Martial Arts Enlightenment, Strength Has Subtly Improved

The morning wind swept ashes past the edge of the platform, Chen Wuya's fingers still resting on the shaft of the Armor-Piercing Awl. The earlier shouts had long since scattered into the woods, yet their echoes still rang in his ears—not as sound, but as rhythm. The words "Dare to Be Wrong," roared in unison by a thousand voices, faintly matched the beat with which he had struck the ground in the formation last night.

He did not move. He merely pressed his palm to his chest.

A stream of heat churned there. Unlike ordinary true qi, which flowed gently and obediently, this force seemed to be drawn by something, turning on its own through his meridians. After bypassing the Shanzhong Acupoint, it sank downward, plunging toward a point three inches to the left of his dantian. This was wrong. According to the surviving fragment of the Canglang Art, true qi was supposed to travel straight down the center of the Ren Meridian, with no side branches or diverging paths. Yet this force flowed smoothly—more smoothly, even, than any orthodox circulation he had ever achieved.

He closed his eyes.

The final slaughter of last night surfaced in his mind—when the heavily armored foreign soldiers had charged into the formation with raised axes, he had intended to use Reverse Spiral Step to draw three men away through a gap. Instead, his foot slipped into a snow pit. His entire body pitched sideways, and the Armor-Piercing Awl in his hand swept across with the motion. Rather than retreating, he thrust forward instead. In that instant, a system prompt flashed: "Error movement detected: footwork imbalance → rationalized as 'Collapse Bait Strike.'" Immediately afterward, Misaligned Force erupted within him, charging along a path it had never traveled before. It surged straight to the Jianjing