Dragon Fist, Taizu Long Fist

Early the next morning, at the hour of the rabbit.

The morning mist had yet to lift from Linjiang County. It carried the damp chill of the river, clinging to the body like a layer of sticky gauze.

But the front courtyard of the Shocking Heron Martial Hall was already bustling with activity.

There were no shouted cadences, only heavy panting and the swish of a rattan cane slicing through the air.

"Lower your hips! Get them down!"

Ye Qingyao wove through the crowd with a rattan cane in hand, like an overseer. Whenever she spotted someone holding the wrong posture, she gave them a lash.

Crack!

A wealthy young man who had tried to sneak his hips a little higher instantly gained a swollen red welt across his thigh.

"Ah! I can't do it! My legs are broken, really broken!" Tears and snot streamed down the young man's face. His legs shook like leaves, and he swayed on the verge of collapse.

"Broken? I'd say you're itching for a beating!"

Ye Qingyao tapped the cane against her palm. "The hall master said that on the first day of stance training, anyone who dares collapse loses breakfast. And besides going hungry, you'll have to empty the chamber pots!"

At the words empty the chamber pots, the young man, who had nearly crumpled to the ground, somehow found the strength to grit his teeth and straighten his back. His face, though, was as white as a corpse's.

The twenty-odd new students held their horse stances, grimacing one and all.

Sweat ran down their foreheads and into their eyes, stinging fiercely, but none dared raise a hand to wipe it away.

This was their initiation beating.

For their first lesson at the hall, they would learn no punches. First, they had to hold a stance.

Li Xiang was among them.

At last, the sun rose, three quarters into the hour of the dragon.

Hong Tianbao strolled onto the Training Ground with a purple-clay teapot in hand.

"Stop."

That single word sounded like heavenly music.

Thud, thud...

No sooner had he spoken than the students toppled like dominoes, a whole swath collapsing to the ground.

They paid no mind to the dust or the cold. Sprawled on their backs, chests heaving, they gulped air like fish out of water, without the strength to move a finger.

"Oh, my aching bones..."

Groans rose from every direction.

Li Xiang alone forced himself to remain standing, hands braced on his knees as he breathed hard.

"Not bad."

Hong Tianbao glanced at Li Xiang and nodded. "Anyone still standing gets an extra chicken leg at lunch."

Then he walked to the center of the raised platform, his expression turning solemn.

"Quit playing dead and sit up. Listen!"

His bark rang out with such force that everyone's eardrums buzzed.

The students sprawled on the ground flinched and hurriedly struggled upright, each wearing a miserable expression.

"I didn't make you hold a stance to punish you, much less to watch you make fools of yourselves."

Hands clasped behind his back, Hong Tianbao paced around them, the flesh on his stout frame trembling slightly with every step.

"I'm telling you, standing rigid and motionless like that is a fool's stance. You're wooden posts. You won't gain an ounce of skill that way. You'll only ruin your bodies."

The students exchanged looks.

Weren't you the one who told us to stand like that?

"The horse stance. The important word there is horse."

Hong Tianbao pointed between his legs. "If it's called a horse stance, then you need a horse. What you were doing was squatting over a latrine, not riding."

"A horse?" Li Xiang frowned, not quite following.

There aren't any horses here. Are we supposed to imagine one?

Hong Tianbao saw their confusion and did not keep them guessing.

"The horse stance is the most basic stance in martial arts and the foundation of every skill. There's a saying in the martial world: 'Before you enter the gate, stand for three years; before you learn to fight, mount your horse.'"

"Mounting your horse doesn't mean driving yourself into the ground like a nail and staying there."

As he spoke, Hong Tianbao casually tucked the hem of his training clothes into his belt.

"What is a horse? A horse is alive. It moves."

"When you gallop across the grasslands, the horse's back rises and falls. If your body stays stiff, you'll be bounced off and break your neck."

