Chapter 136

Amidst the vast white fog, Lin Chen walked forward.

He couldn't even see his own fingers.

The surroundings were so quiet that only his own footsteps could be heard.

When people have no vision, they walk very slowly, even if they know there is no danger ahead; this is a human body's instinctive guard against unknown situations.

Walking slowly, and also veering off course.

Although Lin Chen didn't close his eyes, it was no different from closing them in this fog.

But even so, the speed of Lin Chen's feet didn't slow down, continuing to maintain a distance of half a chi for every step.

He didn't know if there would be danger in this fog, but even if there were, it definitely wouldn't be fatal.

The Martial Administration Hall arranged special training; it was impossible for them to send them there to die.

If there was danger, it would be within a controllable range, and with his Iron Bone Art at perfection, relying on his physical strength, he could withstand general dangers.

This was the confidence that allowed him to stride forward like this.

【Walking for a quarter of an hour, pace has not slowed, expression has not changed.】

The man on the side looked at the hourglass Jiang Kui was holding and recorded Lin Chen's state in the booklet again.

Jiang Kui, standing to the side, looked at Lin Chen's forward pace, and a look of anticipation appeared on his face.

From the moment they got off the ship, the first assessment had already begun.

This stage assessed how far the students could walk in the fog, how long they could walk, and how straight their direction was.

The further they walked, the higher the assessment score.

The longer they walked, the higher the assessment score.

The straighter the direction they walked, the higher the assessment score.

But for students like Lin Chen, the real assessment only started here.

A quarter of an hour was something every young student who came here could persist through, and there were even those who walked faster than Lin Chen.

Lin Chen's current speed could only be considered average among the students he had brought.

"Something is not right."

After walking a few more steps, Lin Chen felt a chill invade, beginning to seep into his pores.

But as the Qi and blood in his body circulated, this chill was driven away.

"It seems my guess was correct; this is indeed an assessment. I just don't know what the assessment indicators are?"

Is it to see how long he can persist under this chill?

A quarter of an hour later.

Lin Chen was still walking. Having broken through the 300,000 Qi and blood mark, his body was like a furnace; the coldness from the cold fog invading his body was instantly melted and expelled.

The man responsible for recording on the side saw that Lin Chen had walked for half an hour and his speed still hadn't slowed down. A hint of surprise flashed in his eyes, and he quickly wrote down four words:

【His speed is steady!】

"As expected of someone walking the path of extreme martial arts, the Qi and blood in his body are indeed far beyond ordinary martial artists. This level of Qi and blood vigor should be comparable to a martial artist with twenty acupoints."

Jiang Kui on the side was also moved. The students who could walk to this point all had cultivation bases fluctuating around twenty acupoints.

That Lin Chen could walk here with only a fourteen-acupoint cultivation base was enough to show that his Qi and blood were already comparable to those students with twenty acupoints.

He had only heard of martial artists who walked the path of extreme martial arts having Qi and blood far exceeding other martial artists, but this was the first time he had truly seen one.

Can every extreme martial artist have this kind of Qi and blood?

This was no longer just being invincible at the same stage; this level of Qi and blood vigor was already comparable to twenty acupoints, and Lin Chen only had fourteen acupoints now—that was a difference of six acupoints.

If I had known, I would have walked the path of extreme martial arts back then; wouldn't I be...

But before this thought lasted even a beat, Jiang Kui laughed at himself. If he had walked this path, it was hard to say if he could even have entered the Ranked Tier.

Just for one Ranked technique, he had spent a year cultivating it to perfection, and then cultivating another completely different technique would likely take several years, during which time his stage breakthroughs would also be affected.

Three years for Open-Acupuncture, five years for Organ Cultivation...

Most martial artists spent three years going from Open-Acupuncture to Organ Cultivation, then another five years to reach Organ Cultivation perfection, and finally prepared for the Ranked Tier.

He was the same. If he had walked the path of extreme martial arts, he feared it would have conservatively taken five years just to go from Open-Acupuncture to Organ Cultivation.

