Second Level of Form Transformation: Hardness and Softness Complement Each Other, Control Over Reception and Emission

The wind howled by his ears, his robe flapping sharply.

His hair whipped wildly as Hong Yuan sped across rooftops and courtyards, his figure swift as a tiger or leopard, nimble as a spirit ape.

In just a few breaths, Hong Yuan had left all the screams and wails from the Huang Mansion behind him.

He still did not stop running.

Even his direction was a straight line—through streets and alleys, over eaves and ridges, up high and leaping down.

Even when he ran into the ten-foot-high walls of those wealthy clans and great households, he merely tapped the wall with the tip of his foot to borrow force, and his body shot upward like a loosed arrow. With a light touch of his palm on the top of the wall, he landed lightly inside the courtyard.

If there happened to be people in the courtyard, before they could even react, Hong Yuan had already darted up onto the eaves again and sprinted away.

To ordinary eyes, he was like a gray-black bolt of silk flashing past at high speed; they could not make out his appearance at all.

In moments, the city wall loomed into view.

The wall of Qingxu County was about twenty feet high.

Hong Yuan went straight ahead, sweeping in like a gale, looking as if he were about to smash headfirst into the wall.

Whoosh!

His body suddenly soared up, becoming parallel with the ground.

The wall instantly became open road. He rushed up it in two or three steps, and this time he did not even need to grab on and borrow momentum; he ascended to the top of the wall as if walking on level ground.

The ones guarding this stretch of wall were merely two old soldiers with graying temples, still dozing.

Hong Yuan did not pause. With a shake of both arms, he was like a great bird spreading its wings to fly, suddenly leaping into the cloudy sky.

He looked up at the heavens. Warm sunlight spilled down, its luminous sheen entering his eyes.

A cool wind seeped through his body.

In that instant, his whole body felt clear and open.

Hong Yuan laughed aloud. He finally understood why so many people in his previous life had liked parkour, why even disability or death could not stop those who came after.

This feeling of the road beneath his feet, as if there were nowhere he could not go, was truly wonderful.

Moreover, in this world, there was also the existence of "force," which raised the limits of the human body by who knew how much.

As his figure fell downward, tiny mosquito-like words floated up before Hong Yuan's eyes, swaying with his line of sight.

Bang!

Hong Yuan landed on both feet, sprinting forward while diverting a bit of attention to check the sudden information.

(Killed an enemy, heart and mind became unobstructed, will was tempered... Comprehension +1 wisp.)

(Fought a fierce battle, cut down a wicked foe with the blade, muscles and bones were honed... Root Bone +1 thread.)

In an instant—

An inexplicable warm current flowed through his body.

A cool breath rushed straight to the crown of his head.

All at once, from his body to the depths of his mind, Hong Yuan seemed to have undergone a cleansing, glowing with new vitality.

Inside his shell, blood and qi surged, on the verge of bursting out.

The rhythm of Hong Yuan's breathing changed.

The Tiger Roar Breathing Method began to govern the blood and qi within him.

He used the breathing method to regulate his blood and qi evenly and sensed the arrival of a certain opportunity. His feet did not stop running, while the trees and wild grass around him swept past quickly.

Very soon, he had run more than ten li, when a sudden rumbling sound rose up.

Not far away was the Yudai River, surging forward.

This was a stretch of rapids.

At the center of the river, years of scouring waves had formed a small sandbar. The river water on both sides slammed into it and was pushed back, wave striking wave, exceedingly turbulent.

And amid that thunderous sound of waves crashing, as if some thin membrane had been torn open, Hong Yuan let out a shout. His figure shifted from a high-speed sprint to an abrupt stop, his palm turning into a claw, his five fingers like hooks.

Hiss, hiss!

The trunk of a large tree by the river split open, pierced through at once by five fingers, leaving five deep holes.

With another lift, great sheets of bark were stripped away.

