Hopelessly Immersed in Researching Ways to Prolong Life
[At 46, you named your improved Golden Bell Shield the Pine and Crane Golden Bell Shield and contributed it to Wudang's Scripture Repository. Golden Bell Shield, Iron Cloth Shirt, Iron Sand Palm, Flying on Grass, and Floating on Water were collectively known as the five-piece set for jianghu lackeys and were the most widely circulated Cultivation Methods in the jianghu. The appearance of the Pine and Crane Golden Bell Shield stirred up towering waves among the jianghu's lower ranks, and many jianghu folk came seeking it by reputation, offering great sums to buy it. Mount Wudang gained both fame and fortune, and Wudang's current sect leader, Zhang Songxi, promoted you to inner disciple!]
[At 49, during the Tumu Crisis, Zhu Qizhen, the Great Ming's God of War, squandered the 500,000 elite troops of the Chief Military Commission of the Five Armies' system of military nobles. The Great Ming Dynasty lost the absolute might with which it had suppressed the lands in every direction. The Sun Moon Holy Cult was the first to carve out territory and rule it as an independent power, and all three of the Great Ming Dynasty's campaigns against it ended in crushing defeat. When the various jianghu sects learned that the Great Ming Dynasty had become a paper tiger, they followed the Sun Moon Holy Cult's example and expanded their territories, dealing a severe blow to the dynasty's authority. Many jianghu sects colluded with great Aristocratic Clans, outwardly obeying court officials while defying them in secret. In some remote regions, county magistrates who refused to become puppets of jianghu sects would inexplicably slip and fall into the water. In one case, three successive magistrates died in a single year!]
[At 50, countless bloody clashes erupted every day as the various jianghu sects fought for territory. As a holy land supported by the Great Ming Dynasty's imperial family, Mount Wudang had no choice but to step forward and uphold the dynasty's rule. In the process, it made countless enemies, and Wudang disciples met violent deaths every few days!]
[At 51, you felt that the Wudang Cotton Palm practiced by Wudang's menial disciples was useless against an enemy in battle, while the outer disciples' three-piece set focused on strengthening the body rather than defeating opponents. You felt that Mount Wudang needed a basic fist technique that would improve one's chances of survival, so you created a quick-learning version of the Three Immortals Fist. Its first move was lifting the heavy as though it were light, its second was lifting the light as though it were heavy, and its third combined hardness and softness. You contributed the Three Immortals Fist to Wudang's Scripture Repository. Wudang disciples became much better able to protect themselves, and deaths and injuries fell sharply. Wudang's current sect leader, Zhang Songxi, promoted you to True Disciple!]
[At 55, after a long period of accumulation, you finally reaped the rewards and opened the fourth of the eight extraordinary meridians!]
[At 60, your True Qi had essentially lost its vitality, and your cultivation was producing almost no results. You stopped practicing martial arts altogether and devoted yourself entirely to studying their nature!]
[At 70, you recalled that martial arts on Earth were divided into dynamic and static practices, and that martial arts in the martial-hero world of the Great Ming achieved the same wonders by different means. You tried to break down the martial arts you had mastered!]
[At 80, after long years of research, you gained a profound understanding of the nature of martial arts and grasped the fundamentals of combining movement and stillness. You used Wudang Cotton Palm as a dynamic practice and the Pine and Crane Heart Method as a static practice, perfectly combining the two to create the Pine and Crane Soft Palm. The Pine and Crane Soft Palm inherited the health-preserving effects of both martial arts, and their cultivation speeds added together, making one plus one greater than two!]
[At 81, you contributed the Pine and Crane Soft Palm to Wudang's Scripture Repository. Upon learning of its effects, the current sect leader, Zhang Songxi, decided to make an exception and promote you to an elder of the Scripture Repository, granting you free access to any martial arts manuals below the Innate Realm. Because one year of practicing the Pine and Crane Soft Palm produced better results than two years of practicing the Pine and Crane Heart Method, it was listed as one of the required Cultivation Methods for True Disciples!]
[At 91, you knew that internal cultivation methods were the foundation, so you became hopelessly immersed in researching them!]
[At 101, among internal cultivation methods below the Innate Realm, the Pure Yang Virgin Art ranked first and the Turtle Breath Great Method ranked second. Since Zhang Sanfeng had improved the Pure Yang Virgin Art to create its enhanced version, the Pure Yang Limitless Art, you decided to devote your attention to researching the Turtle Breath Great Method!]
