Diamond Skill

"An expert!"

Xu Yang's scalp prickled, and every pore on his body instantly constricted.

Although he had been on guard, he hadn't expected the person before him to be an expert—at the very least, someone at the Qi Gathering stage.

He couldn't tell if this was a chance encounter or if this person had been lying in wait for him.

A fierce, biting wind rushed toward his face. The man's five fingers were like eagle talons, the nails sharp and jagged; had they connected, his neck would surely have been pierced by five bloody holes.

In that split second, his body's tendons tightened, and his bones let out a series of sharp, cracking pops.

At the very moment the fingers were about to seize his throat, he proactively thrust out a hand to let the opponent grab it, avoiding the fate of having his neck punctured.

Simultaneously, his other hand swung out with ferocious force. Like a bear king lashing out, his muscles bulged as he slammed a fist toward the man's armpit.

This was a mutual destruction tactic; even if the opponent could pierce his hand, this punch would shatter the man's ribs.

"Eh?"

Xu Yang quickly realized something was wrong.

Although the man's strike was fast as lightning and carried a fierce wind, there wasn't much lethality behind the fingers. The scene he had anticipated—his palm being pierced—never occurred.

He felt only a slight pain in his palm, and the opponent's strength was already spent. It didn't feel like an attempt to kill him, but rather an attempt to subdue him.

"Bang!"

However, he didn't hold back his lethal intent because of this. Not knowing exactly what the man wanted, his only choice was to kill him first and ask questions later.

His fist slammed heavily into the man's armpit, followed immediately by a crisp "crack" echoing in his ears.

The next moment, the man let out a miserable shriek and flew backward.

"What a tough body!"

Xu Yang remained vigilant. If this punch had landed on an ordinary person, they would have died on the spot, their internal organs pulverized, yet this man could still scream.

It felt as if he had struck a stubborn rock; had it not been for the reinforcement of his own internal energy, his hand would have been injured by the recoil.

"Die!"

He didn't stop there. Executing a "Bear Pounce," the mud beneath his feet shattered as he chased after the man like a bolt of lightning, throwing another punch.

Within his dantian, internal energy surged like a tide, continuously gathering in his fist.

In the dead of night, Xu Yang's fist seemed to emit a faint glow, tearing through the air.

"Brother, it's a misunderstanding!"

The man flying backward shrieked, spitting out a mouthful of blood, his face twisted in sheer terror.

Only then did Xu Yang notice that the man had been severely wounded long ago. His robes were already soaked in blood, marked by several palm prints that seemed to have been driven deep into his bones. His abdomen was torn open, revealing mangled, upturned flesh.

The man desperately raised his arms, trying to block Xu Yang's punch, but he lacked the strength.

"Crack!"

Xu Yang's fist shattered the man's arms, plowing through with unstoppable force to strike one of the palm-print wounds. Blood splattered everywhere, exposing jagged white bone.

The man's eyes rolled back, and he accelerated backward with a final, agonizing scream.

"Bang!"

His body slammed into a large tree, finally halting his flight.

The tree shuddered, shedding a flurry of leaves.

Xu Yang caught up. Even though the man was barely breathing and his body hung limp against the tree like wet clay, Xu Yang swung his fist once more, aiming directly for the vulnerable throat.

"Crack!"

The sound of breaking bone rang out. Under the impact of his fist, the man's neck twisted at an unnatural angle, snapped clean through.

"Hoo!"

Xu Yang let out a heavy breath. The man's eyes were wide open, seemingly filled with shock and lingering resentment.

As he withdrew his fist, the corpse slumped to the ground.

He must have mistaken me for an ordinary person...

The man had been severely injured and at the end of his rope; he must have been hiding there, unconscious, and when Xu Yang appeared, he had tried to subdue him, not realizing Xu Yang was also a martial artist—hence the cry of "misunderstanding."

Xu Yang didn't know if his guess was correct, but since the man was dead, there was no way to verify it.

Regardless, the man was certainly an expert, at least at the Great Completion of Qi Gathering. Had the man not been drained of energy and already wounded, Xu Yang would have been the one to fall.

Of course, if the man hadn't been injured, they likely wouldn't have fought in the first place.

Squatting down, Xu Yang began to loot the body. He first found a coin purse filled with broken silver, totaling about eleven or twelve taels.

It wasn't a fortune, but it wasn't a small amount either—equivalent to two months of his stipend at the Liu Mansion.

In his current state of living beyond his means, this silver was vital; he could maintain his martial arts progress without having to skimp on his training.

Continuing his search, he soon felt something hard sewn into the lining of the man's pant leg, feeling somewhat like a book.

"Could this be a secret manual?"

Xu Yang tore his hands apart with force. With a "rip," a blue-covered book appeared before his eyes, the three vigorous and powerful characters "Diamond Skill" written upon it.

"It really is a secret manual!"

His heart hammered wildly against his ribs as he scanned his surroundings with a vigilant gaze.

Since this man carried such an item and had suffered such grave injuries, it was highly likely he had been hunted down and brought to this state precisely because of this manual.

He quickly tucked the manual into his tunic, then grabbed the corpse on the ground and sprinted toward the nearby mountains.

"I'm back!"

Pushing open the door, he found the little girl, Xu Qing, still writing under the light of an oil lamp.

"Brother, why are you back so late today?" Xu Qing looked up.

"The master's household had some business; I was delayed."

As he spoke, he leaned in, wanting to see what Xu Qing was writing.

"You're not allowed to look!" The little girl hurriedly used her hands to block the items on the table.

"Your handwriting is so ugly, hiding it is the right thing to do."

Xu Yang laughed. The little girl's face turned bright red; she was indeed hiding it precisely because her handwriting was poor.

After chatting with Xu Qing for a while longer, he returned to his room, locked the door, and took out the Diamond Skill to begin reading by the oil lamp.

"For the average person, after gathering Qi, their True Qi possesses no special properties; whether used for attacking or tempering the physique, the results are quite mediocre.

Diamond Skill is a technique for cultivating Diamond True Qi. It can convert ordinary True Qi into Diamond True Qi. Once Diamond True Qi is mastered, the purity of one's True Qi increases significantly. Not only is it peerless in offense—making it difficult for an opponent to expel once it enters their body—but the effects on tempering the physique also change drastically.

If one uses Diamond True Qi to temper the body year after year, the body can become as hard as diamond itself."

This was actually a defensive technique for cultivating Diamond True Qi.

No wonder he had felt that man's body was abnormally hard earlier; it was likely he had also practiced this Diamond Skill.

Diamond Skill · Not Initiated (0/100)

As he finished the first pass, a faint light flickered before his eyes, and the panel popped up.

Xu Yang was somewhat moved. The proficiency required to initiate Mountain-Shaking Bear Fist seemed to be only 10; this was ten times that of the Mountain-Shaking Bear Fist.

"But that's to be expected!"

He recalled the description in the book, which stated that the cultivation of such defensive techniques had little to do with talent; it was primarily a matter of slow, grinding effort and years of unremitting persistence.

The quality of one's talent had little impact on the progress of this technique.

"The first step of cultivating Diamond Skill is to manifest the Diamond True Qi..."

In any case, he had spent the entire day patrolling and hadn't done much cultivation, so his energy was still abundant.

After hiding the Diamond Skill manual, Xu Yang closed his eyes and began his first session of cultivating the Diamond Skill.