No Skills, Just Pure Effort!

Looking at Wu Fang's half-joking reply, Chen Jue was slightly stunned at first, then felt a sense of relief.

The [Hidden Weapon Throwing] skill, which he had already upgraded to Lv5, included master-level Darts techniques.

While it might not be powerful enough to sweep through the martial arts world, it certainly counted as a genuine skill with impressive lethality.

Hitting exactly where he aimed within 20 meters was not much different from a regular person shooting a handgun.

If that were to pierce someone, wouldn't it leave a gaping, bloody hole?

What is a genuine skill?

It is exactly this kind of real ability that can be practiced and used in a fight.

It is not those flashy, superficial moves that reveal their true colors the moment a fight breaks out.

However, the genuine skill Chen Jue asked Wu Fang about wasn't limited to hidden weapons like Darts; he wanted to find something like Tai Chi that could strengthen the body and improve health.

"It would be best if it were that mysterious, profound Qigong or internal energy that ordinary people can't understand."

"If you know such a master, please introduce me! I will definitely show my gratitude after becoming an apprentice (grin)," Chen Jue typed and sent the message back.

Wu Fang replied almost instantly with a (sweat drop) emoji.

"I think you've watched too many martial arts movies! Where would such skills exist in reality? (knocking head)"

"Even if they did, they've basically been lost to time."

"Anyway, I've been practicing with my grandfather since I was a kid, and I've never seen a master who could use Qigong. Even at the sports school I graduated from, I never heard of anyone who could use it. At most, they just practice internal martial arts; it's not as magical as what's posted online."

"It's too late, let's stop chatting for now. If you're interested, go to the park where they play chess tomorrow morning and talk to my grandfather. He knows more than I do."

"It's not convenient for me to show my face lately, there are too many stalker fanboys (covering face)."

Wu Fang was likely getting ready to sleep, as she stopped responding after sending a few quick messages.

Seeing that it was past 10 o'clock, Chen Jue took advantage of the soreness in his arms to turn off the lights and lie down early.

However, his mind was still occupied with what Wu Fang had said about the current state of traditional martial arts.

Qigong, internal energy, or internal martial arts—these abilities, which are overly mythologized in film, television, and literature—do people actually manage to cultivate them in reality?

If they were truly cultivated, why have they never been seen in society or mainstream media?

Chen Jue was nearly 30 years old and had his own ability to distinguish right from wrong.

In the past, he had only seen news about exposing fake traditional martial arts, with famous scenes like the "Lightning Five-Step Whip" and "young people not observing martial ethics" becoming internet jokes.

There wasn't a single master who had conquered the world using traditional martial arts.

If traditional martial arts were truly as powerful as those netizens described, why couldn't a single master emerge to win glory for the country and challenge the global fighting and martial arts circles?

The so-called rule restrictions or the claim that wearing gloves limits performance were pure nonsense; wasn't there the unrestricted MMA pioneered by Bruce Lee, as well as the currently popular UFC?

An Olympic gold medalist could earn a net worth of tens or hundreds of millions.

If someone could actually achieve results in these two competitions using traditional martial arts, wouldn't they be the focus of the whole country and become famous overnight?

That would be a massive opportunity to gain both fame and fortune!

Why hadn't anyone from the traditional martial arts circle stepped forward?

Perhaps, as Wu Fang said, such genuine skills had long been lost. What remained were just the fantasies of ordinary people and the sentimental delusions of the Chinese people.

Filled with doubts, Chen Jue fell asleep.

When he woke up the next morning, the soreness in his arms had eased slightly, clearly a result of the hot and cold compresses from the night before.

He went to the rooftop to perform [Eye Health Exercises] facing the rising sun. After 30 minutes, his constitution attribute increased by 0.01, and his eyesight improved slightly once again.

According to Chen Jue's estimation, if he practiced for a few more days, his vision should return to the prescription he had two years ago when he first got his new glasses.

"I just don't know if this vision improvement can continue indefinitely."

"If I could take off my glasses and successfully lose weight, my image should improve quite a bit," Chen Jue thought with anticipation.

He packed his backpack, brought his video recording equipment, and headed to the park in the middle of the lake.

Just as he reached the main entrance, he saw the usual group of old men gathered around the chess tables, chatting and playing.

In an open space not far away, the white-haired Old Master Wu was practicing his spear forms with a Red Tassel Spear over three meters long.

Flipping the spear, thrusting, sweeping, and then executing a "returning horse spear"—his movements were crisp and carried a strange, unique beauty.

Seeing him like this, it seemed he had been influenced by Wu Fang's fanatical fans; fearing that practicing the Rope Dart would expose his identity, he had switched to practicing this spear technique instead.