"So a true horse stance seeks stillness within motion. From the outside, you look steady as a pine and firm as a bell. Inside, though, you must surge like a river. Your great tendons spring, your bones support you, and your muscles relax."

"Grip the ground with your feet, like an old tree putting down roots."

"Keep your spine straight, as though a rope were suspending you from the crown of your head."

"Imagine a real horse beneath you. It moves, and you must adapt to it, not fight it."

With that, Hong Tianbao set his feet slightly wider than his shoulders and slowly lowered himself.

This time, Li Xiang saw it clearly.

Hong Tianbao's horse stance was not particularly low. It even looked a little casual.

His round body did not lock rigidly in place the way theirs had.

Unless you looked closely, you would think he was motionless.

A rise, then a fall.

Like ripples spreading across a lake beneath a light breeze.

Or like someone riding a fierce horse that breathed and moved in a subtle rhythm, adjusting his balance to each breath.

"There may be no horse here, but there is one in your mind."

Hong Tianbao's voice grew distant.

"The rider sits astride, the horse gallops, force rises from the feet, and the waist commands it."

"In that rising and falling, you shed the scattered, rigid force throughout your body and replace it with living force, with force that moves as one."

"Come here, Li Xiang."

Hong Tianbao beckoned.

Li Xiang paused, then dragged his aching legs onto the platform.

"Do it again, the way I just did."

Li Xiang nodded. Drawing on the insight his Profession gave him, he recalled Hong Tianbao's wave-like rhythm.

He spread his legs and lowered himself.

This time, he did not fixate on a perfectly rigid posture. Instead, he tried to imagine that he truly rode a fierce horse.

Its back rose and fell, jolting beneath him.

If he did not move, he would fall.

Li Xiang tried relaxing the muscles in his waist, letting his body sway slightly with that imagined rhythm.

Rise... inhale.

Fall... exhale.

It was a strange sensation.

The ache lodged in his thigh muscles began to ease with that gentle rise and fall, as though an invisible pair of hands were kneading it away.

More importantly, the Golden Cicada inside him seemed to love the rhythm.

Bzzz—

A faint cicada's chirp sounded within him, too soft for anyone else to hear.

Warmth surged through him. No longer coming in intermittent scraps, it flowed freely through his limbs and bones in time with his movements.

Li Xiang felt his legs grow hotter and hotter. Their leaden weight rapidly faded, replaced by a fullness he had never felt before.

"Hm?"

Hong Tianbao narrowed his eyes, a sharp gleam flashing through the slits.

This boy's perception and eye for detail are even better than I thought.

His bones are a little old, but the responsiveness of his body is first-rate. He was born to practice martial arts.

Hong Tianbao had only meant to show the youngsters what was possible. He had not expected Li Xiang to understand the moment he was shown.

Just then, Hong Tianbao had distinctly seen Li Xiang's spine undulate slightly, like a great serpent.

His movements were still clumsy, but he had already reached the threshold of the Living Stance.

"Remember this feeling."

Hong Tianbao stepped behind Li Xiang and lightly touched a finger to his tailbone.

"Keep the tailbone centered, let the spirit reach the crown; sink the breath to the lower abdomen and hold your intent at the center."

"Tuck your tailbone like a frightened dog. Draw your hips in. That way, you can hold your breath in your belly instead of letting it leak out."

Following the instruction, Li Xiang tucked his tailbone inward slightly.

Boom!

In an instant, his whole body felt like a single unit. His upper body no longer weighed down his lower body. He felt like a taut, elastic ball, ready to launch at any moment.

The students below stared, dumbfounded.

They did not understand the principle. But Li Xiang, who had been as exhausted as they were, seemed to grow more spirited the longer he stood, color rising in his cheeks. They could not help but admire him.

Was this the difference between a genius and an ordinary person?

Another incense stick's time passed.

"All right. If you've rested enough, get up."

