Chapter 688: The Most Ancient Martial Art Under Heaven

“Huff… huff…”

In the dormitory of the White Deer Academy.

Xun Heihu sat up and found himself still lying on the bed.

Not far away, Zhao Daniu was still grinding his teeth and snoring.

Outside, moonlight poured like water, spilling silver across the ground.

“A dream?”

Xun Heihu gripped the True Martial Talisman around his neck, then quietly rose from bed and stepped out the door.

“According to that spirit, my spirit entered the True Martial Talisman, while my body remained asleep in the outside world—but everything I gained inside the talisman was real and true…”

Xun Heihu arrived in the courtyard and suddenly assumed a stance, stepping into the White Deer Post.

He had practiced this post countless times, so well that it flowed naturally.

But this time, something was clearly different.

Beneath the moonlight, with each breath the boy took, he felt warm currents rising from his limbs and bones, then flowing through his entire body according to his will.

“Controlling my qi and blood—I’ve done it!”

Xun Heihu rejoiced: “Inside the True Martial Talisman, I only practiced briefly—and I broke through directly. The outside world followed suit. According to that so-called spirit… if I push my martial arts to their limit inside the talisman, I naturally accumulate proficiency and then break through?”

“And inside the True Martial space, ten days pass for every single night in the outside world…”

Overwhelmed with excitement, he lay back on the bed but couldn’t sleep for a long while.

Only when dawn was about to break, just before light appeared, did he finally fall into deep slumber.

…

Inside the True Martial Space.

“So… I’m back again.”

Xun Heihu looked at the figure on the steps and bowed respectfully: “Spirit Master…”

“Hmm, it seems you’ve confirmed it.”

Fang Xing nodded: “Remember—never tell anyone about the True Martial Talisman, not even your parents… or you’ll invite catastrophic disaster.”

“Yes.”

Though young, Xun Heihu had heard storytellers recount tales of ordinary people who found treasure maps and had their entire families slaughtered.

Though he rarely saw his father, the man had taught him many lessons in conduct and survival; upon hearing this, he immediately nodded: “I won’t tell anyone…”

“Good. Then for now, you may become the True Martial Talisman’s host. The talisman chose you because it hopes you will one day become one of the greatest martial artists in the world—and even push the martial Dao forward…”

Fang Xing smiled: “With ten times the time others have, and with the aid of breaking through once you reach peak mastery, you will surely rise to the pinnacle of martial arts. But to become the True Martial Talisman’s host, you must swear an oath.”

“What oath?” Xun Heihu felt a heavy stone lift from his chest.

After all, finding such a divine artifact must come at a cost!

Now, he would see what that cost was.

“The True Martial Oath: Forever and ever, I stand in eternal enmity with Pan Wu.”

Fang Xing spoke solemnly: “Just remember it. In this age, even sensing Pan Wu would be difficult for you…”

Xun Heihu mumbled the oath, then asked hopefully: “Spirit Master… since you say the True Martial Talisman has had many hosts, are there any divine martial arts or secret manuals left behind?”

“Martial arts manuals? Naturally, there are.”

Fang Xing’s expression turned peculiar: “But I can only teach you ‘Yuan Wu’—oh, what you call ‘Ancient Wu.’”

“Ancient martial arts? Master Xiong said Ancient Wu is already obsolete—it can only reach the level of a mid-tier martial artist, and requires vast amounts of flesh and blood medicines. Since the Great Kang Emperor unified the land and exterminated the ferocious beasts, their numbers have dwindled until now they’re rare exotic creatures.”

Xun Heihu, thinking of Ancient Wu, spoke up.

After joining the White Deer Academy, every day besides martial training, scholars were assigned to teach these youths and maidens reading, along with countless martial world customs and lore… to prevent them from becoming wooden-headed fools.

Thus, Xun Heihu had some understanding of Ancient Wu.

“Correct. Yuan Wu is obsolete. But if you wish to learn, I have here the ‘Most Ancient Martial Art of All Under Heaven,’ created by the First Emperor of Great Xia—Mang.”

Fang Xing said calmly.

“Xia… Mang? Is he the Martial Emperor?” Xun Heihu’s eyes widened in shock: “He’s the one every sect in the Nine Provinces worships during the New Year—the ancestral root of the martial Dao…”

“Precisely—the Martial Emperor! And your instructor’s description of Ancient Wu is wrong. Though Ancient Wu at its peak still falls short of New Wu, it can still achieve the vitality of a top-tier martial artist… After all, Xia Mang himself lived over three hundred years. Had his foundation not been damaged, he could have reached the five-hundred-year limit—equal to your New Wu’s top-tier masters…”

Fang Xing sighed.

The first generation, forging the path through hardship, inevitably made mistakes and oversights.

Even if he saw them, he could not point them out—to preserve the purity of the martial Dao.

Xia Mang was thus misled. Had he not been, reaching the five-hundred-year limit should have been no problem. Though… still pathetically short-lived.

As for the later Xia emperors, they merely followed their ancestors’ manuals and training methods blindly—enduring needless suffering, like trying to carve rotten wood!

“Top-tier martial arts?”

Xun Heihu’s eyes lit up: “I want to learn! I want to learn!”

He thought clearly: his family had spent five hundred taels of silver just to get him into the White Deer Academy, barely granting him the qualification to train in lower-tier martial arts.

