After sorting out the future direction of cultivation for the Xingyi Fist lineage in this world,
Teng Qingshan couldn't help but breathe a huge sigh of relief.
In his previous life on the Nine Provinces Continent, Teng Qingshan had independently created a cultivation system for the Xingyi Fist, progressing through Xiantian Realm, Void Realm, and Supreme Powerhouse.
After crossing over to the Swallowed Star World, with Teng Qingshan's talent and comprehension, as well as the messages constantly transmitted by Little Cauldron,
he easily deduced a subsequent cultivation framework suited to the Xingyi Fist based on his own circumstances.
As long as he followed this framework,
Teng Qingshan was a hundred percent certain he could reach the ninth level of the Domain Realm!
As for whether he could use the Five Elements Fist to step into the Origin Laws, he still wasn't completely sure. After all, he was only at the third level of the Domain Realm.
But all the signs pointed to a very high chance!
Martial skill → Conception → Domain → Origin Laws.
This sequence was correct.
It also followed the same cultivation logic as on the Nine Provinces Continent.
The only difference was that the underlying rules of the two worlds were different, and their cultivation ceilings varied.
Watching the students below practice their fists with complete focus,
Teng Qingshan was delighted.
Then he leaped down and sprinted at full speed toward the outskirts of the city.
Watching their sect leader turn into a streak of light,
the disciples of the Xingyi Sect had seen it before,
but they were still deeply shaken.
What did it mean to have a physical speed that reached the speed of sound?
They hadn't even dared to imagine it before!
But seeing Teng Qingshan reach that speed with ease, they had no choice but to believe it.
They also learned how far one could go by cultivating the Xingyi Fist, which gave them all the more motivation to train.
The strength Teng Qingshan had casually displayed was only that of someone who had just entered the War God level. In the universe, he was merely an Apprentice at rank seven.
But on Earth as it was now,
he was a true War God!
Whoosh!
On the street,
a streak of white flashed past.
People couldn't help but marvel in amazement.
During this period,
Teng Qingshan had worked with the Yangzhou City authorities to promote the Xingyi Fist, and naturally, he'd demonstrated his strength along the way.
Reaching the speed of sound without creating a sonic boom was one such feat.
After that, Teng Qingshan ran directly from the city to the suburbs each day to train.
Many citizens had seen Teng Qingshan's terrifying speed with their own eyes more than once, and videos recorded on their phones spread far and wide.
For a time, Teng Qingshan's fame reached its peak.
It even spread through the internet to other parts of China.
At first, people elsewhere who saw Teng Qingshan display such an outrageous speed assumed the footage was fake.
But as the Yangzhou City authorities reposted it time and again, and more and more local residents confirmed what they had seen,
people across the country gradually came to believe it, realizing that the human body held such astonishing potential.
As a result, the enthusiasm for martial arts grew even stronger across the country.
With support from higher-level authorities, Xingyi Sect branches also began spreading to more and more places.
However, most of these branches were little more than namesakes.
The instructors were simply former students who had left Yangzhou City.
But together with the first volume of the Xingyi Canon, personally written by Teng Qingshan, and its accompanying instructional videos, they were more than enough for complete beginners who had never encountered martial arts before.
Teng Qingshan reached the outskirts in just a few minutes, then bounded up to the summit of a small mountain in a few leaps.
Looking at the fields, most of which now lay abandoned, and the sparse figures in the village below,
Teng Qingshan knew that the Virus outbreak had caused a great deal of damage.
And because the countryside had more animals, including many wild ones,
the animals were mutating ever more rapidly, and news reports of people being attacked by mutated animals in rural areas had become common. As a result, many people had moved to the safer urban districts.
This had caused the rural population to dwindle.
But it wouldn't work if everyone moved to the cities.
If no one farmed, what would the people in the cities eat?
Still, the authorities couldn't force people to stay.
With no other choice, they had to dispatch the military to patrol regularly and eliminate any mutated animals that posed a threat.
The suburbs around Yangzhou City were relatively safe.
The most dangerous mutated animals there were wild boars, wild dogs, and wild cats.
Although these wild animals had developed tougher hides and greater strength after mutating, they still couldn't withstand large-caliber sniper rifles, artillery shells, and other powerful weapons.
With well-trained troops, dealing with them wasn't difficult.
That was why some villagers were still willing to keep farming in exchange for the generous subsidies offered by the authorities.
But in places like the Southwest Mountainous Region and the northeastern forests,
there were far more ferocious wild animals.
There were larger wild boars, as well as Wild Wolves, wild bears, tigers, leopards, and other beasts.
After mutating, these beasts had become far more dangerous.
The northeastern region was especially bad.
There had always been an abundance of wild animals there, while mechanized farming meant that there were few farmers.
But no matter how few, someone still had to operate the machinery.
The once boundless fields were now teeming with all kinds of mutated animals.
Teng Qingshan was now something of an official, so he had access to plenty of news that never made it onto the air.
One report was about a Mutated Siberian Tiger that had slaughtered an entire village in a single night!
A well-trained company of over a hundred soldiers, stationed in that village and fully equipped with weapons, had been utterly powerless against the enormous Siberian tiger, which had mutated to six meters long and two meters tall!
Even when they used their most powerful weapon, a small howitzer,
the footage they sent back showed that
as the artillerymen were taking aim at the Mutated Siberian Tiger, it bounded over to them in a few leaps, swung a paw bigger than a human face, and killed an artilleryman with a single strike. A few more swipes smashed the gun carriage!
Even when the other soldiers fired their submachine guns at it, they couldn't even pierce its hide!
In the surveillance footage, the Mutated Tiger was clearly intelligent. It knew to take out the artillerymen, the greatest threat, before killing everyone else.
After wiping out the company, the Mutated Tiger charged into the village and bit the remaining people to death.
Watching this grisly footage,
even Teng Qingshan felt a surge of anger!
The Mutated Tiger was strong, but at most it was equivalent to an Apprentice at rank two—a Monster at the Intermediate Beast Soldier level.
It would be an easy kill not only for Teng Qingshan, but even for Hong as he was now.
After receiving the second volume of the Xingyi Canon, Hong's strength had improved rapidly.
His basic punching power alone now exceeded fifty thousand kilograms. One punch would be enough to kill this Siberian tiger.
But people as strong as Hong were still exceedingly rare!
With conventional weapons having nearly lost their effectiveness, humanity's vulnerability had been laid bare.
This was especially true when facing ferocious beasts like the Mutated Siberian Tiger. Without deploying a large mechanized force, there was simply no way to deal with them!
And the situation was even more dire than that.
The Mutated Siberian Tiger wasn't an isolated case!
Other mutated animals, including giant wild boars, packs of Wild Wolves, and wild bears, had also begun attacking human settlements to varying degrees.
The countryside was bearing the brunt of it.
That was also why the Chinese authorities were promoting the Xingyi Fist with such determination.
Thinking about all this, Teng Qingshan couldn't help feeling even heavier at heart. There isn't much time left for humanity...
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