As Li Changqing filled the collapsed hole with massive boulders.
The surging waves finally calmed.
He floated at the bottom of the lake, the aura of Heaven-Man Resonance growing ever deeper as he continuously merged with the lake.
His arms moved through a martial arts form, his vitality driving the surrounding currents and clearing the countless turbulent eddies created by the cave-in.
The rippling lake surface gradually settled. The birds soaring overhead also plunged back into the water one after another in search of food.
Li Changqing floated at the center of the lake. Dense bubbles no longer rose from around his skin, nor did visibly scorching currents of air burst forth.
After breaking through to the five-star realm, even Li Changqing himself found it difficult to estimate just how abundant the vitality within his body had become.
As his vitality surged, it easily heated his skin. His pores opened and closed, expelling waste air while drawing in oxygen separated from the lake water, without the slightest abnormality.
The Universe Breathing Technique had reached perfection.
"Cough, cough."
Suddenly, Li Changqing coughed softly several times, threads of blood drifting through the water.
"I need to heal first."
He felt somewhat regretful.
The points added after his breakthrough had not helped repair his injuries. Otherwise, during future battles, he could exploit a bug and get a resurrection card for free.
Rather than rising to the surface, Li Changqing sat cross-legged in the water.
He did not intend to go to the hospital. Blue Star's technology was no different from what it had been a century ago. Even a fracture took more than a hundred days to heal. If he wanted to recover quickly, he could only use psionic technology.
But the problem was that anything related to Psionic Energy was expensive.
Li Changqing had no money.
In that case, what place could be more suitable than the heart of a lake for a Martial Artist in Heaven-Man Resonance to recover from his injuries?
As his vitality circulated, Li Changqing resonated with the lake in an instant.
The power of nature wrapped around his entire body, seeping beneath his skin bit by bit. Together with his own vitality, it began repairing his injuries.
An hour later, Li Changqing opened his eyes and examined himself inwardly.
"The speed is a little slow."
Perfect Embracing the Core and Returning Strength gave him the ability to command his vitality as easily as his own limbs, but even so, his body's recovery speed was still not fast.
"Legend says that beyond Embracing the Core and Returning Strength lies the realm of Unbreakable by Gods. At that point, every minute part of the body is under one's control. Even if the heart is injured, it can heal rapidly. One can even use Mental Power to lock onto cancer cells and eliminate them with precision.
"There will no longer be any suffering from illness or pain."
Li Changqing imagined the future, though that realm was still somewhat distant for him.
To reach the legendary realm of Unbreakable by Gods, one had to first see a god.
That god was the True Self, the core of a person's spirit.
And now, Li Changqing could not even fully sense his own Mental Power.
"I should first bring my vitality to completion."
He closed his eyes again and focused on healing.
One never noticed the passing months in the mountains.
In the blink of an eye, seven days passed.
Fortunately, Li Changqing had prepared in advance and carried all the pots, bowls, and utensils from home on his back.
He had truly feasted on wild game for once.
At the heart of the lake.
He sat cross-legged at the bottom, every pore across his body continuously drawing in and expelling breath.
Over these seven days, he continuously guided the power of nature and his vitality to temper his body together.
In the pitch-black depths, Li Changqing's body resembled a jade-carved divine statue. A faint radiance shimmered within three meters around him.
At last, the final trace of injury to his internal organs healed.
After seven days, his condition had been adjusted to its peak.
His tightly shut eyes abruptly opened, divine light shooting from within them as though it had substance.
Rumble—
Thunder exploded beneath the water.
An arrow streaked straight toward the lake surface.
Bang!
Li Changqing burst from the water, bare above the waist. The muscles across his body were knotted and powerful, yet tightly adhered to his frame rather than bulging outward. As his vitality flowed, divine light gleamed across him.
His chest rose and fell. A breeze swept across the lake, spreading ripples in every direction.
The sound of wind, the sound of water—they were all his breathing.
