Three wild wolves fell dead, and "Shi Tianwu" rubbed his wrist.
With Shi Tianwu, whose starting point was a Perfect Realm of at least ten thousand layers, killing three wild wolves should have been effortless. He couldn't possibly have been injured. But Lu Bian's body was simply too frail, and it had made "himself" hurt himself.
"That's it?"
"I didn't see anything at all."
Lu Bian spoke with Shi Tianwu inside his mind.
"Brother Lu Bian, given your physical condition... I can hardly imagine you surviving in a place like this."
"Shi Tianwu" surveyed the surroundings in the bright moonlight. This was no place for humans.
"I'll live as long as I can. Thank you, Brother Tianwu. You've given me another day of life."
Lu Bian spoke to Shi Tianwu.
"No."
"What do you mean, no?"
"Since I saved you today, I can't let you die—not here."
"Huh?"
Lu Bian was stunned.
"Brother Tianwu, what can you do? Your consciousness can't stay inside me for long."
"There is another way. I can teach you martial arts."
"Once you reach a certain level of cultivation, you'll be able to survive just fine here—and even in this unfamiliar New World."
"Shi Tianwu" stood with his hands behind his back, every inch the grandmaster of martial arts.
That was how Lu Bian saw Shi Tianwu.
But Shi Tianwu was far more than a "grandmaster of martial arts"...
He was the Ultimate Martial God, the one and only Martial God, chosen by the Primordial Spirit, the great powers, and Sha An Tian as the "last line of defense for life."
Lu Bian had never read the Hong Kong comics in the Sea Tiger and Martial God series. Now and then, he'd come across a few memes and terms from them online, but they'd made no sense to him and had slipped smoothly across his smooth brain.
His complete ignorance of the Sea Tiger series had led Lu Bian to misunderstand Shi Tianwu to some extent.
"Brother Lu Bian, I can sense some special energy in the air in your world. Your body seems terribly starved for it. As you breathe, it absorbs a great deal of that energy and retains it inside you."
"Brother Shi Tianwu, are you serious?"
"Let me think..."
"Could that special energy in the air be the spiritual energy of heaven and earth?" Lu Bian asked.
"What is spiritual energy?"
"Hmm, Natural Energy?"
"Whatever this energy is called, I can sense something more: it's gentle and pure, and it benefits your body."
"Could your illness have been caused by the fact that your original world had no Natural Energy, leaving your body's needs unmet?" Shi Tianwu offered his guess.
"Could something like that really happen?"
Lu Bian couldn't help falling into thought.
Back when he was in school, he'd been certain he had a special constitution.
For instance, he could predict the weather for the next twelve hours with one-hundred-percent accuracy. But it came at the cost of physical pain. When his body began to feel heavy and every movement of his joints hurt, clear skies were sure to turn overcast, cloudy skies were sure to bring rain, and rainy days were sure to bring torrential downpours.
At school, his classmates would always ask Lu Bian how he was feeling that day. If he said he wasn't feeling well, everyone in class would bring an umbrella.
"So what my body's been missing is the spiritual energy of heaven and earth?"
Lu Bian had searched for many cases like his. In a great many people who shared his affliction, their bodies had undergone physical changes: deformed joints, fused vertebrae, fused and deformed sacroiliac joints, and more.
As Lu Bian thought, Shi Tianwu could "see" what was on his mind.
They were sharing the same brain now.
"Don't be too upset."
In the world of the mind, Lu Bian seemed to feel Shi Tianwu pat him on the shoulder, soothing him.
"Let go of those distracting thoughts."
"Let's begin our training."
"Shi Tianwu" found a flat patch of ground, adjusted his posture, and began by teaching him how to breathe.
"Brother Tianwu, what martial art are you going to teach me?" Lu Bian asked.
"Martial arts?"
"It's the Ultimate Boundless Qigong," Shi Tianwu replied.
"I think the Ultimate Boundless Qigong is the best fit for you right now."
"Okay. I've got it—the Ultimate Boundless Qigong."
"Is it your family's legacy? Or is it taught by your sect?"
"You're passing it on to me. Are there any rules I need to follow?"
"..."
Shi Tianwu felt that Lu Bian talked a little too much, which reminded him of another brother from long ago.
But he didn't dislike Lu Bian's chatter.
"Let me tell you about the origins of the Ultimate Boundless Qigong."
"Once, there was a martial arts prodigy from Shaolin Temple named Ultimate Monk. He devoted his entire life to creating the Ultimate Boundless Qigong. Using Shaolin qigong as its foundation, he combined it with martial arts from other schools... and eventually completed this divine art. Unfortunately, when he emerged from seclusion in his underwater chamber, he discovered that the art he'd created couldn't help his benefactor."
"Why couldn't it help him?" Lu Bian asked curiously.
"Because his benefactor had already died before he came out of seclusion. His benefactor's adopted son was far stronger than him and far more skilled in martial arts, so he didn't need the Ultimate Boundless Qigong's help. And so Ultimate Monk passed away sitting in his underwater chamber."
"That's a truly heartbreaking story."
"Mm." Shi Tianwu smiled faintly. There was more to the story.
It was just that he found it difficult to judge the story's protagonist.
"Wait a minute, there's a Shaolin Temple in your world too?"
"Ultimate Monk, who came from Shaolin Temple, lived about five hundred thousand years ago," Shi Tianwu replied.
"What? Five hundred thousand years ago?" Lu Bian exclaimed.
"That's an incredibly long tradition."
"If it's been passed down for that long, the Ultimate Boundless Qigong must be amazing."
"That's right."
This was a peerless divine art that ordinary people could master, granting them power equivalent to fifty thousand levels of Magnetic Rotation. Of course, those ordinary people needed a certain degree of martial arts aptitude.
Lu Bian and Shi Tianwu exchanged thoughts rapidly in their minds, but their shared body didn't stop moving.
Shi Tianwu took control of the body and used the Ultimate Boundless Qigong's fist techniques to initiate Lu Bian into martial arts.
Shi Tianwu moved slowly enough for Lu Bian's mind and body to memorize every move and stance of the Ultimate Boundless Qigong. Even if Lu Bian couldn't remember them, Shi Tianwu had a "special method" for engraving the Ultimate Boundless Qigong into Lu Bian's body.
Lu Bian's conscious memory was incomplete, but Shi Tianwu made sure his body objectively remembered how to practice the Ultimate Boundless Qigong.
Because of the three starving wild wolves, Lu Bian and Shi Tianwu spent the entire night practicing the Ultimate Boundless Qigong.
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