Martial Arts and Technology

"Chuan'er, stop practicing for a moment and come down to eat. Master Luo called for you."

"Coming, Auntie. I'll be right down."

Meng Chuan used a towel to quickly wipe the sweat from his forehead caused by his martial arts training, then followed his aunt downstairs to the living room.

As soon as he reached the bottom floor, Meng Chuan picked up his phone to call Master Luo back.

"Hello, Master Luo, what's up?"

"You just went to practice your fist techniques, right? How did it go?"

"I've reached Great Success. One Pao Fist, six echoes!"

On the other end of the line, Luo Guanyun fell silent for a moment, clearly taken aback by Meng Chuan's words.

Ever since Meng Chuan had his epiphany, Luo Guanyun was the one most aware of his rapid cultivation speed.

Every night when he trained with Meng Chuan, the boy's progress was visible to the naked eye.

But the problem was that any martial art would hit a bottleneck period when moving from Mastery to Great Success.

Luo Guanyun believed Meng Chuan would eventually overcome it, but he hadn't expected the boy to bypass the bottleneck entirely, breaking through as naturally as water flowing.

"Can you maintain the six echoes consistently?"

When practicing, a Martial Practitioner sometimes enters an inexplicable state of sudden enlightenment when the feeling is right.

They can momentarily break through the limits of their current martial art, such as advancing the Pao Fist from five echoes to six.

However, once the state of enlightenment fades, their skill level often regresses; this phenomenon is particularly frequent when breaking through in martial arts.

After such a regression, a Martial Practitioner usually has to spend a great deal of time pondering that momentary epiphany to break through the bottleneck again and stabilize their technique.

"Don't worry, Master Luo, I can maintain it."

With [One Proof Eternal Proof], it was impossible for Meng Chuan to regress; that was the true value of "once possessed, never lost."

"Good! Find some time soon to go to the martial arts gym and test your blood energy to see if you've broken through the four-point mark and reached the third blood energy gate."

Because his apprentice had started his blood energy cultivation late, Luo Guanyun placed extra emphasis on this aspect.

"I have things to do during the day, so practice on your own for now. Come over at the usual time tonight."

"Understood, Master Luo."

In truth, even if Master Luo hadn't said anything, he had other things to take care of today.

With New Year's Day approaching, Meng Chuan planned to buy some gifts for the people around him. With the 300,000 in his hand still untouched, Meng Chuan felt he had some breathing room.

Hearing the phone call end, his uncle turned his head and urged:

"Are you done? Come and eat."

"Coming, Uncle."

"Are you still going to your master's place later? I can drive you there."

"Master Luo is busy during the day, so I won't go. I'll head over tonight."

His uncle used his chopsticks to put food on Meng Chuan's plate:

"Is the training hard lately?"

Meng Chuan wolfed down his food:

"Not tiring at all. I'm going to test my blood energy in a couple of days. My fist technique just reached Great Success, so I should have made a small breakthrough in my blood energy as well."

Meng Yongzhi felt a jolt in his heart. Meng Chuan had only just broken through to the second blood energy gate a few days ago; if he broke through again, wouldn't he be at the same level as him?

"You aren't about to enter the third blood energy gate, are you?"

"Nine times out of ten. Even if I don't quite reach it, I can just strengthen my footwork instead."

"Well done! You kid..."

Meng Yongzhi was so excited he became incoherent. He was 46 years old and at the third blood energy gate; now, at 16, Meng Chuan had already reached his height.

"Doesn't that mean Yong'an Martial Arts University is a sure thing?"

Meng Yongzhi couldn't help but feel a surge of anticipation.

After Meng Yongzhi's recent explanations, Xue Na already knew that her nephew's martial arts talent was exceptional.

She felt that life was becoming more promising, and she raised her glass:

"True gold fears no fire. Keep it up, Chuan'er!"

"Thank you, Auntie."

"Cheers!"

[Tianwu Science and Industry reminds you: We have arrived at Wanxiang World station. Please carry your luggage, wallet, and other belongings with you and exit the vehicle in an orderly fashion.]

Meng Chuan was accustomed to taking the tram when going out. Not only was the tram fast and free of traffic jams, but most importantly, the crowds on the tram provided strong yang energy, which usually kept the weak Non-sentient Heavenly Demon at bay.

Unless it was a sentient Heavenly Demon with its own logic and reasoning, the ordinary Non-sentient Heavenly Demon would instinctively avoid large gatherings of people.

It is common knowledge that Heavenly Demons originate from Demon Nests, and Demon Nests are born in the Heavenly Demon Realm; the appearance of most Heavenly Demons is not without patterns.

It is rumored that the reason Heavenly Demons are hostile toward humans is because they can rely on human negative emotions to advance and grow in strength.

Whether it is sorrow, fear, or greed and jealousy, all fluctuations in human emotions serve as resources for the promotion of Heavenly Demons.

And often, it is only when humans face death and separation that they produce the greatest negative emotions—extreme sorrow and fear.

Therefore, during this period when a Level 4 Demon Nest has appeared outside Yong'an City, Meng Chuan tries his best not to stray far from crowds on one hand, while on the other, he must strive to keep his emotions stable to avoid encountering a Heavenly Demon.

Meng Chuan's current strength is still very weak; he is no match for even the lowest-level Heavenly Demon.

However, Meng Chuan has always done well in terms of emotional management, and he did not care much even when facing the world's lack of understanding while practicing Guoyi Fist.

In his daily life, he basically does not have large emotional fluctuations, facing all people and things calmly.

Because he has the memories of his past life, having already died once, there is truly nothing to be afraid of.

So, the Tong Family Alley incident last time was just an accident.

This information is all available on the Martial Arts Association's official website, but because Great Chu is generally peaceful and prosperous, there are taller people to hold up the sky if it falls.

Therefore, the frequency of Heavenly Demon invasions is low, and the public has not taken it seriously from the bottom of their hearts.

The authorities did not choose to cover up the Tong Family Alley incident this time, but instead reported and publicized it extensively, precisely because they wanted to instill a sense of vigilance in the hearts of the public.

People teaching people is ineffective; events teaching people, once is enough.

People always only learn their lesson after things have happened.

Wanxiang World is a newly built high-end, large-scale shopping plaza in Yong'an, covering nearly 160 mu with a total investment of nearly ten billion.

Walking to the main entrance, Meng Chuan looked up and saw a massive, over 100-meter-tall "mechanical tree" full of technological tension—the Tree of the Future—standing before his eyes.

While admiring this man-made giant tree, Meng Chuan sighed inwardly at how fast technology is developing, which is in no way inferior to martial arts.

Before martial arts manifested, technology had always been the main theme of the world.

Although the development of martial arts has caught up in today's society due to the threat of Heavenly Demons, pushing science and technology off its pedestal.

But with technology having developed to this point, it is, of course, impossible for it to be completely useless.

On one hand, it can bring convenience to human life, and at the same time, it can feed back into martial arts; although the various martial arts supplements on the market today contain some impurities, with the continued progress of technology in the future, he believes these side effects will surely be improved.

Moreover, the progress of technology also represents an increase in the firepower of thermal weapons.

For the solid-type Heavenly Demons, one of the three major categories of Heavenly Demons, once their Heavenly Demon Force Field is broken, they can be eliminated through thermal weapons.

But the more dangerous Void and Conceptual Heavenly Demon types require Martial Artists to confront them physically, as thermal weapons are completely ineffective.

"Let's go in and look around, and pick out some gifts for them."