"Chuan'er, stop practicing for now and come down to eat. Teacher Luo called looking for you."
"Coming, Auntie. I'll be right down."
Meng Chuan wiped the sweat from his forehead with a towel, then followed his aunt downstairs.
As soon as he got downstairs, Meng Chuan picked up his phone and called Teacher Luo back.
"Hello, Teacher Luo. What's up?"
"You just went to practice your punches, right? How did it go?"
"I've reached Great Accomplishment. One Pao Fist strike, six echoes!"
Luo Guanyun fell silent for a moment on the other end of the call. He sounded a little surprised by Meng Chuan's words.
Ever since Meng Chuan had awakened, Luo Guanyun had known better than anyone how quickly he cultivated.
Whenever he trained Meng Chuan in the evenings, the boy's progress was visible to the naked eye.
But the thing was, whenever a martial art advanced from Proficiency to Great Accomplishment, it always went through a period of stagnation.
Luo Guanyun had believed Meng Chuan would definitely get past it, but he hadn't expected the bottleneck not to hold him up at all. The breakthrough had come as naturally as water flowing into a channel.
"Can you consistently get six echoes?"
When practicing punches, martial practitioners sometimes hit a certain stride and enter a state of inexplicable enlightenment.
They could instantly break through the limits of their current martial art—for instance, advancing from five echoes per Pao Fist strike to six.
But once that state of enlightenment faded, their skill often regressed. This happened especially often when they broke through in their martial arts.
After regressing, martial practitioners usually had to spend a great deal of time pondering and reliving that instant of enlightenment, so they could break through the bottleneck again and solidify their mastery of the technique.
"Don't worry, Teacher Luo. I can do it consistently."
With [One Proof Eternal Proof], it was impossible for Meng Chuan to regress. That was the real value of having something you would never lose once you possessed it.
"Good! Find some time to get your Qi-Blood tested at the martial arts hall. See if you've broken through four points and reached the Third Qi-Blood Pass."
Since his disciple had started cultivating Qi-Blood later than most, Luo Guanyun paid particular attention to his progress in that area.
"I have something to do during the day, so practice on your own for now. Come over at the usual time tonight."
"Got it, Teacher Luo."
Even without Teacher Luo saying so, Meng Chuan had other things to do during the day.
New Year's Day was coming up, and he planned to buy New Year's gifts for the people around him. He hadn't touched a single cent of the three hundred thousand he had on hand, so he had some confidence in his finances.
Hearing that the call had ended, his uncle turned and urged him:
"Are you done? Come eat."
"Okay, Uncle."
"Are you going to your teacher's place later? I can drive you there."
"Teacher Luo has something to do during the day, so I won't go. I'll head over tonight."
His uncle used his chopsticks to put some food in Meng Chuan's bowl.
"Has practicing martial arts been hard lately?"
Meng Chuan wolfed down his food.
"Not tiring at all. I'll get my Qi-Blood tested in a couple of days. My fists just reached Great Accomplishment, so my Qi-Blood should have improved a little too."
Meng Yongzhi's heart gave a jolt. Not long ago, Meng Chuan had just reached the Second Qi-Blood Pass. If he broke through again, wouldn't he be on the same level as Meng Yongzhi?
"You're about to reach the Third Qi-Blood Pass, aren't you?"
"Most likely. Even if I don't make it, I can just improve my footwork a bit more."
"Well done, you rascal..."
Meng Yongzhi was so excited he could barely get the words out. He was forty-six, and at the Third Qi-Blood Pass. Now, at sixteen, Meng Chuan had reached the same level.
"Doesn't that mean Yong'an Martial Arts University is practically guaranteed?"
Meng Yongzhi couldn't help looking forward to it.
After Meng Yongzhi's recent explanations, Xue Na now knew that her nephew had excellent talent in the Martial Dao.
She felt that life was looking brighter and brighter. She raised her glass and said:
"True gold fears no fire. Keep it up, Chuan'er!"
"Thank you, Auntie."
"Cheers!"
[Tianwu Science and Industry reminds you: Wanxiang World has arrived. Please take your belongings, including luggage and wallets, and disembark in an orderly fashion.]
Meng Chuan was still in the habit of taking the electric train when he went out. Not only was it fast and free of traffic jams, but the crowds packed into the cars also meant strong yang energy, which kept ordinary, weak Heavenly Demons at bay.
Unless they were Sentient Heavenly Demons, which had their own thoughts and behavioral logic, ordinary Non-sentient Heavenly Demons instinctively avoided large crowds.
Everyone knew that Heavenly Demons came from Demon Nests, and Demon Nests originated in the Heavenly Demon Realm. The appearance of most Heavenly Demons was not entirely without pattern.
It was said that Heavenly Demons were hostile to humanity because they could grow stronger and advance by feeding on human negative emotions.
Whether sorrow and resentment, fear, or greed and jealousy, every emotional fluctuation in humans was fuel for a Heavenly Demon's advancement.
And humans often experienced their strongest negative emotions—extreme grief and fear—when faced with death and separation.
So, while a Level Four Demon Nest had appeared outside Yong'an City, Meng Chuan tried not to stray far from crowds. He also did his best to keep his emotions steady and avoid encountering a Heavenly Demon.
Meng Chuan was still very weak. He couldn't defeat even the lowest-level Heavenly Demon.
But he had always been good at managing his emotions. Even when people failed to understand him for practicing Guoyi Fist, he didn't pay them much mind.
In daily life, he rarely experienced any major emotional fluctuations. He faced everyone and everything calmly.
With the memories of his previous life, he had already died once. There wasn't much left to fear.
So the incident in Tong Family Alley had just been an accident.
All this information was available on the Martial Arts Association's official website. But Great Chu was generally peaceful, and when the sky fell, the tall would hold it up.
As a result, Heavenly Demon invasions were relatively rare, and deep down, the public didn't take them seriously.
The authorities hadn't tried to cover up the incident in Tong Family Alley. Instead, they had reported it extensively, hoping it would make the public more wary.
You could teach people, but they wouldn't learn; let events teach them, and they'd learn in one go.
People only learned their lesson after something happened.
Wanxiang World was a newly built, high-end shopping complex in Yong'an. It covered nearly 160 mu and had a total investment of almost ten billion.
When he reached the main entrance, Meng Chuan looked up and saw an enormous "mechanical tree," over a hundred meters tall and bursting with futuristic energy: the Tree of the Future.
As he admired the artificial giant tree, Meng Chuan marveled inwardly at the speed of technological progress. It was every bit as impressive as the development of the Martial Dao.
Before the Martial Dao came to prominence, technology had always been the world's main driving force.
Although the threat of Heavenly Demons had made the Martial Dao catch up and knock science and technology from their pedestal, technology certainly hadn't become useless.
It made people's lives more convenient, and it could also support the development of the Martial Dao. Although the various Martial Dao supplements on the market contained impurities, he believed continued advances in technology would eventually eliminate those side effects.
Besides, technological progress also meant more powerful firearms.
One of the three major types of Heavenly Demons was the solid-bodied kind. Once their Heavenly Demon Force Field was broken, firearms could be used to eliminate them.
But the even more dangerous Void and Conceptual Heavenly Demons required martial artists to fight them with their own bodies. Firearms were completely ineffective.
"Let's go inside and have a look. I'll pick out gifts for everyone."
Before you continue