Chapter 110: Mountain-Crushing Strike

Chen Mo widened his stance, power rising from the ground, his feet taking root.

The Eighteen Tremors of Rushing Thunder stimulates the vibration of Qi and Blood within the body, using this to grow the physical form.

The Qi and Blood circulation diagram is paired with a full set of exercise diagrams, requiring specific movements to be performed in coordination with the Qi and Blood circulation.

This cultivation method is divided into nine levels; each level successfully practiced can increase the physical body's strength by six hundred catties.

Compared to the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist, this cultivation method can truly be called upright and moderate.

As long as a practitioner spends time in diligent cultivation and possesses decent natural talent, they can make a name for themselves within ten years, reaching at least the third or fourth level.

This is already quite good.

As for whether one can cultivate to a higher realm, it depends on whether one can afford the supplementary medicinal decoctions, as well as one's personal talent.

Actually, the main factor is still the supplementary medicinal decoctions; this cultivation method includes a set of prescriptions, for both internal and external use, costing no less than fifty or sixty taels of silver a month.

Without using these prescriptions, it is impossible to cultivate; forced cultivation will only damage the body's potential, and at most, one will struggle to continue after reaching the first or second level.

Even so, this cultivation method is far safer and more stable than the Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist.

The disadvantage is that it consumes too much time and requires a considerable amount of resources.

The Greedy Wolf Seven Kill Fist basically requires no resources as long as one meets the cultivation standards, and results can be seen in three to five months.

As for the Eighteen Tremors of Rushing Thunder, it is considered good if one can enter the threshold within two years.

These two cultivation methods each have their own advantages; it is hard to say which is superior or inferior, only that they are used in different environments.

Chen Mo's Qi and Blood vibrated, conducting continuously from his chest and spine to his entire body.

Each time a level of the Eighteen Tremors of Rushing Thunder is mastered, the Qi and Blood will vibrate twice when the method is circulated; upon reaching the ninth level of perfection, the body vibrates eighteen times in a single session, which is how it gets its name.

Chen Mo's Qi and Blood vibration successively crossed the barriers of the first four levels, directly entering the fifth-level realm.

After circulating the method twice and feeling the strength of his own Qi and Blood improve once more, Chen Mo slowly stopped his movements.

He walked to the desk again, carefully pondering the only martial technique contained within the Eighteen Tremors of Rushing Thunder hammer method.

This martial technique is called Mountain-Crushing Strike.

The cultivation progress of this martial technique is directly influenced by the cultivation progress of the method itself.

When the practitioner reaches perfection, a full-force strike can vibrate eighteen times.

According to the introduction in the cultivation method, if a Martial Artist can resonate with Heaven and Earth Power and grasp the frequency at which mountains pulse, then a single strike causing resonance can truly shatter an entire mountain.

It is just that whether it can truly be done is hard to say.

Regarding this martial technique, there are only the simple cultivation and execution methods; as for insights on cultivation, those are of course impossible to have.

However, Chen Mo still took paper and pen to record the insights he had just gained while practicing the method.

As the saying goes, a good memory is not as good as a bad pen.

By recording these things one by one, he can add or delete them later when he has new insights, and he can see them more intuitively.

He might even consider binding these insights together later to sell them to others along with this cultivation method.

This is the main reason why Martial Dao cultivation methods are cheap; as long as one knows how to read, they can be easily copied and widely disseminated.

Chen Mo recorded these insights and walked to the side to continue his practice.

The Mountain-Crushing stance is not very difficult to practice or execute.

There is only one requirement: one must use a blunt weapon when executing this martial technique.

It is not that ordinary weapons cannot be used, but if they are not sturdy enough, the weapon itself might not withstand the force of the vibration and could be damaged.

He cannot freely execute this martial technique in the practice room; he can only wait until night to go to the Ruins Realm to experiment on some monsters.

Practicing until evening, Chen Mo finished his dinner at home and rested for a while before rushing to the military camp outside the city before the curfew.

