Chapter 13: Chapter Fourteen

Bai Lang had no interest in learning the names of the people who came to study martial arts with him — knowing their nicknames like "Little Zhang," "Old Li," or "Gangzitou" was enough. As for himself, he never changed his name whether walking or sitting, and still called himself Bai Lang. These people called him Teacher Bai, because Bai Lang did not take them as disciples — he merely offered some pointers.

Was there any benefit to instructing these people? Actually, no. There was no such thing as reviewing one's own cultivation through the act of teaching and thereby finding one's own shortcomings — although these people loved martial arts, they were all low-level, low-level, very low-level practitioners. Instructing them could only be called entry-level verbal sparring, and it did nothing to help Bai Lang summarize or review his own training.

And Bai Lang was not at the stage of reviewing and summarizing his cultivation path at all — he had not reached that level yet. Right now, his cultivation was aimed at converting all of his entry-level internal force into the internal force of the Golden Bell Shield — if there was a chance in the future, he might further cultivate profound internal arts, and at that point the circulation route of this Golden Bell Shield might become a combat method rather than a training method. But for now, this external-to-internal Thirteen Tai Bao Golden Bell Shield was a more profound method than his entry-level internal art.

Before the internal force was fully converted, there was no talk of a second pass. Having now broken through the first pass, Bai Lang felt his strength had grown considerably, his hearing and vision were sharp, and his skin, when touched, gave a tough, old-ox-leather sensation — yet the skin had not become rough; on the contrary, it had grown even more delicate, and even the hair on his arms had become finer and softer.

Bai Lang also tried stabbing his own arm with an awl. Without much force, it could only leave a red mark on the skin, at the stage where blood was about to surface but had not. If he channeled his Qi in advance, there would not even be a red mark. An ordinary person stabbing with all their might with a triangular dagger would at most break the skin... getting three-tenths of an inch into the flesh would already be quite good.

If he exerted his own strength, he could use the awl to pierce through skin and flesh — but that was just his feeling; he had never actually tried it — it would hurt.

By Bai Lang's own estimate, it would take at most a month to convert all his internal force into the Golden Bell Shield's internal force. However, the daily practice of absorbing that wisp of Great Sun Purple Qi still had to continue — this could be considered a wisp of Innate True Qi, and absorbing it daily would help him cultivate his own Innate True Qi — perhaps after opening the Great Zhou Circulation, he could use this accumulation to open the Baihui at the crown and the Yongquan at the soles of the feet, thereby connecting the Heavenly and Earthly Passes and becoming an Innate Expert.

These few people were full of enthusiasm, because they could see that Bai Lang had real skill, just like the masters they had apprenticed under in the past. This so-called modern traditional martial arts, you see, mainly relies on bragging — when they go out, they all talk about how amazing their master, senior brother, or grandmaster was. But these few genuinely wanted to learn how to fight, and in this regard Bai Lang could teach them quite a lot — perhaps even more than their own masters could.

However, Bai Lang never told them much more, so if they wanted to go out and brag, it would be hard to use Bai Lang as material... though it was hard to say, because when Bai Lang practiced, these people could also feel the power of his stomps shaking the ground, and the force and might of his punches and fist winds — as long as they were fairly close, they could sense it.

Bai Lang also did not spar with them. In fact, these people rarely sparred with each other either; instead, they specifically practiced things like "touching hands" and "listening to force." Was listening to force useful? Useful — at least Bai Lang could rely on the sensation through his skin and even his intuition to "hear" these people's force and techniques — from quite a distance too. But hearing the force did not mean he could counter it. Dodging was possible, but if the opponent had great strength and fast techniques, what good was hearing it? If he couldn't block it and couldn't run, he was still done for.

Bai Lang also wouldn't correct them. At their level, listening to force was far more useful than the situations Bai Lang might face. But as for touching hands, Bai Lang felt that a real fight with actual weapons and fists would be most useful. However, he couldn't very well tell them to really fight, that they had to get used to actual combat — the martial artists here probably wouldn't make fighting their profession.

As for Bai Lang himself, it was hard to say. He was now worried that if he got used to peace over these ten years, when he crossed back, would he still be able to recover his fighting spirit? Being a thug at the broker house, he had actually fought a few real fights with fists and blades — though this was putting a good face on it, he had knocked down a few ruffles under his fists and feet, and had made a name for himself at the broker house — though he had no nickname, the name Bai Lang of the Changle Broker House still carried some weight.

"Good thing I firmly refused their title of Brother Lang for me back then — what a bunch of uncultured louts they were. My name is Bai Lang, so they think they can call me Brother Lang? Either call me Brother Bai Lang, or call me Brother Xiaosa would also work." Bai Lang thought to himself. In the end, those people of course called him Brother Bai Lang.

Bai Lang was also looking for opportunities for real combat — actually, there were some. This world had never been truly peaceful; even in the countries around China, there were places that had sunk into the flames of war. But there was also a problem: combat experience with hot weapons and combat experience with martial arts were two different things. Apart from the shared fighting spirit and combat alertness, experience with firearms would be meaningless after crossing over — perhaps it could substitute for experience with Hidden Weapons?

If it had to rely on fists and feet, these places... somehow didn't feel quite right, but if there really was no other way, it would have to do. Of course, there was also professional fighting — this could only be said to be of some small help. Ring fighting and unrestricted, no-arena combat were not the same; martial world killing was more perilous than the ring. However, such combat was at least more suitable than going to those battlefields to hone one's experience and combat intuition.

"Thinking carefully, when I was Brother Bai Lang, it couldn't really be called life-and-death situations... what life-and-death situations could a broker house thug have? He didn't even count as a bottom-tier jianghu person, just a bit better than local rascals and ruffles..." Bai Lang also secretly made a decision: if possible, he would probably have to find a way to enter the professional fighting circle.

Once the internal force conversion was complete, this idea could basically be put into action — generally speaking, it would probably be better to find a way to go to Dong Nan Ya. In mainland China, joining professional fighting seemed a bit difficult, at least Bai Lang had no connections. Of course, Dong Nan Ya wasn't exactly safe and orderly. Even if he couldn't join professional competitions for a while, underground fighting matches and even jianghu killings were available — for Bai Lang, this was actually more suitable than staying in the country.

However, what Bai Lang had not expected was that after he finally completed the full conversion of his internal force, he was forced to flee, dodging pursuit all the way, having to cross half of China from the northwest and sneak out of the country... What on earth had happened? Stay tuned for the next installment.