Martial King's Retired Life

Book 15: Chapter 53

Compared to me, Boss and the others easily discovered that the descriptions were the internal turmoils of an internal discipline practitioner. They didn’t think it was weird since they all had the same experience in their own training. The manuals just made them weirder than what they were used to as Shifu was the one who wrote them, which wasn’t to say it was out of character for him. Su Xiao was the only individual to point out a different view due his own journey in martial arts. He did suspect he suffered qi deviation once, after all. Nonetheless, at the end of the day, the manuals still described what should’ve been qi deviation, and that realisation made it all click for me.

Once I realised that, what perspective the manuals tried to describe and their training methods were self-explanatory. The bizarre realms described weren’t just descriptions but also authentic training methods, except it wasn’t obvious if you read it expecting a tutorial.

Shifu was right. The pure yang qi Zizi asked about had to be developed in real combat. It sounded simple enough: keep fighting and keep winning. If the qi was a blade, then the sharper the blade, the more dangerous the wielder was. Every victory would elevate the practitioner’s confidence another notch. In other words, as long as they kept fighting, their pure yang qi would grow more potent, which promised more strength. Therefore, as long as one kept fighting stronger and stronger opponents and triumphing, their progress was infinite. Needless to say, it was impossible for progress to be smooth sailing, but the gains were already far crazier than any other discipline could promise; it was deserving of being hailed as a supreme discipline. Of course, there had to be a drawback. Every method of growing stronger was a fair trade.

“Pure Yang One Qi” wasn’t a discipline an orthodox sect would promote considering the growth rate. Shifu was able to go from completely untrained to being top dog at Mount Daluo within mere years thanks to his extremely unorthodox method and leveraging something all martial artists avoided – qi deviation. Both books wanted the practitioner to force themselves into qi deviation in order to develop pure yang qi that exceeded their body’s tolerance capacity.

I forgot Shifu mentioned that he didn’t research how to train or fighting techniques during his first few years at Vast Sea Submerged Pearl Hall. Instead, he read all the warnings. He tried everything the manuals stated he wasn’t supposed to with total disregard for his safety. As a result, not only did he experience all sorts of qi deviation experiences, but he also became familiar with them. When learning internal disciplines, experiencing qi deviation was a common occurrence for anyone who tried to take shortcuts because the energy exceeded their tolerance. In turn, their energy would grow harder to control. It went without saying that the process was unimaginably painful, not to mention the risk of losing all progress – and potentially your life. That was why orthodox sects eschewed such methods to the point of enforcing stipulations to avoid them. When they ran into barriers that were dangerous to overcome, they’d have elites around to protect them. For that reason, orthodox sects’ internal disciplines focused principally on calming their minds even though it came at the cost of slower progress. Any signs of entering qi deviation would’ve been considered an advanced discipline.

Upon suffering qi deviation, the body would produce energy beyond one’s capacity. Unless it was brought under control, it’d be energy that could’ve caused harm to the person in question at any moment in time.

Shifu chose to trigger qi deviation in himself in the midst of combat so that he could utilise the energy that was beyond his control. Every time the unbridled energy hit his opponent, they’d take damage, while his meridians were improved, so it was a two-in-one endeavour. This was what he meant where the manual told the reader to nurture their yang qi in combat. Having the opponent bear the brunt of qi deviation’s consequences while he benefited. That really was a classic Shifu strategy I should’ve expected.

As clever as the method was, though, it wasn’t something anyone could use. After all, the death of dying in the heat of battle to one’s own energy from qi deviation was a very real risk. Shifu hurriedly challenged everyone on the mountain as he knew that, as soon as he stopped to rest, he’d very likely have been forced to fight using incomplete pure yang qi. Had anyone figured out the method he was using, they’d just have had to buy time to mess him over. Owing to the learning method, the discipline was named Pure Yang One Qi.

“One Qi” referred to utilising all of one’s strength “in one breath” since “qi” could’ve meant a gas, qi, or breath. It didn’t just mean using energy more than one could’ve under normal conditions, allowing them to move faster than one thought possible. Due to the high-speed assault, the opponent would’ve been stuck defending one attack after the next, taking away the possibility of the opponent buying time. Hence, Shifu would go all out every single time right out the gate to defeat them with his new energy before they had a chance to get ready. The remaining energy would be reabsorbed to supplement his foundations.

The training method was extremely risky, which was why it had the “Pure” word in its name. The only way to quell berserk qi as much as possible was to reach a pure, still state, where one could control the mass of energy. As ridiculous as it sounded, Shifu succeeded and launched himself onto his undefeated journey.

Since Shifu had energy that he couldn’t reign in after his rampage, it sounded possible for him to have lasted thirty-two exchanges against Grandmaster. Grandmaster should’ve been able to subdue Shifu faster than that, so it was likely he willingly went along for a while, probably to help Shifu coalesce the enormous volume of true qi. Had Grandmaster not stepped in, Shifu probably would’ve perished that day.

“Zizi, listen carefully: from today onwards, you’re going to have to fight.”

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