My eyes began to become sore due to how many times had they widened up from shock, I was able to tell that the booklet in front of me was indeed a Secret Martial Skill after I opened the first page and reading its content .
The book had 10 pages in total and had only one move in all those 10 pages, the move was mentioned in the title on the book, Life-Severing Sword, that was the only move mentioned in the booklet in my hands .
The move was indeed a Life-Severing move, but that effect affected both sides of the conflict, both the opponent and the user will die after using that move, but even though, the skill in hands allowed its practitioner from killing anyone in the same realm as him, of course as long as he was also willing to pay the price of dying to achieve that .
The move also had a condition that I have never seen before, it needed the need of a special sword to be able to execute the sword move, or else the Skill won't be executed at all, my sight after finish reading all the content of the book, couldn't help but drift towards the sword that I discarded the idea of fiddling with it before .
I looked at the sword and began to believe more and more that it was indeed the sword that might have been mentioned in the book, this was the sword needed to be able to execute that powerful move, at this I was a bit short of breath, too excited to even care about this, I once again held the sword in hand, at least I tried to, but no matter how I tried to budge it, it was completely unmovable .
I determined that I might need to use either the secret technique like skill that I had just acquired or perhaps by using the secret technique in Charging Tiger, the first mentioned the way to circulate the Blood Qi and infuse myself with the sword through the use of that connection .
That was how this move was executed, by infusing my Blood Qi into the sword, the sword was said to be absorbing my Blood Qi and unleash it in a one powerful attack, able to sweep my enemies, but even though the amount of Blood Qi absorbed wasn't mentioned, I was certain that it would be all the Blood Qi that I have, otherwise it won't be a suicidal move and it wouldn't have been presented as a secret technique .
There might also be other side effects, but I just don't know of, the sword move and the sword in hand might also be absorbing Blood Vitality and the Blood in my body altogether, I won't be able to tell until I try it for myself, I will just have to put my faith in the panel being able to remove the negative effects of this secret technique as well, or it might really be over for me .
I was eager to try and see if after I used the circulation method mentioned in the booklet whether will I be really able to wield that sword or not, but I didn't recklessly try it, learning from all the experience I had today, I couldn't help but be reminded that I had already used a big chunk of my Blood Qi already before, so trying this new secret technique might force ne to consume all my Blood Qi and force me to lose conscious or something, so it was better not to for now .
My thoughts were a bit mixed as I looked at the sword on the floor and the book that it was in hand, it could be considered a huge gain, the secret technique to others might be nothing but a drastic measure, one last move before dying, but if the panel did its job, I believe that I will acquire a huge advantage over others in offense .
If I was disappointed before at not being able to acquire the Footwork Skill those guys used, I was now a bit satisfied with the new attacking method I got .
I tried to use the pouch in the same way as before to store those items back inside, but there was no reaction from it, I was about to become alarmed, thinking that I might have broken it or something, but I soon calmed down and reversed the Blood Qi circulation in my hand and infused my Blood Qi in the pouch and it actually worked .
The pouch opened and glowed again and began to suck the book in my hands back inside, the scene was a bit startling, so the circulation was messed up, making the suction force to stop, I then used it again after I regained my composure, stored all the items back in the pouch, then I got out of the room and headed to where I was training earlier with the lantern in hand .
Even though, I could describe the gains that I amassed today to be huge, I still believe that I shouldn't forget my training routine, not to mention that I wanted to test something, I removed the clothes from my upper body and began practicing Solid Rock Fist, this time with the use of my Blood Qi, I had much easier time in executing the full set of postures with ease .
() .
I heard the notifications from the panel kept echoing in my mind and didn't paid it much mine, instead I focused on testing whether my guess was right or not, the full set took me 3 minutes, then it was time to punch the last punch, unlike the last time, this time I will be doing something different than just punch with my current strength .
() .
I circulated my Blood Qi inside my body and even though for others doing something like disturbing the circulation of Blood Qi mid practicing a technique was something dangerous, fetal even, for me who had a special panel, these warnings meant nothing, the message that appeard confirmed that .