One hour later.

Lin Chen's breathing began to become heavy. Even though his Qi and blood had broken through the 300,000 mark, he now felt cold all over and felt a daunting chill.

A quarter of an hour ago, he had discovered that the chill in the white fog had become more intense. Even if he circulated his Qi and blood with all his might, he couldn't offset this chill.

As the chill entered his body, all the pores on his body stood up, and layers of goosebumps covered his whole body.

If it were just that, it would be fine, but after this chill entered his body, it was like maggots on bones, constantly drilling into every part of his body.

Drilling into his limbs, drilling into his chest, drilling into his scalp...

The amplitude of his arm swings began to shrink, and even his footsteps became much stiffer.

"From here on, every step is a heavy pressure. Of the few people I brought, the best one only persisted for a hundred steps."

Jiang Kui's eyes were like torches. For all students, the real key to this stage was when they began to suffer from the chill invading their bodies.

When Qi and blood could resist this chill, the assessment score wouldn't be too high.

A student with twenty acupoints and a student with sixteen acupoints, due to the difference in Qi and blood, the former could persist for an hour, while the latter could only persist for half an hour.

But the half-hour difference between the two only resulted in a four-point difference in their scores; for every quarter of an hour walked, one point was added.

Only when the body suffered from the chill could the score gap truly be widened.

Every ten steps, one point was added.

The man on the other side was also staring at Lin Chen, the tip of his brush resting on the paper, ready to record at any time.

Ten steps, twenty steps...

When he reached forty steps, Lin Chen's pace began to slow down. Every step was very exhausting, as if he were trapped in a quagmire. When he lifted his feet, the countless silt beneath acted like needles and thread, stabbing into his legs and dragging him, not letting him move forward.

Fifty steps, sixty steps, seventy steps...

When Lin Chen reached eighty steps, he could no longer maintain his original calmness. With his lips tightly pressed, every step he took seemed to carry the weight of a thousand jun.

That chill was like countless fine needles, stabbing deeply into his bone marrow.

Fortunately, he could persist through this pain.

Having suffered so many hits from the Thousand Hammer Chart in the little black room, he had experienced this kind of pain too many times.

In fact, the pain brought to him by the Thousand Hammer Chart was far beyond this.

Eighty steps...

Ninety steps...

One hundred steps...

The recording man looked at Jiang Kui on the other side as Lin Chen took his hundredth step. The two met eyes, and both saw surprise in each other's eyes.

Although Lin Chen's hundred steps weren't fast, they were steady.

In this state, he was still far from his limit.

"Keep walking!"

Jiang Kui had some anticipation in his heart now. Among the students he had brought, the one who walked a hundred steps had been gritting his teeth for the last thirty steps, and for the last ten steps, he had relied on an explosion of energy to walk through in one go.

However, after walking those ten steps, he was completely exhausted and stopped at a hundred steps.

【After a hundred steps, his speed is steady.】

The man responsible for recording wrote down the conclusion on the paper once again.

Lin Chen's speed had slowed down; it had slowed down at the fortieth step, but from the fortieth to the hundredth step, his forward speed hadn't changed.

One hundred and fifty steps!

At this moment, Lin Chen already felt pain equivalent to being hammered by the Thousand Hammer Chart. Every time he lifted his leg and let it fall, it was accompanied by a tremor.

Cold to the extreme is pressure.

Lin Chen could no longer feel the coldness of his body; his body only had one feeling: pain.

"One hundred and sixty steps, is that the limit?"

Jiang Kui whispered in his heart. According to Lin Chen's current state, he could still walk another ten steps. This result was already very good.

The only pity was that Lin Chen's stride wasn't large, so he didn't have any advantage in terms of distance.

"Walking like this, I'm afraid I can only persist for another thirty steps at most."

Although his whole body was numb from the pain, Lin Chen's mind remained clear. This was another major gain he had achieved after experiencing the many hammerings of the Thousand Hammer Chart, besides the improvement of his Iron Bone Art and the increase in his body's ability to withstand beatings.

