Extra's Strategy: Cultivate Protagonists, Become Invincible-Chapter 182: Obstacle In The Martial Path

Xuanyuan Zhou poured cold water on his hopes and dreams in one cold-hearted reply.

"Once a skill has been perfected, it will allow the practitioner to use it naturally without any conscious effort or preparation. What else can a martial move do? You’re not living in a folk tale where a punch can split apart the sun.

"It’s only a select few types of killing moves that have a potential for further growth, that too comes once you’re well past the Physique Transformation realm’s limits. But you idiot... You picked an easy martial art that doesn’t even have killing moves!"

"Beyond the Physique Transformation realm?! By then, I’ll have plenty of time to delve into better Martial Arts. The resources I’ll have access to by then will also be far better in quality," Han Xuhan reasoned, recovering from his shocked stupor.

"For now, I might as well stick to what I’m cultivating. I just have to meet the sect’s requirements by the end of the month."

"What’s the requirement?" Xuanyuan Zhou asked, giving his confidence another hit.

These geniuses, these children of destiny, didn’t even care about the rules and regulations.

They were so far along their cultivation paths that worrying about meeting the sect’s deadlines was an alien concept to them...

"I have to reach the second phase of the Physique Transformation realm," he said dryly.

Xuanyuan Zhou glanced at the back of the strength testing apparatus and shrugged.

"You’ve already made it to thirteen centimeters. The required level of strength is just above twenty centimeters. You’ll breeze past this requirement as long as you stick to the current routine throughout the whole week.

"Moreover, haven’t you already reached the third layer of a Mystic Art? I don’t think the sect ever demanded that the disciples have to display success in the Martial path."

"I practiced an unorthodox Mystic Art. The sect’s rules expressly demand the attainments in cultivation to be in orthodox arts," he corrected her error.

"And there are also some secondary requirements like qi quality, spiritual world’s growth, meditation quality, speed of cycles..."

"Then stop wasting your time and return to your position. You have more than enough healing medicine. So we’ll continue today until I see some improvements in your output. You can spend the rest of the day behind improving in other aspects."

Han Xuhan did not know how Xuanyuan Zhou, a cultivator barely a few phases ahead of him in the Martial path, managed to figure out every little thing he was doing wrong while executing the moves in his manual.

He could only console himself saying that unnatural insight like this was also a part of the protagonist halo.

"During holding the stance- Swallow Crouches Before Flight, your arms lost the angular stability when your body began to shake from the breathing cycle’s effect. You have to make your hands tremble around a fixed axis, not so chaotically.

"Not only will doing this improve the effect of the slashing, it’ll correspond perfectly to the second move of the third section of your manual—Swallow’s Slicing Wings.

"If you can combine both of these moves and execute them at the same time, your attacking efficiency and power output will double!

At the same time, your upper and lower body will generate a far greater amount of vital energy, which will speed up your martial cultivation by a big margin."

"Wait, is that actually possible? I can execute multiple moves at the same time?!"

"Why not? One move is concentrated in your lower body. The other move can operate just fine in your upper body. It’s just difficult to master, that’s all. The benefits are worth it."

"Did Elder Long even teach these concepts? How come Xiao Wu never revealed such concepts to me while he was helping me pick suitable moves from my manual?" Han Xuhan said in a suspicious tone.

He had a reason to be so concerned. The secondary storyline quest titled- ’Xuanyuan Zhou’s First Research Subject’ was still in continuation.

What if she was testing dangerous theories on him under the guise of practicing martial arts?

"How can I tell why Xiao Wu didn’t teach these things to you? Maybe he didn’t think you were ready to learn so much on the very first day. Or maybe he was jealous of you and withheld some crucial information..."

Xuanyuan Zhou’s tone was casual, but the venom hidden between the lines could have triggered anyone’s paranoia in a society like this.

The reason it didn’t make Han Xuhan’s suspicion turn towards Xiao Wu was because he was already paranoid beyond Xuanyuan Zhou’s wildest assumptions.

Besides, he had a feeling that this was just a low-effort way to take revenge for all the times he had called her jealous of Mu Ran. She probably wasn’t even making a serious attempt to poison his relationship with Xiao Wu.

What would be her benefit in that, anyway?

"Alright, I’ll try to master that upper body move later. Is there anything else I need to improve on in the moves I’ve already mastered?"

Xuanyuan Zhou nodded confidently. "Of course there are. You didn’t think one mistake was all that’s separating you from a perfect martial move, did you?"

Han Xuhan thought she was exaggerating, but when she started listing his mistakes and areas of improvement one by one, he was floored by both amazement and despair.

There were too many to keep count, and half of them seemed to be beyond his perception or control!

His sprinting angle was too big. His sprinting speed was too low. His footings didn’t have perfect synchronization. His upper body wasn’t stable enough during the sprint.

The generation of vital energy in his waist, knees, and ankles was too late and too low. Right now, he could generate the threads of energy at his third step forward, whereas according to Xuanyuan Zhou’s analysis, he had to accomplish it by the end of the first step.

Another major problem lay in how he linked all three points of vital energy. Han Xuhan’s strategy was to chaotically spread them across the blood vessels so that some threads would eventually meet each other and form a complete cycle from waist to ankle.

This was essentially a brute-force method. Although the manual didn’t explicitly show any technique for linking the energy nodes, Xuanyuan Zhou adamantly took the stance that such a brutish method was wasting the potential of the move.

"You have to be able to control each and every thread of energy perfectly while guiding them out of the three nodes and connecting them. Efficiency and optimization are the keys to creating the maximum output, not only in terms of combat strength, but also in honing your body throughout the whole process."

About a couple of hours later, Han Xuhan was lying flat on his back at Xuanyuan Zhou’s feet, chest heaving, face red, legs trembling beyond his control.

Xuanyuan Zhou knelt down and poked gently at his shoulder blades, her face no longer as confident as before. There was a crease on her forehead and a deep, distant look in her gaze.

"How unusual! This is definitely something to be worried about. But what is... I can’t even understand..."

After Han Xuhan had spent an hour trying to perfect the flaws in his mastered moves, the two of them had shifted their focus to learning the new move suggested by Xuanyuan Zhou, hoping to integrate it with the rest.

Han Xuhan wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the ’Swallow’s Slicing Wings’ move. Back when Xiao Wu was helping him pick moves, Han Xuhan had given this one a try as well. But at that time, it had seemed a bit too difficult to master in a short time.

However, now that he had given it a serious attempt under Xuanyuan Zhou’s careful guidance, they discovered something strange.

According to the manual, each successful execution was supposed to generate energy in five points of his body: the middle of the spine, both shoulder blades, and both of his palms.

But no matter how rigidly he executed the move, Han Xuhan could not generate a single thread of vital energy in his blood vessels.

Not even Xuanyuan Zhou’s uncannily accurate perception could pick out a flaw that could be the reason behind this failure.

"Are you sure you ran the breathing cycle properly? It can happen after lengthy periods of practice. Sometimes, our senses can become dull and we may not be able to detect the energy being harnessed."

Han Xuhan couldn’t be bothered to answer. He barely had the energy to think straight after cultivating for two hours without a break.

"Rest up till afternoon, and we’ll meet here again. I don’t believe that I would fail to guide someone in mastering a martial move so simple. Whatever the obstacle is, I will figure it out."

Xuanyuan Zhou’s tone had grown grim. It seemed like she was treating his failure as her own. Han Xuhan couldn’t be sure if that was a good thing for him or not...

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