Martial artists often say, "Externally, we temper tendons, bones, and skin; internally, we cultivate a single breath."
In truth, the path of Body Tempering follows the same principle.
The difference is that cultivators can draw upon Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi to cultivate, while mundane warriors, constrained by their innate talent, can never take that crucial step beyond the ordinary.
"Haaah!"
Following Bai Yiyi's instruction, Ye Ling practiced his punches on the rear cliff.
But the fist technique he was using was no ordinary boxing method. It was a set of Body Tempering fists with extremely peculiar postures, and power points arranged according to patterns suited only to cultivators.
If an ordinary person tried to punch using these postures and points of force, the lightest outcome would be dislocated joints and broken bones. In severe cases, they would cough up blood or die on the spot.
In fact, even cultivators found this fist technique excruciating to perform, because it had to be paired with a special qi circulation method.
According to Bai Yiyi, this fist technique had been an accidental find by the Nine Heavens Immortal Maiden while searching ancient ruins. It originally had no name, but because its power was fierce and it was especially suited for male practitioners, the Nine Heavens Immortal Maiden named it—
The Mighty Strength Fist!
On the rear cliff, after running through the Mighty Strength Fist once, Ye Ling slowly guided his qi according to the meditation technique. As his magical power merged into the strikes, the already savage fist winds grew even more overbearing. In an instant, sand and stones flew across the rear cliff like a raging storm.
The Heavenly Gate Sect did have a training ground, but years of abandonment had left it in disrepair, completely unusable.
By comparison, the rear cliff was far better. The terrain was wide and open, and the Spiritual Qi there was abundant—at the very least, far superior to a training ground littered with broken stones and crumbling walls.
"Mm, not bad."
Bai Yiyi nodded slightly from a distance. Ye Ling's movements were clean and decisive, without the slightest hesitation. His use of strength and control of qi followed her teachings perfectly, showing none of the clumsiness of a beginner.
What was most astonishing was that whether it was the movement guidance just now, or the qi circulation path she had taught earlier, she had only demonstrated them to Ye Ling once.
And after just that single time, he had already mastered them, never asking her a single question along the way.
With this terrifying learning ability alone, Ye Ling was already standing at the pinnacle among geniuses.
Of course, this ability owed much to Bai Yiyi's recognition. Without her, he would never have obtained the ability called "Deconstruct Difficulty."
Cultivation methods that baffled ordinary people, qi routes so intricate they made one dizzy, the special movements required for Body Tempering—none of these posed any difficulty for him.
If one were to use mathematics as an example, what others saw as multiplication and division would automatically turn into addition and subtraction in his eyes, instantly lowering the difficulty by a level.
In other words, as long as time allowed, there was no problem he could not solve.
So the cultivation methods of the early stages were never going to stop Ye Ling, who was practically playing with a cheat.
From Bai Yiyi's perspective, however, Ye Ling only seemed more and more like a genius among geniuses, a trace of admiration flashing through her eyes.
It was the same kind of feeling she had toward her junior sisters, a mixture of envy and reverence.
Within the sect, aside from cultivating relatively quickly, she had no other outstanding strengths.
Good at nothing, first in cultivation.
That was Bai Yiyi's true portrayal in the Heavenly Gate Sect.
Now, the more dazzling Ye Ling proved to be, the more she could only step aside and give him up.
If Ye Ling had merely been an ordinary prodigy, she might still have had the nerve to keep teaching him herself.
But as Ye Ling revealed his frightening talent, she could only grit her teeth and reluctantly hand him over to her junior sisters.
And yesterday, she had been so absorbed in indulging her dream of becoming a master that she hadn't really looked closely at Ye Ling.
Now—leaving aside the fact that she had used Ye Ling as a pillow all night—just seeing his upper body earlier, not to mention touching it, had already thrown her heart into complete turmoil.
After stepping out of the bathhouse, she had seen Ye Ling right away, dressed in flowing green robes, surrounded by drifting mist, bowing respectfully as he sought her guidance.
That scene carved itself deeply into her mind, lingering for a long time, almost as if it had been etched into her DNA.
Now, watching Ye Ling unleash wave after wave of fist wind, he still looked fragile in her eyes. Yet that terrifying learning ability made it clear that his future was full of promise.
If what he showed before was Ye Ling's refined, composed "stillness," then what he was displaying now was his fierce, forceful "movement."
Between stillness and motion like this, it was hardly strange that Bai Yiyi's gaze would be drawn to him.
What young girl doesn't harbor a hint of longing?
It's only a question of whether she realizes it.
Unfortunately, Bai Yiyi happened to be someone who didn't.
Having grown up with little contact with men, the fact that her junior sisters hadn't already led her astray was a blessing in itself. How could she truly understand feelings of attraction?
If Ye Ling had also grown up on the mountain, never seeing women, and suddenly a talented young girl came to acknowledge him as her master, it would be stranger if his heart didn't stir at all. It was just that, after years without contact with women, he might not even notice that he had already fallen for her.
At most, he would simply find himself wanting to see his talented female disciple more often, or thinking about what she was doing whenever they were apart.
The only pity was that if Ye Ling and Bai Yiyi were swapped, Bai Yiyi would definitely rather sleep in a ramshackle hut fit only for a perilous building than ever step into Master Ye Ling's room.
"Master, thirty… thirty-six sets of fists… finished."
After completing the final move, Ye Ling's face pale, he dragged his heavy steps over to Bai Yiyi, who was still lost in her thoughts, and respectfully reported the result.
Physically, Ye Ling hadn't activated any kind of cheat. He was only an ordinary cultivator at the third level of the Qi Cultivation stage, so the limit of what he could endure was very close to what Bai Yiyi had estimated. He could manage exactly thirty-six sets of the Mighty Strength Fist.
At this moment, the true qi in his Dantian was completely drained, and his physical strength was on the verge of collapse. The fact that he could still speak in fairly complete sentences and remain standing in front of Bai Yiyi was entirely supported by a fierce refusal to admit defeat.
Of course, compared to ordinary cultivators, his ability to directly seize Spiritual Qi and pull it into his body allowed him to recover much faster.
What puzzled him was that, unlike the Spiritual Qi Bai Yiyi provided, the Spiritual Qi he gathered himself contained quite a few impurities. He had to run it once through the circulation path of the Great Void Record before it could finally be returned to his Dantian.
Even so, Ye Ling's recovery speed was still about twice that of an ordinary cultivator.
After all, ordinary cultivators could only absorb the Spiritual Qi in their immediate surroundings, while Ye Ling could seize as much nearby Spiritual Qi as his Mental Force could reach. The two were not comparable at all.
Even so, with the added process of refining Spiritual Qi, he was still dissatisfied with this recovery speed.
He looked at Bai Yiyi in front of him, thinking about how he might ask her about a secret method for directly condensing high-purity Spiritual Qi.