Inside Blazing Sun Martial Hall, Yuan Dang heard the hall master's scolding and couldn't help but feel relieved.
Taking advantage of the opening, he looked pitifully at Fang Can. His meaning was clear: he hoped Fang Can wouldn't pay him too much attention and get him scolded by the hall master.
Fang Can gave a bored little click of his tongue. Seeing the disciple's reaction, he lost interest in learning more about him.
Watching everyone patiently absorb the experience, Fang Can sat listlessly in the Grandmaster Chair, pressuring them with his Heart Manifestation.
Since he wasn't unleashing it over a wide area in a fight to the death, and he could recover by basking in the sun, his expenditure and recovery remained more or less balanced.
Driven by boredom, Fang Can decided to put this time to use and practice the Tiger-Subduing Dragon-Taming Golden Body.
According to its description, the technique made the skin vibrate continuously, generating an invisible aura over its surface.
At a high level of mastery, the skin would ripple faintly at all times.
Then, even blades and axes would be violently deflected by the skin's extreme resilience. It was considered a top-tier technique for blood-qi martial artists before the Heaven Ascending Path, and could be activated without internal energy.
As for qi-blood martial artists, the world's cultivation system was called the martial dao, but thanks to the everyone-has-a-Wish-Machine mechanism, it actually contained all sorts of bizarre things.
There were things like geomagnetic force, flesh-and-blood locks, divine domains, battle qi, True Magic, Daoists, Buddhist power, merit, poetry, calligraphy, painting, and music. Nearly every system imaginable existed.
Who knew what people might wish for, or what techniques they might manifest?
But martial artists couldn't store and release energy inside their bodies until they'd reached the Heaven Ascending Path.
So late-game professions like magisters, true-qi martial artists, poetry scholars, and Daoists weren't very strong in combat before reaching the Mortal Shedding Body stage.
Most martial artists who weren't certain they could reach the Heaven Ascending Path chose blood-qi martial arts or the battle-qi system. They trained their bodies step by step, then sought a chance to make that ultimate leap.
So before the Mortal Shedding Body stage, stat monsters had a slight edge.
Mechanic monsters had to wait until later to develop. Since nine out of ten martial artists chose the stat-based path, it was only sensible—not many were confident they could make it to the late game.
Leaning back in the Grandmaster Chair, Fang Can continued releasing his Heart Manifestation while making his skin tremble, practicing the technique's methods to temper it.
As everyone knew, human skin couldn't move freely.
But this was damn Idealist Martial Dao. If you were sincere enough and your cultivation was high enough, you could change more than just the human body's little quirks—even the laws of the universe could be altered.
Secretly using his blood qi to drive his flesh, Fang Can actually managed to make the skin on his fingers vibrate faintly. The vibrations were very slow, about once or twice per second, and the movement was only one micrometer in amplitude.
According to the technique, passing required the skin to vibrate at least eighty-one times per breath.
Feeling the steady ripples in his skin, Fang Can's thoughts began to wander. If he trained this to its limit and managed tens of thousands of vibrations per second, could he turn his body into a human-shaped high-frequency blade?
And why vibrate only the skin? If he went deeper into his cells, making all tens of trillions of cells in his body vibrate at high frequency together, wouldn't that be Magnetic Field Rotation?
But when he considered how long it would take to manifest that idea, Fang Can thought it might not be impossible after all.
He was curious about what would happen if he combined the cell vibrations with the Great Sun Indestructible Demon Body, which penetrated deep into the cells.
Straddling the Grandmaster Chair, Fang Can practiced the technique bit by bit.
After all, he'd have to understand the martial art thoroughly before he could modify it. Though he hadn't taken any drugs, his talent had been tripled since last night, and practice came easily.
In the time it took to burn a single incense stick, Fang Can had spread the vibrations to his limbs and arms, though the frequency was still only once or twice per second.
Still, if he trained hard for just one more month, he could make his entire body vibrate eighty-one times per breath—including his privates, hair tips, eyelids, and nails.
Why does it feel like I'm training my body to become a vibrator? Fang Can grumbled to himself. At eighty-one high-frequency vibrations per second, even the legendary Kato Taka would have to admit defeat.
As time passed, Fang Can kept releasing his Heart Manifestation for half a shichen. When he felt it was enough, he withdrew it, and the crowd reacted as if he'd stirred up a hornet's nest.
"Please, Lord Fang, give us a little more. I want to keep experiencing it."
"My lord, release your Heart Manifestation one more time. I'll do anything—please!"
"My lord, your Heart Manifestation is so pure. One more time, please, one more time!"
Looking at the martial artists before him, who seemed like addicts craving another hit, Fang Can was at a loss for words.
But the martial artists didn't care about their dignity at all. A chance to experience the Heart Manifestation of a Heart Manifestation Warrior so generous that he let them experience it freely was something they might never get again. It would greatly benefit their martial arts.
They'd beg, bow down, or even eat shit for it.
Even Ye Yonglie was now gripping Fang Can's arm and speaking through his tears:
"I've lived fifty-six years, yet only made it past the sixth level of the Mysterious Pass. I train diligently for six shichen every day, and can barely keep my blood qi from declining."
"But my body grows older by the day. If I don't awaken a Heart Manifestation before I turn sixty, I fear I'll never make another breakthrough in this life."
"My talent is mediocre. I've trained hard in martial arts for over thirty years and wasted decades of my life. Given my diligence, I ought to have developed a Heart Manifestation. I only ask that you grant me this request, young friend. If I can develop a Heart Manifestation, I'll die content."
By the end, Ye Yonglie's face was streaming with tears. He clung stubbornly to Fang Can's lapel, looking less like a martial hall master than a middle-aged man unable to let go of his obsession.
"Hmph, Master's gotten senile. What kind of behavior is this, crying and carrying on?"
Yuan Dang watched coldly from the side, having completely forgotten that in his previous life he'd been even worse than the hall master.
If Fang Can hadn't published Everyone Has Kung Fu to Practice, he wouldn't even have had the talent to make it onto the Heaven Ascending Path.
"Next, Fang Can should refuse to stay. Then the Heaven's Mystery Pavilion's new ranking list will be published, and my humiliated master will immediately reveal Fang Can's situation to the Tiger Fiend Sect, prompting them to issue a wanted list ahead of time."
"Then, amid the pursuit of the whole world, Fang Can will lose an arm, cripple a leg, and go blind in both eyes, nearly reaching a dead end. Yet in just nineteen days, he'll break through all nine levels of the Mysterious Pass and reach the Heaven Ascending Path."
"Afterward, driven mad, he'll massacre tens of millions of living beings—including everyone in the martial hall—and bring about the fall of the Great Yan Kingdom..."
"Only me and a few senior sisters will escape by chance because we're away. We'll train in martial arts to get revenge, but we'll only be able to watch him rise higher and higher until my senior sister is abducted."
Thinking of this, Yuan Dang grew even more wary. Fang Can was terrifying; he couldn't be opposed now. He had to bide his time and act slowly.
After the earlier scare, Yuan Dang wasn't going to change history without absolute certainty. So he watched coldly, waiting for Fang Can to refuse his master.
Sorry, Master. Fang Can is a wicked scoundrel. Your disciple won't be able to care for you in your old age. Yuan Dang sighed inwardly, only to suddenly hear...
"Uh, all right." Fang Can scratched his head and smiled. "I don't have anything to do lately, so I'll stay here for a few days."
At those words, Yuan Dang felt a bolt of lightning strike down from above. He stood frozen on the spot.
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