The morning after:
“Leng Mo! What the hell are you doing… Did you not eat breakfast this morning? Your movements are so weak, is there even an ounce of our dwarven race’s demeanour remaining in them? Put in more energy!”
Laughing bitterly, I summoned the remaining traces of strength from my body. SIgh… Why would I be so stupid? I collected my weight vest, arm guards, leg guards, and the set of clothes from Aunt Matilda this morning. Being able to just stand here itself while carrying the axe coated with iron could be considered a miracle!
In retrospect, the chief must have been really blind! With all the weight under my leather armor, it seemed as if I had become fat overnight. How could he have missed this important fact?
I had absolutely no idea how many times I got berated by the chief. It was so bad that tears almost spilled out of my eyes… However, I held on steadfastly with my end goal in mind!
After a long and tiring day, I dragged myself home and slumped into my bed, staring at the ceiling, my entire body cramping up. I knew that i had no chance of completing my daily training with my current physique. In spite of that, I silently trudged on as I had no other choice.
This can’t be the only solution!
Even though I was dead tired from the all the training, I was unable to fall asleep due to the pain I felt throughout my body. Damn… If I continued staying awake, I would definitely die during tomorrow’s training!
Suddenly, an idea flashed across my mind! I purchased two books from the dirty beggar on that fateful day. Since I had trouble falling asleep due to the pain, let me try practicing its contents! Since the contents of the other manual was so outstanding, this one couldn’t be too far off!
Digging up the contents of the ‘Art of Nine Suns’ from deep within my memory, I realised that it was actually a cultivation art! Cultivation arts were a kind of technique that would greatly increase one’s internal strength and stamina. Since I had nothing to lose, I began practicing.
“Visualise the area of your dantian. In the centre, you should be able to find a small reddish ball of light, burning with the heat of ten thousand suns. Gradually, direct the power of this ball of light into your meridians, from the dantian towards the Yin point, through the tongue, and back into the dantian. Each revolution would take one day. Beginners would need to accomplish nine revolutions to be considered a cultivator of the ‘Art of Nine Suns’!
Alright… Let’s try out the instructions from the book. Even if nothing happened, it still wouldn’t affect my current condition much. Taking up the basic cultivating stance, I started practicing!
Firstly, I had to visualise a ball of energy in my dantian, with insanely high temperatures. Okay… Was it the sun? Or just a red ball of light? Regardless, the heat must be mind-boggling!
Nonetheless, the greatest trait of a genius would be his imagination. I managed to visualise my dantian as if I was looking at the back of my hand. Needless to say, the ball of light, shining in full glory, appeared!
After immersing myself in this scene for a period of time, I started to practice in accordance to the manual’s instructions. A strand of energy appeared from the miniature sun in my dantian, and I directed it into my meridians. It went into every nook and cranny of my body. Once the energy reached my brain, I felt indescribably good. Also, my muscle aches seemed to have disappeared instantly!
The energy lingered in my brain for a short instance, eventually returning to my dantian through all the different meridians in my body. Upon reaching the Yin point, my dantian released a strong suction force, and the energy dissipated into it.
However, if you had thought that the process had been just that simple, you couldn’t be more wrong! The energy glimmered with the radiance of the sun at every important position of my body. For example, the liver, stomach, kidneys, pancreas, heart and many others. Luckily, I was born with ludicrously high intellect. If not, my concentration would have crumbled under the pressure of the energy, and eventually led to my death!
According to the book, I had just completed one revolution, with eight more to go before I could be considered a practitioner of this art. Since I had no better use of my time, and with it being able to improve my body condition, I decided to press on.
Hence, I continued sitting on the floor, meditating quietly. I slowly opened my eyes after the completion of the ninth revolution. To my surprise, I only took one night instead of the estimated nine days as stated on the cultivation manual!
As it was already approaching midday, I began panicking like crazy. If I were to be late for the training once again, the chief would really curse me to hell!
