Chapter 104: Selfless Realm
Chapter 104: Chapter 104: Selfless Realm
The Silver Wolves’ territory was in the north.
The north was a forest, and the water sources within it were drying up faster than anyone had imagined.
Even with the Silver Wolf King’s miraculous ice abilities,
it couldn’t stop the increasingly hot weather from evaporating the water.
The Silver Wolf packs needed water, and the prey they herded needed water.
A large portion of their prey were herbivores that fed on grass. Without water, the grass would wither and die!
The Silver Wolf King sensed a crisis.
So, it came to Flame Camp seeking help.
"How did you cooperate?" Tang Wen asked, finding it both curious and incredible.
’Can an Exotic Beast really have such foresight?’
Qian Dong’s eyes grew profound. "The great lake!"
"Oh?"
Qian Dong recalled the scene, speaking with some discomfort. "Elder Ya prepared a realgar potion and poured it into the lake. That Green Water Python King and all its descendants floated to the surface! The sight... my warhorse pissed itself in fear! I was numb all over! You have no idea—there must have been tens of thousands of snakes!"
After speaking, Qian Dong, still visibly shaken by the memory, quickly picked up his wine bowl and took a large gulp to calm his nerves.
"The Silver Wolf King and its children froze the entire surface of the lake. The Queen, the two Generals, the rest of us, and many high-level Silver Wolves all attacked at once. It was a truly chaotic day..."
Tang Wen felt a pang of regret. He had missed such a spectacular event.
"So, the Green Python King is dead?"
"How could it be! A King Beast isn’t that easy to kill, and the lake is its home turf! It was injured and escaped into an underground river."
"What happened then?"
"The Queen moved half a mountain to block the entrances and exits between the lake and the underground. That’s how the matter came to an end for now."
"The Green Python King won’t crawl ashore, will it?"
Qian Dong rolled his eyes. "Crawl ashore for what? To get itself killed?"
After a moment, he added, "So in the future, if you go out and see Silver Wolves drinking by the lake alongside our people, don’t be too surprised."
The Silver Wolf clan and Flame Camp had a history of enmity, but in the face of disaster and the struggle for survival, their past grievances were insignificant.
Tang Wen nodded. "Right. We brought back Water Wheels this time. They’ll come in handy."
"..."
Tang Wen had no plans to step foot outside the camp anytime soon.
After causing such a huge stir in Five Families City and beating the genius from Black Mountain Camp half to death, it was uncertain if Black Blade would ever fully recover. It was better for him to lay low.
After dinner, he went to the Meditation Room that night.
In the Visualization Image, the scene was incredibly familiar.
It was a scene Tang Wen saw even in his dreams.
[First, Second, and Third Forms of Mountain-Opening Cannon Fist: Mountain-Opening Cannon, Head-On Cannon, Half-Step Bombardment]
Through repeated training and actual combat, his mastery of these three forms had reached a level of refined skill.
And just a few days ago, when his experience bar passed the halfway mark, he had gained a new insight—the Seventh Form: Eight-Armed Divine Fist.
Of the six forms of the Mountain-Opening Cannon Fist known in the camp, he had now mastered four.
Two forms remained that he had no clue about: [Fifth Form: Dragon Emerges from the Water, Undersea Shock]
[Tenth Form: Mountain-Shattering Cannon]
The more he thought, the more jumbled his thoughts became.
In the end, he decided to stop thinking about it altogether and stood up to practice the Eight Vajra Techniques.
Tang Wen completely relaxed his mind, no longer pursuing speed. Like an old Daoist, his heart was as still as an ancient well.
It was the principle of ’when chopping wood, just chop wood; when eating, just eat; when training, just train.’
When he performed the first form, he focused solely on the first form. When he performed a stretching movement, he thought of nothing but the stretch itself.
Gradually, everything started to feel different.
And yet, everything also seemed the same.
He entered the Selfless Realm.
After a few repetitions, Tang Wen’s eyes were half-open.
He sat down gently and quietly immersed his mind in the Contemplation Method.
The Core Power of the Contemplation Method, the Fireball erupting under the pressure of the earth’s crust... the collapsing mountain peak.
Under his control, the Visualization sped up again and again, like fleeting light and passing shadows, the scenes changing in a blur.
The entire series of scenes was compressed into one second.
Then half a second.
A quarter of a second.
An eighth of a second...
Finally, it became a single thought: with a mere intention, the Visualization was complete.
An unknown amount of time passed before Tang Wen was awakened by a sharp pain.
His temples were throbbing, spasming with pain.
’How long was I in Visualization?’
’Did I completely exhaust my Spiritual Power?’
He tried to get up, but a wave of dizziness washed over him.