Pain and pressure can make a person's mind gradually blur.

But he didn't have this problem. The Thousand Hammer Chart was a violent pain that impacted his whole body with every hammer, and he could keep his mind clear. This slowly intensifying pain was even less of a problem.

Lin Chen lifted his foot, but this time he didn't let it fall directly, instead trying to shift the angle of his toe, letting it fall after a beat.

As this foot fell, Lin Chen's eyes lit up; the pressure and pain had actually weakened a bit.

He could reduce the pressure through the direction of his footsteps, allowing himself to persist longer.

With this discovery, Lin Chen continued to walk. When he discovered that the pain had deepened again, he changed the direction of his toe again, only he silently remembered the angle every time he slightly changed the direction of his toe.

The man on the side paused his brush: "One hundred and fifty-seven steps, his position is shifting."

"What a pity, he shouldn't be shifting."

Jiang Kui had a look of regret on his face. Lin Chen had walked straight for so many steps before, but now his direction was shifting, which would affect his final score.

However, there weren't many students who could manage not to shift.

Thinking of this, Jiang Kui felt it was acceptable. In an extreme state, a person's mind becomes blurred, and their judgment of direction will be wrong. Lin Chen's small shift didn't count for much; he had even seen students who, while walking, ended up turning around and walking back.

But soon, the regret on Jiang Kui's face disappeared, replaced by an expression as if he had seen a ghost.

He saw Lin Chen start to shift, but after shifting for twenty steps, the direction of his toe corrected itself, and he walked back to the correct position.

And just when he was happy for Lin Chen for finding the right direction, after walking a few steps, Lin Chen shifted his direction again, but then walked thirty steps, and then turned back to the right direction...

Going back and forth like this, Jiang Kui forgot to count how many steps Lin Chen had actually walked.

The man on the side had already filled a sheet of paper with his records.

Every time Lin Chen shifted, he had to record it, and when Lin Chen corrected his direction, he had to record it again.

【Walked one hundred and ninety steps, shifted.】

【Walked thirty steps while shifted, corrected.】

【Walked six steps while corrected, shifted.】

【Walked forty steps while shifted, corrected.】

... Are you putting on a show of fancy footwork here?

The man's mouth twitched. Looking at Lin Chen, he was speechless. By now, how could he not see that although Lin Chen's body was constantly under pressure and even lifting his feet was extremely difficult, his mind remained clear.

So Lin Chen wasn't shifting because his mind was blurred, but was doing it intentionally.

"Old Ji, how should the score be calculated in this situation?"

Jiang Kui asked Ji Feng with his eyes. Ji Feng rolled his eyes—how would I know how to calculate it?

Since he had been responsible for recording the students' situation in this stage, he had never encountered a student like Lin Chen.

He had seen students who walked further and faster than Lin Chen, but he had truly never met one who walked in a snake-like pattern.

There were students who, relying on strong perseverance, could persist for a long time even when their minds were blurred, with the most persisting for three hundred steps.

But Lin Chen? He had already walked six hundred steps by now; in terms of steps, he had already far exceeded the strongest student of this batch.

But in terms of distance, it wasn't even half of the other person's.

Forget it, calculating Lin Chen's score should be left to the adults to worry about; he only needed to be responsible for recording.

Six hundred steps, seven hundred steps...

When he reached nine hundred steps, Lin Chen stopped.

Finally can't walk anymore?

Jiang Kui and Ji Feng guessed in their hearts as they saw Lin Chen stop.

But the next moment, seeing Lin Chen's action, both their eyes widened.

Lin Chen took a booklet out of his bosom.

"Gale Leg Technique."

These four large characters were clearly visible. The two looked at each other again, both seeing disbelief in each other's eyes.

Is it what they thought it was?

Lin Chen took out the Gale manual. Yesterday, Master Zhao had given him the Gale Leg manual, but he had only taken a rough look at it. The reason he took out the Gale manual now was that he wanted to make up for the only shortcoming he had.

The defect in his leg technique.

