This Seat Cultivates Martial Arts First, Without the Dao

"Ooh~~~ ooh~~~~"

The sky had not yet brightened when the sounds of roosters rose one after another.

In the courtyard of Ju'an Pavilion, Ji Yuan, who had been reading, only then realized that an entire night had passed.

During the time between the Third Watch and the Fourth Watch of the night, Ji Yuan had been cultivating the Heaven and Earth Transformation of the Qi Guiding Technique, allowing his body to receive a full range of spiritual moisture.

In the process, Ji Yuan had also tried the Holding the Piece to Gather Qi once more, but this time he chose to disperse all the spiritual energy and then absorb it using the Qi Guiding Technique.

This method caused a relatively high concentration of spiritual energy to gather within the small courtyard, greatly increasing the efficiency of the Qi Guiding Technique, while Ji Yuan himself felt no pain or burden.

However, this method ultimately had its limits, or rather, Ji Yuan believed that his current body had its limits.

By the time the Fourth Watch arrived, Ji Yuan could feel that the spiritual energy his body could hold had reached its limit. The spiritual energy accumulated in various parts of his body, slowly tempering it at an extremely low efficiency.

Ji Yuan was quite helpless about this. He only had one Qi Guiding Technique and no Qi Refining Techniques at all. This was all he could do, and it was already far, far better than his previous method of Holding the Piece to Gather Qi.

So afterward, he continued to pick up the bamboo slips and read, looking at another book related to cultivation.

This was a set of bamboo slips about certain techniques. Most of the content discussed common types of techniques, such as the Five Elements Category, the Yin-Yang Category, Thunder Methods, eerie Cursing Techniques, and Illusory Arts, as well as some Special Unusual Arts like Dream Entry and Soul Pulling, or the miraculous Spirit Summoning, and also touched upon Incense Deities and Mountain and Water Deities, matters related to the Divine Path.

But because this book itself was only two volumes of bamboo slips, no matter how small the characters, the content was actually limited. It merely skimmed the surface of each type mentioned, serving as a brief introduction.

Then, at the end, a few minor techniques were recorded—two simple Illusion Techniques, the Minor Fire Control Technique within the Fire Element, and the Minor Water Evasion Technique within the Water Element.

These basic techniques, even without a Qi Refining Technique, could be performed by Ji Yuan using his current unrefined spiritual energy, but that only gave him the foundation to cast them. He still needed to learn and master them through study, so he couldn't try them out immediately.

These bamboo slips were all fundamentals, yet they opened the door to a truly new world for Ji Yuan, bringing him unprecedented excitement and anticipation.

At this moment, Ji Yuan was like that child from his youth who pestered his Great Uncle-in-law and Grandpa to tell him stories, filled with longing for this world full of wonders.

Sleepiness? Sorry, that thing simply didn't exist right now!

"Ooh~~~ ooh~~~~"

This rooster's crow was very close to Ju'an Pavilion, likely from a rooster in a nearby family's coop starting to call.

"Hoo~~~ I've read through the night without realizing it!"

A gentle breeze blew, bringing Ji Yuan the chill of early spring. He knew he still had a long way to go—at least he was far from reaching the level of being impervious to cold and heat.

The branches of the large jujube tree in the courtyard rustled with a "shasha shasha" sound, swaying and dancing lightly in the breeze.

Ji Yuan looked up at this old jujube tree, which had seen many years. When the harvest season came, it would surely be laden with fruit!

In this world, unless one truly reached the level of contacting immortal abodes, there was no point in thinking about eating out-of-season vegetables and fruits. So Ji Yuan was also looking forward to the sweet, fresh jujubes from his own home.

"You're the only one who stayed up reading with me all night. Not bad, not bad—I'm not too lonely after all!"

Ji Yuan comforted himself with a word, smiled, and gently set down the bamboo slips in his hands, stretching his body in the courtyard.

He had already read the two most important books all night. Considering the balance of work and rest, Ji Yuan began searching through the remaining book chest for other interesting books.

He set aside the Chess Sutra and Chess Manuals for now and directly pulled out those few Martial Arts Manuals. As a result, of the remaining ten volumes of bamboo slips, aside from one volume of the Chess Sutra and two volumes of Chess Manuals, the other seven volumes turned out to contain only two manuals.

One was the "Iron Punishment Battle Post," covering Internal Cultivation Methods and Combat Techniques, occupying six volumes of bamboo slips; the other was the "Eagle Claw Hand," consisting only of Breathing Methods and technique skills.

From the names alone, Ji Yuan had a guess, and it was confirmed in the narrative of the texts.