He examined himself inwardly.
Tai Chi (Heaven-Man Resonance): 95% Tai Chi Fist (Thunder Division): 80% Universe Breathing Technique: 100% Vitality Concentration: 48%
Seven days of quiet recuperation had not only fully healed Li Changqing's injuries, but also taken his strength to another level.
After reaching shore, he put on his clothes and slung his flattened backpack over his shoulders.
But Li Changqing did not put on shoes. He snapped off a reed by the roadside, tossed it onto the lake, then leaped lightly with bare feet.
Plop.
The lake surface swayed slightly.
His vitality had become like lead and mercury, gradually solidifying.
At this moment, Li Changqing weighed at least two hundred kilograms, no less than the fiercest Bengal tiger.
Such tremendous weight landed on a slender, fragile reed.
Yet it merely swayed faintly.
And just like that, he stood steadily upon the water.
Looking at the broad riverway before him, vitality pulsed beneath his feet. Like an arrow loosed from the bowstring, he crossed the river.
There was only a single reed beneath his feet, yet the rolling Tuo River had been tamed like a kitten.
Even the splashing waves did not dare touch Li Changqing's trouser legs.
Upon the vast lake, Li Changqing stepped on emerald waves and traveled with the surging billows.
His martial realm, having reached its pinnacle, brought to life the most romantic martial legend of old.
Crossing a river on a single reed.
He traveled over water and crossed mountains.
Li Changqing raced across the tops of lush green trees as the breeze brushed his cheeks.
He gazed toward the towering mountain range in the distance. As far as his eyes could reach stretched at least a thousand li.
To him, it was still an immense distance.
Turning back to look at the rolling Tuo River, Li Changqing's chest surged with passion, and he sang aloud.
"By dawn I roam north of Yue, by dusk reach Cangwu. With Sleeve Green Snake in hand, my courage runs deep. Thrice I entered Yueyang, yet none knew my name; chanting freely, I flew across Dongting Lake..."
In those unrestrained verses, Sword Qi crisscrossed the heavens. If Li Taibai had been a banished immortal from heaven playing in the mortal world, then Patriarch Lü had surely been an Earthly Immortal chasing the sun and moon.
"Patriarch Lü truly deserved his reputation as a legendary Earthly Immortal."
The Pure Yang Sword Immortal, Lü Dongbin—he was the only person of the modern era for whom evidence remained, one suspected of having been an ancient cultivator.
The Old Technique Tai Chi cultivated by Li Changqing traced its origins to a stone carving left behind by him.
"One day, I too will roam the northern sea at dawn and return at sunset, split mountains and rivers with my sword, and tread upon the Five Sacred Mountains. I will see just how dazzling these legendary Earthly Immortals truly are."
As he sped along the treetops, the murmuring stream entered Li Changqing's sight once more.
At the end of the babbling stream, a waterfall roughly three meters tall thundered down.
"We meet again."
He descended from the sky. The vitality beneath his feet stirred the stream with exquisite force, allowing him to stand firmly atop the flowing water.
Li Changqing looked at the waterfall before him, the murmuring stream flowing through the corner of his vision.
The first time he had comprehended the Dao in the mountain forest had been here.
The first time he met Sun Sheng had also been here.
And it had been that very time when Sun Sheng had drawn his blade through the air before him, slashing with his palm to sever the water.
He had shown Li Changqing the gap between himself and a top-tier Lower-Rank Martial Artist.
"Severing water?"
Li Changqing stared at the stream. Then, all at once, he smiled freely.
"I have no need to raise a cup to drown my sorrows, so why would I need to draw a knife to cut water?"
He stepped onto the pool and leaped into the air, arriving beneath the waterfall, standing on flowing water with the waterfall overhead.
The curtain of water flowed before his eyes.
Li Changqing slowly closed his eyes. Within this tiny space, he stretched out his limbs.
The stance of Tai Chi rose, accompanied by a gentle breeze.
