"I never expected breaking through to the Grandmaster Realm to be so difficult..."
Looking at the records regarding the Grandmaster Realm in the Morning Sun One Qi Art in his hands, Zheng Qian muttered in astonishment.
After all, his self-created Sun Swallowing Divine Art had only taken shape after absorbing the essence of every top-tier technique in the world of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer.
Purple Twilight Divine Skill, Star Absorbing Great Method, Sunflower Manual, Tai Chi Fist Manual, Tendon-Transforming Scripture, Cold Ice True Qi, Evil-Warding Sword Manual...
Every one of these techniques was a peerless divine art that countless martial artists in the world of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer would fight tooth and nail to obtain.
Yet even so, his Sun Swallowing Divine Art could only allow him to condense forty-eight streams of baleful qi in his body before reaching its limit, still far short of the 128 streams of baleful qi required to break through to the Grandmaster Realm.
Moreover, those 128 streams of baleful qi were merely the minimum requirement.
On top of that, he had to figure out a method for nourishing acupoints and obtain a complete Lesser Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagram.
Both of these were even more difficult than condensing baleful qi.
Only when all three were combined would one qualify to break through to the Grandmaster Realm. It was clear how difficult it would be to figure out a method of breaking through to the Grandmaster Realm alone.
However, Zhou Yang had now obtained the most difficult parts—the method for nourishing acupoints and the Lesser Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagram. All he lacked was the accumulation of baleful qi.
The reason the Morning Sun One Qi Art had been appraised as incomplete by the auction house was precisely because it lacked the method for condensing and storing baleful qi.
Otherwise, it would have been a complete Grandmaster-level technique, and its value would have increased several times over.
"I wonder how much baleful qi opening each acupoint can add. Will it be enough for me to form a complete Lesser Heavenly Cycle Acupoint Diagram...?"
After roughly flipping through the Morning Sun One Qi Art, Zheng Qian muttered excitedly.
Although he did not know how many acupoints the baleful qi he had stored could open, it was enough to make him a true Half-step Grandmaster who could wield baleful qi.
While he was deep in thought, Lu San returned after blocking the cave entrance.
Clearly, he had not intended to flee, nor had he intended to make Zheng Qian take the blame.
That was perfectly normal. After all, Lu San had spent over a hundred thousand taels of silver on the Morning Sun One Qi Art. That represented more than eighty percent of his wealth and was also his final hope of avenging his family.
If he fled this time just to save his life, he would probably never find another opportunity in this lifetime to avenge his relatives.
Zheng Qian had already shown him goodwill earlier, so he could not abandon the technique he had obtained just because of the uncertain situation outside.
For the sake of revenge, he had no way back.
Seeing Zheng Qian flipping through the Morning Sun One Qi Art, Lu San, who had just returned, immediately approached him expectantly and asked,
"How is it? This manual is genuine, right?"
His current strength was only at the Late Xiantian Realm, and his understanding of Grandmaster techniques was extremely limited.
Therefore, even though he had looked through it, the time had been too short for him to determine completely whether the manual was genuine or whether it could help him break through beyond the Half-step Grandmaster Realm.
His enemy was a powerful Half-step Grandmaster. To take revenge, he had to raise his strength beyond the Half-step Grandmaster Realm.
This was the last method he could think of.
For the sake of revenge, he had already tried many methods: hiring assassins, seeking powerful masters as teachers, poisoning and ambushing...
Unfortunately, all of these methods had ultimately ended in failure for various reasons, and his enemy had forced him to change his name and disguise himself before leaving his homeland.
This Morning Sun One Qi Art was his last hope. If he could not use it to break through to the Half-step Grandmaster Realm, he would probably never have any hope of taking revenge in this lifetime.
"It is genuine, but it is also incomplete. It lacks one of the keys to breaking through to the Grandmaster Realm: the method for condensing and storing baleful qi.
This is the foundation for breaking through from the Innate Realm to the Grandmaster Realm. Without this part, you can only make up for it through other methods, and the final result will be left to fate."
Zheng Qian did not hide anything. He nodded and spoke truthfully.
There was no need to conceal it. Lu San would naturally know after cultivating it himself.
"It lacks the method for condensing and storing baleful qi...?" After hearing his explanation, Lu San muttered to himself before falling into deep thought.
Zheng Qian ignored him. Instead, he took paper, ink, brush, and inkstone from a half-open bundle nearby, ground the ink, and prepared to copy down the manual.
In his previous life, he had practiced calligraphy with a brush for two years. He could not claim that his writing was particularly good, but he could at least write.
Moreover, he was now a Half-step Grandmaster whose control over his body was far beyond what it had been in his previous life. It was enough for him to copy the manual without missing a single detail.
Before long, Zheng Qian finished grinding the ink and began copying the manual by the dim light of the lamp. Lu San watched from the side without disturbing him.
The two had met by chance and were unfamiliar with each other. Naturally, they had nothing to say.
Under the constant nourishment of Innate True Qi, Zheng Qian's memory had improved greatly. Although he had not yet reached the point of remembering everything at a glance, he was not far from it.
Thus, he copied the manual steadily and quickly.
Even so, it still took him over half an hour to copy the entire manual. He then used true qi to dry it.
During this process, he had already memorized roughly seventy to eighty percent of the manual's contents.
Afterward, he carefully compared and checked it twice, then had Lu San check it once as well, ensuring that there were no errors or omissions.
After confirming everything was in order, Zheng Qian handed the original manual to Lu San and said softly,
"Done. Here is your manual. Study it slowly on your own. Just call me when you are ready to leave. Don't disturb me at other times—I'm going to cultivate."
"Good." Lu San nodded and accepted the original Morning Sun One Qi Art.
Afterward, Zheng Qian went to another corner of the basement. Not caring about the dirt, he sat directly on the ground and began recalling the circulation route and key points of the [Morning Sun Acupoint Nourishing Art] from the manual.
The principle behind the [Morning Sun Acupoint Nourishing Art] was very simple. It used a peculiar circulation route to dilute baleful qi, then continuously stimulated and nourished the acupoints with the diluted baleful qi, making them increasingly stable.
During this process, he had to continuously increase the concentration of the baleful qi until an acupoint could completely withstand one full stream of baleful qi. Only then would the acupoint be considered to have been initially nurtured into shape.
After that, he had to inject as many complete streams of baleful qi into the acupoint as possible in one go, until it reached the limit of what it could withstand. Only then would the acupoint be considered completely opened.
If the amount of stored baleful qi was insufficient during this process, he had to extract all the baleful qi from the acupoint as quickly as possible, returning it to the state it had been in when it was initially nurtured into shape.
Otherwise, if the acupoint took shape without reaching its limit, expanding it further would become several times more difficult.
He might even remain stuck at this step for the rest of his life, unable to advance another inch.
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