I sighed in relief, then I got in position of punching and attacked the already cracked rock in front of me with my full strength, resulting in the rock to be completely shattered to pieces and the huge recoil force that appeard from doing this to push me backwards a few steps, after I sensed the amount of that mysterious energy in my body, I couldn't help but have a triumphed smile on my face .
This way can indeed be used to accelerate my practice speed, sensing that my body began to become all red, I hurriedly sat down and enter meditation, I was bathing in that comfortable feeling from before, but this time it was much stronger than before, the mysterious energy was being led by my Blood Qi and began tempering my flesh .
It started tempering my hands, then my arms, then it went to my shoulders, then I was able to guide the huge amount left of it to my chest, but just as I did this, I felt that there were some blockage in the meridians I was supposed to force the mysterious energy to go in .
The blockage wasn't because something was intentionally blocking the path of the circulation, no the amount of mysterious energy that were gushing currently was just too much for the meridians to handle, the effect that this had on me, I felt like someone was hitting me in the gut over and over, the panel had no effect on that, so I was on my own to figure this out .
The feeling was faint but I did indeed felt that the pathway seemed to be widen up slightly but surely, I was happy but currently clenching my teeth in pain, the feeling was terrible, so terrible that I was beginning to rethink of the plan I had in mind for my practice in the future .
The meridians mentioned in the the Solid Rock Fist were mentioning narrow meridians in the chest, those meridians weren't design to uphold this much mysterious energy in them, after all what this technique focused on was tempering the hands and going all the way to the shoulder, using Blood Qi can indeed allow me to guide that mysterious energy to temper my chest area, the abdomen was still a no go .
() .
Remembering the meridians mentioned in the Ferocious Blood Refinement technique being more wide but have the problem of needing the stimulation of the Blood of Ferocious Beasts to be able to swarm them with Blood Qi and temper the body, I currently don't have any Ferocious Beasts Blood, but what I do have was a great amount of mysterious energy that was enough to swarm these meridians on their own without even the use of Blood Qi .
() .
I tried to guide the mysterious energy towards these wider meridians using the instructions in the Solid Rock Fist manual, but another notification appeard in mind, that was almost round the number of notifications to 4 or 5, without the panel I really might have had died or being crippled at least, the messy changes I kept on making and trying to force for others it might be nothing short of a death wish .
But my panel gave me the freedom in doing this without caring about the consequences of making a wrong step, all the negative effects were removed, but that also didn't mean that it allowed me to succeed in what I was trying to do at least not always .
Even though my new idea was good, it wasn't achievable, the reason was simple, there was no way to guide the mysterious energy through the wider meridians, the Solid Rock Fist had no way to circulate the Blood Qi to there, the last notification told me that my control over my Blood Qi was disturbed which made the mysterious energy responsible for tempering the body to almost began to wreck havoc in the body .
() .
Finding no other alternative, I bit the bullet and used the way to circulate Blood Qi mentioned in the Ferocious Blood Tempering Technique, the moment I did so, another notification appeared .
But I paid it no mind, or to be accurate, I currently had no mind to spare in dwelling on the notification, the reason was because unlike with the Solid Rock Fist Technique, this new technique was asking me to keep circulating my Blood Qi over and over .
To make up for the lack of the stimulation from the beast bloodwhich I was able to tell that even though my Blood Qi was compensating for that lack, there seem to something missing with the effect of the technique, something that I can't pinpoint currently, but on the bright side, I felt that the mysterious energy began to circulate in my chest and the blocked meridians began to have a breakthrough one after the other .
I was beginning to feel the muscles in my chest twitching and my whole upper body seemed to be on fire, the aching pain from before disappeared and what remains was a relishing in the feeling of getting stronger .
After a few seconds,the amount of mysterious energy began to slow up its advancement, I thought it was about to dissipate, but then it started gushing more strongly than even before, I was unable to comprehend what was going on at first, but the reason then came to me in a shape of an inspiration or intuition, I was actually having a breakthrough .
