Profound Qi of Water Fortune?

Hand-to-hand combat?

Yu Tunzhou shook his head, troubled. "There's nowhere to learn it. What am I supposed to do, go to the Heavenly Peng Daoist Temple?"

"Why not?" Old Mo leaned against the side of the boat, fanning himself with his bamboo hat. "You've already taken their core visualization diagram."

"I'll keep looking. I'm still planning to focus on Qi Ingestion cultivation."

"You shouldn't overdo Qi Ingestion cultivation each day, but you can spend more time on [Refining the True]," Old Mo suggested. "As long as your meridians can take it."

"Mm."

Yu Tunzhou stood on the boat, sinking his Qi into his Dantian and planting his feet. The boat rocked gently with the waves, but he remained steady as a rock, no longer shaky and unsteady on his feet as before. His eyes shone as he said:

"I think once I've mastered this fist art, its divine intent will emerge on its own. I shouldn't have much trouble defeating everyone in town."

Old Mo looked over at his words.

Mm, his movements were smooth and unified, his Qi contained within, without a single opening anywhere on his body. He had reached the state of embracing the origin and guarding the one, just as expected.

Old Mo wondered whose descendant would be the first to face Tunzhou in the future. Hopefully, they wouldn't be too surprised when the time came.

Setting Divine Abilities aside, in a contest between ordinary martial techniques, one who had reached the state of embracing the origin and guarding the one had an innate advantage.

As for that fist art...

For once, Old Mo felt a little guilty, muttering that the old Daoist priest was unreliable.

Back then, he had merely seen that the boy who had just arrived in town seemed a little downhearted, so he had casually found a pretext to give the boy something to look forward to in life.

As for that fist art... recalling the crude moves he had chanced upon on the mountain two years ago, Old Mo was a little worried himself. What could anyone possibly gain from practicing those?

Not long ago, with the Dao contest about to begin, he had even gone up the mountain to ask the old Daoist priest at the temple about it. The old priest had sighed and groaned, saying that Old Mo had meant well, but this was a textbook case of good intentions leading to bad results: he had given the boy hope he shouldn't have had for no reason...

Old Mo had nodded like a chick pecking at grain and asked how to remedy it.

The old priest had waved a hand with spirit soaring to the clouds, declaring that he would take care of it and that Old Mo could head back down the mountain without worry.

Whew, that bearing, that air-good heavens, he had looked every bit the master of a Daoist lineage!

Old Mo had immediately given him a thumbs-up, saying that once the priest's term guarding the grotto-heaven was over and he returned to the mountain, he would probably go from second master to first master. Otherwise, there was no justice in the world!

The old priest had chuckled and said Old Mo had a good eye, and that he had been thinking the same thing...

But judging by the present situation,

that old fellow was all talk and no action, not doing a lick of real work.

Old Mo mulled it over. He still had to guide Tunzhou onto the proper path.

Otherwise, when it came to a fight, even if it was just a pair of weaklings pecking at each other, such an unorthodox fist art would put him at a serious disadvantage in the end.

Yu Tunzhou gazed at the gently flowing river and suddenly lowered his voice, his tone tinged with curiosity:

"Old Mo, are there really Dragon Kings in the world outside? And do they live alongside humans in the mortal world?"

"Of course there are, and quite a few at that. It's not just the dragon race, either."

Old Mo came back to himself and gave a low chuckle.

"After High Antiquity, humanity reigned supreme, and all spirits, monsters, Gods and Devils who harbored ill intent were driven out. Many nonhuman beings who had been allies of humanity stayed behind, signing contracts with the various lineages to uphold order together."

Yu Tunzhou suddenly asked in a low voice, "Do we have a Dragon King here?"

"No living ones."

Old Mo narrowed his eyes, as though looking back on that piece of history, and said slowly,

"There are dead ones, and more than one. Why do you think Dongting has the right to stick its foot in here? In the battle a thousand years ago, when that one was surrounded and killed, the great Households suffered countless casualties. The forty-nine Households that gave the fight their all were the source of the town's present order."

"To share in the fortune, each Household buried its own experts who died in that battle in this grotto-heaven. Their remaining Primordial Spirits were also scattered throughout it, together forming the 'Heavenly Dao' of this world. Thus, 'the Heavenly Dao is impartial, and all Households within the grotto-heaven are equal.'"

Yu Tunzhou's thoughts churned. In that case, wasn't this grotto-heaven also a public cemetery?

He suddenly looked at the river and sucked in a breath. "Dongting's dead Dragon Kings aren't buried in this river, are they?"

Old Mo shook his head. "Each Household's experts were buried beneath its own ancestral home. Where else did you think the support from fortune came from?"

Yu Tunzhou asked, puzzled, "Then where do the Dragon Fish come from?"

Old Mo explained:

"Dragon Fish are favored by fortune and have been imbued with the fortune that escaped from that one. That's why consuming Dragon Fish speeds up cultivation of the Qi Ingestion Method. They're a cultivation resource unique to the town."

