Jiang Li was still feeding the cats in the park at night. He could even feel the movement of the insects deep in the bush if he concentrated.
Buzzzzzzzzz.
The mosquitoes flapped their wings.
The beatles extracted juice from the soft gra.s.s.
The cooties crawled about under the hairs of the homeless cats.
These scenes were all detected by his senses.
His brain was even able to reflect some images of the mice crawling in the underground sewerages...
This was only achievable when the mind was clear and free of thoughts.
His own spiritual training had also reached Deep Sleep stage two. This was outstanding even in the entire school. However, Jiang Li was still far from the third stage.
One must not move and must be perfectly silent in Deep Sleep. The slightest movements of the body would result in waking up. He felt that the the third stage of Deep Sleep, going into Deep Sleep while exercising, was just simply impossible.
“Looks like it possibly won’t be long until my life force reaches 0.9.”
Jiang Li felt himself improving rapidly but he wanted to improve faster. It was only a little more than a term until the final graduation exam. He wanted to amaze everyone after a semester by entering Astral University.
Cultivation was a step by step process. Even if he could use the opaque stone to enter the state of Fetal Respiration, it was still a gradual process of improving his const.i.tution and strengthening his spirit.
This wasn’t the genetic engineering in tales where a weak person could be transformed into someone with the strength of ten elephants and the agility of birds in an instant.
Furthermore, methods of genetic manipulation, genetic potions were still one of humanity’s most confidential secrets at that stage and could only be found in the elite district.
Human genetics was the greatest arcanum of science. Of course, these things came with great risks. Genetic transformation had an extremely high fatality rate. Some people even turned into half human half animal monsters. They lost their sense and went berserk killing people.
Now, Jiang Li’s life force was still 0.8. However, after long periods of body enhancement in the
Fetal Respiration state, his body’s flexibility and durability had increased dramatically. He could now begin practising some high difficulty martial arts.
Heng! Ha! Huo! He!
Nighttime and dawn was when countless people were deep asleep. At an obscured place in the park, Jiang Li was practising his fists and training his body. He practiced the ancient fighting techniques he learnt at school for revision. His posture and moves were smooth like water.
He wiped some sweat and sat in meditation. The opaque stone was in his mouth and soon he successfully entered the state of Fetal Respiration. Indistinctly, he could feel the cells in his body squirming as if avariciously breathing the oxygen in the air.
Another hour had pa.s.sed and he woke up automatically. He checked his body. All the bruises he attained during training had all disappeared. He couldn’t help but to smile as his spirit and stamina all reached the peak
“Very well, I have completely mastered all the cla.s.s content I have learnt so far. The next step is to learn some high complexity things.” He took an electronic book from his bag and pressed some b.u.t.tons. Immediately, a holographic person appeared. This image performed all sorts of high difficulty movements. Sometimes, his bones were entwined, sometimes, he attacked explosively. These maneuvers were so hard that they were impossible for normal people to do.
Students nowadays all used electronic books for study. The virtual humans and three-dimensional projections were so vivid that it was almost as if there was a teacher teaching on the spot.
This was a C rank martial art called [Boneless Jujitsu].
It had many peculiar movements such as twisting the body together like a snake and twisting the neck 180 degrees. It was a high difficulty martial art learned in the stamina cla.s.s of school.
This was created a long time ago by the cultivation experts in the military. They combined the ancient art of yoga, wushu, and boxing to create this.
What Jiang Li had learnt so far were mainly boxing moves. These were D rank martial arts.
Martial arts were ranked as D, C, B, A, S, SS.
D rank martial arts were the foundational martial arts. They had high practicality and immense offensive power.
C rank martial arts, however, brought the standards up quite significantly. They started to deal with the secrets of the bones, chakra pathways and organs.
As for B rank martial arts, they were the synthesis of the spiritual and physical. Every move was combined with contemplation methods. They were highly cla.s.sified in the military.
[ED Note: So with every move they are in the state of Contemplation such as Crystal Contemplation.]
[Boneless Jujitsu] did not belong to his current syllabus. For example, currently, he was a primary school student learning his addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Compared to that, [Boneless Jujitsu] was calculus.
A primary school student who just learned his basic operations of math began studying calculus. This was the acts of geniuses.