To my surprise, I felt perfectly fine after springing to my feet; I felt no bedsores whatsoever even after sitting in the same position for the entire night! This… This couldn’t be right!
In addition, the most incredulous part about all of this was that my body felt extremely rejuvenated! I felt better than I had ever did in the past!
Hahaha… I finally bought a treasure in disguise! I smiled in elation as I recalled my mother and sister’s words. “As long as it is on sale, buy it even if it seems useless!” (To the little kids reading this book, these words aren’t meant for you! Please do not try this at home… Haha… As the saying goes: “An item will never be both cheap and of good quality.”)
Rapidly, I donned my weights and dashed out of my house. Hahaha! As long as I cultivated the “Art of the Nine Suns”, I could train in peace without worrying that my frail body wouldn’t be able to handle it!
The thoughts of a kid would always be pellucid. Initially, innocence and simple-mindedness were two traits that a young child would possess. However, with my God-given intellect and my doctorates, how can someone ever call me unintelligible?
One would need to have an uncluttered mind in order to cultivate techniques to perfection, as they can focus on the task at hand. This trait usually belonged to children alone. The downside of being a child was that the “Art of the Nine Suns” required relatively high perception and deciphering skills to cultivate! Even so, I never had this problem. With two doctorates under my belt, the “Art of the Nine Suns” was just a piece of cake!
In life, hard work can bring you places. However, one would never ever reach the pinnacle of any field with just hard work alone! In order to truly be called a grandmaster, one would need to be both talented and persevering!
Usually, it would be an impossible task for an average person to cultivate the “Art of the Nine Suns”. With luck, two to three years would be required to cultivate to my current state. This was due to varying innate factors. Upon reaching this stage, the next step would be to embark on the path of becoming a master of this art!
According to the records in the manual, one would have to train religiously for over fifty years to become a master at this art. They would also need to be endowed with great perception and knowledge, as well as a lifetime’s worth of experience! (Oh by the way, the book about Zhang Wuji is purely science fiction. It’s fake!)
The “Art of the Nine Suns” definitely lived up to its name. Regardless of the cultivation difficulty or effects on the body, it’s unquestionably top-tier. While practicing, one had to focus on infinite minute details. From the directional flow of the energy to the intensity of it entering one’s organs, peerless concentration would be required. In the ‘Dream World’, less than one in a million living organisms would be able to achieve this!
Beginning from the miniature sun in the dantian to its brilliant radiance, even one’s organs, they were all the result of imagination. An ordinary practitioner would forget about the sun if they focused on its brilliance, and vice versa. Conversely, they might misdirect the energy into the wrong points of their body!
As long as anything went wrong during the cultivation process, one would definitely be forced into a life-threatening situation. For example, if you failed to imagine the sun in your dantian, the process would be forced to a halt, causing the blood in your body to flow in the opposite direction! As a result, oxygen would be led away from your organs, resulting in your bodily functions failing.
In a single night, I had managed to become an elementary practitioner of this amazing cultivation art. This was something that had never been done before in the past, and would never be surpassed in the future! Additionally, this amazing phenomena actually appeared in the body of a young child! It was common knowledge that all children possessed pure yang bodies. Practicing this art with my age… It was literally doubling my results with half the effort needed!
Despite that, I’m still just an elementary practitioner at the end of the day. The ‘Art of the Nine Suns’ was divided into nine levels, with each level being more difficult to cultivate than the one prior. Even though I’ve revolved the energy nine times, I still cannot be considered as having mastered the first layer! Only with unending practice and patience can one achieve it!
The idea behind the nine revolutions of energy was to get rid of all the various impurities in one’s body. One could only practice this art with pure energy in one’s dantian. By forcefully cultivating this art with impurities in the body, there would be no faster route to the eighteen levels of hell! The only phrase that one could use to describe this elementary process would be: “casting of an iron base!”
In the middle of the practice area, I swung the axe vigorously. Sigh… It seemed like the Heavens was fair after all! No matter what one did, the increasing of one’s strength would still be a tedious process. One could only traverse this difficult path step by step! Oh well… I’ll have to cultivate the ‘Art of the Nine Suns’ every single night from now on!