He simply lay back down on the straw meditation cushion.
In less than thirty seconds, he was fast asleep.
Four and a half hours later, Tang Wen woke up.
The first thing he did was check his Experience Panel:
[Visualization Martial Arts: Mountain-Opening Cannon Fist, Mastery (3217→3580/6000)]
383!
’It actually increased by 383 experience points?’
He couldn’t help but be astonished. Back in the wilderness, using the Mountain-Opening Cannon Fist to demolish ten earthen hills had barely given him this much experience, right?
But how many days did it take to destroy ten earthen hills?
It was nothing like now, where it had only taken a few hours.
Not only that, but his Spiritual Power had also slightly increased.
[Essence: 9.3→9.4]
A full increase of 0.1 points.
One had to understand, given the current strength of Tang Wen’s Spiritual Power,
it was nearly impossible to improve it through normal training, aside from the growth that came from breakthroughs in his Basic Techniques.
He hadn’t expected such a pleasant surprise today.
Next was [Eight Vajra Techniques, Expert (7331→7431/18000)].
It had increased by a full one hundred points.
For an Expert Level Cultivation Technique, that was a lot.
’I’ll try again!’
GRUMBLE GRUMBLE GRUMBLE.
Tang Wen sprang to his feet with a kip-up, but before he could even begin, his stomach began to protest.
"Alright, food first."
He went to the Royal Palace Kitchen and got himself two large bowls of shredded chicken with hand-pulled noodles.
Instead of returning to the Meditation Room with the Visualization Image, Tang Wen went directly to the small courtyard where he had previously entered seclusion to train.
The stone bricks of the courtyard were spotless.
Clearly, someone came to clean it regularly.
He eagerly entered the basement and began his training:
"’Preparation Stance... Two Hands Thrust to the Heavens... Hands and Feet Forward to Fortify the Loins...’"
He had just reached the second part of the technique when a faint warmth spread across his lower back. It wasn’t a searing heat, but a gentle, nourishing warmth.
It was very pleasant.
Once, twice.
Three times, five times.
He performed it more than a dozen times in one go.
But he couldn’t find that selfless state from the previous night.
He only felt comfortable all over, full of energy, and in exceptionally good condition.
’Is that state something that can’t be forced?’
’Well, I’m damn well going to force it!’
Tang Wen focused his mind and trained again.
Train, eat, sleep.
A day passed, but he didn’t find the feeling at all.
On the second day of his seclusion, violent impact sounds echoed from the courtyard.
It turned out Tang Wen had dragged the black training dummy from the courtyard into the underground training area.
A week went by, and he was still unable to re-enter that selfless state.
He decided to calm his mind and simply continue his regular training.
On the morning of the eighth day, while warming up with the Eight Vajra Techniques, the state came to him as he was practicing.
Tang Wen took a few deep breaths, carefully savoring the feeling.
A moment later, he began to practice his Fist Technique.
First Form: Mountain-Opening Cannon.
Second Form: Head-On Cannon.
Third Form: Half-Step Bombardment.
Fifth Form: Dragon Emerges from the Water, Undersea Shock.
This move still didn’t produce any significant power.
However, Tang Wen had deeply imprinted the method of punching into his mind, and the execution was very smooth.
Seventh Form: Eight-Armed Divine Fist.
The phantom of eight arms flashed behind Tang Wen.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
In an instant, the black metal training dummy was struck dozens of times.
Tenth Form: Mountain-Shattering Cannon.
As Tang Wen threw the punch, his body suddenly felt empty.
It was the feeling of relief one gets after carrying a hundred-pound weight for several hundred meters and then suddenly setting it down.
Exhausting, yet liberating.
WHOOSH!
The thousand-jin black metal dummy was sent flying sideways, crashing into the hard, steel-reinforced stone wall.
’Mountain-Shattering Cannon... I’m starting to get the feel for it.’
But it was still a far cry from the power shown in the Visualization Image, which could collapse an entire mountain!
Tang Wen immersed himself in the Fist Technique and continued to train.
The black dummy was slammed against the wall again and again in all sorts of ways, until Tang Wen’s Spiritual Power was depleted and he collapsed to the ground, panting for breath.
Unlike last time, he hadn’t just exhausted his Spiritual Power.
Due to practicing the Fist Technique, his physical stamina was also almost completely gone.
He hadn’t noticed it while in the selfless state.
But the moment he stopped, every muscle in his body ached with soreness.
He quickly took out the Exotic Beast Jerky he had prepared in advance. The jerky had been sliced paper-thin by his three Maids at home, almost like the fatty beef rolls used for hot pot.
Tang Wen swallowed dozens of slices before falling into a deep sleep!