Hong Yuan exhaled a wisp of white air. His swift claw force became soft, and his hooked fingers turned into a drifting palm that slowly pressed down on the tree trunk.

The tree trunk was not damaged in the slightest, but as the fierce river wind blew—

Where Hong Yuan's palm had struck, cotton-like splinters of wood immediately peeled away rapidly, soon revealing a palm print about an inch deep.

Hard and soft in harmony!

Hong Yuan had impressively reached the second level of force transformation, "retracting and releasing at will"!

A smile appeared on his face. He took the wine gourd from his waist and drank it down in great gulps, glug, glug. Then, very uncivilly, he tossed the gourd away, dashed dozens of steps, and leapt into the air.

Splash!

Amid the violent splash of waves, he plunged headfirst into the surging river.

As his body sank into the water, Hong Yuan instantly felt torrents coming from every direction—some carrying fierce force as they crashed into him, trying to sweep him away.

Some were unbroken strands of tearing power.

Some were spinning eddies, circling back and forth around his body, driving him forward, trying to drag him into some whirlpool.

Hong Yuan relied only on his powerful physique to tread water and maintain his body's balance.

Amid these waves that were fraught with danger for ordinary people, his mind was very calm.

"True Person Li's notes mentioned that hardness and softness push against each other and give rise to change..."

Therefore, hardness and softness were the foundation stones of all changes in force.

No matter what kind of air-striking force, bone-penetrating force, silk-entangling force, Vajra force...

Even the Tiger-Subduing Sect's "Tiger-Baleful Mountain-Splitting Force"...

In essence, they were all derivations of changes between the two kinds of force: hard and soft.

Above "sending and withdrawing at will" was "minute control." Usually, only after reaching minute control could one cultivate forces such as air-striking, bone-penetrating, or spiral force.

It was very simple.

Compared to hard force, forces like air-striking force and spiral force were far too complex in terms of transformation.

One needed to control the qi and blood within one's own body to form force, then strike it out to injure others.

Without the minute-control level of command where "circulating force is like drawing silk," that force might not only fail to be struck out, it might instead explode inside one's own body!

Before injuring the enemy, one would injure oneself first and lose one's own life.

If the "Tiger-Baleful Mountain-Splitting Force" had been complete, Hong Yuan would only have needed to follow the path of his predecessors and cultivate upward step by step.

First reaching the minute-control level in changes of force, then cultivating those forces.

But unfortunately, True Person Li had died suddenly, and the core secrets of the "Tiger-Baleful Mountain-Splitting Force" had been lost.

"If it's lost, then it's lost..."

Hong Yuan only felt a slight regret. His skin sensed the pulling and drawing of the surrounding eddies, and he could not help sighing.

Nature was the most formidable expert in this world. Within this river water, those countless fine streams gathered together and transformed into whirlpools formed by currents hidden beneath the surface—how was that not another form of "spiral force"?

If one day his power could compare to this "spiral force," perhaps he truly would be unmatched under heaven, right?

Hong Yuan's thoughts drifted without bounds. He soaked in the river until one breath was exhausted, and only then did force erupt beneath his feet, stirring up a wild surge that pushed him out of the eddy.

Swimming to the bank, Hong Yuan shook his body and flung water all over the ground. Then his expression suddenly shifted.

"No, other martial artists can only cultivate forces like spiral force and silk-entangling force after comprehending minute-control level changes in force. I seem to be able to try ahead of time."

"Even if other martial artists have trained in external arts, they've only tempered their muscles, bones, skin, and membranes. They can't train the inside. Their foundation floats on the surface, very shallow..."

"But I took one step at a time and added points all the way up!"

"Every time my aptitude improves, it strengthens my body in every aspect. Not just skin, flesh, muscles, and bones—even my viscera and meridians are no exception."

"My foundation is incomparably solid!"

As soon as the thought arose in Hong Yuan's mind, he checked his own information.