Inner Qi?

Chen Mo guided that extremely weak wisp of qi as it traveled through his dantian.

By rights, any qi capable of remaining in his dantian had to be a martial artist's inner qi.

But why was there inner qi inside his body? He truly could not make heads or tails of it.

Inner qi belonged to practitioners of internal martial arts. They had to cultivate stillness exercises, spend years meditating and regulating their bodies, and bring their flesh and spirit into perfect harmony before they could condense inner qi.

Inner qi could help martial artists regulate their bodies and prolong their lives, but it did not greatly increase their strength.

Nourishing the body with inner qi could indeed increase a martial artist's strength from the foundation. Inner qi could even produce many wondrous effects, such as healing injuries and repelling enemies.

But accomplishing that required not only a tremendous amount of inner qi, but also a relatively long period of time.

For practitioners of external martial arts, ten years—or even just five—was enough to cultivate an external art to a fairly advanced level.

For practitioners of internal martial arts, ten years might only be enough to lay a foundation and begin formal cultivation.

Unless one practiced Boy's Practice and began cultivating at eleven or twelve, it was exceedingly difficult for a practitioner of internal martial arts to achieve anything noteworthy.

For martial artists like Chen Mo, who had taken up martial arts halfway through life, external martial arts were the best choice. They were simple to cultivate and produced results quickly.

Internal martial arts nurtured qi; external martial arts tempered the body.

The Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist he cultivated was a pure external hard technique. How could it possibly produce inner qi? It was absolutely impossible.

In the world Chen Mo had lived in before crossing over, he had heard that some top practitioners of external martial arts could cultivate inner qi from the outside in.

But he had never heard such a claim in this world. Although practitioners of external and internal martial arts both practiced martial arts, their paths were worlds apart.

At least among the martial artists in the army camp who cultivated the same Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist as him, he had never heard of anyone producing inner qi.

In fact, one could say that there was not a single guard in the entire army camp who had cultivated inner qi. Even those martial artists with inherited family techniques or who had apprenticed themselves to other martial arts masters practiced external martial arts.

There was no other reason: martial arts cost too much money.

Internal martial arts were no exception. Practitioners not only had to spend vast amounts of time cultivating, but also had to guarantee adequate nutrition. Meat was absolutely indispensable, and nourishing medicinal soups had to be consumed regularly.

Such expenses were not required for just one or two years, but for more than a decade, day after day.

Moreover, unlike external martial arts, which showed results quickly, internal martial arts produced no obvious improvement in the short term.

The guards in the army camp might have possessed a little family wealth before joining, but at most they were minor landowners or prosperous farmers.

They could just barely afford one or two years of external martial arts training, and once they achieved results, they could immediately turn those results into income.

But internal martial arts were not something an ordinary family could afford. One had to be a member of a prominent clan, or at the very least the child of a great merchant or wealthy household.

These guards, most of whom came from ordinary commoner families and could not even be considered impoverished scholars, had no qualifications to practice internal martial arts.

With a thought in mind, Chen Mo rose from the bed and began practicing the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist in the silent, lightless darkness.

He wanted to determine where his wisp of inner qi had come from—whether it had been born purely from the transformation of his Mortal Transformation.

Or whether it had been produced when the qi and blood generated by his cultivation of the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist combined with this transformation.

Verifying this did not require much effort. He only needed to practice the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist and see whether the inner qi in his dantian changed.

As he assumed his stance and settled into his stance training, the surging power of his qi and blood once again accumulated within his body.

Chen Mo's sensations were very different this time. He had undergone Mortal Transformation again, and his internal organs, as well as his qi, blood, sinews, and bones, had all improved tremendously.

Most important were his internal organs. Their improvement gave Chen Mo a feeling of weight and solidity.

Previously, when he practiced the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist, his progress had been rapid, but there had always been a sense of floating unreality.

The qi and blood in his body seemed perpetually balanced on the edge between agitation and calm. As he cultivated, if he could not fully control that agitated qi and blood, further practice would instead injure his body.

But after his internal organs underwent transformation, that agitated feeling completely vanished when he circulated the qi and blood within his body. Only firm, heavy qi and blood remained, continuously flowing through him.

Chen Mo did not know exactly how much his strength had increased from this Mortal Transformation. He had yet to test it, so he could not determine the answer.

There was only one thing he could be certain of: the foundation of his body, including his internal organs, had undoubtedly improved tremendously.

Thus, his cultivation of the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist would progress even faster, and breaking through bottlenecks would become easier.

After he gradually finished practicing an entire set of punches, Chen Mo clearly sensed three masses of qi and blood taking shape inside his body, while a fourth was also close to condensing.

This showed that his Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist had already reached perfection at the third level and was striving toward a breakthrough to the fourth.

This was clearly not the progress he had made before undergoing Mortal Transformation. It seemed that the transformation had directly advanced his external art, the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist, from the initial stage of the second level to perfection at the third.

This was not surprising. External martial arts were meant to cultivate the physical body, especially the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist, an external art that was both top-tier and among the simplest.

As long as one's physical foundation was strong enough, cultivating it could be described as a horse charging across a level plain, with progress coming at lightning speed.

The transformation of his body naturally propelled the technique forward as well.

The condensed qi and blood slowly dispersed again, merging into that final mass of qi and blood that was close to taking shape. However, judging by its progress, breaking through to the fourth level would probably not be easy.

More importantly, after he finished practicing the entire set of punches, as his qi and blood underwent transformation, a wisp of inner qi had also condensed in his dantian.

Its quantity was minuscule, and it was extraordinarily weak. Filling his entire dantian through this method would require at least three to five years of hard work.

Yet this had already proved one thing: the wisp of inner qi in his dantian had indeed been born from practicing this external art.

But why would practicing external martial arts produce inner qi?

This left Chen Mo racking his brains. Could it be because his body had a special constitution after undergoing Mortal Transformation?

Otherwise, with so many guards in the Guard Camp practicing this external art, why had none of them produced inner qi, while he alone had?

Or was it because their cultivation progress was too low, preventing them from producing inner qi?

Still, clearing this up would not require much effort. He could find an opportunity later to ask General Sun.

General Sun's mastery of the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist was certainly above the third level. He could ask whether General Sun had produced inner qi through this technique.

As for the fact that he had produced inner qi through the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist, he should not tell anyone for the time being.

He was not sure whether practitioners of external martial arts in this world could also produce inner qi after reaching a sufficiently advanced level.

If no one else had managed it but he had, it would inevitably arouse suspicion.

There was already a Mortal Transformation Pearl lodged in his dantian. If someone learned that he had cultivated inner qi and wanted to examine his dantian, this secret would be exposed along with it.

Even if he wanted to ask General Sun about inner qi, he would have to proceed carefully, circling around the subject and testing the waters.