Martial Dao

Biodata

Power Progression

The documented breakthrough belongs to Li Feng, a practitioner of the Martial Dao.

Cultivation System

Qi-Blood Realms

• Strength testing: The City Guard Office uses a 300-jin stone weight to test first-stage strength. An ordinary beginner can lift it; Li Feng holds it overhead for several minutes, displaying strength comparable to minor attainment while denying that he has reached that level 6.
• Higher realms: The escaped death-row convict’s exact realm is not identified. Even wounded and shackled, he threatens multiple officers supported by heavy crossbowmen 3 10.

Internal and External Training

• Internal training normally cultivates qi and blood 5.
• External training, including saber and fist techniques, primarily develops methods of fighting opponents 5.
• Realm and technique mastery are distinct: Official runners generally possess second-stage cultivation but only minor accomplishment in their external arts. Li Feng believes his perfected saber art may compensate for his lower realm in actual combat 5.
• Water-Cutting Saber Art is an unusual case: Although presented as a low-grade gang technique, its perfection develops both qi and blood and saber force. Li Feng consequently suspects that it is more than it appears 5.

Abilities & Skills

Physical Enhancement

• Cultivation tempers muscles and bones and develops the first trace of qi and blood needed to enter the martial path 6.
• Li Feng’s breakthrough strengthens his entire body and dispels the exhaustion caused by his overnight practice 5.
• First-stage cultivation does not make a practitioner capable of safely stopping a street battle involving dozens of armed gang members 8.

Weapon Techniques and Saber Force

• Perfected Water-Cutting Saber Art gives Li Feng the speed, strength, and technique to kill three attacking Green Bamboo Gang members 9.
• Saber force can emerge through sufficiently advanced technique mastery: Li Feng develops a trace upon perfecting the art 5.
• The Black Tiger Gang leader is also reported to possess blade force and to have killed dozens of men single-handedly 8.

Martial Senses

• Lin Yanqiu detects Li Feng’s qi-and-blood fluctuations when he releases his restrained aura, confirming that he has become a genuine martial artist despite her own severe injuries 10.

Access and Training Costs

• Manuals: Li Feng estimates that a good cultivation method starts at one hundred taels of fine silver 1.
• Instruction: Martial-school apprenticeship fees are beyond his means. Sun Yan’s family spends a fortune to secure his enrollment at an inner-city school 1 7.
• Restricted transmission: Cultivation methods issued by the City Guard Office cannot be privately shared without permission, preventing Lin Yanqiu from simply teaching Li Feng hers 1 7.
• Time: Ordinary practitioners without instruction may require years to enter the martial path. Even gifted students with instructors and medicinal decoctions generally need several months 5 6.
• Nutrition: Training consumes stamina, qi, and blood. Li Feng’s intense hunger forces him to stop practicing and seek better food or medicinal meals 10.
• Injury treatment: Shattered bones and meridians threaten Lin Yanqiu’s martial future; the potentially restorative Black Jade Bone-Molding Paste is prohibitively expensive 3.

Heavenly Dao Advance Panel

The panel is Li Feng’s personal means of accelerating mastery, not a general feature available to Martial Dao practitioners 1.

• A technique must first reach beginner level through Li Feng’s own practice before the panel can advance it to full mastery 5.
• Advanced mastery includes deeply ingrained technical understanding and combat experience, rather than knowledge alone 5 9.
• The advance creates a debt repaid through serious practice. Casual repetition produces no repayment progress 10.
• One focused Water-Cutting Saber Art session yields 2% repayment; Li Feng estimates fifty days to clear the debt at that pace 10.

Social Significance

• Employment: Cultivation determines eligibility for auxiliary service, regular appointments, and constable posts within the City Guard Office 3 5 8.
• Status: Wealth buys access to instruction and resources. Sun Yan’s school enrollment attracts favorable treatment from Constable Wang Bei before he has completed his studies 7 8.
• Security: Lin Yanqiu’s crippling injury immediately weakens Li Feng’s perceived protection, prompting colleagues to distance themselves from him 7.
• Gang power: The Green Bamboo Gang reportedly fields more than a dozen third-stage martial artists, helping explain its challenge to the established Black Tiger Gang 8.
• Limits of ordinary skills: An Hongye states that Li Feng’s archery cannot improve further without a higher Martial Dao realm; accuracy alone lacks the support of powerful qi and blood 1.