He didn't know if practicing the Gale Leg Technique now would help him walk further here, but he had to try; perhaps it would have some reference value.

Lord Jiang had also said that for every test, one must do their best to get the best ranking.

He had been walking for so long, and no one had come out to interrupt him, which meant this test had nothing to do with time.

It was very likely that the indicator for this test was to see how far one could walk under extreme pressure.

Although the fog was thick and he couldn't see his own fingers, if he lifted his fingers and placed them in front of his eyes, he could still see them.

Placing the manual in front of his eyes, Lin Chen began to read it carefully.

He was actually really practicing a technique at this time, and it was a new technique at that!

As a Ranked expert, Ji Feng had also been a student once. For any technique, as long as one had entered the door, no student would carry the technique manual with them.

Only students who hadn't come into contact with or had just come into contact with the technique and weren't familiar with it would carry it on their person for easy reading at any time.

Ji Feng didn't know what to say anymore. As for Jiang Kui, he had a similar expression. Lin Chen had said his Iron Bone Art and Clear Wind Palm were already at perfection, and he was still lacking a leg technique, so this Gale Leg Technique was the leg technique Lin Chen was preparing to practice.

The two were less shocked that Lin Chen was practicing a technique at this time, and more shocked that Lin Chen could still keep his mind clear at this time.

A cup of tea later, Lin Chen put the manual back into his bosom.

Thanks to practicing the Flying Swallow Art, Lin Chen's comprehension of the Gale Leg Technique was very smooth. He immediately began to adjust his breathing rhythm, exhaling and inhaling according to the Gale Leg Technique's formula, causing his Qi and blood to begin to surge madly toward his legs.

The Gale Leg Technique emphasizes "Gale" and "Fast!"

To summarize, it is extremely swift and fierce.

Lin Chen didn't intend to practice the Gale Leg Technique here, but from the Gale Leg Technique manual, he had indeed found some inspiration.

Borrowing momentum!

How can the Gale Leg Technique be so swift and fierce? One must know that when a person's body is in mid-air, the explosive power is limited, and they cannot rely on external objects, only on their own explosive power.

How can one kick several legs in mid-air, each one fiercer than the last? Besides special explosive power, there is another reason: borrowing momentum.

Every kick is the accumulation of power for the next kick.

Left foot steps on the right foot, finally stepping onto the moon.

Although this description is a bit exaggerated, the true meaning of the Gale Leg Technique is indeed like this.

"Since every step taken will suffer huge resistance, can I turn this resistance into power and borrow this resistance to move forward?"

Lin Chen lifted his foot slightly, but this time, the moment he lifted his foot, the amplitude of his right leg's tremor was several times more exaggerated than before.

He was achieving resonance with this pressure through the amplitude of the tremor.

Scratch!

As he stepped down, Lin Chen's whole body staggered forward, almost falling to the ground.

Failed!

However, there was a glimmer of light in Lin Chen's eyes. Although this kick failed, thanks to the stagger, he had moved forward two steps.

It was when this pressure fell on his leg that the terrifying pressure also pushed his forward movement.

Borrowing momentum!

This path was viable, it just needed more attempts.

Thus, Jiang Kui and Ji Feng saw a scene that made their jaws drop.

Lin Chen walked stumbling, and with every step he took, the swaying amplitude of his body made both of them feel he was about to fall to the ground, yet he managed to stabilize himself by just a hair.

A cup of tea later, Ji Feng picked up his brush to record: Walked seven hundred and ninety steps, stumbling...

Half an hour later.

Ji Feng's figure flashed and appeared beside Jiang Kui, unable to help but write a line on the paper with his brush: "How is he supporting himself for so long?"

Jiang Kui was silent for a moment, took the brush, and wrote: "Perhaps it is because Lin Chen is walking the path of extreme martial arts, and his Iron Bone Art has reached perfection."

Besides this, Jiang Kui couldn't find any other explanation.

But is Iron Bone Art at perfection really this strong?

He wasn't sure in his heart now either.