Chen Jue looked around left and right.

Not seeing the young fans who had been staking out the place yesterday, he took advantage of the gap while Old Master Wu was resting and drinking water after finishing a set of forms to approach him.

"Hello, Old Master! Sorry to bother you, I'm a friend of your granddaughter, Wu Fang." Chen Jue stepped forward to explain his purpose, taking the opportunity to pull up the WeChat chat history with Wu Fang.

Presumably, he had been told something before leaving the house that morning, so when Old Master Wu saw this strange young man approaching, he didn't show any impatience.

Instead, he looked Chen Jue up and down with an expression of interest.

Because he knew his granddaughter's situation, he had never seen her bring a boy home in all the years she had grown up.

Chen Jue was the first young man to be introduced.

Although Chen Jue came under the banner of seeking martial arts, giving him a legitimate reason to visit, in the eyes of Old Master Wu, he had already been automatically categorized as a candidate for a prospective grandson-in-law.

After just a few glances, Old Master Wu began to feel somewhat dissatisfied.

The bespectacled young man before him, while not short in stature, had a truly unremarkable appearance.

Looking gentle and refined in his glasses, with a slightly pudgy physique and thinning hair, he didn't look like someone who practiced martial arts at all. Instead, he looked like an IT programmer or a junior office worker one could spot on the street any day of the week.

The only redeeming quality was that Chen Jue's eyes were bright and spirited, unlike those young people who spent their days hunched over their phones, their vitality drained away.

"Young man, I heard from Fangfang that you are skilled with throwing weapons, and quite formidable at that. That dog from before was killed by a dart you threw right through its throat!"

"I wasn't there that afternoon, so I unfortunately missed it. Could you show me a trick or two now, and let this old man feast his eyes?" Old Master Wu had mentally dismissed Chen Jue, but remembering his granddaughter's request, he began to engage with him.

"Show you a trick or two?"

"No problem! If you're interested, just point out any target nearby for me, as long as it's within 20 meters." Chen Jue agreed without much thought.

Since he was already showing off in front of an elder, he had nothing to lose; he would treat it as making a friend through his darts.

"20 meters?"

"That's what you said!" Old Master Wu became interested immediately.

This distance was far beyond the effective range of their family's traditional Rope Dart.

Searching the small grove nearby, Old Master Wu picked up his Red Tassel Spear and pointed to a white mark on the trunk of a large tree in the distance.

Chen Jue glanced at it and realized the white mark was likely left by a cold weapon like a chain hammer coated in magnesium powder; it was the size of a fist and slightly indented.

Estimating the distance, it was about 15 meters away.

He drew a Short Sword Dart from his storage pouch, flicked his right hand, and exerted force simultaneously from his arm, wrist, and fingers. The bright silver stainless steel dart left his hand, tracing a blurred trajectory through the air.

Then, with a "thud" against the wood, the Short Sword Dart embedded itself in the center of the white mark, with a large portion of the blade buried inside.

Seeing this, Old Master Wu's eyes went round. He first shouted, "Good dart!" before regaining his composure to size Chen Jue up again.

He realized that the seemingly ordinary, scholarly young man before him had become a completely different person the moment he picked up the dart.

The presence he previously lacked vanished instantly, and only at the moment he released the dart did an indescribable, murderous aura surge forth.

This was what they called a hidden weapon.

It remained concealed until the moment of action, and once unleashed, it could claim a life.

It was truly formidable!

"No wonder Xiao Fang said his throwing skills were impressive; I've truly witnessed it today!"

"So young, could it be that he has been practicing since childhood?"

Old Master Wu muttered to himself, but his face showed great satisfaction as he nodded. "Young man, your foundation in throwing weapons is already perfect. There's no need to go seeking those ethereal concepts like qigong or internal energy, is there?"

"Martial arts are meant for self-defense and health. With a skill like this, as long as you don't break the law in this country, no one will be able to touch you."

Upon hearing the old man's words, Chen Jue became suspicious. "Old Master, does no one in this world really know qigong or internal energy?"

Seeing that he wouldn't give up, Old Master Wu spun his Red Tassel Spear and planted it firmly in the ground.

He then picked up his thermos, unscrewed the lid, and took a few sips, whether to clear his throat or to ponder, it was hard to tell.

After a few minutes of silence, during which he glanced at the dart in the white mark a few more times, Old Master Wu finally spoke slowly. "I don't know about qigong; it's highly likely that no one knows it, or perhaps it was lost long ago."

