Tai Chi Throwing Style

Rong City, No. 12 Middle School.

On the track, Li Changqing adjusted his breathing. His fluorescent green running shoes stood out sharply against the blue track.

Unlike high schools in the Old Era, high school athletic fields across Blue Star were now open to the public. Every public school came equipped with standard tracks and football fields, while the three core subjects had become language, mathematics, and physical education. Students with poor physical fitness did not fare well in the current education system.

He pressed his wristwatch, and the timer began three seconds later.

Li Changqing braced both hands against the ground, his knees bent and feet planted firmly on the starting blocks.

3, 2...

Beep—

The wristwatch sounded. Li Changqing's thigh muscles exploded, and he shot forward like an arrow released from the bow.

His initial strides were small as he controlled his legs, repeatedly pushing off with the balls of his feet at an extremely high frequency, forming an inward-facing figure-eight pattern.

In thirty meters, he swiftly completed his starting phase.

Li Changqing raised his chest, and the stride advantage granted by his height of over 1.8 meters began to take effect.

Step, drive the hips—done in one smooth motion.

The high school students playing basketball on the field all stopped moving.

Everyone looked in unison toward the blue track, at the streak of yellow lightning flashing by in fluorescent green.

Faster, faster still!

Every inch of Li Changqing's muscles was perfectly utilized. This was the difference between practicing an Old Technique and not practicing one.

The difference in how the two used their bodies was as vast as clouds and mud.

Throughout the entire hundred meters, Li Changqing's speed seemed to rise without end, and now the finish line was right before his eyes.

What held him back was not his body, but the length of the track.

He lowered his head and crossed the line.

Beep—

The electronic timer sounded.

9.60s.

He had nearly matched the world record for ordinary humans from the Old Era.

"Holy shit, 9.60 seconds!"

"What a beast!"

"Is he some senior from a martial arts school?"

Hearing the students chattering around him, Li Changqing smiled knowingly.

He did not walk back to the starting line. Instead, he prepared to start again directly from the hundred-meter finish line.

The next event: five thousand meters.

Beep—

Without needing any rest at all, Li Changqing charged out once more. In the eyes of the high school students, his speed was practically no different from his hundred-meter sprint just now.

He was gone in a whoosh either way.

A standard 400-meter track, twelve and a half laps.

Easy and effortless.

That was how Li Changqing felt now. His body, brimming with stamina, had made long-distance running no longer a burden.

With every muscle contraction, the lactic acid produced by anaerobic respiration was swiftly dispersed throughout his body by his vitality, then rapidly broken down through metabolism.

For it to accumulate locally and cause muscle soreness, Li Changqing's vitality would have to be completely depleted first.

One lap, two laps, three laps...

His speed and rhythm remained unchanged. His lungs were like bellows, and within five meters of him, the thunderous sound of his inhalations could be heard.

Soon, twelve and a half laps were complete.

He lowered his head and crossed the line!

Beep—

12 minutes 21 seconds.

"Holy shit, that's way too fast!"

"Awesome!"

"This senior must be close to becoming a Martial Artist. He's incredible."

At 12 minutes 21 seconds, he had astonishingly broken the Old Era world record for ordinary humans in the five thousand meters.

Compared to an event like the hundred meters, where running technique mattered just as much as physical fitness, Li Changqing, aided by his vitality and free from muscle fatigue, was practically cheating.

He had now begun to gradually approach the limits of normal humanity.

"Hah—"

He exhaled a great mouthful of hot air, yet there was still not a trace of white vapor.

Li Changqing wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"As expected, ordinary people's athletic events can no longer push me to my limits."

He closed his eyes and focused.

Vitality Concentration: 75%

Chengtian Tai Chi Fist, Proficiency: 32%

This was what he had gained after using another three doses. By now, Li Changqing only had one final tube of Blood Vitality Enhancer left.

The further he progressed, the more slowly his Vitality Concentration and proficiency increased.

Li Changqing was certain that once his Vitality Concentration broke through the 100% threshold, he would shatter humanity's physiological barrier and officially become a Lower-Rank Martial Artist.

He would possess power that surpassed the limits of humanity in every aspect.

He waved at the high school students watching the spectacle on the field, then walked over to the guard post.

