Secluded Cultivation

After seeing Li Mochou off, Wang Ming began his closed-door cultivation to improve his strength.

Since obtaining the system, he had now experienced three worlds. In each world, he was like a swarm of locusts, collecting all famous martial arts, good or bad.

Currently, he wasn't lacking in martial arts manuals; he had too many and didn't know which ones to practice.

This time, after conquering Jueqing Valley, he finally had a suitable place to start organizing his resources.

The best quality martial arts manuals he possessed were those obtained from the First Under Heaven world:

Hegemon Under Heaven was powerful, but it was a martial art that drove people mad. He wasn't interested in practicing it; there were plenty of other options, so why court madness?

Indestructible Vajra Body, after breaking through the seventh layer, progress was extremely slow. He would see if he could reach the eighth layer in 30 years.

Illusion Sword sounded profound, but it was actually just the borrowing of light, along with a method for burst speed. This was, after all, a wuxia world, not a xianxia world; overly complex illusions couldn't be created.

Sky Full of Flowers Scattering Gold Coins was also his main area-of-effect damage skill currently.

Heaven and Earth Great Shift only reached the fourth layer, and progress was slow. It was likely due to his insufficient internal energy! He decided to set it aside for now.

Then, the martial arts obtained from The Smiling, Proud Wanderer World were mostly discarded, only serving as a foundation for his martial arts accumulation.

The only valuable ones left were Nine Swords of Dugu. This swordplay actually had no stances; the nine swords were nine calculation formulas used to calculate the weak points of nine types of weapons. This martial art could be used continuously.

Ice True Qi was also an applied martial art. When unleashed, it had an ice-elemental attribute, but within the body, it was still non-attributive.

Seven String Formless Sword, a soundwave technique, unfortunately, had too singular an effect.

Star Absorbing Great Art was too incomplete. He didn't want to become a balloon that burst, and it also required dispersing his current energy, which was too risky.

Bixie Sword Manual was impossible for him to practice. Although it could change one's body, this martial art was too sinister. Wang Ming would rather practice Hegemon Under Heaven than this. This martial art could unconsciously distort a person's psyche, making them extremely radical and changing their sexual orientation.

The Five Peaks Swordplay, though its stances were exquisite, perhaps reaching the peak of stances, had very low internal energy utilization. This Five Peaks Swordplay was like a bicycle, while the Quanzhen Sect swordplay was like a motorcycle. Their power levels were not comparable, so this martial art was also basically discarded by Wang Ming.

Primal Chaos Technique and Purple Cloud Manual were also discarded by Wang Ming.

Wang Ming's gains from this world:

The Quanzhen Sect swordplay was good, with several times the internal energy utilization of the Five Peaks Sects.

The Nine Yin Manual was the biggest gain from this world.

Heavy Swordplay was a swordplay he deduced and restored himself.

Innate Skill was currently his main cultivation, but Wang Ming was considering whether to switch to cultivating the Nine Yin Manual.

Blue Sea Tide Song was obtained by trading with the Eastern Heretic. He would research it when he had time.

Empty Clarity Fist, created by Zhou Botong, was quite powerful, but it didn't quite match Wang Ming's style.

Twin-Handed Combat Technique and Yin Yang Chaotic Blade Method were methods for dual-wielding weapons. Their value was... not trash, but not exceptional either.

The gap between himself and the Five Greats was mainly in his internal energy cultivation.

Therefore, he should focus on internal energy cultivation.

Indestructible Vajra Body was essentially stuck. He didn't know how Gu Santong cultivated it back then.

Nine Yin Manual had a very high ceiling and was worth cultivating.

However, Wang Ming was in an awkward position now; he couldn't cultivate the internal energy of the Nine Yin Manual.

Wang Ming had underestimated Innate Skill. This martial art was incredibly overbearing. As soon as other true qi appeared in the lower dantian, it would be devoured, making it impossible to cultivate.

This was also why Wang Chongyang himself didn't cultivate the Nine Yin Manual – because Innate Skill prevented him from doing so.

However, in the original story, Duan Zhixing cultivated Innate Skill and then practiced the Nine Yin Manual.

Wang Ming deduced that in his situation, while using Innate Skill and One Yang Finger to heal Huang Rong, he had depleted all the true qi from his own Innate Skill cultivation.

Essentially, it was equivalent to crippling his Innate Skill. This was why it took him so long to recover after healing Huang Rong; it was basically like starting over.

