Chapter 3.1: Cultivation (Part 1)
The sky was just beginning to brighten, filled with a thin morning mist. A teenage boy was practicing basic movements non-stop, throwing punches and retracting them, kicking and retracting, all while adjusting the force exertion of his entire body.
"Tong'er, come in for breakfast." His mother's voice came over.
Yang Tong, now twelve years old, looked as strong as a fifteen or sixteen-year-old due to his martial arts training and proper nutrition.
He walked in and saw that his father and mother were already seated at the dining table.
"Dad, Mom," he greeted them and sat down.
"Do you not have school today?" his father asked in a rough voice.
"No. The elementary graduation exam is in two days, so the school is on break," he replied.
"Oh, is that so? It seems you are quite confident," his father said again.
"That's right. I'm not afraid of the exam; I already possess the strength of an Apprentice Level Three Martial Artist," the boy said proudly.
"Eat. After you finish, come with me to the yard." His father finished speaking and silently began to eat.
Yang Tong understood this slightly rigid-natured father well and lowered his head to eat.
After the meal, his mother went to clean up the dishes. His father took him to the yard and said, "Throw a punch at me with all your might and let me see."
He nodded, tucked his waist and sank his hips, throwing a standard lunge punch that perfectly combined leg, waist, and arm strength.
His father extended a hand and easily caught the punch. Standing motionless in place, he nodded and said, "Not bad. You haven't been lazy these past few years at school. Your foundation is very solid, and you coordinate your full-body strength very well."
Yang Tong retracted his fist. Since he was mentally prepared, he didn't feel discouraged. After all, the gap between an Apprentice Level Three and an Apprentice Level Nine was quite significant.
"Since your foundation is solid, I can now pass on our family's Wind Wolf Fist to you." His father assumed a special stance and executed the set of fist techniques in one smooth motion. Suddenly, the fist force whistled like the wind, and fist shadows were everywhere, leaving the boy dazzled.
When the set of fist techniques was finished, his father began to speak: "Whether punching or kicking, you need to unite your waist and stance, linking your strength into a single line, and utilizing the power of your entire body. This type of force exertion is known as standard force. This is something every Level Three Martial Artist must achieve. My Wind Wolf Fist, however, teaches you how to surpass standard force, making your fist power much stronger and exceeding human limits."
"However, the existence of fist techniques is not just about the routine, but about teaching you how to exert force; you must not be confined by the technique itself. After learning this, you must carefully contemplate the method of force exertion within it, then reach its limit, and subsequently surpass that limit to create your own path."
Yang Tong was stunned for a moment, thinking to himself that the existence of fist techniques was to teach force exertion; he understood now.
In one morning, relying on his extraordinary comprehension ability, he learned the entire set of fist techniques in a mere few hours.
"This Wind Wolf Fist is a technique capable of amplifying standard strength by three times. It is not easy to fully master it. Your old man here has practiced it for twenty years and has only just barely reached the pinnacle of the technique." After speaking, his father took out a strange machine from the ring on his left hand.
The ring was a storage ring. Human spirit tool technology had long reached the level of partitioning space for storage. Such storage ring items had long become popularized, but their price was still very expensive, not something an ordinary family could afford. Yang Tong had long wanted one, but unfortunately, his father said he wouldn't buy him one until he reached Apprentice Level Five.
"This is a force-measuring device; at its maximum, it can test ten times the standard strength of an Apprentice Level Nine Martial Master. Throw a punch with all your strength, record your data, and after adjusting the program, it will be used to test how much power you can exert." His father finished speaking and nodded at him.
He tested it himself. He threw a punch with 300 kilograms of force; this was his standard strength. When he threw a punch using the Wind Wolf Fist's method of force exertion, the data showed 390 kilograms. An amplification of 1.3 times. This data made his father very satisfied, and he said, "Not bad, you actually reached 1.3 times. Back when your old man first tested it, I only managed 1.2 times."
Yang Tong now had a relatively intuitive understanding of the value of the Wind Wolf Fist. An ordinary Level Nine Apprentice Martial Master's standard explosive power was around 1,000 kilograms. His father had fully mastered this technique, and the power he could explode with exceeded theirs by three times. Even for the boy, if he learned the three-fold amplification, his strength could soar to rival the standard strength of an ordinary Apprentice Level Eight Martial Master.
The entire Wind Wolf Fist only had twelve moves, and they had to be used consecutively to finally explode with three times the power. If one wanted to unleash three times the standard power in a single move, it could only be achieved after completely mastering and thoroughly comprehending this method of force exertion. At that point, any random punch or kick could reach three times the force, and one would no longer need to be confined by the fist technique and could create more powerful techniques.
He practiced the Wind Wolf Fist over and over again, familiarizing himself with the force exertion method of this technique. Before he knew it, the morning had passed, and he only stopped when his mother came to call him for lunch.
He was somewhat excited. So, human muscle strength could be multiplied under this kind of technique; this was something the previous Yang Tong could hardly imagine.
According to his understanding, human physical strength was enhanced through vibration at special frequencies, and the fist technique was the concretization of this vibration frequency, allowing everyone to learn and master it. This reminded him of the internal martial arts on Earth; perhaps they were based on the same principle?
Cultivating this kind of martial art required comprehension ability; one had to perceive the essence within it during the process of practicing the punches time and again, and master the vibration frequency interpreted by this martial art.
After lunch, he once again immersed himself in it.