The military camp was the same as usual; because the weather was getting colder, most of the soldiers were crowded into that row of barracks with heating stoves.

The soldiers responsible for patrolling and striking the Copper Gong basically just patrolled that circle of barracks, and after finishing, they hurriedly hid back inside the barracks to keep warm.

Chen Mo took the two bright silver refined steel hammers from his barracks; these two hammers were newly forged, each weighing one hundred and fifty catties.

Of course, after this Mortal Transformation, the weight of these two hammers could be considered for a slight increase.

When he gets the chance to forge two more hammers weighing two hundred catties each, it should be enough for his own use.

As for the next Mortal Transformation, that will still take a long time.

If there is no chance for another windfall, he will have to wait at least another year or two before he has the opportunity to undergo the next transformation.

Even if he goes back to explore the more dangerous and higher-yielding Mirage Sea, that would only shorten this time to one year.

Each Mortal Transformation brings relatively more improvement to oneself.

The amount of Qi and Blood required to undergo a new transformation will also rise accordingly.

Picking up the two large hammers, Chen Mo exploded with full speed and rushed toward the distance.

The place he was going this time was not a military camp, but a Salt Mine.

Under normal circumstances, the number of people there is about one hundred and twenty or thirty, and at most it would not exceed one hundred and fifty.

With his current strength, exploring it is just right and stable; one could even say it is an easy crushing victory.

Even if he truly encounters danger, he still has a Protective Talisman on his person.

Chen Mo walked out of the barracks and first put the large hammers into his Storage Bag, then ran at full speed toward the distant Salt Mine.

The weather is already dry today, and with the Wind blowing around the Salt Mine, gray-white salt grains are almost everywhere in the sky.

Of course, this salt cannot be eaten yet; it must be refined and dried before it can become table salt.

The several salt mines owned by the Salt Transport Department that he manages have quality that can be said to be very good.

The table salt mined and processed is white and fine; some of the highest quality fine salt is even like fine sand.

Chen Mo quietly observed this salt field; he did not rush to enter it, but was looking for a place where the patrols were weak.

He also restrained his Inner Qi and sealed one Mysterious Aperture.

Once one enters the Mirage Sea, it is no longer a safe zone; the risk of absorbing Heaven and Earth Power within it is too great.

Because the Mirage Sea itself is also a part of Heaven and Earth, even if it is extremely bizarre.

But it exists, so it is a manifestation of the Heavenly Dao in the operation of Heaven and Earth.

Those Qi Refiners contemplate the Heavenly Dao, so they easily resonate with the Mirage Sea and are pulled into it; without using Secret Techniques, they can only hide within a Dongtian Fudi.

Martial Artists do not directly grasp Heaven and Earth Power, much less contemplate the Heavenly Dao, so their resonance with the Mirage Sea is not as severe.

But if one were to refine Heaven and Earth Power within the Mirage Sea, then it is highly probable that they would be refining the power of the Mirage Sea, which is why no Martial Artist has ever done so.

Of course, it is possible someone has done so, but no one knows what the consequences are after doing it, because those people never managed to come out of the Mirage Sea.

Chen Mo observed for a moment, selected a weak point, and stepped into it.

The Mirage Sea shrouded him, the salt field vanished in the blink of an eye, and only endless Grey Mist covered everything before his eyes.

The moment he entered the Mirage Sea, Chen Mo only felt that it was very quiet here; there was only one sound between Heaven and Earth, as if something was pulsing.

He followed the direction from which the sound originated, and before long, he saw a heart.

This heart was entirely crimson, with countless blood vessels wrapped around it.

It was huge, as massive as a small house, and every pulse seemed to make the entire Mirage Sea tremble.

Inside the heart, a creature seemed to be gestating; it had not yet been born.

The blood vessels on the heart constantly drew power from the Mirage Sea to nourish the creature inside the heart.

Chen Mo took out a few darts and tentatively threw them over.

Previously, he did not have a Storage Bag, so these things were difficult to carry on his person.

