The maid in the green robe wasn't some nobody in the Ming Cult.
To stay by Madam He's side and help plot the foundation of an empire across several provinces, she needed more than management skills. Martial arts were just as essential.
Only then could she handle all kinds of unexpected situations.
But that was exactly what Huang Shang wanted.
At first, even a few Beggar Sect beggars could bully him, a man who knew no martial arts.
After he first learned to use Literary Qi, he'd entered the Worry-Free Cave and killed a Beggar Sect disciple with a single stroke of the pen.
Now that he'd grown increasingly skilled at wielding Literary Qi and had begun cultivating his Ancestral Aperture, it was time to test himself against a named and notable Ming Cult officer.
The maid in the green robe meant to take him hostage, but she showed no mercy. Her five fingers curled into claws as a fierce gust of wind rushed at his face. Her vicious posture made it seem as if she meant to pluck out Huang Shang's eyeballs.
Huang Shang focused intently. His Zhuge Pen swept twice, and two symbols, each resembling both a trigram and a character, coalesced in the air.
Thunder!
Heaven!
Thunder over Heaven, Great Power! Yang energy, flourishing in strength!
As the Great Power Hexagram appeared, a wave of heat surged through the narrow secret chamber.
It couldn't match the surging blood and qi that had burst from Xu Feng's punch, but to an ordinary martial artist, it was already a force to be reckoned with.
What horrified the maid in the green robe even more was the strange way her opponent attacked.
There wasn't the slightest fluctuation of true qi. Where had that surging, overwhelming power come from?
"Zhu Yan!"
Just as she froze in instinctive bewilderment, a thunderous voice suddenly rang in her ear.
It was Madam He's Mind-Settling Sound, normally used to soothe her followers. Now she used it to snap Zhu Yan back to her senses.
The maid, Zhu Yan, jolted and cleared her mind of distractions. She reached out with her long arm, her five fingers clawing forward.
Whatever strange trick this was, in the end, victory went to the stronger!
Thump!
Literary Qi clashed with inner force, producing a muffled bang. Huang Shang's body swayed, and he retreated.
The truth was clear: a decade of studying literature and a decade of martial arts practice still made for different levels of combat ability.
After all, in a low-martial world, people trained in martial arts for one purpose: fighting. By comparison, Literary Qi had far broader applications.
And the broader its uses, the more it was spread thin. Naturally, it couldn't compare to specializing in one thing.
But as he stepped back, Huang Shang flicked the Zhuge Pen, and the Literary Qi that had scattered away immediately returned.
Great Power again!
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The sound of clashing blows rang out without pause.
Huang Shang seemed to be retreating, but with every step back, he struck out with a move.
Zhu Yan seemed to be advancing, but with every step forward, she had to block a move.
Her face gradually turned pale.
She couldn't recover her qi fast enough.
True qi arose from the dantian, circulated through the limbs and every meridian, then was released through one's forms. That was the basic principle of ancient martial arts.
And no matter how powerful the divine art, it still had to contend with depletion and recovery.
The Ming Cult's inheritance was certainly formidable, and Zhu Yan was a direct disciple. Her skill wasn't hollow.
But even so, she couldn't withstand one move after another like this!
On the other side, Wu Que had already forced Madam He into a crushing disadvantage, driving her upward into the Fairy Temple to continue their fight.
Even so, he could still spare the attention to watch the secret chamber.
With Wu Que's strength, he could have stopped Zhu Yan outright and fought them both at once.
But he was curious. He wanted to see just how capable Huang Shang was in a real fight.
After all, in the Heavens, strength was everything.
Seeing this, his mind was made up.
What suited him best was the strongest.
In the eyes of a star-ranked Reincarnator, Huang Shang's current strength was nothing special.
But the speed of his improvement was truly astonishing!
It hadn't been long at all, and he already had this kind of combat ability!
It was easy to imagine how glorious his future would be!
Wu Que's resolve hardened. No matter how much he invested, it would all be worth it as long as he could obtain this Character Card.
He even looked toward Nightingale, who stood with her hands clasped behind her back, watching Huang Shang's fight without blinking, and quietly made up his mind.
Of course, the fact that Literary Qi could fight without fear of running out wasn't enough to win by itself.
Zhu Yan had never seen such a bizarre style of attack, and for a time she didn't know how to respond. But she soon came to her senses. She couldn't gain an advantage by trading blows head-on, so she spun around, and several hidden weapons flew from her sleeve.
Seeing the weapons scatter like a celestial maiden scattering flowers and close in from all sides, Huang Shang didn't dare take them head-on. He swiftly wrote two strokes.
Heaven!
Mountain!
As the Retreat Hexagram appeared, his figure flashed aside, neatly avoiding the attack. A wise man kept himself from harm.
