How to Increase True Qi Activity

[Age 16: The three moves you taught Zhu Zhanshan caused a great stir in the army. More than ten Innate Realm generals broke through to the Grandmaster Realm as a result, and the overall strength of the Great Ming army continued to grow. Zhu Di believed you were a reclusive master and felt certain that you would look down on worldly goods, so he sent you a copy of the Great Nine Heavens Hand through Zhu Zhanshan. It was the signature skill of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Great Ming Dynasty, and one of the Ming Cult's supreme arts, a peerless Grandmaster Realm cultivation method!]

[Age 17: You possessed martial theory knowledge that had reached the pinnacle of perfection. You quickly mastered the first level of the Great Nine Heavens Hand and successfully opened the first of the eight extraordinary meridians!]

[Age 18: Using the principles of dynamic and static cultivation, you divided the Great Nine Heavens Hand into separate parts. You practiced the dynamic portion by day and the static portion by night, doubling your cultivation speed!]

[Age 19: Using the principles of dynamic and static cultivation, you incorporated some of the essence of the Great Nine Heavens Hand into the Wudang Cotton Palm, creating the Nine Heavens Soft Palm. You contributed the Nine Heavens Soft Palm to Wudang's Scripture Repository, where it replaced the Pine and Crane Heart Method in the set of three arts given to outer disciples. It became an advanced cultivation method issued to every Wudang outer disciple, and everyone on Mount Wudang knew your name. Out of deference to the Great Ming imperial family, the current sect leader, Zhang Songxi, made an exception and promoted you to True Disciple!]

[Age 20: You opened the second of the eight extraordinary meridians!]

[Age 21: True Disciples could choose one martial art surpassing the Innate Realm from Wudang's Scripture Repository. After careful consideration, you finally borrowed the Pure Yang Limitless Art, written by Zhang Sanfeng himself. You discovered that the Pure Yang Limitless Art inherited the flaw of the Pure Yang Virgin Art: before reaching the Innate Realm, one could not lose one's Pure Yang virgin body, or the Pure Yang True Qi would disperse from the body, causing one to lose all martial abilities and become a cripple. You paid the flaw no mind, because you had never even thought of marrying and having children!]

[Age 22: Ever since you began cultivating the Pure Yang Limitless Art, Wudang disciples had looked at you differently. Some even mocked you behind your back as a eunuch. You were extremely displeased and decided to remedy the Pure Yang Limitless Art's flaw!]

[Age 24: You opened the third of the eight extraordinary meridians!]

[Age 25: Your strength limited your imagination. You were a weakling below the Innate Realm, while the Pure Yang Limitless Art was a supreme Grandmaster Realm art. You thought of countless methods but still could not fundamentally improve it. You decided to settle for the next best thing and stop trying to alter the Pure Yang Limitless Art. Instead, you would create a supplementary heart method specifically to address its flaw!]

[Age 29: You opened the fourth of the eight extraordinary meridians!]

[Age 30: You had experience with a Leakless Body, so your research progressed quickly. At last, you created a supplementary cultivation method that remedied the Pure Yang Limitless Art's flaw and named it the Golden Pass Locks Jade Instruction after a Daoist term. You contributed the Golden Pass Locks Jade Instruction to Wudang's Scripture Repository, causing a great stir on Mount Wudang. As Zhang Sanfeng's signature skill, the Pure Yang Limitless Art was a peerless martial art whose might shook the martial world, but its flaw-that one could not lose one's Pure Yang virgin body before reaching the Innate Realm-had deterred countless Wudang disciples. Now that the Golden Pass Locks Jade Instruction existed, all of Mount Wudang's True Disciples, as if of one mind, switched to cultivating the Pure Yang Limitless Art!]

[Age 35: You opened the fifth of the eight extraordinary meridians!]

[Age 36: Your condition began to decline, and your True Qi activity began to decrease. Opening your meridians grew more difficult by the day, and you knew the golden period for cultivation had passed. You were deeply unwilling to accept it and tried every means to collect martial arts manuals, hoping to find a way to increase True Qi activity!]

[Age 40: You discovered that the theoretical limit of the Turtle Breath Great Method was to reduce lifespan expenditure by ninety percent, so that living ten years consumed only one year of lifespan. At the same time, True Qi activity decreased tenfold, so that ten years of cultivation yielded only one year's worth of True Qi. You decided to reverse-engineer the Turtle Breath Great Method. You had already thought of a name for the cultivation method-the Lifespan-Cutting Divine Art!]

[Age 45: You created the Lifespan-Cutting Divine Art. It increased lifespan expenditure ninefold, so that living one year consumed ten years of lifespan, while one year of cultivation yielded ten years' worth of True Qi. You contributed the Lifespan-Cutting Divine Art to the Scripture Repository. Wudang's current sect leader, Zhang Songxi, declared it forbidden and prohibited Wudang disciples from cultivating it unless Mount Wudang faced the threat of annihilation. As a Wudang True Disciple, you had to abide by the sect rules, so you did not cultivate the Lifespan-Cutting Divine Art!]

[Age 48: You opened the sixth of the eight extraordinary meridians!]

[Age 49: In the Tumu Fortress Incident, the Great Ming War God Zhu Qizhen squandered the five hundred thousand elite troops of the noble military establishment under the Chief Military Commission of the Five Armies. The Great Ming Dynasty lost the absolute power with which it had held the land under its sway. The Sun Moon Holy Cult was the first to carve out territory and rule a region, and the Great Ming Dynasty suffered crushing defeats in all three of its campaigns against the cult. Learning that the Great Ming Dynasty had become a paper tiger, the various sects and schools of the martial world followed the Sun Moon Holy Cult's example and expanded their territories, dealing a severe blow to the dynasty's rule. Many martial sects colluded with powerful clans and outwardly obeyed the imperial court's officials while defying them in secret. In some remote regions, county magistrates who refused to become puppets of martial sects would inexplicably slip and fall into the water. In one case, three successive magistrates died in a single year!]

[Age 50: Countless bloody clashes broke out daily as the various sects and schools of the martial world fought over territory. As a sacred site patronized by the Great Ming Dynasty's imperial family, Mount Wudang had no choice but to step forward and uphold the dynasty's rule. Because Wudang's outer disciples cultivated the Nine Heavens Soft Palm and its True Disciples cultivated the Pure Yang Limitless Art, Wudang held an overwhelming advantage over the other sects and schools in both its rank-and-file and its top-tier strength. The strife in the martial world gradually subsided as a result!]

[Age 51: The last two of the eight extraordinary meridians were what people commonly called the Ren and Du meridians, and the difficulty of opening them was beyond imagination. Because your True Qi activity was too low, your cultivation progressed at a snail's pace. You began to consider how to increase your True Qi activity!]