"When I was young, I saw many people like you searching everywhere for someone to teach them qigong. Back then, there was a qigong craze, and advertisements for training classes were everywhere in the newspapers."

"But those masters were basically all frauds! They used it as a gimmick to make money. If you grabbed anyone practicing real combat in the martial arts square, they could easily beat those qigong masters to the ground."

"As for this internal energy... I do know a little about it! Because our family's martial arts included it, but when I was young, I was determined to be a professor and scholar, so I didn't learn it from my father. It has already been lost."

Hearing this, Chen Jue's eyes lit up. "So internal energy really exists?"

"It definitely exists! Because I watched my father practice it; I saw it with my own eyes, so it couldn't be fake."

"But this internal energy thing isn't as powerful as you might think; it's not even as lethal as your throwing darts," Old Master Wu said, nodding while holding his thermos.

"Then, Old Master, did your father... leave behind any videos or manuscripts?" Seeing that the real kung fu he was looking for was right in front of him, Chen Jue couldn't help but ask impatiently.

Because as long as there was an original tutorial, whether in text or video form, Chen Jue could replicate it using his attribute panel!

"Nothing was left behind. Back then, it wasn't as convenient as it is now, with smartphones everywhere."

"Besides, my father said that internal energy can only be understood through intuition and cannot be taught through words. Without someone to guide you and teach you hand-in-hand, it's very difficult to achieve anything."

Old Master Wu poured a bucket of cold water on Chen Jue first.

Seeing the disappointment on his face, the old man reached into a bag he had placed nearby and pulled out a mobile phone.

Good heavens!

The model was clearly the latest Huawei Mate 60 Pro!

Not only was the technology and functionality far ahead of the curve, but the price was enough to make struggling workers like Chen Jue sigh in envy.

But then, remembering that this old man was a retired university professor with several demolished houses in Hang City and a high pension, it was normal for him to use a luxury phone.

Seeing him look like a trendy old man as he opened Douyin, scrolled through his following list, and finally tapped on a video blogger's profile, he finally spoke up to offer guidance: "If you want to learn internal energy, you can look for this person."

"This person should have real skills, because the internal energy techniques he films are basically the same as what my father's generation practiced!"

As soon as the old man finished speaking, Chen Jue leaned his head in to take a look.

In the video, a middle-aged man wearing a vintage-style training suit was fiercely smashing a concrete block reinforced with steel bars using the back of one hand.

After smashing the concrete, he began to strike a steel wrench until he bent it directly.

The sheer impact of this scene left Chen Jue with his mouth slightly agape, his brain struggling to process what he was seeing!

Because of the rise of short-form videos over the years, Chen Jue had seen no shortage of fake masters on the internet breaking bricks.

Why call them fake?

It was because back in high school physics class, the teacher had personally demonstrated that as long as you suspend half of a red brick or prop it up at a specific angle, even an ordinary person who hadn't trained much could break it with a single palm strike.

But looking at the video Old Master Wu had pulled up, the middle-aged man in the video wasn't breaking red bricks, but concrete slabs scavenged from a construction site!

And the concrete slabs had steel rebar embedded in them, for crying out loud!

He shattered them in just a few strikes!

There were no tricks or special angles, just pure, brute force!

Furthermore, that wrench was a common hardware tool found in every hardware store or auto repair shop on the street; to bend it with just a hand, how tough must his skills be?

Most importantly, after finishing his demonstration, the expert in the video specifically held his hands up to the camera.

His right hand, which he used to strike the objects, was swollen like a bun, a pale, reddish hue, and it was clear there wasn't a single callus on it.

As for his left hand, it looked just like an ordinary person's palm.

Comparing the two, left and right.

Dragging the progress bar back to what his hands looked like before he started training, there was no difference between his left and right hands.

Comparing the before and after, Chen Jue finally understood why Old Master Wu said this man possessed real skills.

"Old Urchin of Hunyuan Hand?"

"IP address in Su Province?"

"Following immediately!"

First update~

This chapter counts as a two-in-one.

PS: Pianfeng has no intention of belittling traditional martial arts; on the contrary, I personally admire them quite a bit. When I was young, I practiced Southern Fist and Xingyi Quan, but there are too many scammers these days, so I hope everyone keeps their eyes peeled.

Also, the Chinese athletes currently achieving results in MMA and UFC are basically all from wrestling or Sanda backgrounds. As for traditional martial arts, they are mostly amateur hobbies, and very few practitioners can actually fight.

As for the Old Urchin of Hunyuan Hand mentioned in the text, it is inspired by the image of the video blogger Old Urchin of Thunderbolt Hand. Those interested can look him up; that person likely has real skills.