Only after breaking through to internal force could he enter the Five Animals Gate and access mid-tier martial arts.

As for divine manuals capable of training top-tier martial arts?

Wouldn’t any one of them spark bloody chaos across the martial world?

Even if it was Ancient Wu, he’d accept it.

“Very well. Then I shall transmit to you the Yuan Wu created by Xia Mang.”

Fang Xing nodded indifferently: “I observe that today’s New Wu follows the path of external cultivation—lower tiers: Bronze Gate, Silver Veins, Golden Threads… all hard techniques. At peak seventh rank, one reaches the limit of hard technique, then turns inward to generate internal force, shifting to internal cultivation…”

“The ‘Yuan Wu’ you’re about to learn—call it ‘Ancient Wu’ if you prefer—is different. It begins with the body’s constitution. Though flawed, it has complementary advantages… Learn as much as you can.”

!

As Xun Heihu was still excited, the figure shrouded in gray mist suddenly stepped forward and pressed a finger to his forehead.

“Ah!”

He screamed, clutching his head as he collapsed to the ground, his skull splitting with pain.

Suddenly, countless memories flooded his mind.

A figure clad in animal skins practicing martial arts!

Sometimes, his spirit merged entirely into that man’s body, feeling the flow of qi and blood, the shifts in force…

This was why Fang Xing knew the Xia Dynasty characters used in Ancient Wu differed from today’s—he didn’t make Xun Heihu learn ancient script first, but let Xia Mang teach directly.

“Huff… huff…”

After a long while, Xun Heihu rose, panting heavily, staring at his hands: “I… feel different.”

Though he could now control his qi and blood, he had not yet entered any rank, and being young with an undeveloped body, his combat power was still like a five-point zero.

But now, he felt he had spontaneously mastered countless killing techniques—he instinctively targeted vital points on any living thing, and his intuition had become far sharper than before.

Of course, no matter how much he improved, his gaze toward Fang Xing in the gray mist grew ever more reverent.

His keen instinct told him the figure before him was as majestic as a deity.

If a heavenly god had descended, would his aura not resemble this spirit’s?

“Ancient Wu is obsolete. You must train New Wu as your main path, Ancient Wu as auxiliary.”

Fang Xing said: “But since Ancient Wu is called the ‘Most Ancient Martial Art of All Under Heaven,’ it still has merits—it can solidify your foundation. If you develop even one or several of the ‘Twelve Body Anomalies,’ it will greatly aid your New Wu cultivation.”

“Twelve Body Anomalies?”

Xun Heihu asked, puzzled: “What are they?”

“Even your New Wu values innate talent. Didn’t you undergo the Martial Bone test when you joined the White Deer Academy?”

Fang Xing explained: “The ‘Twelve Body Anomalies’ are twelve supreme martial talents, manifested by your ancestors’ primitive diet of raw flesh and blood, and their consumption of ferocious beast bloodlines—passed down through generations. Now they’ve all become latent, yet still grant tremendous advantages to martial training.”

Latent meant no scales or wings would grow—but the enhancements remained.

Only those with exceptionally strong ancestral bloodlines might sprout a few scales…

“I know.”

Xun Heihu’s eyes brightened: “Is it ‘Ape Arms, Bee Waist, Mantis Legs’?”

When he joined the White Deer Academy, he was tested and found to have ordinary bones. But he’d heard another boy at a different testing ground was discovered with ‘Ape Arms, Bee Waist, Mantis Legs’—and was directly admitted into the Five Animals Gate.

That was a privilege normally granted only after breaking through sixth rank!

“‘Ape Arms, Bee Waist, Mantis Legs’? Barely qualifies as the lowest-grade martial bone…” Fang Xing scoffed.

Xun Heihu clearly detected the disdain.

He tried activating the Ancient Wu breathing method; with his experience controlling qi and blood, he quickly grasped it: “But… cultivating Ancient Wu requires consuming ferocious beast flesh or medicines refined from their bloodlines—I don’t have any…”

This was the drawback of Ancient Wu. Now that ferocious beasts had become rare exotic creatures, hunting them for meat cost far more than copper-lead pills or gold-mercury pills.

When Master Xiong told them the story of Ancient Wu’s decline, he mentioned the Baiyun Mountain She family, whose ancestral Ancient Wu, ‘Twin Serpent Palm,’ required consuming the flesh of a beast called ‘Twin-Horned Horned Serpent.’ After the Great Kang Dynasty, the Twin-Horned Horned Serpent gradually went extinct; descendants could only eat the ‘Black-Horned Serpent,’ which carried a trace of its bloodline—making their ancestral art far weaker.

By the time of the Nine Provinces era, the She family could barely find even the Black-Horned Serpent, nearly getting wiped out.

Eventually, their patriarch made the decision to fully switch allegiance to the Five Animals Gate. A master from the Five Animals Gate transformed their Ancient Wu into New Wu, turning ‘Twin Serpent Palm’ into ‘Spirit Serpent Flowing Body Palm,’ allowing them to produce many internal force experts once more and barely preserve their clan’s name…

All Ancient Wu clans suffered like this. For Xun Heihu? He could only cry.

“I have ferocious beast flesh.”

Fang Xing chuckled: “I once had Xia Mang collect various exotic bloodlines—not just for research, but for storage. I can’t let you eat your fill, but as a catalyst to ignite your cultivation? Easy enough…”

(End of Chapter)