Now that he had a Storage Bag, he had also prepared some hidden weapons to carry with him.

It was not that he really intended to use them as weapons, but mainly to test the Mirage Sea creature and see its specific means of attack.

The heart had no reaction at all; the creature inside the heart did notice the attack, but it could do nothing about it.

It had not yet been able to gestate, and did not possess the power to resist.

Chen Mo carried two Giant Hammers and quietly approached, his Inner Qi already wrapping around his Protective Talisman; if anything went wrong, he would grab it and leave.

The heart before him appeared to have no ability to resist, yet he dared not be the slightest bit careless.

The Mirage Sea is bizarre, and there is no guarantee that some more bizarre creatures might appear.

What appears extremely strong might be extremely weak, and what appears extremely weak might be extremely strong.

"Boom." Chen Mo's strike erupted with full force, bolstered by Inner Qi, the Army-Breaking Style stimulating his Qi and Blood.

Then, layering on the ten-fold vibration power of the Mountain-Crushing Style, the Giant Hammer, carrying a whistling Wind, smashed heavily onto the heart.

Almost in the blink of an eye, all the power burst forth and shattered.

The entire heart, along with boundless blood, spilled out; it was as if a rain of blood had begun within the Grey Mist.

Chen Mo had long been prepared to cover himself with Inner Qi; the blood rain fell, but it never harmed him.

However, through the reaction of his own Inner Qi, he could feel that this blood rain was very unusual.

It possessed extreme lethality and corrosiveness; once contaminated, it would certainly be unpleasant.

The heart burst, and the creature inside that had not yet gestated let out an extremely sharp shriek.

The sound carried boundless hatred and was also extremely miserable.

Its form was thin and withered, like a skeleton wrapped in skin; its features had not yet formed, and its face was very smooth, as if a layer of skin had been draped over a human face.

"Ah!" It seemed to carry boundless hatred, as well as resentment and malice toward this world.

Hearing it in one's ears, one only felt goosebumps rise all over, and felt uncomfortable everywhere.

"Boom!" Chen Mo smashed out two more hammers, a double-hammer strike to the ears, directly smashing the brain of this unborn creature.

The world suddenly became quiet, and all the noisy sounds vanished in an instant.

Chen Mo still did not stop; the vibration of the double hammers erupted, instantly smashing the blood infant before him into a mass of rotten flesh.

As it died, its flesh and blood kept squirming, then slowly gathered back together.

Finally, it evolved into a heart the size of an adult's fist; at this moment, the heart was still pulsing.

Held in his hand, Chen Mo could even feel its warmth.

Apart from this heart, there were no other Mirage Beasts in this part of the Mirage Sea.

All the power of this Mirage Sea had been nourishing its birth, but it had not yet had the chance to be born before Chen Mo struck first.

Chen Mo did not dare to rashly put it into his Storage Bag; he just held it in his hand first, then immediately struck his Copper Gong to disperse the Grey Mist around him.

Arriving in the outside world, this heart still maintained its pulse, but the speed had become extremely slow.

Without observing carefully, one could not even feel it moving.

Chen Mo was not in a hurry to swallow this Mirage Spirit, confirming it was safe and sound and would not affect other things in his Storage Ring.

Only then did he put it into his Storage Bag, take back his weapons, quietly set off to leave this salt field, and rush back into Zhuniuji.

Chen Mo did not go home immediately, but first took out incense and went to those places in the market rumored to be haunted to offer incense one by one.

He had done this many times before, but had stopped during this period because he was away; now that he was back, he naturally had to continue testing.

If there was something, then he would profit; if there was not, then he would not waste much.

Arriving all the way at the Wang Jia Dazhai near his home, Chen Mo skillfully lit the incense; as the incense smoke drifted thinly into the sky, the dilapidated residence before his eyes slowly vanished.

The clamorous and lively sounds of people, the festive and joyful sounds of the Gong and Drum, rang in Chen Mo's ears.

(End of chapter)