But that single evasion left him on the defensive.
Seizing her chance, Zhu Yan pounced like lightning and pressed forward without pause, using fists, claws, and hidden weapons—anything and everything.
Huang Shang couldn't help but grow flustered, forced to dodge again and again.
His current Literary Qi techniques relied on the sixty-four hexagrams of the I Ching.
Each hexagram had to be activated with Literary Qi, brought into being by writing it out.
Quickly writing two characters to form a move looked impressive, but it took time.
Even if that process was fast, to a martial artist, it was an opening.
And now Zhu Yan was striking fast against fast.
Huang Shang dodged repeatedly. When the force of Zhu Yan's attack finally began to wane, he immediately switched from the Retreat Hexagram to the Great Power Hexagram, hoping to turn defense into offense.
But just as he finished writing the first stroke, Zhu Yan had already thrown two punches and launched a claw strike. Three moves in all.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The forces collided. Huang Shang had no choice but to retreat again, and Zhu Yan's inner force surged toward him like the endless waves of a great river.
Huang Shang could only summon the Retreat Hexagram again and avoid her full force.
"As expected, real combat isn't a tournament match, much less turn-based..."
Chased all around the secret chamber, Huang Shang looked a sorry sight. He couldn't help feeling tense, but at the same time, he knew he was learning a great deal.
It was like tackling a difficult problem while studying. Whether you gained the upper hand for a while or fell behind was secondary. What mattered was the final result.
Sure enough, Zhu Yan charged ahead with relentless momentum. But Huang Shang remained steady, specializing in the Retreat Hexagram. He seemed to have truly become a master of drifting steps, where his opponent stood before him one moment and behind him the next.
Gusts of inner force swept through the secret chamber. Nightingale drifted back into the passage and blocked the way out, settling in to enjoy Huang Shang's performance.
She had already seen it: Zhu Yan's true qi was depleting rapidly, and the longer they fought, the more urgently she pressed.
As their fortunes shifted, Huang Shang grew even steadier. While keeping Zhu Yan at bay, he finally launched another counterattack.
The Great Power Hexagram appeared again!
Under the pressure of real combat, his pen flowed more smoothly, and the time it took to activate the move shortened by a breath.
"Yah!"
Unable to endure another such move, Zhu Yan suddenly let out a sharp cry. She launched a sonic attack, then pounced and closed in while Huang Shang's figure faltered.
Midair, her body twisted in a bizarre way. Her arm bent outward, and with a posture that defied common sense, she slashed a palm toward Huang Shang's ribs.
Many of the Ming Cult's martial arts still retained their foreign style, and the Ming Venerable Palm had more than a hint of yoga to it.
The Middle Ages were indeed the era when yoga spread to Persia.
Zhu Yan had chosen her moment perfectly. Huang Shang had nowhere to dodge, but he didn't panic. He thrust out his other, empty hand.
Their palms met.
Huang Shang's body swayed, and he retreated with the force of the blow. After three steps, he had dispelled the impact. His face paled, and he stood in place to regulate his breathing.
By contrast, Zhu Yan's killing blow had failed, and she had also taken a strike from the Great Power Hexagram. She flew backward from the force, stumbled as she landed, and her face turned by turns green and white. Suddenly, she spat out a mouthful of blood. Her expression twisted, and her lips trembled.
She couldn't speak, but Huang Shang knew what had enraged her.
The palm he had used wasn't powered by Literary Qi.
It was powered by true qi.
True qi of the purest kind.
Zhu Yan had trained since childhood, with more than a decade of cultivation behind her. Though she had just spent a great deal of energy, she was nowhere near the end of her strength.
But in their clash, her true qi had inflicted some damage on Huang Shang, yet hadn't managed to penetrate far into his body.
Huang Shang's true qi, by contrast, was like an arrow, cutting through every obstacle and stabbing straight into her body.
It wasn't the depth of their skill that mattered. The quality of their true qi was worlds apart!
Zhu Yan had staked victory on that one palm, only to suffer for it.
Huang Shang carefully used a wisp of the pure true qi born within his Ancestral Aperture to drive Zhu Yan's true qi out of his body. Without giving her a chance to recover, he wrote again with the Zhuge Pen. The Great Power Hexagram appeared, and its overwhelming force, like a raging thunderclap, crashed straight into Zhu Yan.
At the same time, inside the Fairy Temple, Wu Que touched Madam He's acupoint with one fan. The old woman's eyes brimmed with unwillingness as she sank to the ground.
And that was that.
Thanks to the readers "Heaven Crystal Chaos Mirror," "Xi Ru," "Floating Dream Ice Sincerity," and "This Shore That Shore" for their tips.
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