Pent-Up Fury

Pushing open the courtyard gate, Yang Ge immediately spotted the yellow-mud footprints all over the yard.

He let go of the leash and walked into the courtyard with a dark expression. The door to the inner room stood wide open, and through it he could see the furnishings ransacked into a complete mess...

At the sight, Yang Ge should have felt relieved.

Relieved that his flying-fish embroidered uniform and Ox-Tail Saber had both been left at the outpost, where those two men could not find them.

But looking at the trashed room, he felt only disgust, a wicked blaze of anger surging straight to his head!

He stood in the courtyard for a long while, his face ugly, before suddenly erupting into hysterical curses. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you! What a shithole, a shithole, a shithole..."

Little Yellow also raced back and forth across the courtyard, barking furiously without pause.

Only after venting his rage with a full seven or eight minutes of cursing did Yang Ge shut Little Yellow in the inner room, his expression still dark.

Then he returned to the center of the courtyard, settled into the Primordial Unity Stance, and circulated force throughout his body!

I'm in a foul mood today. Forget farming for now. I'll break through a minor realm and go vent some of this fury...

He had closed his eyes for only the time it took an incense stick to burn when his face gradually flushed crimson. His whole body kept swelling and contracting slightly with the rhythm of his breathing, while a wisp of heat rose from his head and coiled over his Hundred Meetings Acupoint, gathering without dispersing.

Open Sea, Absorb Qi was the first great chasm on the martial path.

In Shen Fa's words, that chasm barred the way of ninety-nine out of every hundred martial practitioners in the world!

For an ordinary martial practitioner to cross that chasm, he first had to find the sensation of "sinking force into the Dantian."

The sensation, not the location!

Anyone with a little common knowledge knew where the Dantian was: three inches below the navel.

But the sensation of "sinking force into the Dantian" was not something one could imagine just by racking one's brains.

Even if one managed to imagine it, it would most likely be wrong!

With a vital point like the Dantian, one mistake generally meant there would be no chance to start over.

Thus, the safest and most commonly used way to pass this hurdle came down to one word: grinding... the slow, patient grinding of a water mill!

One had to quiet the mind and focus on circulating force through the body over and over, feeling how it passed through the Dantian and how the force throughout the body gathered at a single point.

This was often where a martial practitioner's innate constitution and talent showed themselves.

Some people had minds free of distractions and clear, unclouded bodies. Perhaps just two or three months after mastering Inner Force, they would firmly grasp the sensation of sinking force into the Dantian, achieving Open Sea, Absorb Qi as naturally as water flowing into a completed channel.

Others had cluttered minds and turbid bodies. Even after passing force through the Dantian's location thousands upon thousands of times, they felt nothing but emptiness. No matter what they did, they could not sense that thing called the Dantian, and naturally could neither open the sea nor draw in qi.

Of course, shortcuts did exist.

One could find a Qi Sea Realm expert whose Inner Qi was balanced and gentle, preferably someone of the same martial lineage, and have that expert inject a trace of Inner Qi into one's Dantian every day. Before it dispersed, one could carefully experience the sensation of the Dantian existing as tangibly as a physical object.

After two or three months of this, even most martial practitioners with rather dull aptitudes could smoothly open their sea and draw in qi...

But this method was itself a problem: where could one find a Qi Sea Realm expert without the slightest selfish motive, willing to spend two or three months helping someone achieve Open Sea, Absorb Qi?

Looking at it another way, who would dare let anyone other than their own father, mother, master, or master's wife slap their Dantian every day?

If the force applied there was even a tiny bit too heavy, one's body would become like a water balloon with a hole poked in it, water spurting out with a hiss. Forget achieving Open Sea, Absorb Qi—whether one could even retain one's Inner Force would be a serious question!

Thus, even in great clans and major sects, this shortcut was treated with extreme caution. They would not lightly use it to pull up seedlings in the hope of helping them grow.

By the standards of these two relatively common breakthrough methods, Yang Ge was not much better off than other martial practitioners.

Because he, too, had yet to sense the existence of his Dantian.

But how could the Lesser Grandmaster Physique, famed for encountering no bottlenecks below the Return to the True Realm, possess an empty reputation?

