"Third phase of the Martial path, here I co!"
With a determined stance, Han Xuhan moved his arms according to the illustrations of the move: Vibrating Block.
This was a move collected from one of the martial art manuals given to him by Xuanyuan Zhou, one of the select few moves that could generate vital energy inside his acupoints despite his 'special physique'.
There were two reasons why he had chosen to rely on this move to break through to the third phase of his martial cultivation.
Firstly, this move was still relatively new to him. The yield of vital energy and improvent per session was still high enough to feel imnsely rewarding.
In comparison, the moves he had mastered prior to it felt boring and chanical now. Improving them by the smallest margin was a herculean task.
On the other hand, he wasn't familiar enough yet with the other moves he had discovered to be suitable for his physique.
Secondly, the Vibrating Block move was a source of an anomalous incident. A few days ago, when he had successfully practiced it for the first ti, it had ended up affecting his system, or more accurately, one of the quests issued by the system.
He had been making steady progress towards completing a quest associated with Xuanyuan Zhou's storyline, titled: Xuanyuan Zhou's First Research Subject.
But due to the anomalous developnt, this quest has been renad, and its details readjusted.
The difference between the old quest and new one wasn't that significant, in all honesty. The quest details told him that Xuanyuan Zhou no longer treated him as a disposable guinea pig. He was her pathfinder now.
What were the reasons for such a twist in the tale? He couldn't tell. His system was almost a passive chanism. It wouldn't answer the questions he had either.
So Han Xuhan had relied on guesswork to co up with a theory.
Xuanyuan Zhou hadn't given him those martial art manuals on a random, generous whim. Those manuals had been carefully selected for a particular purpose.
She wanted to test sothing through him, sothing she was interested in deeply, perhaps sothing related to her own path of martial cultivation.
Was there a mystery hidden within those martial arts she had given to him as gifts?
Or was it his rare martial physique that interested her?
Regardless of the truth of the matter, Han Xuhan was certain of one fact. He had to master so moves from those manuals to advance the progress bar of the quest and get his rewards.
That would be a win-win scenario for both sides.
While his mind was occupied by all sorts of speculations, his body didn't remain still. He went through the motions with a numb fluidity that ca from nurous repetitions.
Once he felt the prickly sensation of vital energy taking birth inside the acupoints of his arms, he scooped every drop out with delicate ntal control, channeling threads of energy through his blood vessels until a complete network ford inside both of his raised arms.
Then he began to shake those charged-up arms like the strings of a guqin. The vital energy stored inside the arms was set in a chaotic motion due to the stimuli, and the effect of this stimuli was his target.
It created a mont of blurry, vibrating movent of his arms that could not only block powerful strikes, but also send the released vital energy of the attacker back into their own body.
This return of released vital energy was extrely dangerous for a martial artist. It couldn't be controlled at all. The best one could hope to do was to neutralize it before it hard their organs.
The task of neutralization would put a burden on the attacker during the fight, setting them a step behind Han Xuhan, no matter how many advantages they had over him.
A move that could defend and attack at the sa ti, operating on the level of the deadliest strikes fueled by vital energy... It was fit to be treated as a jewel, a treasured move of any martial art lineage.
Ti passed, sotis slow, sotis fast, never really stopping, just like Han Xuhan's drug-fuelled practice session.
And finally, the sweet product of patient investnt of ti, effort, and resources... ca.
Han Xuhan hadn't sensed the minute enhancents of his body during his first martial breakthrough. But this ti, the leap was almost qualitative. This ti, it almost left him curled up like a shrimp in pain.
Surges of electricity rushed through his body, breaking, restructuring, and improving innurable attributes at a cellular level. His hands and knees, especially, felt like they were on fire.
Fortunately, the discomfort didn't last long. It was just a simple promotion from the peak of the second phase to the initiation into the third phase. The qualitative leap was as small as it could get.
"Still, I don't think I've heard any warnings about this phenonon..." he muttered to himself while forcing his body to get back up.