Ji Feng was silent for a while and continued to write: "According to the rules, students who walk a thousand steps should have fireworks released to notify, but the distance Lin Chen is walking now is only half of those who walk a thousand steps."

Jiang Kui didn't answer with the brush this time, only giving Ji Feng a look. The meaning was obvious: don't ask me, this isn't my responsibility.

He was only responsible for bringing students to the special training site and serving as a witness for the students' first test.

Two beats later, Ji Feng took out something as long as a finger from his bosom and flicked his right hand, shooting it into the sky.

Above the clouds, fireworks lit up.

At a campsite not far away, several young people saw the fireworks in the distant sky, their eyes narrowing. Was this another student who had walked a thousand steps in the clouds?

Several young people even had looks of self-mockery on their faces. Before coming here, they boasted that they were top martial arts geniuses, but after arriving here, they realized there were many students more genius than them.

In the cloud stage, they hadn't even managed to persist for a hundred steps.

"The fourth one to break a thousand steps; the potential of this batch of students is really not bad."

On the mountainside of a peak not far from the campsite, several figures walked out of the courtyard. Looking at the fireworks in the sky, their figures turned into rainbows and headed toward the clouds.

They also wanted to see such genius students for themselves.

"The Thousand-Step Mist tests a student's courage and endurance. Those without courage cannot reach the exit and will inevitably veer off course; those without extreme pressure-bearing ability cannot persist to a thousand steps."

At the exit of the clouds, four figures stood, the four of them laughing and staring at the clouds.

Walking through the entire cloud stage required a thousand steps, but some students' stride span was slightly shorter, so it might take a hundred more steps, requiring them to wait a while longer.

However, after waiting for a quarter of an hour, no figure appeared in the clouds, and the four of them frowned slightly.

After waiting for two quarters of an hour, one of the men turned and left directly.

"This student is afraid that each step is less than three-tenths of a chi. Although he has extreme endurance, such caution is not suitable for me."

"Brother Cui is being too arbitrary. I actually think caution is not a fault."

The other three men had different views. The path of martial arts is extremely dangerous; what is wrong with being cautious?

However, half an hour later, no one had walked out of the clouds, and these three men couldn't sit still either.

They couldn't be cautious to this extent, walking one step and stopping three steps.

"Farewell." Another person left.

"It's good to be cautious; there's no big mistake in being cautious."

"Brother is right; the more cautious, the better. Junior brother feels the same way."

One hour later.

The two looked at each other; even if he were crawling, he should have crawled here by now.

"Brother, junior brother will leave first."

"Okay, I'll wait a bit longer; perhaps there will be an unexpected surprise."

Finally, only one middle-aged man remained standing at the exit of the clouds.

Two hours...

Three hours...

The breeze blew the man's clothes, and the man whispered: "The mountain wind is slightly cold; I'd better go back and add a piece of clothing."

In the clouds, Ji Feng looked at Lin Chen, who simply stopped walking and stayed in place, feeling completely helpless.

Had an epiphany?

Can one have an epiphany while walking through the Thousand-Step Mist?

What epiphany can an Open-Acupuncture martial artist have?

A dozen beats later, Lin Chen, who had been standing still, finally made a move.

But he didn't step forward, instead pushing his palms forward slowly, and a sharp gale actually stirred the surrounding clouds to surge.

Six hours.

Walking to the end, a thought flashed through Lin Chen's mind.

His fusion of the Clear Wind Palm and Water Cloud Palm failed before, not because his understanding of the two palm techniques was insufficient.

Cultivating to perfection meant mastering the true essence of the two palm techniques.

The fusion didn't succeed because there were some differences in the Qi circulation of the two palm techniques.

And now his body was bearing the most extreme pressure, and in this situation, the speed of his Qi and blood circulation had also reached an extremely slow degree.

Perhaps he could take this opportunity to try and fuse the Qi circulation of the two techniques together.

Left hand Clear Wind Palm, right hand Water Cloud Palm.

Right hand Water Cloud Palm, left hand Clear Wind Palm.

(End of chapter)