"As for why they're called Dragon Fish, it's because if they were taken outside, they really would have a sliver of a chance to leap over the Dragon Gate, however insignificant that sliver might be."

Yu Tunzhou understood. He had thought that the so-called Dragon Fish had been imbued with dragon blood or something of the sort.

"Old Mo, can you catch Dragon Fish with a rod?"

Old Mo offered some friendly advice. "I'd advise you not to try. Those things are all cunning little devils, and they're incredibly strong-strong enough to drag you into the water. Every Dragon Fish you've handled before had already been dealt with by me."

"Drag me into the water?" Yu Tunzhou stared. Were they really that formidable?

He suddenly remembered Dingguang by the river. He sprang to his feet, tapped the gunwale with his toes, and leaped onto the bank, then took off running in Dingguang's direction.

Old Mo saw him not far away and pinched his nose. The kid looked down on both the Vajra Chan Temple and him, the wise and mighty town guardian.

He casually tossed the sachet in his hand into the cabin.

It was a sachet filled with soul-calming incense. He didn't care about it, but Yu Tunzhou did, so he hadn't tossed it back before.

In the boy's words, if he didn't give Old Mo a share of the profits, he would be embarrassed to use Old Mo's name to make money selling information next time.

Old Mo agreed with that from the bottom of his heart. In life, certain principles and stubborn convictions could raise one's great Dao higher.

The wind rushed past his ears.

Yu Tunzhou raced along the river. When he saw Dingguang still sitting safe and sound on the opposite bank, holding his fishing rod, he slowed down and breathed a sigh of relief.

But the next moment, his heart leaped into his throat. The fishing line suddenly snapped taut, and the little monk on the opposite bank was pulled forward, stumbling along.

"Eh, ah, ah..." Dingguang's eyes widened, and he shouted in delight, "Senior brother, I caught one!"

Yu Tunzhou shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow. As he charged, his heart became as still as water, and he entered a meditative state, the sinews, bones, Qi and Blood of his entire body working in harmony. He leaped high into the air and shouted, "Dingguang! Let go!" Then he plunged into the river.

A young girl crouching by the river not far away raised her head, only to see the boy plunge into the river, sending water splashing and ripples spreading in rings.

Curiosity showed in the golden depths of the girl's eyes.

Was this guy crazy?

Even she didn't dare enter the water lightly. This school of Dragon Fish was not as harmless as it looked.

In the past, people had accidentally been dragged to the bottom by the fish in the river and drowned alive. It was one of the most humiliating ways to die in the town's history.

The next moment, the girl's delicate brows suddenly knitted tightly.

The school of Dragon Fish, which had been surging toward Yu Tunzhou like a swarm of arrows, scattered in panic as though they had encountered something terrifying.

In their frantic flight, the fish sent the water churning and splashing.

She sprang to her feet, trying to see what was happening beneath the water.

Yu Tunzhou was only an average swimmer, but the moment he entered the water, he visualized the kun fish in his Primordial Spirit world.

He didn't know whether it would work, but the situation was urgent. He would act first and see.

As soon as he entered the water, he knew his gamble had paid off. Countless strands of water intent came rushing toward him, not the suffocation of being swept up in a current, but the embrace of a wanderer returning home. He didn't even need to regulate his breathing; every movement was his to command.

It was as if the water was the world where he, Yu Tunzhou, had been born to dwell!

In his Primordial Spirit world, the black fish gently swayed its tail fin, raising layer upon layer of clear ripples. Its delight passed directly through to his Primordial Spirit.

It swam about in his Primordial Spirit, and the ripples spreading from its fins seemed to harmonize with the real waves around Yu Tunzhou, answering the original source of the water vein in this body of water from afar.

An intangible Qi movement he had never sensed before surged toward Yu Tunzhou along the water vein.

He had just adjusted his position and rushed toward Dingguang when a thought flashed through his mind like lightning-

Was this Profound Qi?!

He moved even faster in the water than he did on land, and the Dragon Fish scattered wherever he passed.

The Dragon Fish that had bitten the hook and was dragging the little monk into the river was even more terrified, but it couldn't free itself from the hook. Worse, the little figure on the bank seemed to have suddenly become hundreds or thousands of times heavier, as immovable as a vajra boulder. It could only watch as Yu Tunzhou drew near.

The next moment, the Dragon Fish's eyes rolled back and its belly turned upward. The presence of its natural predator so close at hand had frightened it into a faint.

At the sight, Yu Tunzhou, who had been gathering his strength to knock the Dragon Fish out with a punch, froze in the water.

Now, at last, he had time to carefully feel the water intent and Qi movement he had sensed just now.

Could what he had sensed have been Profound Qi?

Light and shadow rippled gently in the water. Deep in the dark, shadowy riverbed, a great creature that had lain dormant for an unknown length of time opened its eyes. Following the flow of the river's water-fortune Qi movement, it gazed quietly in Yu Tunzhou's direction.