Li Changqing had already brought the realm of Heaven-Man Resonance to the point of consummate mastery.
His left arm traced a circle, merging with the surrounding heaven and earth.
The wind came.
The wind curled around his fingertips, and he grasped it in his palm.
Li Changqing's right arm traced an arc. As his vitality flowed, it resonated with heaven and earth.
Gurgle, gurgle—
Ripples spread across the pool as his feet stepped upon the water.
As vitality flowed into the stream, an external circulation gradually took shape alongside Li Changqing's martial movements.
The water came.
Splash—
He opened his eyes, and the corners of his mouth lifted.
Drawn by his vitality, the water in the pool defied gravity and rose into the air, hovering before Li Changqing.
Water had no fixed momentum, no fixed form.
From above to below, it occupied the weaker position.
Li Changqing divided yin and yang with both hands as he watched the roaring waterfall before him.
His fist stance embraced a circle and shifted, guiding his vitality to resonate with nature.
The next moment, his palms overturned.
In an instant, yin and yang switched places.
The roar of the waves rolled on. Li Changqing divided yin and yang, and as his fist stance unfolded, his fusion with nature grew ever closer in the state of Heaven-Man Resonance.
Tai Chi, Invert Yin Overturn Yang!
Boom!
The roaring waterfall abruptly froze. Li Changqing's pores spread open, and the vitality flowing through his body turned this tiny patch of ground into his domain.
Here, I am the direction.
All things in every quarter, heed my command.
"Reverse!"
With a single command, Li Changqing pushed his martial form to its limit.
Rumble—
The waterfall flowing downward suddenly inverted. The stream flowed backward, soaring into the air.
The falling waterfall flowed upstream in an inconceivable manner.
In that instant, Li Changqing defied the laws of nature. Using his martial arts to drive his vitality, he ruled over this tiny patch of land beneath his feet.
Making the stream flow backward.
Making the waterfall reverse.
Violent splashes collided above his head with the stream.
Every moment, Li Changqing endured the full pressure of the river water above him.
His vitality was consumed in great quantities. In merely a few seconds, it was nearly exhausted.
"Hahaha—" Yet Li Changqing threw back his head and laughed.
His vitality ran dry and could no longer sustain it. The river water crashed through the waterfall, falling once more from above into the pool.
His laughter spread through the mountain forest, stirring nature itself.
From this moment onward, Li Changqing had completely merged with nature.
Using his fists to make a waterfall flow upstream had already surpassed the scope of a Lower-Rank Martial Artist.
Naturally, it also surpassed Sun Sheng's Drawing a Knife to Cut Water.
Li Changqing knew he had succeeded!
At the same time, the Tai Chi he had brought to consummate mastery underwent a transformation.
Tai Chi (Unity of Heaven and Man): 10%
His fist art transformed once more, its realm changing from Heaven-Man Resonance into Unity of Heaven and Man.
Ding ding—
His phone rang.
Seeing the caller, Li Changqing's smile deepened.
"Hello, Coach Kang."
"Changqing, get back to the martial arts school before five."
"Coach, what is it?" Li Changqing raised his brows slightly. Why did he hear excitement in Kang Tianchen's voice?
"The city government had moved the Youth Cup forward to coordinate with the Psionic Research Institute's Seedling Plan! It would officially begin next Friday."
"Moved forward?" Li Changqing's eyes lit up. That was good news, but before he could ask anything—
"Because the competition has been moved up, the hall master came to notify us today. Tonight, we're having a practice match with Jixing Martial Hall. It's a rare chance to observe, so hurry back."
"..."
After hanging up, Li Changqing stood atop the water.
A practice match?
His eyes flickered. I'd like to see who's stronger—the chief disciple of Jixing Martial Hall or Sun Sheng.
At the thought, Li Changqing revealed a confident smile.
As for which of the two was stronger, to him—
It was merely a matter of seeing whether the opponent's level could make him go all out.
Before you continue