Extra's Strategy: Cultivate Protagonists, Become Invincible-Chapter 181: The Swallow’s Flying Knee Kicks

The first bright rays of the sun to greet Salted Fish Mountain fell on a pair of arduous young cultivators, which was historically an unusual sight in this part of the sect.

Han Xuhan was sweating like a pig in front of the tall strength-testing apparatus, performing every stance Xuanyuan Zhou ordered him to. freewebnσvel.cѳm

"Swallow crouches before flight!"

Hearing his instructor’s loud command, Han Xuhan instinctively bent his knees, his butt touching his heels, arms outstretched at an acute angle with his torso in a V-shape.

From the distance, his silhouette did bear some resemblance to a bird ready to take flight.

While holding this stance, Han Xuhan began to regulate his breathing cycle, making his lungs and diaphragm fall into the familiar routine set by the Lightfoot Swallow Art’s first section.

As his breath deepened, his body began to shiver, and the hands raised on both sides started to tremble like a bird’s wings in the air.

"Swallow springs forth in six steps!"

Han Xuhan was forced to shift his gears from a stance to an offensive move. Raising and inclining his torso slightly forward so that his legs could propel him, Han Xuhan slashed the air in front of him rapidly with both arms.

With the initiation of this move, the balance of his body grew unstable, gravity pulling at his leaning torso. The premonition of falling face-first into the dirt increased the urgency and power in his stomping feet and slashing hands.

Although it looked a bit comical, the move could become quite dangerous when performed by a martial cultivator.

After the third step in this position, Han Xuhan felt a hot fluid rush in his waist, knees, and ankle. Having practiced this move repeatedly over the last few days, he could detect and recognize it easily.

This was vital energy, the core component of martial cultivation arts.

With the birth of the vital energy in his body, his workload became threefold. On one hand, he had to maintain the balance of his body while running forward in a crouch.

On the other hand, he had to guide the energy in those three points of his body to connect with each other and create a full cycle. The blood vessels in his waist, knees, and ankles swelled up like fat worms, brimming with dangerous vitality.

And finally, he also had to be careful not to let his breathing cycle go off rhythm. The vital energy would dissipate immediately if his lungs contracted a second too early or late.

If it weren’t for his months of experience as a Mystic Artist, constantly guiding qi during deep meditations through the tiny, barely perceptible meridians of his body, Han Xuhan would not have succeeded in executing the move so soon as a rookie martial artist.

"Swallow Takes off!"

Xuanyuan Zhou’s shout came while Han Xuhan was about to take his sixth step forward. Teeth gritted, he gave rapid mental commands to the tendrils of vital energy all across his lower body, extending them in every direction so that some would eventually link up.

His front foot slammed into the soil, digging a two-inch-deep imprint; while his back foot left a deeper hole into the ground as it sprang upwards, the bent knee extending from his body to slam into the black plate standing in his way.

Threads of vital energy linked themselves up chaotically in his lower body, and for a fraction of a second, the image of a giant swallow’s tail flashed behind him, slamming into the ground as Han Xuhan leaped in the air.

Even though it was an image, it blew a wave of dust behind Han Xuhan. But he didn’t have time to appreciate this fantastical sight. He was busy slamming his other knee into the plate, all the energy of his lower body leaving through that point of contact in a furious tide.

Through both of his knees, vital energy flooded into the thick plate, and the six rods spread behind it screeched as they absorbed the force of the kicks.

THUNK!

The noise the collision made sounded loud enough for even Xuanyuan Zhou to hear. Eyes glinting with satisfaction, she started walking over as Han Xuhan fell on his back and wheezed for breaths.

"Shrank the rods by thirteen centimeters, not bad, not bad at all!" She muttered, examining the back of the plate closely with a tape.

Han Xuhan rubbed his reddened kneecaps, not looking as satisfied as she was.

Less than half a foot?! That was too low considering the pain and effort it took to master this offensive move!