Hong Tianbao relaxed his stance and became the smiling fat man once more.

"Stance work is stillness, the foundation. Fist technique is motion, the killing move. Bringing motion and stillness together is the martial way."

"Stance work builds your reserves. Next, I'll teach you how to spend them—how to drive the force in your body outward to kill."

"Today, I'll teach you the Shocking Heron Martial Hall's introductory fist technique: Taizu Long Fist."

At the words Taizu Long Fist, disappointment flickered across the faces of several students who knew a little about martial arts.

The technique was too common.

Street performers used it. Household guards practiced it. Even the soldiers in the army trained in it.

It was the most commonplace technique imaginable.

Hong Tianbao took in their expressions but offered no explanation. He simply took his stance.

His feet were set at an angle, his fists drawn back to his waist. His whole body looked loose and full of openings.

"Many people look down on Taizu Long Fist."

Hong Tianbao's voice cooled, edged with disdain.

"Many prestigious sects in the martial world think it's a commoner's technique, a farmer's rough-and-ready style. Because the Martial Ancestor created it when he was a beggar, they mockingly call it Beggar Fist or Alms-Seeking Fist."

"They think its movements are too simple, without a hint of flair. It's neither graceful nor dashing. How could it befit a master?"

Before he had finished speaking, Hong Tianbao stamped forward. The blue brick beneath his foot groaned under the strain.

His right fist shot out like a cannonball.

An utterly simple straight punch.

No flourish, just a direct blow.

Boom!

Though the punch struck empty air, it produced an extraordinarily sharp report!

The air compressed to its limit in an instant, then burst apart. The blast stung the faces of the nearest students and sent their hair flying.

A righteous, vast, irresistible fist intent enveloped the entire Training Ground.

Everyone held their breath, stunned by the force of that single punch.

That was Beggar Fist?

What beggar could punch the air hard enough to make it explode?!

Hong Tianbao held his punching pose, his gaze lightning-sharp as it swept slowly across the crowd.

"But I have a grander name for this technique. It's the name the Martial Ancestor originally gave it—"

The great dragon of Hong Tianbao's spine shifted, giving a series of crisp cracks.

In Li Xiang's eyes, Hong Tianbao's round figure seemed to grow three inches taller. He was no longer an affable fat man, but a wrathful guardian deity.

A majestic, domineering, unyielding aura surged from him and soared into the sky.

"Dragon Fist!"

"Dragon Fist?" Li Xiang was startled.

A beggar and a dragon—what a vast gulf lay between them.

"That's right. Dragon Fist."

Hong Tianbao lowered his fist and looked at the disciples below, all of them born to humble circumstances.

"Before the Martial Ancestor founded the Wu Dynasty, the Demon Dynasty ruled the land. The Demonfolk treated us like livestock, slaughtering and eating us at will. Those were humanity's darkest years."

Hong Tianbao's voice was low, heavy with grief and fury long held in check.

"In those days, people lived worse than dogs. All they could do was kneel and beg the Demonfolk for mercy."

"But the Martial Ancestor refused!"

"Back then, the Martial Ancestor was only a beggar, a lowly man at the very bottom of society who survived on handouts and slept in ruined temples!"

"Yet he would not be a worm crawling on the ground, much less a pig raised in a Demonfolk pen!"

"He said, 'If demons can gain power and plants can become monsters, why must humans bow their heads? Why can't humans govern themselves?!'"

"He created this fist technique for one reason: he hoped that every suffering soul under heaven, highborn or lowborn, could straighten their spine and rise like a dragon!"

"With this technique, the Martial Ancestor shattered the Demon Dynasty's Dynastic Fortune, built over 1,630 years, and founded the Wu Dynasty, where martial arts flourished. That was the golden age of martial artists."

At this, Hong Tianbao's eyes dimmed again, and a trace of hatred entered his voice.

"Unfortunately, the Demonkin came through the pass and stole the Divine Artifact."

