The Nine Cauldrons

Chapter 13: Millennium Evolution

In order to get that ancient book, half of Li Mingshan’s body was inside the vault. At this time, Li Mingshan clenched his teeth and rapidly dove into the vault, which was as tall as half the height of a normal person. The steel door then immediately closed. It took less than half a second to leap into the vault as well as the closing of the steel door. Obviously, Li Mingshan had practiced this move many times.

“Whew, whew.”

After hiding in a secret room that was only two or three square meters big, Li Mingshan breathed a sigh of relief.

“Fortunately, I had made preparations earlier. Huh, he wanted me to believe that he wouldn’t kill me?” Li Mingshan sneered.

Li Mingshan had calculated a counter if someone ever wanted to kill him. In this secret room, there was a credit card and many items that could attract the hitman, while he himself could escape into the vault.

No matter when, Li Mingshan only believed in himself.

Due to such perfect preparation, Li Mingshan had never lost his power for twenty years.

“Weng…..” All of a sudden, the five-centimeter thick steel door actually flew towards Li Mingshan .

That thick door could not be penetrated by anything, even a gun. If Teng Qingshan wanted to use brute force to hit through the door, he would have had to hit it with the fiercest “Tiger Fist”. However, he did not do that, because shattering the latch was too easy for him.

A figure dashed into the secret room.

“Brother, you….” Li Mingshan was about to speak.

“Poof.” A very soft sound rang out and a bloody hole appeared in Li Mingshan’s temple.

Li Mingshan stood motionlessly as he stared forward with round eyes, which were filled with bitterness.

Without even casting a glance at him, Teng Qingshan turned around and left silently.

***

In the living room of the house which Teng Qingshan had rented.

“I don’t know what this ‘Millennium Chronicle’ book talks about, but Liu Yan is indeed a great Grandmaster from the period of the Republic of China, this is something I know.” Teng Qingshan was very curious. As a practitioner of Internal Martial Arts, he surely had knowledge of some of the famous people in history.

Liu Yan, nicknamed ‘Willow Monkey God’, was a rare great Grandmaster of the ‘Monkey Sect’. At that period of time, Liu Yan had the same position as “Tiger-headed Guardian“ Sun Lutang…

Since this book was written by Liu Yan, Teng Qingshan naturally had the motivation to peruse it.

Teng Qingshan opened ‘Millennium Chronicle’ and found that all the words were written in traditional Chinese characters, which wasn’t surprising because many ancient books were written in the traditional Chinese lexicon. As Teng Qingshan was Teng Bolei’s disciple, and since Teng Bolei had lived abroad and knew the traditional Chinese lexicon, he naturally taught Teng Qingshan how to read and write traditional Chinese characters as well. Therefore, Teng Qingshan could now read this book with great ease.

“I really didn’t know that Willow Monkey God was actually a part of the Thief God Sect.”

Teng Qingshan hurriedly skipped through the pages, because the beginning of this book was mostly talking about the history of the Thief God Sect. After reading around one-third of the book, Teng Qingshan stopped when he saw a chapter titled “The Millennium Evolution of Martial Arts.”

The beginning of the chapter read, “Scrutinizing the historical records of our Thief God Sect and the historical accounts of Martial Arts, I realized that from the past till now, there has been an increasingly smaller number of people reaching the Grandmaster Realm while it has also become more and more difficult.”

When Teng Qingshan saw at this sentence, he could not help but nod. “Also, even though all sects claim that the history of Internal Martial Arts has existed for more than a thousand years. The fact is that, the most long-standing Internal Martial Art, ‘Tai Chi’, which was created by ‘Zhang Sanfeng’ of the Wudang sect during the Ming dynasty, has not existed for a thousand years. In the five-thousand-year history of China, Internal Martial Arts only appeared a thousand years ago. Thus, what about the few thousand years before that?”

Teng Qingshan read these words and felt sympathetic.

Shang and Zhou Dynasties, Warring States Dynasty, Qin and Han Dynasties, Three Kingdoms Dynasty, Northern and Southern Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties…

In all these dynasties, did people only rely on brute force in battles?

Teng Qingshan did not believe it.

For example, revolutionary generals in the Sui and Tang dynasties were able to use their hands to wave heavy lion-shaped stone statues that were about a thousand Jin. Waving the lion-shaped stone statues and lifting them were two different concepts. It was just like how a normal person could lift a one hundred Jin pack of package, but if he had to hold a ten Jin dumbbell and swing it randomly, he would feel difficulties in doing so.

(TL:1 Jin = 0.5kg)

To swing a lion stone statue whose weight was one thousand Jin, you must at least have the strength to lift ten thousand Jin.

Even Teng Qingshan needed to use all of his energy to wave that kind of lion-shaped stone statute, moreover, it would be impossible for him to maintain this physical strength for a long time in battle.

In the Three Kingdoms Dynasty, some of the fierce warriors would depend on their own strength, charging into the midst of millions of enemy soldiers and killing the enemy’s leader. That was so incredible! The strength of a person was limited, so how would it be possible to ignore a powerful army of millions of soldiers?

“That’s right. The history of Internal Martial Arts started about a thousand years ago, but what about the few thousand years before Internal Martial Arts began?” Teng Qingshan also felt puzzled by this so he continued to read.

“It took me more than ten years to collect this information. Finally, I have a clear conclusion in my mind.”

“My conclusion is, from the Sui and Tang dynasty, the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth began decreasing dramatically!”

Reading until this point, thousands of questions popped into Teng Qingshan’s mind.