[At 111, you discovered that the theoretical limit of the Turtle Breath Great Method was a ninety percent reduction in the depletion of life: living ten years would consume only one year of lifespan, allowing someone with a hundred-year lifespan to live for a thousand years. You began to focus on studying all kinds of life-prolonging Cultivation Methods, trying to find what they had in common!]
[At 121, you knew health-preserving Cultivation Methods that prolonged life like the palm of your hand, but you still had no idea how to modify the Turtle Breath Great Method!]
[At 131, you suddenly thought of hibernation. When animals hibernated, their bodies fell into a dormant state, and they routinely went months without food or water. This was clearly an excellent state for reducing depletion. You began observing hibernating animals, trying to uncover the secret behind it!]
[At 141, using the Turtle Breath Great Method, incorporating the essence of health-preserving Cultivation Methods, and drawing on the secrets of animal hibernation, you created the Black Tortoise Longevity Instruction. In a sleeping state, life was depleted at only one percent of the normal rate, but the rate at which life recovered was also one percent. In theory, this made eternal life and youth possible. But everyone on Earth knew that hibernating animals had to consume stored fat, and a sleeping human body still consumed energy. In practice, one had to wake after half a year or a year of sleep to replenish various nutrients, so eternal life and youth could not truly be achieved!]
[At 142, the Emperor Jiajing was obsessed with the pursuit of eternal life and youth. He collected large amounts of menstrual blood from palace maids to refine pills, causing more and more maids to die of massive bleeding. Unable to endure it any longer, more than a dozen palace maids plotted to kill the Emperor Jiajing, bringing about the Renyin Palace Coup, which shook the world. The Emperor Jiajing narrowly escaped the calamity and decreed that all the maids involved be executed by a thousand cuts. More than two hundred palace maids were implicated and beheaded. Taking pity on the palace maids' difficult lives, you contributed the Black Tortoise Longevity Instruction to Wudang's Scripture Repository and proposed giving it to the Emperor Jiajing!]
[At 143, the Eastern and Western Depots and the Brocade Guard jointly verified the effects of the Black Tortoise Longevity Instruction, allowing the Emperor Jiajing to see hope for eternal life and youth. The Emperor Jiajing was greatly pleased and summoned you to the Capital to serve as Imperial Preceptor. Mount Wudang dared not defy the imperial decree and could only escort you to the Capital!]
[At 144, drawing on the Sixth-Transformation Pill Refining Technique from the National Martial Arts world, you determined that the pill refiner favored and trusted by the Emperor Jiajing was a fraud who deceived the world to steal fame. Through various theoretical analyses and numerous scientific experiments, you proved that the pill refiner was not making life-prolonging immortal pills, but poisonous lead-and-mercury pills that caused heavy metal poisoning and a slow death. The Emperor Jiajing decreed the extermination of the pill refiner's nine familial clans, and his trust in you grew with each passing day!]
[At 145, the Black Tortoise Longevity Instruction could balance the loss and recovery of life only during sleep. The Emperor Jiajing wanted you to improve it further so that he could still maintain that balance while attending to affairs of state, and he granted you full access to the Great Ming Dynasty's imperial Scripture Repository!]
[At 146, in the Great Ming Dynasty's imperial Scripture Repository, you browsed countless Cultivation Methods above the Innate Realm. You gained an even deeper understanding of the nature of martial arts, but still had no idea how to improve the Black Tortoise Longevity Instruction!]
[At 147, you recalled the Pine and Crane Soft Palm you had once created. Following the principle of combining movement and stillness, you divided the Black Tortoise Longevity Instruction into two parts: the first dealt with reducing the depletion of life, and the second with replenishing it!]
[At 148, you improved the first part, reducing the depletion of life in an everyday state by thirty percent. You also improved the second part, bringing the rate of life recovery in an everyday state to thirty percent. That meant seventy percent depletion and thirty percent recovery: one loss and one gain combined for an effect of forty percent, meaning ten years of life consumed four years of lifespan. The Emperor Jiajing was greatly pleased and rewarded you with one hundred thousand taels of silver. You passed the silver on to Mount Wudang, asking its disciples to use it to provide relief to the people!]
[At 149, you reached the limit of your lifespan and died peacefully of old age, free of illness and calamity.]