Even with the help of the cultivation technique, I still faced unending criticisms and punishments from the chief. On the bright side, he was scolding me about different aspects of my training now. It wasn’t about me being slower and weaker than the rest, but rather the difference in my movements! Not only was it awkward, it was still tiring!
Laughing bitterly, I looked at the chief. Actually, I wasn’t stupid at all. Conversely, I was too smart! Even though I was using an axe, I had still tried to practice the ‘Hundred Slashing Knives’. Trying to practice sword arts using an axe, how could my movements seem graceful and effortless?
The chief was a person who had an eye for detail, even while smithing in his free time. However, he spent an entire day trying to correct my movements to no avail. This put me in a spot as I had no idea if I should continue practicing like this!
Returning to my humble abode at night, I sat on my bed without making a sound. Don’t get me wrong, the houses in the whole village all had an appearance similar to mine, crude and simple. To the dwarves, as long as they had a shelter from the rain, it was enough. Luxury and pompadour never belonged in their dictionary as they believed that it would lead to laziness!
Envisioning the experiences I had gone through today, I felt hesitant. What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to continue practicing the ‘Hundred Slashing Knives’ or accede to his wishes?
From a scientific viewpoint, it was possible to use an axe to practice swordplay. Moreover, it would also train one’s dexterity!
However, was I supposed to ignore the patient guidance the chief had provided? Was he supposed to rage at my poor performance daily? How am I supposed to tell him the reason for my actions, and even so, would I manage to bring my point across clearly?
Sighing helplessly, I decided to stop thinking about things I couldn’t control as it wouldn’t result in anything productive anyway. No matter how smart and prodigious I was, some things just didn’t have an answer. Occasionally, answers lay right below one’s nose. The harder someone tried to search for it, the harder it would be to find it. On the contrary, if one decided to let things take its natural flow, the answer might appear in front of you magically!
The morning after:
“Leng Mo! What the hell are you doing… Did you not eat breakfast this morning? Your movements are so weak, is there even an ounce of our dwarven race’s demeanour remaining in them? Put in more energy!”
Laughing bitterly, I summoned the remaining traces of strength from my body. SIgh… Why would I be so stupid? I collected my weight vest, arm guards, leg guards, and the set of clothes from Aunt Matilda this morning. Being able to just stand here itself while carrying the axe coated with iron could be considered a miracle!
In retrospect, the chief must have been really blind! With all the weight under my leather armor, it seemed as if I had become fat overnight. How could he have missed this important fact?
I had absolutely no idea how many times I got berated by the chief. It was so bad that tears almost spilled out of my eyes… However, I held on steadfastly with my end goal in mind!
After a long and tiring day, I dragged myself home and slumped into my bed, staring at the ceiling, my entire body cramping up. I knew that i had no chance of completing my daily training with my current physique. In spite of that, I silently trudged on as I had no other choice.
This can’t be the only solution!
Even though I was dead tired from the all the training, I was unable to fall asleep due to the pain I felt throughout my body. Damn… If I continued staying awake, I would definitely die during tomorrow’s training!
Suddenly, an idea flashed across my mind! I purchased two books from the dirty beggar on that fateful day. Since I had trouble falling asleep due to the pain, let me try practicing its contents! Since the contents of the other manual was so outstanding, this one couldn’t be too far off!
Digging up the contents of the ‘Art of Nine Suns’ from deep within my memory, I realised that it was actually a cultivation art! Cultivation arts were a kind of technique that would greatly increase one’s internal strength and stamina. Since I had nothing to lose, I began practicing.
“Visualise the area of your dantian. In the centre, you should be able to find a small reddish ball of light, burning with the heat of ten thousand suns. Gradually, direct the power of this ball of light into your meridians, from the dantian towards the Yin point, through the tongue, and back into the dantian. Each revolution would take one day. Beginners would need to accomplish nine revolutions to be considered a cultivator of the ‘Art of Nine Suns’!