He picked up the backpack full of meat and vegetables from the table and smiled at the security guard.

"Sir, thanks for the trouble."

"Hey, what are you saying? How could watching something for a Martial Artist be any trouble?"

The security guard's face piled up with an eager smile. He hurriedly stood and waved goodbye to Li Changqing.

"Take care, Mr. Li. Come again next time."

"You can use any of the school's facilities as you please."

In a world where psionic martial arts reigned supreme, even an apprentice who had yet to break through the limits received such treatment.

Back home.

Li Changqing first put the twenty pounds of beef he had bought today into the refrigerator. He took out two pounds, cut them up, and prepared to make tomato-braised beef brisket.

The meat was all fresh beef shank. When Li Changqing had gone to the market for groceries today, he had inadvertently revealed the Chengtian Martial Arts School identity tag hanging at his waist. The sharp-eyed butcher woman spotted it and immediately picked out beef slaughtered that very day for him.

She even told him that she would save good beef for him every day in the future, without charging extra.

He washed the rice and started cooking it.

He cut the beef into chunks, blanched it for five minutes, then removed and rinsed it clean. He heated oil in a hot pan, added ginger, garlic, and Sichuan peppercorns to stir-fry until fragrant, then added the beef and stir-fried it over medium-low heat. Next, he added an appropriate amount of dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, and two spoonfuls of five-spice powder ground from spices. Once the beef had taken on color, he added enough water to cover it.

He then cut up four tomatoes, added half of them to the pot first, and simmered everything over medium heat. Forty-five minutes later, he added the other half of the tomatoes, then reduced the sauce over high heat at the end.

After setting a forty-five-minute alarm on his wristwatch, Li Changqing opened his bedroom door and carried a heavy roly-poly dummy into the living room.

He had spent several hundred yuan on this training dummy specifically to practice with.

Whether it was the physical training he had been doing these past few days or the Old Technique Kang Tianchen had taught him—

Both were methods for training the body.

They were also known as training methods.

Martial Artists, martial arts.

A strong body alone was not enough. Martial prowess was what mattered most.

Methods of strengthening the physique ultimately still existed to enhance martial prowess.

Li Changqing had never forgotten why martial arts now stood above all else in society, or why Psionic Users held a status above the secular world.

The reason was simple: Martial Artists and Psionic Users were the main force resisting alien fleets.

He reached out and pulled down the projection screen in the living room, then inserted a disc into the projector.

Through Kang Tianchen, he had bought this set of combat techniques from Chengtian Martial Arts School.

Combat techniques were also known as fighting methods.

Fighting methods differed from training methods.

Training methods were techniques specifically used to strengthen a Martial Artist's physique and vitality, while fighting methods were ways of dealing with enemies.

They were completely different things.

If Li Changqing used the set of Tai Chi Fist Kang Tianchen had taught him in an actual match, he would only die miserably.

It would be as laughable as a fitness coach using barbell bench presses and push-up techniques to fight a professional fighter.

The video began.

The scene showed a dojo. A middle-aged man dressed in training clothes stood at its center, beside a dummy of the same model as Li Changqing's.

But unlike Li Changqing's life-sized dummy, the dummy in the video stood more than three meters tall.

"What is Tai Chi?"

The man spoke slowly. His hands were clasped behind his back, and the bearing of a master naturally radiated from him.

"Some call Tai Chi a boxing art, using both fists to fight. Others wield sword techniques through Tai Chi, their bodies like swimming dragons, graceful as startled swans. Such combat arts are as numerous as stars in the sky, too many to list."

"Yet in my view, the essence of Tai Chi—and indeed of all ancient Chinese boxing arts—is not boxing. Then where does that essence lie?"

The man extended his right arm and gently pressed his five fingers against the three-meter-tall dummy.

The next instant.

A scene that overturned Li Changqing's understanding appeared on the screen.

The solid dummy, over three meters tall, with a weighted base built on the same principle as a roly-poly toy, was actually slammed upside down onto the ground by the man with an inconceivable technique.

Yet the man's upper body had not even moved.

"In a single phrase: in throws, in wrestling."

"All ancient boxing arts take wrestling as their core."

"Fists fear legs, legs fear throws; three years of martial skill cannot match one year of wrestling."