"Qualitative leaps of physical attributes usually happen a couple of phases later. I'm pretty sure both Mu Ran and Xiao Wu experienced theirs after crossing the third phase. Why did mine co early?"
As soon as the question ca out of his mouth, a possible answer ford inside his head. He quickly focused his mind and sank his thoughts into the system's data window.
Sure enough, under the new Quest titled: Xuanyuan Zhou's Pathfinder, the progress bar had moved forward, most likely during his breakthrough!
From 31% progress, it now stood at 34%. As small as the increase might be, it confird Han Xuhan's suspicions.
"Those manuals of her... There's definitely sothing fishy going on with them. I've barely practiced a few moves recorded in them, and that was enough to make my breakthrough so significant..."
Han Xuhan recalled perfectly well that terrifying scene from a few weeks ago, when Xuanyuan Zhou had delivered her lecture on laws for the first ti.
Soundless lightning had torn through the sky and struck her like rain, a scene of utter carnage that actually hid a delicate sche to uproot a spiritual seal.
Using the audience of her lecture with thods beyond his comprehension, she had escaped the clutch of the Holy Land of Laws that day.
Even earlier, in the holy land of laws, she had sohow controlled a massive horde of monstrous zombies, carving a way through the perilous land all by herself. Her ans were truly unfathomable.
Could it be that she was planning to redy his defective martial physique in a similar way?
What kind of path did she intend to explore through him?
"Oh well, whatever her plan might be, if it gets my martial cultivation going like this, how am I supposed to complain?"
Shrugging off the paranoid suspicions, he decided to test his newfound strength. His heart began to race once he stood in front of the strength testing device Xiao Wu had introduced him to.
Just a month ago, when he had just started out as a martial cultivator, he couldn't shrink the rods behind that black striking plate by more than five centiters.
After his first breakthrough, he had hit double digits. One of his vital energy infused strikes could push the plate back by at least a dozen centiters. But that hadn't been enough to last even one move against Sister i.
Later, through a combination of multiple moves and self-improvent, he had crossed the fifteen-centiter threshold. But around that ti, he had also reached the peak of the second phase of his martial cultivation.
Without breaking through to the third phase, hoping for more strength at that point was futile.
"Let's see how things stand now..."
Bang!
The first punch he threw at the striking plate was an ordinary one, zero vital energy, maximum muscle power.
The rods behind the plate began to shrink imdiately. Craning his neck over it, he watched with rapt attention as the marker finally reached a shocking digit.
Ten and a half centiters!
This was a first for him. Never before had he managed to shrink those rods that much without the boost of vital energy!
"That's almost the sa as my most powerful vital energy infused strikes back when I was a new second-phase martial artist. The maximum has beco the minimum now, whahahah! Aweso!"
Scanning his arms, he felt giddy with excitent. If he were to leave the sect to visit any region full of ordinary humans, he could strut around like an unstoppable, invincible powerhouse there!
"Unless a team of trained and ard soldiers gangs up on , there's no way I'm ever losing a mortal-level battle..."
Next, he tested his deadliest offensive move, the Swallow's Flying Knees. Although, to be honest, that was the only offensive move he had mastered so far.
Bang! Bang!
This ti, the rods began shrinking at a crazy speed. Han Xuhan had only seen such shrinking montum from moves executed by Xiao Wu and Xuanyuan Zhou.
Five, ten, fifteen, eighteen, TWENTY! And it still didn't stop!
"...Twenty-two centiters, almost twenty-two centiters!"
Han Xuhan nearly punched himself in the face while waving his fists around like a madman.
The Twenty-centiters threshold was a level of strength that even the strongest second-phase martial artist could never cross. Before the breakthrough, he himself hadn't been anywhere near this level of strength.
Clenching his fists and teeth, he let out a roar of delight.
"Third Phase of the Martial Path, I'm here! Hahahahah!"
Inside the hut, Zhanxian and Tun Shi Tian, the sole audience of this display, looked at each other with visible disdain in their invisible eyes.
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