Bottleneck

On the training ground, Cheng Xiao was practicing Tai Chi to recover his strength. Nearby, Xiao Wu's lips were pouted so high they could have hung a bottle of soy sauce, and a bamboo broom stood beside her. Tang San was nowhere to be seen.

As work-study students, Xiao Wu and Tang San were assigned to clean the academy every day. Yet today, Tang San had not shown up, leaving Xiao Wu to do the cleaning alone.

After finishing his Tai Chi, Cheng Xiao slowly drew in his force, but his brows remained tightly furrowed.

His Tai Chi Fist had indeed become quite good, yet there was always an indescribable thin membrane blocking him, making him feel as though something was still missing from it.

This had troubled him for many days, like a cloud of fog hanging over his heart.

"What kind of fist technique is that? It's all soft and limp, like dancing." Xiao Wu handed him a cup of water. She was in a bad mood, so her words were less than polite. "You might as well spend more time with me."

"What happened? Who upset you today?" Seeing that she was a little sulky, Cheng Xiao smiled. "Where's Xiao San?"

"Hmph! Don't mention him." Xiao Wu seemed to have had a small conflict with Tang San.

Cheng Xiao did not try to mediate. It was not the first or second time she had bickered with Tang San, and she would forget it by the next day anyway.

It reminded Cheng Xiao of his cousin's son from his previous life. One day, the boy would quarrel with Xiao Mei and declare that he would never play with her again; the next day, they would be sweet as honey. A few days later, he would "fall in love with someone else" and start playing with Xiao Yi instead.

Purely childish temperament.

Although Xiao Wu was a Soul Beast in human form, her mind matched the human age she had taken after transforming. She was still like a six-year-old child, without even the awareness to keep proper distance between boys and girls. After quarreling with a friend for two days, she would calm down.

"I'm furious, I'm furious!" Xiao Wu hammered the notebook in her hands as if it were Tang San himself, venting the resentment in her heart. "That stinking Xiao San hasn't come back for three days! What on earth has he been doing? Leaving me here to clean all by myself! I hate him!"

"What book is that?" Cheng Xiao immediately changed the subject.

What a joke. Only Fei Yangyang would help someone else clean. He aspired to be Pleasant Goat. He was not stupid enough to work for someone without getting anything in return. Tang San had already dragged down the market floor; Cheng Xiao was not about to stupidly charge in and compete for the low-end market when the returns were so poor.

"Xiao San gave it to me. He said it's a Meditation Technique, much better than what the academy teaches. Grandmaster gave it to him and told me to cultivate with it." Xiao Wu casually waved the book in her hand.

She was a Soul Beast in human form, so she did not need to cultivate so diligently. As long as she integrated into human life, her Soul Power would rise rapidly on its own. The Meditation Technique was not of much help to her.

"A Meditation Technique?" Cheng Xiao raised a brow. According to the academy's curriculum, Meditation Techniques were generally not taught until the third year. He was only in his first year, so naturally he had no chance to encounter one.

"Let me take a look."

"Here. Take it, take it!" Xiao Wu did not care in the slightest.

Cheng Xiao took the notebook and flipped through it. It recorded research on cultivating Soul Power: what kinds of circulation routes could more easily increase one's strength, what environments suited different Martial Souls for cultivation, the strengths and weaknesses of Meditation Techniques from different schools, and so on.

By comparing the Meditation Techniques of various schools, the notebook discarded the dross and retained the essence, summarizing an extremely efficient Meditation Technique.

He suddenly recalled that, in the original story, even Tang San himself had praised the excellence of this Meditation Technique. Though it could not compare to the Mysterious Heaven Skill, it was still far better than most Meditation Techniques used by Soul Masters on the market, and better than what the academy taught as well.

"This was probably compiled from materials collected by Spirit Hall, with the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's own Meditation Technique added in, then finally organized and summarized by Yu Xiaogang."

As Cheng Xiao flipped through it, he halfheartedly chatted with Xiao Wu, but his mind was elsewhere. As expected, rich women are still the best. This really saves twenty years of detours. Gathering the Meditation Techniques of all these schools would take time and effort. If it weren't Spirit Hall, it would probably be impossible to do.

Cheng Xiao sighed inwardly. He wanted to latch onto a rich woman too! Once he thought of it that way, the little rabbit suddenly did not seem so appealing anymore.

"But there's still something wrong with this. Some parts clearly take detours. The Eight Extraordinary Meridians aren't fully traversed, and parts of the Twelve Meridians are missing too."

Cheng Xiao did not know internal cultivation methods or any Meditation Technique, but he understood acupuncture Acupoints, the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, and the Twelve Meridians. He had needed to memorize them when studying acupuncture. In his previous life, he had also heard some Daoist Inner Core cultivation theories through hearsay—things like the Lesser Heavenly Circuit traveling through the Ren Du Meridians, and the Greater Heavenly Circuit traveling through the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, and so on.

Many of the Meditation Techniques in the notebook involved the Twelve Meridians and some Acupoints among the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.

Comparing the two, the theories from those Daoist Inner Core cultivation teachings in his previous life about qi circulating through the heavenly circuits probably were not wrong after all.

Looking at it this way, this Meditation Technique was not nearly as amazing as people claimed. At its core, it was still just borrowing others' ideas, conducting comparison experiments, then organizing and summarizing them. Of course, that did not mean it was worthless. At least no one else had summarized it, right?

Cheng Xiao smacked his lips, returned the Meditation Technique to Xiao Wu, and lost interest in it. Rather than sit around meditating, he might as well practice a few more sets of Tai Chi...

Boom!

"Wait!"

A sudden clap of thunder seemed to explode in Cheng Xiao's mind. Could the invisible, intangible bottleneck he encountered while practicing Tai Chi be this?

Cheng Xiao abruptly rose to his feet, a grave expression appearing on his face. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Xiao Wu had still been pouring out her bad feelings when she saw Cheng Xiao suddenly stand up, leaving her stunned.

Yet Cheng Xiao did not answer her at all. He walked to an open area and assumed the opening stance of Tai Chi. As he practiced, he also circulated the Meditation Technique summarized in the notebook.

Crack~

At first, Cheng Xiao was extremely unaccustomed to multitasking, and his Tai Chi even became distorted. But as he practiced Tai Chi and his Soul Power circulated through his body along the route, a crisp crack suddenly rang out from his spine. It felt as though a force spread from his spinal bones throughout his entire body, tearing a tiny gap in that invisible barrier.

"That's the feeling!"

Cheng Xiao's eyes shook, and delight appeared on his face. This was precisely what he had felt was missing over the past few days!

Yet the sensation vanished in an instant, quickly disappearing from his body without lingering for long. The obstructed feeling surfaced again, always hanging over Cheng Xiao's heart and leaving his entire body uncomfortable.

"No! It shouldn't be like this."

After completing a set of Tai Chi, Cheng Xiao's brows furrowed once more.

"The Ren Du Meridians..."

Cheng Xiao recalled the Inner Core theories from his previous life and quickly noticed the issue. When the Soul Power circulation route recorded in the notebook reached the Ren Du Meridians, it would directly turn back and bypass them. Not only that, it also strangely avoided several more difficult routes within the Twelve Meridians.

"Could it be that people in this world think passing through the Ren Du Meridians is too difficult and too inefficient for absorbing Soul Power, so they bypass them?"

PS: Don't blame me for adding this Tai Chi setting. It is meant to prepare for the Yin-Yang Balanced Twin Soul Core later on. The protagonist has neither an old master nor a system, so he cannot pull a deus ex machina out of nowhere. He can only lay the groundwork by adding setting details.