Horizontal Crab Iron Shirt

"How did she get hurt this badly?"

Yue Buqun frowned deeply at the cut across his daughter's nose.

"Little senior sister had bad luck. A stone fell from the ceiling of the smithy and hit her, knocking her unconscious. When she landed face-first, a bit of gravel on the floor cut her nose.

I patted her face but couldn't wake her, so I hurriedly carried her here for Master and Mistress to treat."

Tian Hao spun his tale with a perfectly straight face, insisting it had been an accident. He certainly hadn't knocked his senior sister unconscious himself.

Besides, apart from striking his little senior sister with that knife-hand blow, he really hadn't done anything else. He had even kindly tried to catch her, but who could have expected her to counterattack instinctively even in that state? That slight delay had let her fall to the ground.

"..."

Old Yue was utterly speechless. Had his precious daughter really been that unlucky today?

"Shan'er is fine. She'll recover after resting for a while!"

Having finished examining the wound on her daughter's nose, Ning Zhongze stood up, then gave Tian Hao a reproachful look.

"A woman isn't a sack. You can't sling her over your shoulder like that-you need to cradle her in your arms. If you keep this up, how will you ever find a wife?"

She was rather helpless before this disciple's blunt nature. It was as though his mind made no distinction between men and women. Even with her daughter's beauty, he had never spared her a second glance.

He had just come running with her daughter slung over his shoulder, which pressed into her abdomen. Combined with the violent jolting, it had made the girl instinctively vomit the moment he set her down, leaving her in a miserable state.

Had he put any other family's daughter through that, she would surely have cut all ties with him.

"Women are nothing but trouble. They only slow down my training."

Tian Hao looked thoroughly averse to the idea. He disliked dealing with women, especially beautiful ones.

In his previous life, as an elite gamer, he had painstakingly formed a team with his pack of disreputable friends. In the end, girls had lured his teammates away one after another, leaving him a commander without a single soldier.

Worst of all, an older woman had even come to pester him, asking him this and that. It had annoyed him to death.

"..."

Her lovely eyes narrowed slightly. Ning Zhongze had the distinct feeling that the brat's words carried a hidden barb.

The atmosphere in the room grew heavy. Seeing his wife's increasingly hostile expression, even Yue Buqun couldn't help shivering. He hurried into the inner study and fetched a stack of handwritten pages and a jar of medicinal oil.

"Embrace Origin Force is indeed too profound and difficult for you to practice. While your mistress and I were away this time, we found you a manual for a form of Iron Shirt, along with the method of borrowing an opponent's force that you wanted.

I originally intended to finish working through and transcribing them, making sure there were no hidden dangers or errors, before giving them to you. Since you're here today, take these back to study. I'll give you the latter half once I've confirmed it's correct.

This jar of A San Divine Oil should also be enough to help you reach the beginner stage of Iron Shirt."

He took Tian Hao's training very seriously. Increasing the boy's strength would speed up the tempering of the meteoric iron.

Unfortunately, Embrace Origin Force was too profound and difficult to understand. Neither husband nor wife had practiced it; they only had a manual. With Tian Hao's aptitude, even reaching minor mastery would be a struggle, never mind major mastery.

As it happened, a body-hardening external art like Iron Shirt could effectively support his practice of Embrace Origin Force, strengthening his body, especially his skin and underlying tissue.

"Thank you, Master and Mistress!"

Overjoyed, Tian Hao hurriedly accepted the handwritten pages, filled with gratitude.

External martial arts fell into three main categories: refined training, martial training, and body-hardening training. Of the three, refined training was the hardest, body-hardening training came next, and martial training was the easiest.

Embrace Origin Force was a refined-training external art. Its core lay in condensing and applying force, demanding exceptional aptitude and comprehension. It was decidedly unfriendly to an ordinary fellow like him.

By comparison, a body-hardening external art like Iron Shirt was much better. As long as he was willing to put in the hard work, he could see results quickly.

Of course, only getting started was easy. Achieving real mastery required ten or twenty years of arduous practice, along with enormous amounts of resources.

Fortunately, he already had a cheat at his disposal, so he should be able to master it more quickly.

"Master, you just said 'a form.' Are there many kinds of Iron Shirt? And why is this medicinal oil called A San Divine Oil?"

Keenly picking up on the key point in Old Yue's words, Tian Hao realized he really didn't know much about this subject.

Besides, the name A San Divine Oil sounded odd, just like the name of a miraculous medicine from his previous life.

Well, its effects seemed much the same too: both helped increase bodily hardness. He wondered whether it was a secret medicine that had come from India.

"Iron Shirt was originally a military martial art. After it spread beyond the army, martial artists combined it with various secret medicines, techniques, and even internal cultivation methods, modifying it into many versions. Even I don't know how many forms of Iron Shirt exist in the martial world today.