Both of these martial arts manuals were the kind of martial arts practiced by people within the constabulary and similar official circles. From the self-assessment in the manuals, these techniques were not top-secret martial arts, but they were far from common, low-grade goods—they were considered mid-to-upper-tier martial studies.

Both martial arts were created by a master from the Yamen, once known as one of the Six-Prefecture Iron Constables, who poured his lifelong effort into them. Their characteristics were ease of learning, fast cultivation, and fierce, powerful techniques with immense force. The first half was widely circulated within official circles, and many outstanding officials had studied them.

But martial arts qualified as mid-to-upper-tier were naturally not simple. They were typical of being easy to learn but hard to master, making it difficult to produce true experts.

Ji Yuan found it both amusing and exasperating.

These two martial arts manuals rambled on and on, writing countless things, with content far exceeding the two cultivation classics. But in Ji Yuan's eyes now, they just seemed very messy.

"Martial arts, huh!"

The bamboo slips in Ji Yuan's hand were tossed up and down. Since he had no better cultivation techniques for now, practicing some martial arts to gain more means of self-preservation wasn't a bad idea.

The sun rose and set, and more than half a month passed. Ji Yuan lived a carefree, leisurely life, immersed in an experience akin to the first time he touched a computer game in his past life.

When his body could withstand spiritual energy, he used the Holding the Piece technique to gather it, then used the Heaven and Earth Transformation to guide the Qi. Afterward, he practiced the two martial arts manuals, and in his spare time, he read the Chess Sutra and Chess Manuals.

In short, aside from going out to eat at mealtimes every day, Ji Yuan lived an even more reclusive life than in his past life. As a result, apart from the neighbors in Tianniu Quarter, no one knew there was a person like Ji Yuan. Only the people near the noodle shop he frequented had some slight acquaintance with him.

One day, Ji Yuan adjusted his breathing, stood as straight as a pine, and slightly lifted his heels.

Swoosh~

His entire body suddenly leaped up, then with light steps, he "pa pa pa pa" ran up the jujube tree in the courtyard. In a dozen steps, he reached the top of the tree. After a graceful backflip, he leaped more than three zhang into the air.

The entire movement was as smooth as flowing clouds and water. Then, when his body reached its peak, instead of crashing down like a heavy object, he took a breath of air, and like a bird gliding down to land, he quickly and gently stood on a branch of the jujube tree, pressing it down into a curve with a creaking sound.

He stood steadily on the branch, his true qi seemingly swaying along with the branch and his center of gravity. At least for a certain period, as long as the true qi did not disperse, his weight would not crush the branch.

'Cool!'

Ji Yuan couldn't help but exclaim inwardly!

After practicing lightness skills for so long, he had finally achieved this result. Although Ji Yuan had no basis for comparison, he felt that his martial arts progress was definitely super-fast, considering that the manuals spoke of bitter training in terms of years.

At the root of it all, the reason for Ji Yuan's high efficiency in martial arts training was still due to spiritual energy.

For Mortal Martial Practitioners, the transition from Post-Natal to Pre-Natal represents an extremely high watershed. Martial arts manuals describe the Pre-Natal realm in very mystical terms—things like sensing the Vast Heaven and Earth and refining the marrow and cleansing the organs with the Power of Heaven and Earth.

But in Ji Yuan's understanding, the so-called Pre-Natal realm meant one had already begun to use Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy to purify oneself. The Qualitative Change of internal energy at the Pre-Natal Realm could be said to be a special kind of True Qi mixed with spiritual energy.

So for Ji Yuan, setting aside martial techniques for the moment, Internal Cultivation was very easy to get started with, and it also made his Lightness Skill remarkably effective.

Techniques were a bit more troublesome, since they required martial arts honed through thousands of repetitions. But internal cultivation and techniques complemented each other—if the matching internal cultivation advanced with Divine Speed, then technique progress would also advance by leaps and bounds.

There was also a saying in the books: "Once Reaching Pre-Natal, All Paths Open." Ji Yuan thought this was somewhat exaggerated, but it fully illustrated the leap in efficiency.

These were the Mundane Minor Arts that cultivators would completely scoff at, yet Ji Yuan found endless delight in them!

Putting away his thoughts, Ji Yuan, who had been standing in the tree, leaped down and landed steadily beside the stone table. He stretched out his leg and hooked his toe, sending a Jujube Branch flying over his head along with his straight Right Leg executing a Heaven Ascending Kick, and caught it steadily in his hand.

'How suave!'

A move like this, if Ji Yuan from his previous life had tried it, he'd probably have pulled his groin. Now, it was as simple as drinking water.

Ji Yuan took a moment to compose himself, then used the branch as a substitute for a Broad-backed Straight Blade and began to dance through techniques in the courtyard, producing sounds of "swish-swish" and "whoosh-whoosh."