Secrets of a Grandmaster

Deep within the gloomy slums, two figures sprinting at top speed suddenly stopped.

"Why did you stop?" Zheng Qian asked Lu San, who had abruptly halted, with a puzzled expression.

The two were none other than Zheng Qian and the middle-aged man with the stiff face.

Along the way, the man had told Zheng Qian that his name was Lu San, and that he was from Qinghe Commandery, a neighboring commandery to Xishan Commandery.

Although it sounded like a fake name, Zheng Qian didn't care, because the name he gave the man was also fake: Zhang Wei.

"We're here!" Lu San said in a low voice, pointing at a very dilapidated shack in front of them.

"Here? This is your hiding place?" Zheng Qian asked, looking at the shack that couldn't be more broken, with an incredulous expression.

"That's right, let's go in and talk." Lu San nodded and directly pushed open the shack's leaky door and squeezed inside.

That's right, he squeezed in instead of walking in, because the height of the doorway was less than 1.5 meters.

Seeing this, Zheng Qian could only helplessly follow and squeeze in.

There was no one inside the shack, and a musty, rotten smell permeated the air. The space was also very small, only about three square meters.

In such a small place, there wasn't even a bed, let alone tables and chairs.

There was only a black, tattered straw mat in the corner, and next to it was a simple stove made of a few stones, also pitch black.

That was all there was to the shack.

Lu San's target didn't seem to be the shack itself. He was now walking towards the tattered straw mat in the corner and lifted it up.

Under the straw mat was a very narrow opening, like a dog hole, barely enough for one person to crawl through.

As the straw mat and the straw underneath were removed, an extremely strong rotten smell immediately gushed out of the hole, indicating that the air inside was probably very bad.

As soon as the hole appeared, Lu San immediately crawled down without hesitation, signaling Zheng Qian to follow.

Zheng Qian gritted his teeth and followed him in.

As he entered the cave, he found that it became wider the further he went in. Later on, he could even walk forward with his back hunched.

After walking for about ten meters, the two arrived in a basement that was about three meters high and five or six square meters in size.

Inside, there was only an oil lamp, a straw mat, and some dry food, water, and other living supplies. There was nothing else.

"This is the Morning Sun One Qi Art. I originally planned to hide here for a few days after obtaining it, and then find an opportunity to disguise myself and leave Ziyang City. I never thought..."

Lu San explained as he took out an ancient book and handed it to Zheng Qian.

That book was the Morning Sun One Qi Art, worth ten thousand gold!

Just as Zheng Qian took it and before he had time to read it, Lu San climbed back up the passage, explaining as he climbed:

"I'll go block the entrance again..."

Zheng Qian wasn't afraid that he had any other ulterior motives. He already had the cultivation method in hand. Whether the other party was really going to block the entrance, or was planning to escape, or wanted to lure the pursuers over, he was confident that he could escape.

Therefore, he did not stop him, but began to look at the Morning Sun One Qi Art in his hand by the dim light of the oil lamp.

Soon, a look of joy appeared in his eyes.

Because he saw something in the manual that he needed most right now - the Morning Sun Acupoint Nourishing Art!

This also made him understand why those Half-step Grandmasters could use Gang Qi. It seemed that they also knew similar acupoint nourishing methods.

According to the incomplete Morning Sun One Qi Art, there were three steps to breaking through from Xiantian peak to Grandmaster.

The first step, which was also the easiest, was to compress the Innate True Qi in the body into Gang Qi and store it.

The second step was to learn an acupoint nourishing method, and then use the stored Gang Qi to continuously nourish the acupoints in the body, so that they could withstand the powerful impact of the Gang Qi when opening the acupoints.

The third step was to open up the nine major acupoints in the body and connect them into a stable minor cycle, so that Gang Qi could be continuously condensed.

The day the minor cycle was formed would be the day of officially breaking through to Grandmaster.

However, there were several difficulties during this period.

First: The amount of Gang Qi stored.

The amount of Gang Qi stored did not have much impact on nourishing the acupoints, but it only affected the speed of acupoint nourishment.

However, the amount of Gang Qi stored had a great impact on opening up the acupoints.

According to records, the amount of Gang Qi required to open the first acupoint was the least, but it still required at least twelve strands of Gang Qi, and it could not be interrupted, otherwise it would have to be started all over again.

After that, for each additional acupoint opened, the total amount of Gang Qi consumed would be about one-third more than the previous time.

In other words, if it took twelve strands of Gang Qi to open the first acupoint, then it would take at least sixteen strands of Gang Qi to open the second acupoint, and at least twenty-two strands of Gang Qi to open the third acupoint...

By analogy, to open up nine acupoints and officially break through to the Grandmaster realm, at least 128 strands of Gang Qi must be stored in the body!

And now, Zhou Yang's body had reached its limit after storing only forty-eight strands of Gang Qi.

The 128 strands of Gang Qi required for the breakthrough were almost three times the amount he currently stored, completely exceeding the limit his dantian could withstand.

However, each acupoint opened could also become a new Gang Qi storage pool.

Therefore, as more and more acupoints were opened, the total amount of Gang Qi that could be stored in the body would also increase accordingly.

But whether he could eventually gather 128 strands of Gang Qi was unknown.

Moreover, this was only the minimum requirement.

Because everyone's physique was different, and the cultivation methods they practiced were different, the amount of Gang Qi required to open up acupoints also varied. The exact amount could only be known when they truly began to open them.

This was only the first difficulty.

The second difficulty: Acupoint Cycle Diagram!

Opening up acupoints had a strict order. Randomly opening them could lead to cultivation deviation at best, and death from acupoint explosion at worst.

Therefore, if one wanted to open up acupoints, they had to know at least one complete Lesser Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagram.

However, these were all closely guarded secrets of aristocratic families and sects, making them extremely difficult to obtain.

However, Zheng Qian now had all of these things.

In the incomplete Morning Sun One Qi Art in his hand, in addition to recording the Morning Sun Acupoint Nourishing Art, it also recorded two and a half Lesser Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagrams.

Acupoint diagrams were divided into three levels: Lesser Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagram, Middle Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagram, and Greater Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagram.

The relationship between the three was also very close. Three Lesser Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagrams could be combined into one Middle Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagram, and three Middle Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagrams could be combined into one Greater Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagram.

And above the Greater Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagram was the complete one hundred and eight acupoint diagram.