The Linyuan Qi-Nurturing Stake and Armor-Piercing True Energy

A few months after he became the widely recognized Senior Brother, An Jing and the other boys and girls began the real training at Xuanming Manor.

It wasn't just physical conditioning. Xuanming Manor began teaching them genuine martial techniques and methods of cultivation.

The first step on the Martial Dao in Da Chen was Internal Breath. But before they could become true Internal Breath martial artists, the novice Martial Disciples had to pass the Three Trials.

The first trial was the heart: to remain unafraid in the face of danger, and not avert one's eyes when blades and swords pressed close.

The second was the body: to build up strength and stamina, able to throw a thousand punches without tiring.

The final trial was technique: to hone a single skill until it flowed as naturally as one's own body, channeling one's power in a single breath, so that a hundred moves and a thousand forms could turn at will.

Only when all three—heart, body, and technique—were mastered could one deliver a strike that carried power through the entire body and begin to comprehend Internal Breath.

The trial of the body was easy enough. All it took was training. The disciples of Xuanming Manor had been selected from all over, so their aptitude was beyond question. With steady progress, anyone could succeed.

The trial of the heart required sparring. They had to train until their minds were still and focused, until they no longer blinked when a fist came at their face, and didn't lose their composure when pain pierced their brain.

After An Jing defeated eleven people in a row, sparring became part of the daily routine on the training grounds. Nobody challenged An Jing, but every day, the other four disciples who got meat were challenged. Their positions changed every ten days, and their skills improved at a tremendous pace.

The final trial, technique, was the hardest. It required day-and-night practice, as well as talent and inspiration, to blend heart and body through skill, master Innate Qi, and transform it into Internal Breath.

The reason An Jing could overwhelm the other disciples was that he had already passed the trials of the body and the heart. He had yet to perfect his technique, but even so, he was ahead of everyone else.

And technique wasn't limited to the skills of one's hands. It also meant understanding the body's acupoints and internal organs. If someone couldn't even identify their own eight extraordinary meridians, didn't know the major points along the circuit, and couldn't distinguish the five viscera and six bowels, how could they master Innate Qi and achieve Internal Breath?

That was why Xuanming Manor had always taught its disciples to read and write: martial artists needed an education, too.

The cultivation method taught at Xuanming Manor was called the Linyuan Qi-Nurturing Stake. Practitioners had to stand on a stake with their eyes covered, envision a deep, shadowy gorge, and control the muscles and organs throughout their bodies—unafraid, unmoving, unshaken, and undisturbed.

It wasn't considered a particularly advanced method, but it was far more complete than the crude techniques passed down by many martial households. It could nurture Qi, focus the mind, and temper the strength of the body.

The martial technique they taught was called Armor-Piercing True Energy. In essence, it was merely a method for channeling power, but even An Jing was amazed by it: it was part of a top-tier martial technique.

Armor-Piercing True Energy was actually the power-releasing chapter of an exceptional orthodox inheritance.

It required the practitioner to unite the heart and strength. The braver one was, the more relentlessly one pressed forward, the greater the power unleashed in that instant. At its pinnacle, it could pierce armor and shatter steel.

If fully mastered, it could even be used to break through to Internal Breath.

The Linyuan Qi-Nurturing Stake and Armor-Piercing True Energy were both martial techniques and cultivation methods designed to foster fearless resolve. They emphasized channeling one's power in a single breath and unleashing everything in a single burst. They were meant for life-or-death combat, a way of exchanging one's life for another's.

Combined with the name Xuanming Manor itself, An Jing could be almost certain that this place was a training ground where some great power or sect raised assassins and death warriors.

He had suspected as much before, but never been as certain as he was now.

The Linyuan Qi-Nurturing Stake came easily to An Jing. During the year he had spent fleeing, he had faced death time and again, always walking along the edge of the abyss. His state of mind suited the method perfectly, and he mastered it in no time.

The other Children of Calamity were the same. They learned the cultivation method very quickly. A few of them were simply slow at reading and needed others to explain the text before they could understand it.

Perhaps it was a method specially provided for "displaced survivors" like them.

Armor-Piercing True Energy, however, was more difficult.

An Jing learned it fairly quickly. Before long, he could perform it smoothly with all kinds of weapons, unleashing four or five times more force than usual in a single instant. But hardly anyone could keep up with his progress, and most hadn't even gotten started.

As Senior Brother, An Jing was willing to help the other children with their problems.

He offered suggestions for training, ways to ease fatigue, and explanations of what he had learned about martial techniques. His explanations were even more detailed than those of some instructors.

With his guidance, Zhang Ying, Gu Yeqi, Cang Linzu, and the others quickly mastered the cultivation method. Cang Linzu and several other particularly talented children even mastered Armor-Piercing True Energy.

The others hadn't mastered it yet, but each had gained some insight. They knew An Jing hadn't lied to them or kept anything to himself, and that he had truly shared his experience. They were grateful, and their trust in him slowly grew.

After that, quite a few children began seeking him out to confide their troubles. Most were the odd fancies and tender-hearted hurts peculiar to children on the cusp of adolescence: longing for their hometowns and parents, feeling as if they were no more than specks of dust, and so on.

An Jing felt rather helpless, but he was still willing to patiently listen and offer comfort and advice from the perspective of an older brother.

As a result, not only the children in his dormitory but those in the other dormitories, boys and girls alike, came to respect him from the bottom of their hearts and regard him as a brother.

Being respected and loved was, indeed, a happy thing.

And teaching others also required a deeper understanding of the knowledge he was explaining.

While giving lessons, An Jing realized that his understanding of martial techniques relied too much on talent. He had learned them instinctively, without having a clear grasp of the specific principles behind them.

Explaining things to his junior brothers and sisters was also a way for him to review the key points and fully master the cultivation methods and martial techniques, progressing from "proficient" to "comprehensively mastered."

Around that time, however, Xuanming Manor sent away its first batch of rejected disciples.

"Some of them didn't meet Xuanming Manor's requirements. They were eliminated during the training over the past half month."

That was the explanation a Medicine Pavilion physician gave in response to everyone's questions one morning.

There were thirty fewer people in Xuanming Manor—not many, but enough for everyone to notice, without causing too much surprise.

Most of those who were eliminated were children with insufficient stamina and very slow progress in martial techniques. That made perfect sense and matched what most people had imagined.

Their elimination seemed only natural. Neither the others nor the children themselves were surprised.

An Jing thought so, too.

But with his sharp powers of observation, he noticed something strange.

Calling it strange was perhaps a bit much. It was just that, on the day those children were eliminated, An Jing didn't remember hearing any carts leave the manor.

Xuanming Manor was deep in the mountains. Cargo trucks brought supplies every few days, and if anyone had to leave, they would most likely have gone by truck.

Yet there had been no trucks coming or going for several days before or after, and the eliminated children were nowhere to be seen inside the manor.

Still, it wasn't a big deal.

At first, he had been somewhat suspicious of Xuanming Manor's reliability. But lately, he had experienced its treatment firsthand: they got meat and enough to eat. Compared to the chaos of the Northern Frontier, this place was practically heaven.

The instructors and teachers could be strict, but overall, they treated the children well.

An Jing got along well with several instructors. They even brought little snacks to share with the children. They were usually serious, but during breaks they would tell the children about their own training back in the day.

So An Jing didn't dwell on it.

After all, they hadn't seen those first five children who might already have awakened their Fate Grids, either.

Xuanming Manor was vast, and there were many restricted areas the children weren't allowed to enter. Those five might be living in another part of the manor, while the children who had been eliminated were probably waiting somewhere else, too.

Before they knew it, more than half a month had passed.