Pure Yang Lüzu, whose birth name was Lü Yan, courtesy name Dongbin, and Daoist name Pure Yangzi, was one of the Eight Immortals of popular legend.
He was a patriarch of the Daoist Elixir Cauldron School who later passed his teachings to Liu Haichan and Wang Chongyang. Quanzhen Dao revered him as one of the "Five Northern Patriarchs."
The Eight Immortals Stance drew its inspiration from the tale of the Eight Immortals crossing the sea. Since Patriarch Lü was one of those immortals, this martial stance clearly had deep and intricate ties to Quanzhen Dao.
Chen Jue searched online for more information about the Quanzhen Teaching and discovered that this major Daoist school had spread its teachings south during the Yuan Dynasty, reaching Su, Zhe, and Min. The timing roughly coincided with the emergence of Boat Boxing.
Once he connected the timeline and locations, Chen Jue had a fairly clear picture. The founder of Boat Boxing, most likely a coastal fisherman, had probably learned authentic inner-door Daoist arts from a Quanzhen priest who had traveled south to preach. After over a thousand years of evolution and transmission, those arts had survived to the present as Boat Boxing and the Eight Immortals Stance.
"I never imagined that a martial art I picked up on a whim would have such a long history!"
"What a jackpot!"
After making sense of its origins, Chen Jue felt refreshed, his thoughts clear and unburdened. He went to the kitchen and drank a large pot of Ten-Ingredient Tonic Decoction to replenish the physical depletion caused by his breakthrough in the Eight Immortals Stake Skill.
After mastering Hidden Strength, Chen Jue's stats were now as follows:
Player: Chen Jue Age: 27 Health index: 100% Strength: 1.72 Agility: 1.27 Intelligence: 1.24 Constitution: 2.06 Skills mastered: [Boat Boxing Lv2 (377/500)] [Twelve Forms of the Muscle-Tendon Change Classic Lv2 (47/500)] [Shaolin Body Conditioning Skill Lv2 (2/500)] [Shaolin Child Prodigy Skill (perfected)] [Eight Immortals Stance (perfected)] Unallocated attribute points: 0.41
Compared with before the martial arts tournament, all his stats had improved to varying degrees.
The greatest change, however, was Chen Jue's newfound ability to unleash Hidden Strength!
He glanced at the white wall, which already bore two holes from his punches. This time, instead of punching it again, he stepped forward, planted his feet apart, and pressed his right palm against it.
"Hmph!"
With a muffled grunt, every pore on his body closed. His heart hammered, and his surging blood gathered in his right palm as a burst of heat erupted from it.
With a dull thud, a cloud of white plaster dust billowed from beneath Chen Jue's right palm.
He withdrew his hand and looked. The spot where his palm had rested was soaked with sweat left behind by the release of Hidden Strength.
Beyond that, the previously smooth white paint now bore a palm-shaped depression, as though a handprint had been mounted on the wall!
Inside that palm print was a dense cluster of tiny holes, like countless needle pricks-the marks left by the Hidden Strength released from Chen Jue's palm!
"Is this what the Tieba Experts meant by force spraying out like needles?" Chen Jue stared at the palm print for a long time before reluctantly looking away.
If such terrifying force struck a person, it could probably tear straight through flesh and skin, hitting the blood vessels and tendons underneath. With a little more force, it might even punch through bone.
Remembering how much he owed the Tieba Experts for their guidance, Chen Jue suddenly had an idea for repaying their kindness. He ran to the kitchen, found a transparent glass tank, and filled it with water.
He placed his phone against the side of the tank, aimed the camera inside, started recording, and submerged his hand in the water.
Then he stamped his feet, closed every pore on his body, and made his heart give a powerful beat, unleashing Hidden Strength from his palm once more.
Countless streams of water as fine as needles shot out together from beneath Chen Jue's palm, breaking apart only when they reached the bottom of the tank.
Seeing this, Chen Jue hurriedly stopped and relaxed, heat steaming off his entire body.
Using Hidden Strength consumed an enormous amount of stamina. Whenever he activated it, his heart pounded with an abnormal ferocity, as though it had swallowed gunpowder.
"A heart blazing like fire, Hidden Strength spraying forth!"
"Using it too often would probably shorten my heart's lifespan. I'd better keep it to a minimum." Chen Jue pondered this, gaining an understanding of the martial principles involved.
He then wiped the water off his hands, picked up the phone, and trimmed and saved the video demonstrating needle-like Hidden Strength through the water.
First, he sent the clip to Master Li Xiangning. Without the guidance of his Boat Boxing formulas, Chen Jue would never have perfected the Eight Immortals Stance so quickly, much less mastered Hidden Strength along the way.
When Master Li Xiangning did not reply on WeChat, Chen Jue figured he was either asleep or out socializing.
Chen Jue then logged onto Tieba and posted the video with the title: "Thanks to all the experts here for your guidance. I've mastered Hidden Strength! Please keep helping me out!"
The moment his post went up, the Internal Fist, Traditional Martial Arts, and National Martial Arts forums all erupted.
The number of comments beneath his post shot up as well, quickly reaching 99+.
Half-Step Collapse Fist Rules the World: "??? (confused man meme)"
Sun-Style Taiji Successor: "??? (confused man meme)"
Little Vajra of Martial Arts: "??? (confused man meme)"
Shaolin Sweeping Monk: "Coming through! Derailing the thread and breaking the chain! OP, are you sure what you filmed was Hidden Strength and not some qigong special effect? (wide-eyed)"
Meng-Style Bajiquan: "OP was pretending to be a newbie here just the other day, telling us he couldn't even close his pores. Now, only a few days later, he's spraying Hidden Strength like needles? (doge) Still, those effects are really well done. Definitely not bargain-bin CGI."
Evil-Quelling Sunflower: "OP, are you sure you mastered Hidden Strength? You didn't just go take a few days of computer graphics classes? (doge)"
Most forum users thought Chen Jue's video was faked with special effects, deliberately posted to fish for replies and likes.
After all, although these so-called forum experts were all talented people with a way with words, very few had actually reached an advanced level in martial arts. In fact, hardly any of them truly practiced at all.
Most of their talk about "force spraying like needles" and "bursts of Hidden Strength" came from National Martial Arts novels and martial arts theories they had read online.
They simply repeated what others said. Not one of them had personally seen Hidden Strength released underwater the way Chen Jue had demonstrated.
Still, the forums harbored hidden talents, and a few people with genuine skills really did mingle among them.
For instance, the owners of the first three accounts that had posted question marks immediately grabbed the video and rushed off to consult their elders or masters after watching Chen Jue's upload.
Meanwhile, the private-message inbox of Chen Jue's Little Expert at Training account was flooded by enthusiastic forum users.
Some asked where he had learned to make those effects, some asked whether he accepted disciples, and others wanted to know where he lived so they could visit, spar with him, and test his real Hidden Strength skills.
In short, there were all sorts!
As for Chen Jue, after posting the thread, he received an incoming WeChat video call from Master Li Xiangning. He tapped to answer and began chatting with him.
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