Bone-Unraveling Technique

"Hm?" From a distance, Lu Ming spotted two people surrounding someone in the woods. His brows immediately drew together.

He thought it over, then turned around and left by another route.

Inside the Military Service Bureau, children of martial lineages and ordinary people were all disciples, but in reality, their status was worlds apart.

For ordinary people, their time at the Military Service Bureau might well be the closest they ever came to the upper classes.

People like Zhu Ming seized every chance to cozy up to the powerful.

Small cliques sprang up all over the Military Service Bureau. Although those two wore gray training uniforms, there was no telling which influential figure might be backing them.

He had no connection to the person they had cornered, so there was no need to invite trouble. Besides, he didn't know the whole story and shouldn't pass judgment. Who knew which side was right and which was wrong?

In the woods.

Li Hu, whose honest, guileless face matched his nature, looked at the tall and short men surrounding him and spoke nervously:

"Couldn't you find an ant nest yourselves? I can help you look. Tomorrow—tomorrow, I'll find one for you."

The tall man nodded in satisfaction and patted Li Hu on the shoulder.

"Don't be nervous. Young Master Shen is a good person. If you find an ant nest for him, he'll reward you. Maybe you'll even have a chance to reach Three Breaths Nine Echoes with that reward!"

Li Hu nodded quickly. "Yes, yes."

The tall man smiled faintly. His narrow, triangular eyes flicked over Li Hu's anxious expression and the cold sweat on his forehead, then glanced down at his feet.

A small mound of dirt lay there. It looked as though Li Hu had been digging for something, then hurriedly filled the hole back in halfway through. But the fresh yellow soil he'd turned up stood out.

A glint flashed in the tall man's eyes. Suddenly, he said:

"Young Master Shen needs it urgently. Don't wait until tomorrow. Go look for one now."

"Huh?" Li Hu froze. His gaze instinctively darted to the mound of dirt at his feet, then he hurriedly looked away and said:

"The sun's almost set. It'll be hard to find one now!"

The tall man frowned. "There's still some time. You're good at finding things in the wild. How could you not find one? Hurry up. Young Master Shen needs it urgently."

The short man started pushing Li Hu. "Move it. If you wait much longer, the sun will set."

Li Hu stumbled, nearly falling. He turned and saw the short man pushing him to leave, while the tall man stood with one foot on the mound of dirt, showing no sign of going anywhere.

Li Hu hurriedly lunged forward. "Wait! I dropped something here."

"What are you doing?" The short man suddenly grabbed Li Hu from behind.

The tall man's eyes turned vicious. He clenched his fists and moved to attack.

Suddenly, a voice came from outside the woods:

"Li Hu, I need to talk to you."

The tall man stopped in his tracks and turned to look. Someone was approaching from outside the woods. His clean white training uniform stood out brilliantly in the setting sun.

The tall man's brows immediately knitted together. A white training uniform! Lu Ming!

He sighed inwardly, then quickly pried the short man's arms off Li Hu and shot him a look. Stepping forward, he said respectfully:

"Senior Brother Lu, you know Li Hu? We were just fooling around with him. Since you need to talk to him, we'll be on our way."

With that, he tugged the short man away.

Li Hu stared blankly at the scene, then hurried forward and said:

"Se-Senior Brother Lu."

"Mm." Lu Ming was a little surprised himself. He hadn't expected his white training uniform to scare the two men off so easily.

All he'd done was say he needed to talk to Li Hu, and they hadn't dared say another word.

Hearing them call him Senior Brother Lu, he felt a quiet thrill. Usually, he was the one calling others senior brother or senior sister. Now he was finally the senior brother.

Out loud, he said, "If you spend more time in your own courtyard, you won't run into trouble."

"Yes, Senior Brother Lu." As Li Hu spoke, he saw Lu Ming turn around and start to leave without another word. A trace of surprise showed in his eyes.

Then he hesitated, stepped forward, and stopped him. "Senior Brother Lu, wait. There's something I'd like to give you."

Lu Ming turned around, puzzled. "Give me something?"

Li Hu nodded, then turned to the mound of dirt and crouched down. He dug at it a few times with both hands.

Suddenly, as if he'd gotten hold of something, he pulled hard. The ground rose into a mound, and Li Hu drew out a slightly misshapen box.

Li Hu's eyes lit up. "It's a lead box! Whatever's inside must be worth a lot."

He brushed the dirt off the box, revealing its grayish-white surface, then quickly opened it.

A smell of old ink mixed with dampness immediately wafted out.

Inside the lead box lay a book with three characters written on it: Bone-Unraveling Technique.

Li Hu took out the book and offered it to Lu Ming.

"I'm good at finding things. I could tell right away that something was buried here. I didn't expect it to be a book.

"It must have been buried here by a disciple of the Military Service Bureau long ago. I don't know why.

"Senior Brother Lu, this is what I wanted to give you. Take it."

Lu Ming accepted the book. It felt cool and damp in his hands, but it had been well preserved, and the writing was clear. He flipped through it casually. Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and his heart began to pound.

Bone-Unraveling Technique was mainly a book about the various bones in the human body. Most importantly, it described techniques for striking the human body through the gaps between the bones.

It included a method for training finger techniques!

This would be extremely useful to him.

The Divine Ability Panel had another trait: the more techniques of the same type he learned, the faster he could develop a divine ability.