Studying [Boneless Jujitsu] by himself was actually very dangerous. Doing those dangerous, high difficulty movements without guidance could easily result in bone fracture and even whole body paralysis.
Originally, he could have chosen some hard D rank martial arts such as [Capture and Brawl Art] or [Military Exploding Fist Thrust] to learn. Although they required large amounts of maneuvering, they were fundamentally different compared with [Boneless Jujitsu].
The reason he had this big leap was very explicit. It was to use up every ounce of his strength and boil every bit of his stamina and then proceed to recovery in the Fetal Respiration state.
This was because he discovered that the more exhausted he was when he entered Fetal Respiration, the more he benefitted.
“When I have learnt [Boneless Jujitsu], I will be glorious.”
“[Boneless Jujitsu] first move, [Twisting Bone Attack]!”
The holographic image projected from the electronic book performed slow movements. The whole person twisted and the bones and muscles inside the body started to twisted as well. The whole person was like a rope, twisting and entwining. Like a roly-poly, it made all sorts of movements.
The difficulty of these type of movements were too high. It was as though the person really had no bones.
Or, it could be said that the bones and muscles were elastic steel ropes wound together, storing huge amounts of energy and then releasing it in that instantaneous moment of time similar to a bullet flying out of a gun barrel.
Crack…crack….
Jiang Li only mimicked the first movement and immediately felt dizzy. All the bones felt like they were going to break and the muscles felt like they were tearing apart. He fell onto the ground in a thud before even finishing the move. There were stars flying about his eyes as he heavily gasped for breaths. Like a fish that left the water, he couldn’t really move at all.
With his strong determination, he crawled up again and sat straight. He started resting with the opaque stone in his mouth.
Sure enough, he entered Fetal Respiration rapidly once again.
This time, he stayed in that state for a very long. It lasted for a full two hours. He woke once again and to his surprise, he found himself to have fully recovered. His Qi also seemed to have grown stronger.
First time, he fell down completely exhausted with bone damage and torn muscles. He went into Fetal Respiration and recovered. Second time, third time, fourth time……
It was five whole days of time and Jiang Li finally learnt the first move of the [Boneless Jujitsu], the [Twisting Bone Attack].
His bone structure and muscle tendons became much more compact and he entered into Fetal Respiration more and more frequently. It appeared that exhausting his stamina was helpful in activating the opaque stone’s functions.
In actual fact, Jiang Li desperately wanted to know what the opaque stone and the [Great Dream Heart Sutra] contained. It couldn’t be as simple as allowing people to enter Fetal Respiration. Since it was called [Great Dream Heart Sutra] it had to contain unimaginable capabilities. Unfortunately, Jiang Li didn’t know how to open it.
He had been researching it constantly these few days but had not come up with any findings.
The good thing was, the more frequently he entered Fetal Respiration, the more beneficial it was to his body.
Next, he started to learn the other moves of the [Boneless Jujitsu], the [Projecting Bone Stab]
This was a very powerful offensive mean. The bones around the whole body were constantly like arrows, empowering the body like a projectile, stabbing into the weak points of the opponent’s body. This type of martial arts could actually allow a person’s bones and muscles to separate at anytime. For example, when the person reaches out for a grab, the length of the arm could extend a few inches. This was the effect of separating bones.
He spent another three days to become proficient at it.
Subsequently, it was [Shattering Bone Collapsing the Clouds]. This move was even more ferocious; the bone appeared as if it had cracked open and shattered. Every stab attack was tremendous like the attack of a canon. This had an even higher requirement for bone pliability.
As for the latter moves such as the [Boulder Breaking Bone Shatter] and the [Boneless Dragon Snake Dance], it could only barely be practiced by those with a life force of 1.
Jiang Li did an approximation. His life force currently was between 0.85 and 0.9.
In the morning a month later, the moonlight was like water and Jiang Li was in the park practicing. Once, twice, three times…….He practiced for more than ten times. His whole body was sweating
and his bones were under immense pain. Some parts were seemingly about to break
open.
If other people saw this, their eyes would be wide open in astonishment because even students with a life force of 0.9 would not have the stamina to practice the first three moves of the [Boneless Jujitsu] more than ten times without resting. They could only practice three to five times before their bones would not be able to handle it anymore. At least three days of rest would be required before they start practicing once again.
