Only five or six seconds passed between the child falling into the water and the mysterious expert on the cliff leaping into the river to rescue him. The onlookers on shore stood frozen, wondering if their eyes had played tricks on them.
Walking on water? Wasn't that something that only happened in movies? Yet they had just seen it with their own eyes!
"Are my eyes playing tricks on me?!"
"Holy shit! How did he do that?!"
"Lightness Skill really exists?!"
"..."
The onlookers burst into discussion. Sun Na's Livestream Room erupted too, with Bullet Comments flying across the screen and viewers sending gifts nonstop.
—"Holy shit! The movies were telling the truth! Lightness Skill really exists!" "Don't stop me! I'm going to ask that guy to take me as his disciple!" "That was definitely Lightness Skill!" "What are you waiting for, streamer? Go ask the expert how he did it!"
Sun Na finally snapped out of it. She looked at the mysterious expert standing motionless on the water, her nerves tightening.
Seeing the stunned faces on shore, Gu Chen's lips curved slightly. With a flick of his hand and a surge of Internal Force, he sent the child six or seven meters through the air into his parents' arms. Only then did they come to their senses and hurriedly thank him.
With that done, Gu Chen started walking across the water to leave and carry out the plan his true self had made. Then a nervous voice called out behind him.
"Hello, sir! I'm a streamer. Could I interview you? Are you a legendary martial arts expert? Have you trained in Lightness Skill? How can you walk on water?!"
Gu Chen's eyes flickered. He stopped and glanced back at Sun Na. She tensed at once, feeling as though some terrifying creature had spotted her. Her best friend Pan Xiaoli fared no better; her legs went weak. The other onlookers pricked up their ears.
After a moment's thought, Gu Chen spoke softly.
"I'm no martial arts expert, and I don't know Lightness Skill. It's simply a matter of how Internal Force changes and how you use it. The human body is powerful. Once your National Martial Arts training reaches a certain stage, you understand the shifts between Manifesting Strength and Hidden Strength. At the Transformation Level, water won't rise past your knees. At my Core Condensation Level, you can easily grasp the changes in force created by flowing water. Walking on it isn't particularly complicated..."
The onlookers' eyes lit up at his earnest answer. At last, they understood the secret behind his ability to walk on water. Terms like Manifesting Strength, Hidden Strength, Transformation Level, and Pill Embracement, however, left them utterly confused.
Gu Chen shook his head and walked away across the water. Each step carried him ten or twenty meters. He moved faster and faster until he vanished from sight, leaving the onlookers sighing in amazement.
"The expert's gone!"
"What are Manifesting Strength, Hidden Strength, and Transformation Level supposed to be?!"
"National Martial Arts? Isn't that just martial arts? Isn't it all a scam?!"
"..."
Sun Na and Pan Xiaoli let out breaths of relief. Meanwhile, another heated discussion broke out in her Livestream Room.
—"What were those strengths and levels he mentioned? I've never heard of them." "Holy shit! He's a Pillaring Grandmaster! No wonder he can walk on water! He must be a monster like Wang Chao or GOD!" "Could you explain that, bro?" "Wait, aren't those the National Martial Arts cultivation levels from the novel Dragon Snake? I can't believe they're real! I'm going back to read it!" "Wait for me, I'm looking up the novel too!"
Before long, more than half the viewers had left the Livestream Room. Sun Na and Pan Xiaoli exchanged a look. There was no point continuing the livestream, so Sun Na ended it and went online to investigate. They soon found the recently popular novel Dragon Snake and began reading it with curiosity.
Meanwhile, far away in Coastal City, Gu Chen severed his mental connection with his clone. That Pillaring Vigorous Strength Grandmaster's body had been powerful beyond belief. Returning to his ordinary body felt like falling from the clouds into the mud. Once he had enough Origin Points, he planned to use Refine Falsehood Into Truth on himself as well, becoming a Pillaring Vigorous Strength Grandmaster—or even reaching the level of Li Hansha, who had mastered Shattering the Void and attained the Indestructible Diamond state.
Following the script Gu Chen had devised for his "Pillaring Vigorous Strength Grandmaster Descends the Mountain," news and footage of what happened on Cloud Hidden Mountain spread rapidly online. The video went viral across Penguin Chat Groups, Douyin, Weibo, Bilibili, and other platforms, drawing countless viewers.
The comments beneath the video filled with people fiercely debating whether it was real.
: This video is definitely fake! Walking along a sheer cliff is one thing, but jumping more than twenty meters into a river and then walking on water? Newton would leap out of his coffin!
: I think so too! Can a normal human being do any of that?!
: Don't talk nonsense. Didn't you hear the expert say he practiced National Martial Arts? He's a top-tier expert at the Pill Embracement level!
: Are Manifesting Strength, Hidden Strength, Transformation Level, and Pill Embracement actually real? Why haven't I heard of them before?!
: Those are the National Martial Arts cultivation levels from the novel Dragon Snake. If what the mysterious expert in the video said is true, then he really could do all that. A Pillaring Grandmaster is already far beyond an ordinary human! In ancient times, people would have called him an Immortal. Taking on a hundred opponents alone would be easy for him.
: ...
The video drew countless viewers and sparked fierce debate online. Some called it fake or said it was special effects; others believed it was real. As the video went viral, Dragon Snake, the novel that pioneered the National Martial Arts genre, surged in popularity too. Countless people sought it out to see for themselves.
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