstand so much Internal Force.

It was like an ordinary person suddenly being infused with a hundred years of Internal Force. Without a martial arts cultivation method to refine it, they would not become some martial arts master—they would explode and die.

Only by cultivating martial arts, strengthening the body, expanding the qi sea and dantian, even opening the body's hundred apertures, achieving Qi Flows Through Eight Meridians, and undergoing Marrow Cleansing Blood Changing, could one withstand more Internal Force.

In a television drama from his previous life, The First Under Heaven, the street thug Cheng Shifei received Gu Santong's power. Gu Santong also passed the cultivation method for the Vajra Indestructibility Technique to Cheng Shifei and helped him refine the Internal Force.

If it had merely been a pure infusion of Internal Force, Cheng Shifei, being an ordinary person, could never have endured so much cultivation. At most, he could have handled ten or twenty years of cultivation. Any more, and he would have exploded and died.

Zhou Shan's Nine Breaths Assimilation talent purely refined the world's primordial qi and transformed it into Internal Force.

To use an analogy, the human body was a pond capable of storing Internal Qi. With the Nine Breaths Assimilation talent, it was like having a high-powered water pump constantly pouring water into that pond.

But there was a limit to how much water the pond could hold. Without cultivating martial arts, the pond would soon be filled to the brim. Cultivating martial arts was equivalent to expanding the pond's surface area.

By cultivating Eagle Claw Iron Shirt, Zhou Shan had continually increased his body's strength, which was equivalent to expanding the pond. But Eagle Claw Iron Shirt was merely an ordinary first-rate martial art. It only had methods for tempering the body, and after sixty years of cultivation, it would reach its limit.

Therefore, Zhou Shan needed a higher-level martial art, one capable of opening the body's hundred apertures, achieving Qi Flows Through Eight Meridians, and undergoing Marrow Cleansing Blood Changing.

Such martial arts were considered supreme arts in the martial world, not something a force like the Iron Shirt Sect could possess. But as a super sect, the Guiyuan Sect surely possessed supreme martial arts.

After pondering for a while, Zhou Shan found an officer of the Black Armored Army at West Ridge Iron Mine.

"You wish to apply to join the Black Armored Army?"

When Centurion Wang Ping heard Zhou Shan introduce himself, he frowned slightly.

A rookie who had only joined the Iron Shirt Sect three months ago actually wanted to join the Black Armored Army. What wishful thinking. What did he take the Black Armored Army for, a dumping ground for trash?

Even the lowest-ranking Black Armored Guards required at least ten years of cultivation.

"Do you know the requirements for joining the Black Armored Army?"

Wang Ping asked coldly.

"I do. At least ten years of cultivation."

Zhou Shan nodded.

"Good that you know. You're only fifteen years old and have been in the Iron Shirt Sect for merely three months. Don't tell me you've already cultivated ten years of Internal Force?" Wang Ping said. "Did you start cultivating in your mother's womb, or are you exceptionally gifted? Let me make this clear first: if you're trying to make a fool of me, you won't escape thirty strokes of the cane."

"As for being exceptionally gifted, I really do have a little of that." Zhou Shan said in a deep voice, "When I was young, everyone in my village said I possessed Innate Divine Strength."

"Innate Divine Strength?" Wang Ping frowned, then said, "What kind of divine strength are we talking about?"

"When I was twelve, I could lift a thousand-jin stone cauldron. Though I've only been in the Iron Shirt Sect for three months, when cultivating, I can often breathe and circulate qi for more than five or six hours." Zhou Shan said in a deep voice, "As for exactly how many years of cultivation I possess, I've never specifically tested it."

"Oh? You could lift a thousand-jin stone cauldron at twelve. In terms of pure physical strength, that is enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with an entry-level martial artist. Then why didn't the Iron Shirt Sect discover that you possessed Innate Divine Strength?"

Wang Ping asked.

"When I joined the Iron Shirt Sect, I was never tested at all. After cultivating martial arts, I had not yet had the chance to show it when the sect received orders and transferred me to West Ridge Iron Mine."

Zhou Shan had long prepared this explanation.

"The Iron Shirt Sect, hmph!"

Wang Ping snorted coldly.

Though these sects appeared to submit on the surface, every last one of them obeyed in public while defying in private.

The Black Armored Army had ordered the major forces of Hengshan County to send people to West Ridge Iron Mine to assist with its defense, yet they had sent nothing but crooked melons and cracked dates. Most were people these sects had hastily gathered at the last minute, with no Internal Force at all. Otherwise, they were ordinary disciples with only two or three years of Internal Force. There were only two or three elites with more than ten years of cultivation, and they had probably offended someone within their sects.

The Guiyuan Sect was, after all, not a local force of Qingyang Commandery. Though it had destroyed the Vajra Sect, it would still be difficult to make these forces submit completely in such a short time. Some forces even remained secretly connected to the Vajra Sect's remnants.