. A unique skill that allows one to read an opponent"s move and know what they are going to do almost before they know themselves.Even martial arts cannot escape the all seeing eyes of the doctor. Any flaw or weakness will be picked up and exploited with surgical precision. It also allows the person to channel their Qi into their fingers and use it to pierce through the body shield to attack acupuncture points.
However, the requirements to learn such a high level skill is difficult. The first is to learn the human body’s muscle movements. The second is to be familiar with meridians and acupuncture. After all, there are skills that allow one to bypa.s.s the body shield. This was how my grandson survived the bladed apes, by stopping all bleeding with his medical knowledge.
As for you, the first thing you must learn is the human body’s muscle movements. We will use the illusionary array here to perform a demonstration. After that, we shall see.”
Suddenly Chu Shen was no longer in the plain field with rock pillars. Instead he was in a wide dirt arena and a huge person over three times the normal size stood in front of him. Strangely the person had eyes and a nose but no mouth.
“Now pay attention. Since the man is so big, you can study his movements clearly.” Grandmaster Qin said beside him. As he spoke, the giant person suddenly punched forward in slow motion. No fancy movements, only a punch directly forward.
Chu Shen didn’t know what to do though. After the punch was completed he looked at Grandmaster Qin. “So what am I supposed to do?”
Grandmaster Qin sighed. “Just study the movements of the person there. Remember everything about the way he moved. How his body tensed up, where his eyes were looking at, his stance, everything. Only after you can do that can you truly have mastered this phase.”
“Alright.” Chu Shen then started studying his movements. After 200 punches the movements changed. Giant targets would appear in midair and the punch would land on the target, shattering it, before another would take it’s place in a different location. After another 200 punches, the fist still struck outwards in different directions but there was not targets visible.
Another 200 punches struck various invisible targets before switching back to punching in a straight line. This cycle of simple, target, and invisible target punching continued for over three hours.
After the three hours was up, Grandmaster Qin stopped the giant person in the middle of the cycle. “Okay, so what did you learn?”
Chu Shen shook his head. To him it seemed pointless even though he tried his best. “I don’t think I learned anything.”
“How about this. Can you tell where my punch is going to land?” Grandmaster Qin asked. He took a stance and went through all of the steps of preparing to throw a punch but never took the final step that would send his fist flying.
Chu Shen though seemed to have a revelation. He unconsciously pointed at a place in front a little to the left of Grandmaster Qin. When he did Grandmaster Qin smiled. “Great perception. You have pa.s.sed the first phase. Now the second is sparring. Only if you can apply it in real life can it be considered a skill.”
With that a normal sized faceless person that looked identical to the giant one appeared in front of him. “Alright, now try to fight this puppet. Sometimes it will punch, other times it won’t. Try and block them all even if it is a ghost punch.”
Chu Shen nodded. Immediately a punch hurtled towards his face. Surprised he dodged left, narrowly avoiding the blow though it still nicked his ear. Grandmaster Qin cackled. “Heh heh. First lesson. In order to read your opponents moves you must pay attention. Don’t be caught off guard.”
Shaking off the fright such a close call gave him, Chu Shen focused on the puppet in front of him. The puppet"s arms stiffened and his muscles bulged slightly. It’s stance shifted minutely in preparation of the blow. It’s eyes darted left, right, then left again before focusing on a specific point.
Immediately it’s arm drew back and hurtled towards the left side of his chest. However, right as the fist started out, it was already doomed to fail since Chu Shen’s arm was blocking it’s target. The fist collided with Chu Shen’s arm but it was only a mild impact, not even succeeding in rocking him back.
“Very good. Now practice for six hundred punches and achieve a 90% block rate or you will have to start everything over again.” Chu Shen continued his training.
After another three hours he completed the training course. He had to redo it twice. Apparently redoing it meant watching another cycle of the giant puppet and then sparring with the regular size puppet.
Out of breath, Chu Shen finally finished. Sitting down, he sighed. “Finally done. So what"s the next step?”
Grandmaster Qin smiled. “Why now you get to go through it again. But this time with kicks. Don’t worry about time though. It’s three times as fast in here as outside. We have a day in here before we have to leave so get ready. After this we will combine both before moving on to more advanced unarmed combat techniques like grappling.”
Grandmaster Qin smirked at Chu Shen. “So let’s continue shall we?”