Some might say, wouldn't internal energy recover after sitting and sleeping?

Actually, that's incorrect. To learn an internal energy technique is to open up the acupoints and meridians in the body. Once you've opened all the meridians described in the manual, you've succeeded.

However, the true qi within the body would still be completely empty.

You need to sit and cultivate daily, refining essence and qi, and then store the cultivated true qi in your dantian.

This is why young, burly men in wuxia worlds can't defeat frail old men; the old men have accumulated internal energy for a longer time.

Normally, there are two different effects from sitting and circulating techniques: one is to recover depleted internal energy. As long as it's not completely exhausted at once, recovery is easy, taking at most a few days.

The other situation is to increase the storage capacity of one's internal energy.

The internal energy of the Nine Yin Manual wasn't necessarily stronger than Innate Skill. Wasting his cultivation to start anew would be a loss.

"Then I'll continue cultivating Innate Skill!"

Wang Ming finally made his decision and began his closed-door cultivation.

For the next year, Wang Ming did not leave his cultivation retreat. Li Mochou arranged for servants to deliver his food and drinks.

These servants were hired by Wang Ming after he had Li Mochou purchase them from outside the valley. He didn't trust the original inhabitants of Jueqing Valley, and the original women and children had been arranged to leave in batches.

During this year of closed-door cultivation, Wang Ming truly came to understand the real power of Innate Skill.

This martial art must be cultivated by someone with an intact virgin body to achieve twice the results with half the effort. While it can be practiced by those who are not virgins, the effects are merely average.

Back then, Wang Chongyang knew well the allure of the Nine Yin Manual to martial artists. Among the other Four Greats, Ouyang Feng was the least scrupulous. Once he died, Ouyang Feng would undoubtedly come knocking, and Wang Chongyang's entire foundation could be destroyed in an instant.

Furthermore, Ouyang Feng was also the most formidable among the other four. After Wang Chongyang was gone, no one would be able to subdue him.

Ouyang Feng's Toad Skill had been broken by Wang Chongyang. He later returned to White Camel Mountain and cultivated it again. Even so, twenty years later, he was still not lagging behind the others, which showed just how exceptional his talent was.

Thus, Wang Chongyang decided to create an opponent for Ouyang Feng.

Eastern Heretic Huang Yaoshi, with his first-class talent and intellect, was also a rule-breaker with considerable ambition. Don't be fooled by his hermit-like portrayal in The Legend of the Condor Heroes; that was due to his wife's death and his disciple's betrayal, which had struck him hard. This candidate was still unsuitable.

Northern Beggar Hong Qi, while possessing excellent virtue, was still not the right choice. He was the leader of the Beggar's Sect, and making him too powerful would be detrimental to the development of the Quanzhen Sect. Most importantly, everyone was competing for a share of the same resources in the Central Plains.

After much deliberation, the only remaining choice was Duan Zhixing.

Although Duan Zhixing was one of the Five Greats, he was actually the ruler of the Dali Kingdom. He was famous in the martial arts world, but he was not a person of the martial arts world at all.

Most importantly, he was not from the Central Plains. As the old saying goes, "Befriend those from afar and attack those nearby."

Duan Zhixing was very far from Zhongnan Mountain, posing no conflict of interest.

Duan Zhixing's inherited One Yang Finger could actually break the Toad Skill, but his internal energy was insufficient, preventing him from fully countering the Toad Skill.

Duan Zhixing's inherited internal energy was mediocre, unable to support the full power output of the One Yang Finger.

Therefore, Wang Chongyang traveled a thousand miles to teach him the Innate Skill.

Don't think of Wang Chongyang as being overly generous. He only taught it because he knew Duan Zhixing could not maintain his virgin status.

Without virgin status, this martial art would merely be a decent internal energy technique, only slightly inferior to the Nine Yin Manual.

One would be unable to gain the true benefits of this martial art and would instead have to abstain from sexual activity, which would be quite unbearable.

Cultivating the Innate Skill while maintaining virgin status could stimulate a person's latent potential to its limit, allowing their martial arts to naturally enter an unfathomable realm.

Furthermore, the internal energy of the Innate Skill was extremely profound, and recovery was remarkably rapid.

Another characteristic of this martial art was its ability to amplify the power of other martial arts.

The first Mount Hua Sword Conference was no child's play like the encounters with Guo Jing.

They engaged in a free-for-all battle simultaneously, but in the end, Wang Chongyang defeated all four of them, which demonstrated the extraordinary nature of this martial art.