Secret Martial Arts

Biodata

Power Progression

The following records Su Han’s documented advancement in Secret Martial Arts, including his development of True Gang fusion.

Training and Realms

• Training methods cultivate jin and advance the practitioner’s realm; fighting methods apply that force in combat 11.
• Heavenly Phenomenon Secret Martial Arts has five training levels, from Ming Jin through True Gang, and nine fighting techniques. Each of the first four realms supports two techniques; True Gang supports the ninth 11 14.
• Higher-level fighting techniques require the corresponding force cultivation. Memorizing their diagrams and formulas does not remove that requirement 14.
• Secret medicine can accelerate cultivation. Lu Xunxiang instructs Su Han to take one pill before each practice session 13.

Abilities and Limits

Force Application

Secret Martial Arts improve how effectively a practitioner uses physical strength rather than simply supplying greater raw strength 3 12.

• Training coordinates muscle exertion, balance, breathing, and the flow of force through the body 3 11.
• Precise control allows practitioners to restrain their blows and incapacitate opponents without immediately killing them 6 38.
• Hua Jin techniques let Su Han release several times the power of his underlying strength 23.
• Advanced inner force can invade an opponent’s blood vessels, muscles, organs, or mechanical internal structures as fine threads 40 45.

True Gang and Body Tempering

Lu Xunxiang initially teaches that Secret Martial Arts cannot meaningfully temper the body: their principal benefit is technique, while the practitioner’s physical condition remains a limiting factor 12. Su Han later discovers an exception through True Gang fusion 29.

• Ordinary stance and training methods can make muscles sturdier and bones harder, but do not strengthen the body at its foundation like qi-and-blood cultivation 18.
• Su Han concludes that sufficient True Gang force, or the qualitative change caused by merging several kinds, can stimulate bodily improvement 29.
• Three-art fusion visibly tempers his muscles, bones, and internal organs 41.
• Six-art fusion produces black, mist-like Gang energy and a reversible transformation from 1.75 meters to nearly three meters tall 50.
• This discovery is difficult to reproduce: True Gang practitioners are already rare, and mastering two complete arts is rarer still 29.

Compatibility with Other Systems

Secret Martial Arts can supplement enhanced bodies and coexist with Immortal Martial Arts 12 20.

• Enhancement serums: Practitioners retain their force-application foundation while gaining greater bodily strength, speed, and durability. Several former Celestial Phenomena students follow this route 12.
• Qi-and-blood cultivation: Su Han circulates Hua Jin alongside blood flames without interference; their effects reinforce one another 20.
• True Gang fusion: His merged Gang energy also combines with qi and blood, adding fine threads of force to his blood-flame attacks 29 31.
• Unverified second form: After developing Divine Martial Form, Su Han estimates that combining it with qi and blood would yield at least 200,000 combat power, but does not test it in the provided chapters 50.

Physical Ceiling

• Lu Xunxiang places an ordinary True Gang grandmaster’s combat power around that of a White Grade enhanced human, citing 30,000 as the absolute limit 12.
• This estimate is not fully consistent with later reports: Giant Whale Sect master Chen Wanjun is explicitly credited with 35,000 combat power 27.
• Su Han exceeds conventional expectations through his continuously improving physique, force techniques, True Gang fusion, and Immortal Martial Arts—not through ordinary single-art cultivation alone 23 29 50.

Known Secret Martial Arts

History and Place in Society

Ancient Inheritance

Secret Martial Arts descend from ancient skills. Lu Xunxiang states that ancient practitioners could reach Divine Martial Realm and be considered invincible, but the methods for that realm were subsequently lost 12 49.

• Restricted transmission: At the Celestial Phenomena school, advanced instruction requires a formal master-disciple relationship; money cannot override the inheritance rules 12.
• Public inheritances: Some complete arts become public property after their original organizations fall. Iron Bone Art, Flowing Cloud Force, and Mountain-Crushing Fist survive in this form 49.
• Organized competition: An October martial arts tournament draws participation from Secret Martial Arts sects and schools 19.

Modern Powers

• Relative standing: Chen Yixi places Secret Martial Arts below enhanced humans, modified humans, and divine mecha masters in the local hierarchy. She identifies her cult’s Immortal Martial Arts as a separate system 26.
• Employment: Practitioners and sects accept escort, bodyguard, security, and cleanup work from major organizations such as the Sturgeon Group 19 27.
• Recruitment: Major families value practitioners’ existing martial foundation. The Kong Family offers Xue Hongquan enhancement serum and cultivation resources to secure his allegiance 22.
• Resistance to enhancement: Older martial artists oppose enhancement serums because of their enormous drawbacks, despite the advantages they offer 12.
• Cult persecution: The Ten Thousand Immortals Cult demands that local Secret Martial Arts forces submit and destroys those that refuse. Its targets include the Red Fist Sect and Giant Whale Sect 21 22 34 46.