And finger techniques had a great deal to do with acupoints!

Earlier, he'd thought it would be difficult for him to learn any new finger techniques at this stage, so he hadn't counted on finding any. He hadn't expected to come across one here.

Of course, although learning techniques of the same type could increase the rate at which he gained experience, the techniques had to have different principles behind them.

After all, if he could gain heaps of acupoint experience by learning a pile of shoddy acupoint techniques, that would make no sense.

He flipped through the book briefly. The finger techniques in Bone-Unraveling Technique seemed different from the striking methods of Nine Palace Living Stakes. There was a good chance they could speed up the development of his Acupoint Divine Ability!

He asked Li Hu, "Are you really giving me this manual?"

Li Hu nodded.

"Senior Brother Lu helped me just now, so of course I should repay his kindness. Besides, this book isn't much use to me.

"Maybe I really wasn't cut out to be a martial artist.

"Perhaps I was just meant to be an herb gatherer."

Hearing that, Lu Ming felt glad he'd gone into the woods.

He'd originally been about to leave, but a gust of wind had carried the tall man's words to him. He'd vaguely heard "ant nest" and "Young Master Shen."

Since it was about an ant nest, it involved him. After all, he was the one who'd brought it up. So he'd turned back to take a look.

He hadn't expected that simply coming over would earn him a manual of finger techniques without him lifting a finger.

He put the manual away. Seeing Li Hu's dejected expression, he thought for a moment and asked:

"How far are you from Three Breaths Nine Echoes?"

Li Hu scratched his head. "I just feel like martial arts are so hard to learn. I can't quite make sense of the nine stakes. I can only manage Five Breaths Nine Echoes right now."

Lu Ming's heart stirred. Five Breaths Nine Echoes? That was the same level he'd been at before developing Heaven Leak Divine Ability. That was decent talent!

Although Li Hu might have used healing medicine, meaning he'd actually trained longer than Lu Ming had.

But Li Hu had said he could only manage Five Breaths Nine Echoes because he couldn't make sense of the nine stakes.

Lu Ming mused for a moment, then glanced at the pit in the ground and said:

"You're good at finding things, aren't you? You should be good at finding your way, too.

"Anyway, don't think of Nine Palace Living Stakes as a martial art. Think of them as a maze. You need to find the shortest route through it, striking all nine red dots along the way before making your way out."

Li Hu's eyes widened slightly. "You can do that?"

Lu Ming didn't know if it would work, but it was the only method he could think of.

"When all else fails, it can't hurt to try!"

Just then, the distant sound of "bang, bang" drifted over. The Public Kitchen was serving dinner!

"Let's go eat first."

Lu Ming and Li Hu left the woods. After eating at the Public Kitchen, they returned to their own courtyards.

The sky had already darkened, and night had fallen. Lu Ming lit a lamp in his room. Hearing the steady thudding of someone nearby practicing, he shook his head slightly.

Overtraining would only hurt the body. It wasn't worth the loss.

Although he couldn't train today, he wasn't in a hurry to sleep. Instead, he eagerly took out Bone-Unraveling Technique and studied it by lamplight.

He skimmed over the long passages describing human bones. He had Heaven Leak Divine Ability, so he could spot anyone's weaknesses at a glance. He didn't need to learn that.

But as he kept turning the pages and was about to reach the method for training finger techniques, he suddenly noticed a passage at the end of the section on human bones:

"It is said that the human body has acupoints, which hold many mysteries. They appear and disappear with the hours of the day and the flow of qi and blood, their locations never fixed.

"It is said that in ancient times, there was a lineage that used this as the foundation of its path.

"Alas, that lineage's fortune ran out, and it vanished into the long river of history. Since then, no one has been able to restore the glory of its path."

In this world, did the body's acupoints shift with the hours and the flow of qi and blood? Were their locations never fixed?

No wonder the instructors at the Military Service Bureau taught martial arts by focusing on bones and weak points, even when it came to striking key spots on wooden dummies. They never mentioned acupoints.

And in ancient times, there had been a martial lineage that dealt with acupoints, only for its fortune to run out and the lineage to vanish?

After reading this passage, Lu Ming couldn't help feeling a pang of regret. If that knowledge had been passed down, there would probably be many more finger techniques around now.

As for Bone-Unraveling Technique, it wasn't really a finger-technique manual. Judging by its contents, it had probably been written by a physician.

But that was fine, too.

Lu Ming suddenly thought that this would make Heaven Leak Divine Ability even harder to detect. After all, the lineage that studied acupoints had vanished. Other people were less likely to consider acupoints when trying to figure things out.

He pushed aside his distracting thoughts and carefully studied the section on finger techniques in Bone-Unraveling Technique.

The passage was only a few hundred characters long. With its illustrations, Lu Ming had memorized it after an hour. He began practicing the movements against the empty air.

Once he'd gotten the movements down, he could try using the finger technique to strike a wooden plaque tomorrow.

Still, although he believed finger techniques had a great deal to do with acupoints, whether the Divine Ability Panel agreed was another matter.

He could only try it tomorrow.

As he gestured toward the candle on his desk, Lu Ming waited in quiet anticipation.

"Fingers swift as the wind, their force like lightning!"

His shadow on the window performed the motions for striking acupoints. The candle flame wavered as if stirred by the wind from his fingers, and a soft laugh sounded from inside the room.