Eight Immortals Stance

Biodata

Power Progression

The levels below record Chen Jue’s mastery of the technique.

Background / History

Origins and Name

The stance takes its name from the legend of “the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each displaying their own powers.” Its practical purpose reflects that image: maintaining footing on a narrow, rocking fishing boat while using Boat Boxing against an opponent 10.

After reaching perfection, Chen Jue investigated its unexpected Daoist bonus. His research connected Lü Dongbin—also called Pure Yang Lüzu—with Quanzhen Dao, and placed the southward spread of Quanzhen teachings during the Yuan Dynasty in regions associated with Boat Boxing’s emergence. He hypothesized, rather than confirmed, that a coastal fisherman had learned Daoist internal arts from a traveling Quanzhen priest and that these teachings later survived as Boat Boxing and the Eight Immortals Stance 47 48.

Learning and Transmission

Chen Jue first copied the stance from online instructional videos, practicing on the floor because he lacked the required square table. He then purchased a sturdy wooden table to recreate the confined space of a boat’s cabin; training on it caused the stance to appear separately on his attribute panel 3 4 9.

Old Mr. Huang recognized Chen Jue’s movements as matching those taught by Huang Family Village’s elders. Although Huang had introduced Chen Jue to Boat Boxing, he admitted that he had never properly learned its stance training. Chen Jue returned the favor by explaining the technique, guiding him through several movements, and downloading the instructional videos onto his phone 14.

Underwater Breakthrough

Li Xiangning passed down a Boat Boxing maxim about entering the water to develop force. Inspired by it, Chen Jue began practicing near the reservoir’s submerged Floodgate Valve, using the currents and contact from passing fish to understand how his skin and pores responded to external pressure 42 45 46.

Underwater practice advanced the stance more than ten times faster than practice on the dam or aboard a boat. Chen Jue reached Lv2 (362/500) after one twenty-odd-minute session and later 436/500, before completing the skill in a subsequent session 46 47.

After perfection, he recognized that Boat Boxing and its stance could develop Hidden Strength only in his hands and feet. To pursue full-body Transforming Strength and benefit from the new Daoist training bonus, he began studying Wudang’s Thirteen Forms of Tai Chi and their accompanying stances 50.

Training Methods

Abilities & Skills

Balance and Combat Footwork

The stance stabilizes the lower body so that Boat Boxing’s strength can be used on an unstable surface 10.

• Boat stability: At Lv1, Chen Jue could keep his footing and use more vigorous boxing movements, though he still could not move as freely as on level ground 10.
• Advancing footwork: Li Xiangning attacked by springing forward on alternating legs while twisting and swaying as though aboard a boat; Chen Jue met him with the same stance footwork 44.
• Evasion and recovery: Its movements support circling an opponent and recovering from a loss of footing 23 44.

Physical Conditioning and Attribute Gains

Practice improves strength, agility, constitution, reflexes, and visual tracking. Chen Jue’s early table training made the placement of his feet much clearer to his eyes 10.

• Two hours at Lv0: Strength and agility each increased by 0.02, while constitution increased by 0.01 10.
• One hour after reaching Lv1: Strength and agility each increased by 0.03, and he accumulated 0.04 free attribute points 11.
• Lv2 training: Just over an hour generated 0.05 free attribute points, making the stance useful for funding advancement in slower-growing skills 31 32.
• Recovery with nourishment: After weight training, stance practice following ginseng tea restored lost constitution and raised his health index 13.

Bright Force and Pore Control

Increasing proficiency gives Chen Jue finer control over the opening and closing of his pores. After upgrading both Boat Boxing and the stance to Lv2, he could deliberately close pores across nearly his entire body 30.

• Explosive force: Chen Jue describes Bright Force as hard, outwardly explosive, and direct 45.
• Heat release: The closing posture lets him relax his pores and discharge retained heat and sweat; after chasing a pickpocket, this produced conspicuous white vapor 23 24.
• Combined breakthrough: His full mastery of Bright Force followed the joint upgrade of boxing and stance, rather than a separately demonstrated stance-only advancement 30.

Hidden Strength

Perfection allows Hidden Strength to burst through the palms and feet. Chen Jue contrasts it with Bright Force as yielding, inwardly explosive, and indirect 46 47.

• Underwater force: Bursts from his hands sent waves outward, while force from his feet stirred the bottom silt 47.
• Propulsion: During underwater training, he repeatedly exerted force through his feet to rise through eight or nine meters of water 46.
• Demonstration: After mastery, he produced needle-like streams of force underwater and a wall handprint marked with tiny holes 48.
• Ceiling: The technique develops Hidden Strength in the hands and feet, not throughout the entire body 50.

Pure Yang Lüzu, Enlightened Quanzhen

This bonus state appears when the stance reaches perfection 47.

• Greatly increases the training speed of authentic Daoist internal arts 47.
• Motivates Chen Jue to seek a Daoist successor art rather than continue relying on the perfected stance’s limited ceiling 50.

Named Forms

Limitations and Risks

• Heavy physical demand: Rapid early training left Chen Jue sore, weak, dizzy, and chilled. The narration identifies his condition as overtraining rather than confirming his own diagnosis of anemia 11 13.
• Breakthrough depletion: He used Ten-Ingredient Tonic Decoction to replenish himself after the Lv2 upgrade and the perfection breakthrough 30 48.
• Not a hard-body technique: After mastering Bright Force, Chen Jue injured his hand by punching a wall and sought separate body-conditioning arts 30 31.
• Hidden Strength strain: Four simultaneous bursts made his heart hammer and forced him to surface for air. He later suspected that excessive use could shorten his heart’s lifespan; this remains his assessment 47 48.
• Limited advancement ceiling: Perfection does not provide the full-body Hidden Strength required for Transforming Strength 50.

Practitioners and Transmission

• Chen Jue — Learns from online videos, registers the technique independently, and reaches perfection through underwater practice 3 9 47.
• Old Mr. Huang — Recognizes its traditional village form and receives practical instruction from Chen Jue after admitting that he never properly mastered it 14.
• Li Xiangning — Appears in the instructional videos, demonstrates the stance at the military exchange, and uses it against Chen Jue. His inherited maxim guides Chen Jue toward the underwater breakthrough 40 42 44 48.

Notable Quote

“The Eight Immortals cross aboard the boat; enter the water, and strength forms on its own.”
— Boat Boxing maxim passed to Chen Jue by Li Xiangning 42