Elephant Armor Technique

At that recollection, a faint, knowing smile appeared on Han Li's face.

Over the past half year or more, he and Zhang Tie had naturally become close friends who shared everything, thanks to their similar temperaments and backgrounds.

Han Li slowly uncrossed his legs and rubbed his calves. Sitting in meditation and practicing for so long had left his legs somewhat numb, and his blood was not flowing smoothly.

After rubbing them a few more times, Han Li felt the sensation return completely. Only then did he rise from the mat, habitually brush the dust from his clothes, and push open the stone chamber door to go outside.

He looked back at the stone chamber where he practiced and gave a mildly self-mocking laugh.

The chamber had been hollowed entirely out of a sturdy granite mountainside, and its door had been fashioned from a single massive slab of bluestone. If an ordinary person tried to force their way in from outside, they could forget about succeeding without hacking at it for quite some time with a mountain-splitting axe.

Apart from sect leaders, elders, and hall masters who held positions of standing in the Seven Mysteries Sect, not even core disciples of the Seven Ultimates Hall could casually have a secluded practice chamber like this. Such stone chambers were built specifically for people cultivating profound internal skills, to prevent outside factors from disturbing them during practice and causing Qi Deviation. Han Li had no idea what method Doctor Mo had used, but he had somehow persuaded several elders to agree to have such a chamber, unavailable to ordinary disciples, carved into the mountainside in Divine Hand Valley.

As soon as the stone chamber was completed, Doctor Mo designated it for Han Li's exclusive use. The decision left even Han Li somewhat overwhelmed by the favor.

Doctor Mo treated his disciple almost too well. From the day Han Li formally became his disciple, Doctor Mo gave him several different medicines to take every day, and made broths from unfamiliar medicinal herbs for him to soak in. Although Han Li did not know the names or uses of these medicines, whenever Doctor Mo used them, his usually expressionless face showed how reluctant he was to part with them. From that, Han Li could tell a little of how precious they were.

Clearly, these outside aids had been quite effective. Han Li's cultivation speed had improved considerably, and not long ago, he had finally succeeded in breaking through and mastered the first layer of the nameless Mnemonic.

It was just that several of his meridians had nearly ruptured during the breakthrough, leaving him with internal injuries that were neither light nor severe. Fortunately, Doctor Mo was highly skilled in medicine, the damage to his meridians was not too serious, and Doctor Mo had been willing to use good medicine, so Han Li suffered no lasting effects.

After Han Li was injured, Doctor Mo had been even more anxious than Han Li himself, unable to sit or lie still throughout the treatment. Only when he saw that Han Li's injuries had finally begun to improve did he heave a great sigh of relief.

Doctor Mo's behavior went far beyond the affection normally expected between master and disciple, giving Han Li a few inexplicable misgivings. If no one in the Han family except Third Uncle had ever ventured beyond their own impoverished mountain valley, Han Li might almost have thought Doctor Mo was some distant relative of his.

After leaving the stone chamber, Han Li stretched and slowly headed toward his lodgings. After becoming formal disciples, he and Zhang Tie had moved out of their old room, and each now had a small private cottage of his own.

As he passed Zhang Tie's cottage, Han Li glanced inside.

Sure enough, Zhang Tie was out again. Han Li guessed he had gone to practice at the waterfall beneath Red Water Peak once more.

After Han Li became Doctor Mo's formal disciple, Doctor Mo still had him practice only the nameless Mnemonic, showing no intention whatsoever of teaching him any other martial skills. Perhaps to console him, Doctor Mo held nothing back when teaching him medicine, even guiding him by the hand. Whenever Han Li had a question about medicine, Doctor Mo made sure to answer it to his satisfaction, and allowed him to take and read any of the medical books in his room as he pleased.

As for Zhang Tie, Doctor Mo kept his earlier word and taught him another, highly practical martial skill.

The skill Zhang Tie practiced was quite unusual. According to Doctor Mo, it was a very rare martial art called the Elephant Armor Technique. He said few people in the martial world had ever seen it, and many had never even heard of it, much less practiced it.

It differed from the ordinary martial arts currently circulating in the martial world. Generally, martial arts grew more difficult as one progressed, with the higher layers becoming increasingly hard to master and the effort required multiplying in turn. This martial art had nine layers in all, and the first three were easy to practice, no different in difficulty from ordinary martial arts. Starting at the fourth layer, however, it suddenly became arduous, and one had to endure much pain and torment that were difficult to imagine. Many who practiced it could not bear such inhuman suffering and stopped there, their cultivation making no further progress. As for practicing the fifth and sixth layers, the pain one had to endure was several times greater than before.

Yet once someone broke through the sixth layer and reached the seventh, the road ahead became smooth and unobstructed again, though for a few days each month, they still had to endure that agony that brought them to the brink of death.

All this deterred those who wished to practice the art, and was also the main reason it had now almost been lost.

Unusual as this martial art was, its power at the higher layers was truly astonishing. It was said that someone who reached the ninth layer was like a person clad in precious armor, impervious to blades and spears and untouched by water or fire. Let alone the force of palms and fists, even treasured sabers and swords could scarcely inflict serious wounds on him.

Even more enticing was that after practicing this art, an ordinary person would gradually gain the strength of a giant elephant. At the higher layers, their strength would become boundless, enough to capture a vicious wolf alive and tear tigers and leopards apart with their bare hands.

Those who knew of the art could be said to fear and love it in equal measure. Apart from the expert who created it, no one had ever mastered its ninth layer. Legend had it that the expert had been born without any sense of pain, which was how he had been able to create such a perverse martial art and bring it to its utmost limit.

Although Doctor Mo had told Zhang Tie all of the art's benefits and drawbacks, Zhang Tie had no firsthand experience of its harmful effects and did not take them seriously. He coveted the power of the Elephant Armor Technique and agreed to practice it without hesitation. The art also seemed well suited to him: in just two months, Zhang Tie had reached the peak of its first layer.

Recently, in order to break through the first layer of the Elephant Armor Technique, Zhang Tie had followed Doctor Mo's advice and practiced every afternoon beneath the waterfall at Red Water Peak, enduring the tremendous impact of water plunging from dozens of meters above.

According to Zhang Tie himself, the method was remarkably effective. Only a thin sheet of paper separated him from the second layer, and with just a little more effort, he would break through the bottleneck.