Chapter Fourteen: The Mysterious Martial Art

  "Are you Ning Chong?"

  Wang Lao looked at Ning Chong with a gentle gaze.

  Ning Chong nodded slightly and stepped forward to pay his respects: "Junior Ning Chong has seen Senior."

  "Your previous fight was impressive, your basic martial skills are at a high level. You must have practiced for a long time?"

  Ning Chong nodded and said: "I've been practicing since I was a kid, for over ten years."

  Wang Zhang nodded silently and muttered to himself: "In that case...it's not impossible..."

  After a pause, Wang Zhang raised his head and asked Ning Chong: "I remember you rarely come to the Martial Hall...hmm, only twice, once in March six years ago and once in July four years ago...what brings you to the Martial Hall this time?"

  Ning Chong was taken aback, he didn't think that something even he couldn't remember clearly, this Wang Zhen Lao would be able to recall so clearly. In his heart, he felt even more reverence and respectfully said: "This junior has reached the first rank of martial arts cultivation, according to family rules, I have come to receive a low-level body technique manual and a martial skill manual."

  "Ah..." Elder Wang scanned Ning Chong and nodded, "Judging from your aura's strength, you indeed are a first-stage martial artist. However, your cultivation is sufficient, but your physique isn't sturdy enough, and your power hasn't reached the standard yet? The Martial Artist realm is the foundation of the martial path, emphasizing both internal and external cultivation. If either aspect falls out of balance, it will affect the potential and progress of your future martial arts development. Don't just focus on cultivating your inner energy, you must also keep up with physical strength."

  Ning Chong thanked him and said: "Thank you for your guidance, elder."

  "Alright, since you're here for the secret recipe, follow me."

  Ning Chong followed Wang Changlao into the main hall, and then came to the back hall of the lecture martial arts hall, entering a study room filled with secret books.

  The old man pointed to the bookshelf and said, "There are over a hundred low-level secret books here. Although they are not precious secret books, they have been accumulated by our family for a long time. Don't underestimate these low-level secret books. If you can cultivate them to the same level as your basic martial skills, their power will definitely not be inferior to that of high-level secret books. Hmm, go ahead and choose two from among them."

  "Yes!"

  ……

  "Rock Breaking Fist: Primary martial skill. Fists are powerful and can easily break rocks and cut through metal..."

  "Fei Jian Tui: Primary martial skill. When mastered, both legs become like sharp knives, unmatched in ferocity, cutting through iron as if it were mud..."

  "Cloud-turning Sword: Primary martial skill. The sword tip dances like a cloud, changing colors and directions, dazzling the enemy's eyes, making it hard to distinguish reality from illusion, combining virtual and real, with top-notch lethal power..."

  "Minute Step: Primary Light Body Skill Method. Walking within a square inch, agile and ingenious..."

  ……

  Although the number one hundred and more is not big, but if you seriously look for it, it's extremely time-consuming. Ning Chong searched for a while, just looking at the general outline of these martial arts stances, he already felt dizzy.

  Knitting his brow, Ning Chong couldn't help but worry. With so many secret recipes, if he wanted to carefully read through all of them, it would take at least a few days. His time was precious and couldn't be wasted like this. But if he didn't examine them carefully, how could he choose the best one?

  Just as he was getting anxious, Ning Chong suddenly realized that he had been foolish again. He slapped his forehead and exclaimed, "Right! Why am I so stupid? When selecting a secret recipe, why not try using that strange feeling?"

  He said it and did it. Ning Chu grabbed a secret book, closed his eyes, and only used his heart to feel it. After a moment, a faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth - indeed, that feeling came!

  With this strange feeling, selecting recipes is naturally simple and quick, just leave the ones that feel good, and discard the ones that feel bad or extremely bad.

  "Five Tigers Broken Gate Knife? Hmm, feels pretty good, keep it!"

  "Four Directions Eight Trigrams Palm"? Feels ordinary, give up!

  ……

  With this selection, the efficiency has increased greatly, and Ning Chong almost walked through it hastily. After a while, he had already browsed through more than half of the secret recipes.

  Gradually, he walked to a more obviously older bookshelf, and Ning Chong saw that on this bookshelf, a solitary ancient manual was lying there, with the three words "Rolling Stone Fist" written on its cover.

  Judging from the dusty and untouched state of this bookshelf, it's clear that no one is interested in this secret manual. It seems that either this manual is extremely inferior or there are other reasons that make martial artists hesitant to approach it.

  However, looking at this secret book, the pages are ancient and simple, the characters are old and worn out, with a strong sense of historical vicissitudes. It forms a sharp contrast with other newly hand-copied books in this study room that have new paper and fresh ink. Looking like this, I'm afraid this secret book is probably an original copy.

  Suddenly interested, he picked up this "Rolling Stone Fist".

  He closed his eyes, focused his mind and suddenly opened them wide with a look of astonishment, exclaiming: "I didn't expect this ordinary-looking, unremarkable manual to feel so incredibly good! It's the best I've ever seen!"

  Ning Chong's eyes sparkled with excitement as he put away "Rolling Stone Fist" and continued to browse through other secret manuals.

  With the help of his intuition, Ning Chong only spent less than half a time unit to browse through more than 100 secret books in the library, and finally did not find any secret book that felt better than "Rolling Stone Fist". So, he decided to go with "Rolling Stone Fist".

  Among the selected secret books, he chose a body method secret book that felt the best, "Explosive Step". Ning Chong brought the two secret books, "Rolling Stone Fist" and "Explosive Step", out of the library room, and let Wang Lao register them.

  "You... have really decided on 'Rolling Stone Fist'?" Elder Wang held Ning Chong's chosen manual, extremely surprised.

  Ning Chong didn't understand and asked, "Elder, is there something wrong with this secret book?"

  "I don't know if there's a problem, but this martial art is too difficult to cultivate. As far as I know, it's hard to reach the 'small success' realm when cultivating this martial art. In our family, only a few cultivators who cultivated this martial art were able to reach small success. And among those who cultivated this martial art, nine out of ten people would go crazy after a long time and become mad! The rest only avoided going mad because they gave up on cultivating this martial art. Therefore, many people in our family think that this martial art is unlucky. In the past twenty or thirty years, no one has dared to cultivate it."

  Ning Chong listened in shock, never expecting such a story behind these martial arts.

  "I advise you to change to another one, this martial skill is powerful and can even rival high-level skills, but the cultivation is too difficult, too evil..."

  Ning Chong was shocked: "Elder, this martial skill's power is so great, it can actually rival high-level martial skills?"

  The old man nodded and said, "The final ultimate move in this martial art is called 'Rolling Stone Cannon'. When the fist is thrown, each time it makes a sound, the power of the punch increases by one fold. If it reaches the highest level, with five consecutive sounds, it can produce five times the punching power. Such power, even high-level martial arts may not possess."

  After a pause, Wang Lao said with emphasis: "Of course, this is the power under the highest realm. But this martial skill is too difficult to cultivate, and no one has even reached the stage of entering the hall, let alone the highest realm. So it's still not good to be overly ambitious, step by step, solid foundation is the correct way."