Xuanyuan Zhou must have noticed his displeasure, because she smacked the back of his head lightly with the tape.

"The number of disciples in the outer court who mastered an offensive move in less than a week can be counted on one hand. No need to act like this is a low for you."

A smile appeared on his face upon hearing the praise. After all, Xuanyuan Zhou’s assessment wasn’t exaggerated.

It, however, had to be mentioned that this wasn’t a result of talent or sincere hard work. He had simply begun from a far better position than his peers on the Martial path. Be it experience, guidance, or resources, he had an advantage in every aspect.

Seeing his silly complacent mile seemed to strike a nerve in his Martial Sister’s head. She smacked him with the tape again, this time hard enough to sting.

"Ow!"

Rubbing his reddened neck, he jumped to his feet.

"What the hell was that for?"

"You looked a bit too happy after mastering just one move. Me, personally, I’d be feeling ashamed of myself from insecurity. How can a martial artist be complacent without mastering a whole manual?"

Han Xuhan almost felt like he was back on Earth, being grilled by his parents for not having a job the day after graduation.

"That’s still a long way off, okay?! You cannot expect me to master a whole manual in three days!"

"With the resources you have in hand, I expect you to perfect a couple of moves by the end of the week, at least. It’s not like you’re following the traditional path of practice.

"Those two moves are all you’ve been practicing since day one. Once you master a move, you can vaguely sense the threads of vital energy being harnessed inside your body.

"But after you ’perfect’ a move, the vital energy you can harness every time will increase far beyond those pitiful threads. Thirteen centimeters, hah!"

With a disdainful laugh, Xuanyuan Zhou casually elbowed the plate behind her, and the noise her strike emitted made Han Xuhan wince.

Completely unbothered by the pain, she showed him the measurement of the shrinking rods behind the plate.

"Forty-three centimeters, and it wasn’t even a killing move. This is where I want to see you smile."

"I don’t quite get it. Mastering a move isn’t enough? I can already perfectly sync my breathing technique with my stance and effortlessly shift my body from that stance to execute the flying knee kicks.

"The manual also says that being able to sense and channel the vital energy through the kicks is enough to bring out the potential of the offensive move. What else is there to learn?"

Han Xuhan’s confusion wasn’t unwarranted. After successfully executing the move a few times, he thought he would be done with it. But what was this jargon about perfecting the move now?

Even as he complained, he recalled his memories of reading Xianxia novels on Earth. Now that he thought about it, there was indeed such a scheme present throughout all of those stories.

Hell, ’perfection’ wasn’t even the endpoint of those moves. After the protagonist perfected a skill, he pursued higher forms of mastery, reaching levels like the ’Grandmaster realm’, ’Origin realm’, and then ’The immortal realm’.

Even casual skills like brewing tea sometimes ended up becoming immortal level, unleashing heavenly phenomena on the world whenever the characters showed off.

As soon as this thought occurred to him, Han Xuhan felt like he had struck gold.

A wholly different scheme of power? Sign me up!

So what if he had no future as a Mystic Artist?

He would attain Immortal level skills in the Martial path and become a supreme cultivator in his domain!

"Martial Sister Zhou, what realm comes after perfection? If I keep honing this one move even after it becomes perfect, will I reach the Grandmaster realm? How many levels would be left to make it immortal level-"

Thwack!

"Ow! This is abuse! You’re abusing me with your superior strength!"

Han Xuhan became truly angry this time. He wasn’t some kind of masochistic pervert who would take a beating lying down just because the beater was a pretty girl.

If Xuanyuan Zhou hadn’t been more than ten times stronger than him in all aspects, he would have had his revenge already. He was just wise enough not to start a fight he couldn’t win.

"Beyond perfection? What are you, an illiterate village brat? How can you enhance a skill that is already perfect?"

Follow current novℯls on f(r)eewebnov𝒆l