Unable to sense his Dantian?

No problem!

He could clearly sense his meridians!

They existed inside his body, one after another, broad, straight, and empty, like expressways!

So he had no need to proceed step by step like other martial practitioners, achieving Open Sea, Absorb Qi, then circulating qi to break through acupoints and clear the meridians...

Instead, he could channel force straight into his meridians, then have a hundred rivers converge upon the sea, forcing his Dantian open from the other direction!

Of course, this unconventional method demanded an extremely high degree of control over Inner Force!

After all, it meant charging at the Dantian with broad, sweeping strokes...

But the innate constitution of the Lesser Grandmaster Physique had given him exquisitely fine control over Inner Force from the very beginning!

When other martial practitioners with minor mastery of Inner Force could still only wield it like a hammer, Yang Ge could already use it to play Thousand Cherry Blossoms.

After four months of tempering, his control over his own Inner Force had reached the wondrous state of Force-Splitting into Threads!

Otherwise, he could not have executed the killing move-Wind-Catching Shadow-Seizing-with silken smoothness the instant he grasped the essence of Wild Wind Leg.

Thus, scattering force into all his meridians and forcing open the Dantian like a hundred rivers converging upon the sea seemed a reckless, all-or-nothing gamble, fraught with danger.

But if asked for his insight, Yang Ge would have offered only one answer: "Nothing special. Just a practiced hand!"

After Yang Ge entered meditation, his breathing grew longer and deeper, his chest rose and fell more dramatically, and his face gradually turned a dark purplish red...

An unknown amount of time passed.

Then came a "pfft."

A powerful gust with a rather pungent smell whipped up a gale in the little courtyard!

As though a thousand-pound burden had been lifted from him, Yang Ge slowly relaxed his taut body, and his complexion gradually returned to normal.

But he did not open his eyes. He maintained the Primordial Unity Stance as an invisible current of air slowly enveloped his body, pushing away the drifting dust before it could come near him.

He stood there for more than two hours.

When the setting sun cleared the top of the wall and shone directly onto his eyes, he abruptly opened them, leaped twenty or thirty feet into the air, and snapped a kick toward the pool in the courtyard's southeastern corner from a distance.

Bang.

Water erupted three feet into the air, and countless cracks split the jumble of stones serving as a rockery in the pool.

Yang Ge landed lightly, clenched his fists, and quietly felt the surging power inside him, so different from the circulation of his former Inner Force. "Oh, so this is fucking Inner Qi!"

As he sensed it now, the greatest difference between Inner Qi and Inner Force was that Inner Force traveled through the sinews and bones, while Inner Qi traveled through the meridians!

That distinction meant the strength of Inner Force depended on the body's own foundation. With strong sinews and bones and abundant qi and blood, one's Inner Force would naturally be powerful!

The strength of Inner Qi, on the other hand, depended on the power of the Inner Qi itself and the response speed of the meridians...

If he had to make an analogy...

Inner Force was like a fist. Its power to hurt someone depended on how hard the fist was and how much strength it carried.

Inner Qi was like a firearm. Its power to hurt someone depended on both its caliber and its rate of fire.

Of course, technique was extremely important too, but even a sharpshooter could not deny the importance of a good gun, could he?

As the old saying went: practice boxing without cultivating power, and old age leaves you empty-handed; cultivate power without practicing boxing, and you are a boat without a rudder!

Yang Ge slowly opened and clenched his fists, familiarizing himself with how to use Inner Qi while pondering, I wonder whether Wild Wind Leg has a follow-on cultivation method for the Qi Sea Realm. If not, I can only use it as a fighting technique...

"Knock, knock, knock."

Someone suddenly knocked on the courtyard gate.

Yang Ge turned toward it. "Who is it?"

Fang Ke's voice came from outside. "Boss, we've found them..."

Yang Ge strode to the gate and pulled it open. "Where?" he asked coldly.

Suddenly enveloped in Yang Ge's shadow, Fang Ke felt an inexplicable pressure weighing on his heart. He hurriedly cupped his hands and answered quietly, "The Welcome Inn!"

Yang Ge pressed his lips tightly together. "Round up the brothers and bring the weapons. Let's go meet those two Northeastern Tigers!"