Breathe in and out…….Jiang Li endured the pain and sat down. Ten minutes later, he successfully entered the state of illusory death in Fetal Respiration.
TL Note: 假死/illusory death: a state in which the body does not breathe but is not actually dead. Thus, the person is considered to be hypothetical state of death.
This time, after five whole hours, he was able to stand up full spirited. There were no pains at all in his body. He was full of stamina and clear minded. All of his energy had been replenished and he was at his zenith.
Thus, he began to read and study. A bag full of books contained all sorts of math, chemistry, physics, biology, history, geography and so forth. When he read, he scanned through ten lines
with a glance and memorized it clearly in his brain.
These literary studies were also counted in the calculation of life force. Knowledge was a part of life force.
His mental processes were acute and many problems that were hard for him normally came easy like a breeze after recovering in Fetal Respiration. He remembered everything with a scan of his eyes. Any question or knowledge was deeply ingrained in his brain after reading it once. He comprehended it and it became his knowledge.
A night had pa.s.sed, and as soon as the morning sun rose in the east, Jiang Li stopped reading to cultivate before entering Fetal Respiration to recover.
In less than ten minutes, he was rejuvenated once again. He looked nothing like a person who pulled an all nighter.
He took out cat food from his bag to feed the homeless cats. The big black cat had become really intimate with him and always circled around him. Unfortunately, he had to study otherwise it
would have been very interesting to have it around.
“Big Black, Flower face, Big Meng, Second Meng, Third Meng, Fourth Meng, Fifth Meng. You guys need to behave. If a homeless dog confronts you guys, let Big Black deal with it first, you guys shouldn’t charge in. Understand?”
He patted the kitty’s heads one by one. This group of homeless cats always encountered homeless dogs and suffers in fights. But Big Black wasn’t afraid. He was strong and could protect the whole group.
Those few small baby cats’ names were Big meng, Second Meng…… They were named by Jiang Li. The cats didn’t want Jiang Li to go so they bit onto his trousers and ran around on the ground.
Big Meng even climbed onto Jiang Li’s shoulder and licked everywhere with its tongue.
The big black cat “Big Black” marched over with its heads up and chest out. It roared and the playful baby cats walked back obediently to their home in the park to sleep. It was the home Jiang Li built for them.
The park was big and the cat homes were deep in the nests so no one interfered.
“Pitty you guys can’t understand humans. If only I could teach you guys [Crystal Contemplation].”
Jiang Li patted Big Black.
According to the theory of cultivation, the spirits of animals were hundreds of times more pure than the spirit of humans.
Thus, they were well suited to cultivate all sorts of contemplation methods. However, it was very hard for them to open their intelligence and thus they did not understand what cultivation was.
However, in the ancient times, some eminent monks were able to open the intelligence for animals allowing them to have the intellect of humans. These animals included monkeys, cats, foxes and so forth. As soon as the animals developed intelligence and cultivated contemplation methods, their progress was immensely rapid! In the ancient times, some foxes even hypnotized humans, causing many incidents.
According to modern research, those incidents in the ancient times occurred when animals developed intelligence and cultivated spiritually. They were able to hypnotise people and induce them hallucinations.
The elite district already had a research project to allow animals to cultivate. It was called the “Monster Plan”
Jiang Li really wanted these homeless cats to be able to cultivate. This would allow them to have intelligence so that they could survive better.
After feeding the cats, he had to go to school for cla.s.s .
“Big Black, good bye!” Jiang Li waved his hand.
Big Black also waved his cat claws like a human.
“This feels nice, school, here I come.”
On the way to school, Jiang Li felt a ball of fire burning in his chest.
Before, he had the feeling of avoiding school. Now that there was hope, the atmosphere in the school felt very youthful and hot blooded to him. It was suitable for hard work. The ideal of entering Astral University came back once again.
In one month’s time, his power had increased significantly. Although he didn’t rise to the skies in one step, there was still some gap between him and the top people in the school, the most important thing was that he had found his confidence.
He could increase this much in the short period of a month and this was when he did not have any resources. If he had resources, he believed he would rise to the apex.
The resources in the house were for little brother and they weren’t plenty. If he wanted resources, he had to think of ways himself. He didn’t want to increase the burden for his parents. He would earn money for himself!