"To enslave us and break the Wu Dynasty's spine, those Demonkin issued the Martial Arts Prohibition Edict!"

"They burned martial manuals and slaughtered martial artists. Of the original thirty-six forms of Taizu Long Fist, they destroyed half!"

"Now that the Demon Dynasty has fallen, only the first eighteen forms of this fist technique have survived..."

Li Xiang clenched his fists. He remembered what Lin Shouzhen had told him aboard the Blackwater about the demon braids and the three massacres.

So behind the missing forms lay the blood and tears of three dynasties' rise and fall.

The Demon Dynasty devoured people, the Martial Ancestor established the Way, the Demon Dynasty severed the Dragon Spine, and the fist technique was left incomplete.

"But its spirit lives on!"

As Hong Tianbao spoke, he began to demonstrate.

His movements were not fast. In fact, they were slow.

Every move carried a vast, majestic force, like a river in full flood, impossible to stop.

"Opening stance: Hidden Dragon in the Abyss!"

Hong Tianbao sank low, like a dragon lurking in deep water, gathering strength and waiting for his moment.

"Strike: Dragon Appears in the Field!"

His fist thundered forward like a Divine Dragon's claw, tearing through the darkness and baring its edge.

"Turn: Flying Dragon in the Heavens!"

He suddenly leaped into the air. Though he was a two-hundred-pound fat man, he was as light as a feather. He flipped, swept his leg across, and whipped up a fierce wind.

"Tail Sweep: Divine Dragon Swings Its Tail!"

Beneath that round body, everyone seemed to see a furious golden dragon struggling to break its chains and soar into the nine heavens.

Its presence pressed the breath from their lungs, yet set their blood boiling until they wanted to throw back their heads and roar.

"This punch strikes the servility in your hearts!"

"This kick shatters the shackles before your eyes!"

Hong Tianbao roared as he fought, his voice like thunder.

"Once you've trained in this fist technique, you won't be peasants stuck in the dirt or weaklings anyone can bully. You'll be dragons lurking in the abyss!"

"Give yourselves one chance, and you'll ride the wind and clouds, become dragons, and soar into the sky!"

"Did you see it clearly?!"

Li Xiang stared at Hong Tianbao's movements, not daring to blink.

He felt his very soul tremble.

Across both his lives, he had never understood the word martial as deeply as he did now.

Martial: stopping the spear. That was what the character meant.

As Hong Tianbao demonstrated it, martial meant resistance, an unyielding spirit, and the courage to strike upward from below.

At last, Li Xiang understood why Taizu Long Fist was called the ancestor of a hundred fist techniques, and why it had endured to this day.

Taizu Long Fist trained more than muscle, bone, and skin. It trained a single breath of spirit.

The courage to refuse a place beneath others and swear to change one's fate!

Without that courage, even an unrivaled master was nothing but a glorified hired fist!

With that courage, even a beggar could possess the spirit to throw a punch and demand new skies for the sun and moon!

What a Dragon Fist. What a vision of everyone becoming a dragon!

Li Xiang's eyes shone as he struggled to brand every movement and every detail of Hong Tianbao's technique deep into his mind.

"Hidden Dragon in the Abyss!"

With a low shout, Li Xiang followed Hong Tianbao and began practicing, move by move.

His movements were still awkward. His muscles still ached. He still could not quite grasp how to channel his strength.

But he put everything he had into every punch.

Every kick looked as though he meant to smash those invisible shackles.

[New Profession unlocked: Boxer]

[Level: Lv1 (1/10)]

[Tier: 0]

[Profession trait: Dragon Spine (Beginner)]

[Dragon Spine (Beginner): Better to break than bend—such are a dragon's bones. The flexibility and explosive power of your spine have increased, and your resistance to mental pressure has risen significantly.]

[Profession Ability: None]

[Hint: Unlocking a Profession through different fist techniques produces different Profession traits]