The one we found for you is called Horizontal Crab Iron Shirt. It was supposedly created based on the way river crabs molt their shells. It allows practitioners to continually shed the dead skin caused by training, and the new skin that emerges is tougher.

The creator of Horizontal Crab Iron Shirt was named A San. He also created the medicinal oil, so later generations named it after him."

Yue Buqun explained with a smile. He had put considerable effort into obtaining this Iron Shirt, going through countless twists and turns before finally trading an internal cultivation method for Horizontal Crab Iron Shirt.

It also came with a medicinal formula. He had made that jar of A San Divine Oil according to the recipe; Tian Hao only needed to spread it evenly over his skin while training.

"Practice that Eagle Claw Stele-Smashing Hand diligently too. We know you dislike those overly literary manuals, so we've already rewritten them for you. Come ask if there's anything you don't understand."

Her expression clearing from cloudy to sunny, Ning Zhongze offered a reminder. After obtaining the two manuals, they had split the work of studying them. Her husband, whose cultivation was higher, had worked on Horizontal Crab Iron Shirt.

Her cultivation was a little lower, so she had taken responsibility for studying Eagle Claw Stele-Smashing Hand and rewriting it in plain, accessible language to make it easier to understand and practice.

Tian Hao had previously requested this sort of martial art that borrowed an opponent's force, saying it would help him swing a hammer for forging. To them, however, it was no great matter.

After all, these were merely external martial arts. They could obtain them by paying a modest price.

"Thank you, Master and Mistress. I'll go back and train."

After sincerely thanking them, Tian Hao happily left the room.

"Ah!"

Yue Buqun suddenly sighed, his expression gloomy.

"What's wrong?"

Ning Zhongze looked over with concern, unable to understand why her husband had suddenly sighed.

"To think that Mount Hua once led the Five Mountains Sword Sects and could almost contend with Shaolin and the Wudang Sect. Now, when a disciple wants a few external martial arts, we have to go outside to find them."

Recalling the Mount Hua Sect's former glory made Yue Buqun want to cut someone down.

As the foremost of the Five Mountains Sword Sects, the Mount Hua Sect had possessed foundations far beyond what ordinary people could imagine, along with a vast collection of martial arts.

Though not as astonishing as Shaolin Temple's Seventy-Two Supreme Arts, its collection had been more than sufficient for its disciples' cultivation. It had also gathered various martial arts from across the martial world.

Take Iron Shirt, for instance: the Mount Hua Sect had once collected six or seven versions. External martial arts like Eagle Claw Stele-Smashing Hand had been too numerous to count.

Unfortunately, after the conflict between the Sword and Qi branches, the Sword Branch had refused to accept defeat and burned down the library, consigning its many secret manuals to the flames.

With the sect's elders also suffering devastating casualties, many supreme arts had been lost. Of the Mount Hua Nine Arts, which had originally allowed practitioners to reach the houtian realm, only Violet Mist Divine Skill, Mount Hua Internal Skill, and Primal Chaos Skill remained.

Many sword techniques had been lost as well. The Mount Hua Sect's decline was the bitter fruit of those people's sins.

"Ah!"

After a long silence, Ning Zhongze let out a quiet sigh. She, too, had no idea how to judge what their predecessors had done.

A perfectly sound Mount Hua Sect had not been destroyed by outside enemies. Its own people had brought it down.

"Junior sister, look after Shan'er. I'll go practice my sword for a while."

No longer feeling sleepy, Yue Buqun headed for the nearby Quiet Chamber.

Upon entering the Quiet Chamber, he stopped before a mural. Holding his palm just above it, he used a special method to channel his true qi and activate the mechanism within. After a series of clicks, a hidden compartment was revealed.

Taking the Violet Mist Manual from the compartment, Yue Buqun quietly leafed through it.

He had nearly reached the pinnacle of Violet Mist Divine Skill, and it had earned him a place among the ten greatest experts of the Southern Ming Kingdom's orthodox martial world. Yet he still fell somewhat short of men such as Shaolin's Fangzheng and the Wudang Sect's Qingxu, and was even half a step behind Zuo Lengchan.

Of course, this was not because Violet Mist Divine Skill was inferior. Rather, this divine skill was more balanced and gentle, offering comprehensive capabilities but insufficient killing power.

In terms of cultivation alone, he was no worse than Fangzheng, Chongxu, and the others.

Before long, he reached the manual's final page and stared solemnly at the four lines written there.

The Violet Mist Manual, the gateway and foundation; the Sunflower Manual, the summit of perfection!

"Master, how am I to reclaim the Sunflower Manual?"

Raising his head, Yue Buqun felt lost.

Whether he wished to preserve the Mount Hua Sect's legacy or revive the sect, he needed formidable strength. The Sunflower Manual was the future of Violet Mist Divine Skill.

Yet the Sun-Moon Demon Cult had seized the Sunflower Manual long ago. There was simply no way to take it back.

What should I do?