Chapter 165: Cultivation Is Not Easy

"I remember the Northern Dipper has the 'waistband pressing crying girl fist'; the Southern Dipper, I don't know if there's any fist with a weird name. But leaving that aside, just the train cannon is enough." Bai Lang thought of the so-called Southern Dipper Dragon Strikes Tiger, Southern Dipper Prison Slaughter Fist and similar technique names, feeling he could probably practice something out of them. The things he now wants to practice, when combined, this guy finds the difficulty quite high.

"Even though the Arhat Benevolent King Fist is mostly about 'fighting method', integrating it into his current martial arts and adding a Southern Dipper Holy Fist has already made Bai Lang stumble. 'Its level is higher than the Black Tiger Fist, so the difficulty is far greater than the Black Tiger Fist. The internal force flow conflicts, external fist techniques don't transform smoothly; using it against grunts doesn't matter, but when encountering experts, he's likely to be caught exposing a flaw and killed. His combat power doesn't increase but decreases.'"

"The situation is exactly so. If the Thirteen Tai Bao Golden Bell Shield were purely internal cultivation, training a single breath of true qi would be easier. The problem is that it, like it, is an external-to-internal, internal-external-unified martial art, which is a bit troublesome. Bai Lang stopped his practice of the Golden Bell Shield, purely circulating internal force and killing qi to begin operating the Arhat Benevolent King Fist. This fist method likewise uses external fist movements to drive and cultivate the internal 'killing qi' and internal force."

"The posture of this fist method, when combined with the Golden Bell Shield and the Thirty-two Route Long Fist's posture, indeed feels completely different; the stance is more rigid, able to fully display and train the body's lines...... For example, what Bai Lang is doing now is one palm lowered, slightly forward and spread open, while one fist is bent, clenched tightly, and placed outward above the head, just like those Benevolent King statues in temples. Yet within the changing movements, gusts of wind begin to swirl around Bai Lang."

"Bai Lang himself could also hear the 'ka-ba ka-ba' cracking of his joints, and his muscles felt sore, swollen, and numb; internal force directly seeped into his muscles through the meridians, 'This martial art will probably strengthen my muscles even more; I'll really become a muscle man. I hope it doesn't make me grow to at least three meters tall.' Thinking of the monstrously built killer from the original story, Bai Lang could only comfort himself in this way."

"However, whether this secret manual is truly the original version? Ah...... that's hard to say."

"The Southern Dipper Holy Fist is the same; when Bai Lang actually got the hang of it, he discovered that if the difficulty of merging this martial art with the Arhat Benevolent King Fist is 10, then the difficulty of simultaneously cultivating the Southern Dipper Holy Fist and the Golden Bell Shield is basically level 30, while the difficulty of merging the Arhat Benevolent King Fist and the Golden Bell Shield is 20...... However, if he doesn't cultivate them purely for combat, disregarding the brief malfunction when switching, directly executing these three martial arts is actually not bad."

"'Not that strong, and even regressed a bit; it would be better to just directly use a single martial art purely.' This situation can only be resolved through arduous practice and his own martial wisdom; presumably that demon's words to him meant exactly this. 'Building a high roof, raising the banner'—these are what must now be done; he needs a unified mindset to solve this problem. Bai Lang now finds himself trapped in the dilemma of how to find and establish this guiding principle."

"That day Bai Lang was also training hard; recently practicing the Southern Dipper Holy Fist and the Arhat Benevolent King Fist made his combat muscles even more formidable, a bit heavier than before and his muscles noticeably larger. As for his body fat percentage, it seems unchanged, still hovering between 13 and 15—having to say, Yu Yu's several trips bringing him back to modern times really solidified his modern memories. He reread or newly watched many wuxia novels, but ultimately discovered that their exquisite fist theories were all castles in the air—at least for him right now."

"All that yin-yang mutual generation, heaven-man transformation nonsense is useless for his current thoughts on how to merge different martial arts—Bai Lang's martial wisdom cannot deduce a merging principle from it. 'But as the saying goes, when you can't figure it out, just use your body to figure it out. Train hard, train without cease, and the muscles will tell you the answer.' Bai Lang sighed lightly."

"After a month of such training days, one day a Guard Commander came to the Mountain God Temple like a wisp of smoke, silently handed Bai Lang a stack of papers, then left. Bai Lang spread out the papers, 'Wanted notice? A briefing and a situation report? He felt more and more like a bounty hunter.'"

"The recent martial world news briefing had quite a few pages; reading it as a novel was also quite engaging. Bai Lang thought he could treat it as a way to relax his mind and body, so casually flipping through it was fine—the leading items were mostly the movements of those experts beyond the Innate level, though not many, while most events occurred among Innate Experts. As for the later stack of wanted notices, there weren't many Innate Experts; most were criminals just one step away from reaching the Innate level."

"Each wanted notice had an analysis of information and recent movements attached to its back. 'Let me see... points, treasures... huh? It seems this wanted notice isn't just issued by the authorities; even private individuals can place bounties through the official channel.' Bai Lang saw that many of the bounty posters were not from the Great Yan authorities, but those listed were all scoundrels."

"The people on the wanted notices, although not every one is an irredeemable scoundrel, the proportion of such scoundrels is still quite high—indeed, thieves or flower-picking bandits who want to get on this wanted notice must have stolen something extremely important, while flower-picking bandits are usually beaten to death before they even get listed. Thus those who kill like hemp are the mainstay of the wanted notices."

"'Extermination cases... highway robbery and murder... fugitive murder... this is even more exaggerated—killing solely for the purpose of cultivating martial arts, isn't that madness?' Bai Lang had also killed absolutely not a few people, but those were heads taken to exchange for money; those killed on the battlefield bore no grudge."

"Bai Lang moved his body a bit, 'Then let's go find a few of those wanted guys and kill them.' His finger pointed to a wanted notice for a villain who abducted boys and girls to cultivate evil arts. 'Close to reaching the Innate level, and this art can still erupt with Innate-level power... but using boys and girls to cultivate it is utterly unforgivable.' Bai Lang looked at the later intelligence record; this fellow named Mao Dongshan operated in Huaiyang Commandery a thousand li away, and had recently appeared before the Governor of Huaiyang."

"Just say go and go—Bai Lang stuffed the two manuals into the base of the Mountain God Elder statue—though he had already memorized them, he hadn't thought of destroying them. So placing them under the statue bearing a thousand catties was a reasonable method. Bai Lang took some travel funds and headed straight for Ji City—if he wanted to go to Huaiyang a thousand li away, relying solely on his two legs would indeed be foolish."