Alright… Let’s try out the instructions from the book. Even if nothing happened, it still wouldn’t affect my current condition much. Taking up the basic cultivating stance, I started practicing!
Firstly, I had to visualise a ball of energy in my dantian, with insanely high temperatures. Okay… Was it the sun? Or just a red ball of light? Regardless, the heat must be mind-boggling!
Nonetheless, the greatest trait of a genius would be his imagination. I managed to visualise my dantian as if I was looking at the back of my hand. Needless to say, the ball of light, shining in full glory, appeared!
After immersing myself in this scene for a period of time, I started to practice in accordance to the manual’s instructions. A strand of energy appeared from the miniature sun in my dantian, and I directed it into my meridians. It went into every nook and cranny of my body. Once the energy reached my brain, I felt indescribably good. Also, my muscle aches seemed to have disappeared instantly!
The energy lingered in my brain for a short instance, eventually returning to my dantian through all the different meridians in my body. Upon reaching the Yin point, my dantian released a strong suction force, and the energy dissipated into it.
However, if you had thought that the process had been just that simple, you couldn’t be more wrong! The energy glimmered with the radiance of the sun at every important position of my body. For example, the liver, stomach, kidneys, pancreas, heart and many others. Luckily, I was born with ludicrously high intellect. If not, my concentration would have crumbled under the pressure of the energy, and eventually led to my death!
According to the book, I had just completed one revolution, with eight more to go before I could be considered a practitioner of this art. Since I had no better use of my time, and with it being able to improve my body condition, I decided to press on.
Hence, I continued sitting on the floor, meditating quietly. I slowly opened my eyes after the completion of the ninth revolution. To my surprise, I only took one night instead of the estimated nine days as stated on the cultivation manual!
As it was already approaching midday, I began panicking like crazy. If I were to be late for the training once again, the chief would really curse me to hell!
To my surprise, I felt perfectly fine after springing to my feet; I felt no bedsores whatsoever even after sitting in the same position for the entire night! This… This couldn’t be right!
In addition, the most incredulous part about all of this was that my body felt extremely rejuvenated! I felt better than I had ever did in the past!
Hahaha… I finally bought a treasure in disguise! I smiled in elation as I recalled my mother and sister’s words. “As long as it is on sale, buy it even if it seems useless!” (To the little kids reading this book, these words aren’t meant for you! Please do not try this at home… Haha… As the saying goes: “An item will never be both cheap and of good quality.”)
Rapidly, I donned my weights and dashed out of my house. Hahaha! As long as I cultivated the “Art of the Nine Suns”, I could train in peace without worrying that my frail body wouldn’t be able to handle it!
The thoughts of a kid would always be pellucid. Initially, innocence and simple-mindedness were two traits that a young child would possess. However, with my God-given intellect and my doctorates, how can someone ever call me unintelligible?
One would need to have an uncluttered mind in order to cultivate techniques to perfection, as they can focus on the task at hand. This trait usually belonged to children alone. The downside of being a child was that the “Art of the Nine Suns” required relatively high perception and deciphering skills to cultivate! Even so, I never had this problem. With two doctorates under my belt, the “Art of the Nine Suns” was just a piece of cake!
In life, hard work can bring you places. However, one would never ever reach the pinnacle of any field with just hard work alone! In order to truly be called a grandmaster, one would need to be both talented and persevering!
Usually, it would be an impossible task for an average person to cultivate the “Art of the Nine Suns”. With luck, two to three years would be required to cultivate to my current state. This was due to varying innate factors. Upon reaching this stage, the next step would be to embark on the path of becoming a master of this art!
According to the records in the manual, one would have to train religiously for over fifty years to become a master at this art. They would also need to be endowed with great perception and knowledge, as well as a lifetime’s worth of experience! (Oh by the way, the book about Zhang Wuji is purely science fiction. It’s fake!)