That was a happy news, or at least that was my first thought, my second thought was that I need to stop my breakthrough immediately, I stopped stimulating the mysterious energy and stopped circulating my Blood Qi, I then felt as two forces were beginning to clash inside me, but that feeling was for no more than a fraction of a second, then it disappeared after a notification sounded in my mind, telling me of what happened .
Two forces were suddenly imbalanced inside me and something akin to an explosion should have happened inside of me, but all of the two energies disappeared once the panel interfered, the breakthrough was interrupted successfully and I was forced to cough a mouthful of blood as a result to it being interrupted perhaps .
To summarize what happened, I used Dragon-Tiger Transformation secret technique to punch the last punch, using Solid Rock Fist Technique, I amassed a huge amount of recoil force, resulting in a problem with the technique which then forced me to shift to another technique, it allowed me not only to make use of that big amount of mysterious energy, but almost helped me to achieve a breakthrough, but that was something that I currently can't allow to happen .
The reason was quite simple, it only took Deacon Lu a glance and maybe a punch to be able to tell that I had a breakthrough and he was only in the ifth layer of Flesh Tempering, my brain can't still comprehend the methods that people stronger than him might be able to use, I can't risk being suspected of using some ill method to have this much speed in practice .
I can't expect people to accept that a guy like me who until recently had no shred of Martial Arts in him, suddenly become at the second layer of Flesh Tempering, if that wasn't suspicious then I don't know what was, not to mention that in this tight situation and with the search for the killer still ongoing, standing out won't bring nothing but misfortune upon me .
And I'm here talking about standing out, not to mention that much of a standing out, that breakthrough might have brought me, even though I wanted to get stronger, the moment I was presented the chance to do so, I was forced not to take it, since it won't bring nothing but trouble, so unless I find a way to hide my Martial Realm, or waiting until things quietn down on their own, I currently had no much of a choice .
But that didn't mean I won't be able to get stronger, this practice session was an experiment as well as a practice, I experimented with some of the few thoughts I had in mind, in fact confirming those thoughts of mine was the sole reason to why I came out here to practice .
I confirmed that with the use of Solid Rock Fist Technique, I might be able to regain the used amount of Blood Qi, but that came with a cost, due to my Blood Vitality being quite short in meeting the needs, needed for my Blood Qi to be generated and even increase thanks to the ability to execute all the postures of the technique while still on the first layer without much problem .
My Blood Qi needed another source of energy that it can count on and here was the problem, it was food, any kind of food will suffice, it was the amount of food needed was what actually baffled me .
I just had a feast a few hours ago, but now I was so hungry again, even though I hadn't regain all the Blood Qi from before yet, not even half of it, wasting no time, I went back to the house and this time I brought the food bag with me and start devouring all the food I was able to get my hands on, as long as I have infinity amount of food, I might be able to recover my Blood Qi endlessly .
The second thought that I wanted to confirm was more of a hopeful idea, it's regarding my ability to use the secret technique in Charging Tiger during my practice and it seemed to be indeed working, using it to release more powerful punch than what I normally able to and getting 4 or 5 times the amount of that tempering energy more than I have if I were to punch normally, allowing my practice speed to soar, now or in the future .
My strength had increased after confirming those things, even though I can't improve my Realm for now, I can use that time to see how much can I now improve my Mastery over Martial Skills through the panel in mind, which will help Increasing my strength .
Not to mention that I can use those secret techniques to make up for the disparity in Realm, if I were to fight someone that was much stronger than me, especially the Life-Severing Sword, I still hadn't seen it in action, but I believe that it will give me a huge advantage in battle .
Using secret techniques to triumph in battle was a very suicidal thing to do, but for me who had that weird panel in mind, IT WAS LIKE A TAILORED WAY THAT COULDN'T FIT ANYONE ELSE BUT ME AND WHO KNOWS THIS WAY MIGHT BE ENOUGH FOR ME TO GAIN A STRONG FOOTING IN THIS WORLD .