The “Art of the Nine Suns” definitely lived up to its name. Regardless of the cultivation difficulty or effects on the body, it’s unquestionably top-tier. While practicing, one had to focus on infinite minute details. From the directional flow of the energy to the intensity of it entering one’s organs, peerless concentration would be required. In the ‘Dream World’, less than one in a million living organisms would be able to achieve this!
Beginning from the miniature sun in the dantian to its brilliant radiance, even one’s organs, they were all the result of imagination. An ordinary practitioner would forget about the sun if they focused on its brilliance, and vice versa. Conversely, they might misdirect the energy into the wrong points of their body!
As long as anything went wrong during the cultivation process, one would definitely be forced into a life-threatening situation. For example, if you failed to imagine the sun in your dantian, the process would be forced to a halt, causing the blood in your body to flow in the opposite direction! As a result, oxygen would be led away from your organs, resulting in your bodily functions failing.
In a single night, I had managed to become an elementary practitioner of this amazing cultivation art. This was something that had never been done before in the past, and would never be surpassed in the future! Additionally, this amazing phenomena actually appeared in the body of a young child! It was common knowledge that all children possessed pure yang bodies. Practicing this art with my age… It was literally doubling my results with half the effort needed!
Despite that, I’m still just an elementary practitioner at the end of the day. The ‘Art of the Nine Suns’ was divided into nine levels, with each level being more difficult to cultivate than the one prior. Even though I’ve revolved the energy nine times, I still cannot be considered as having mastered the first layer! Only with unending practice and patience can one achieve it!
The idea behind the nine revolutions of energy was to get rid of all the various impurities in one’s body. One could only practice this art with pure energy in one’s dantian. By forcefully cultivating this art with impurities in the body, there would be no faster route to the eighteen levels of hell! The only phrase that one could use to describe this elementary process would be: “casting of an iron base!”
In the middle of the practice area, I swung the axe vigorously. Sigh… It seemed like the Heavens was fair after all! No matter what one did, the increasing of one’s strength would still be a tedious process. One could only traverse this difficult path step by step! Oh well… I’ll have to cultivate the ‘Art of the Nine Suns’ every single night from now on!
Even with the help of the cultivation technique, I still faced unending criticisms and punishments from the chief. On the bright side, he was scolding me about different aspects of my training now. It wasn’t about me being slower and weaker than the rest, but rather the difference in my movements! Not only was it awkward, it was still tiring!
Laughing bitterly, I looked at the chief. Actually, I wasn’t stupid at all. Conversely, I was too smart! Even though I was using an axe, I had still tried to practice the ‘Hundred Slashing Knives’. Trying to practice sword arts using an axe, how could my movements seem graceful and effortless?
The chief was a person who had an eye for detail, even while smithing in his free time. However, he spent an entire day trying to correct my movements to no avail. This put me in a spot as I had no idea if I should continue practicing like this!
Returning to my humble abode at night, I sat on my bed without making a sound. Don’t get me wrong, the houses in the whole village all had an appearance similar to mine, crude and simple. To the dwarves, as long as they had a shelter from the rain, it was enough. Luxury and pompadour never belonged in their dictionary as they believed that it would lead to laziness!
Envisioning the experiences I had gone through today, I felt hesitant. What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to continue practicing the ‘Hundred Slashing Knives’ or accede to his wishes?
From a scientific viewpoint, it was possible to use an axe to practice swordplay. Moreover, it would also train one’s dexterity!
However, was I supposed to ignore the patient guidance the chief had provided? Was he supposed to rage at my poor performance daily? How am I supposed to tell him the reason for my actions, and even so, would I manage to bring my point across clearly?
Sighing helplessly, I decided to stop thinking about things I couldn’t control as it wouldn’t result in anything productive anyway. No matter how smart and prodigious I was, some things just didn’t have an answer. Occasionally, answers lay right below one’s nose. The harder someone tried to search for it, the harder it would be to find it. On the contrary, if one decided to let things take its natural flow, the answer might appear in front of you magically!