“Based on the massive amount of information that I have discovered, at the time of the Spring and Autumn War Dynasty, as well as the Qin and Han Dynasty, there was nothing called Internal Martial Arts. The experts during that time were absorbing the Essence of Heaven and Earth, which is Spiritual Qi. They were ‘Training Vitality into Qi’, which caused their bodies to produce inner strength. By practicing, their inner strength would grow stronger and stronger, opening up every meridian until post culmination was achieved.

“The experts that had achieved postnatal culmination possessed boundless inner strength and were extremely powerful.

“When the mysterious channels in their brain opened, they would begin ‘Training Qi into Spirit.’ They would amalgamate the ‘Spirit’ with the inner strength and refine them in the Dantian. After that, it would gradually be transformed into the Innate True Origin, allowing the expert to become an innate expert.”

“An innate expert continually refines his or her True Origin. After the True Origin goes through ceaseless refinement in the Dantian until the first phase, ‘Hollow Dan’ realm would be attained. When the True Origin condensed into solidity, the second phase of ‘True Dan’ realm would be achieved. This True Dan would have to go through countless refinements, before reaching the third phase, ‘Golden Dan’ realm. The Golden Dan Innate Expert would be the expert of the experts! They possessed incredible power. In legends passed down from ancient times, the one who charged into the midst of the millions of soldiers alone, and the one who fought against an army of millions of soldiers by himself were all experts who had reached the Innate Realm.”

As Teng Qingshan read these words, he felt incredible!

How would it be possible?

Innate, acquired?

The combination of the ‘Spirit’ of human and inner strength’ could actually transform into the ‘Innate True Origin.’

The Innate Realm was actually classified into three different phases, ‘Hollow Dan‘, ‘True Dan’ and ‘Golden Dan.’

“During the ancient times, the ‘The Way of the Golden Dan’ must be referring to that. When stepping into the ‘Way of the Golden Dan,’ then that must truly be reaching the pinnacle.”

Teng Qingshan nodded slightly.

This could be the only explanation. Otherwise it would be impossible to explain why some of the famous figures in history, such as ‘Maiden Yue,’ ‘Xi Yang’, and other Grandmasters were so powerful. Also, there were a lot of records which referred to the ancient practitioners during the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors Period as ‘Qi Refiners’.

Perhaps they were called that because they refined the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth.

Teng Qingshan continued reading.

“But starting from the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth suddenly dropped sharply.’’

“Therefore, the many warriors and heroes of the Sui and Tang Dynasty should be considered the last batch of Grandmasters. The likes of Li Yuan Ba, Qin Qiong and the others must have reached the Innate Realm to be able to wave thousand Jin huge objects without feeling tired.” What was written in the book struck a responsive chord in Teng Qingshan’s heart.

Teng Qingshan himself had already reached the pinnacle of the human world, yet holding a tiger-shaped stone statue in each of his hands, and then waving these thousands Jin objects while fighting a prolonged battle would be impossible for Teng Qingshan.

“Also, based on the records of many sects from the Sui and Tang Dynasties and later, the numbers of experts became increasingly lessened. In the end, not even a single innate expert appeared again. After the beginning of the Song Dynasty, even absorbing the Spiritual Qi and refining it into inner strength became almost impossible.’’

As Teng Qingshan read, his heart sighed.

At first, no one was able to attain the Innate Realm again, and later, no one was able to practice it anymore.

“The smaller the number of experts, the weaker the Song Dynasty became. Since the pathway of absorbing the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth to train one’s inner strength was obstructed, the people of Song dynasty would obviously think of another way.

Teng Qingshan nodded slightly.

“In ancient times, only uncultured people trained their physical strength, because to depend on training the physical strength to generate inner strength was almost impossible. ‘Practicing from the outward to the inward’ was too difficult.

“However, when purely absorbing the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth was unable to generate the inner strength, generations of talented people committed themselves into researching a solution. Over time, gradually there were people who depended on standing on stumps and other techniques to generate inner strength. For example, in history, ‘Yue Fei,’ the warrior of the Song Dynasty during ancient times, was a warrior that practiced and generated inner strength.

“But in the Song Dynasty, the Internal Martial Arts was barely in embryonic form. Only a very few lucky men managed to generate inner strength while opening up the meridians all over their bodies, reaching the Grandmaster Realm was absolutely impossible.

“After passing through the short period of the Yuan dynasty, during the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Sanfeng of the Wudang Sect should be the first person to practice Internal Martial Arts, and reach its pinnacle. He opened up all the meridians of his body and enhanced the strength of his muscles, skin, flesh, and bones, to their maximum. Also, starting from this period, the system of Internal Martial Arts was finally perfected. Then, Tai Chi, Xing Yi Martial Arts, Eight Trigram Palm…… and many other types of martial arts began to appear one by one.”

Teng Qingshan read from the beginning to the end and felt extremely sad.

He could only sigh and make an emotional remark.

The ability of people to adapt to their surroundings was very strong indeed.

In ancient times, the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth was abundant, and people learned to absorb the Spiritual Qi and train until inner strength was generated. They even trained until the Innate True Origin was produced.

However, the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth decreased drastically. What could humans do?

After exploring for several hundred years, and through the efforts of an unknown number of talented people, wasting their youth and time, Internal Martial Arts gradually came into existence!

Until this modern period, the system of Internal Martial Arts had been improved and perfected to the point that there were the Godly Tiger Form Technique, Boulder of the Black Tortoise and Dragoncarp Ascension came into existence, the special skills which could only be practiced by Grandmasters.

During the period of the Spring and Autumn War Dynasty and the Qin and Han Dynasties, the people at that time could really attain such a level by practicing from the external to the internal?

“Actually, this process of refining was the process of the ‘Transformation of Vitality into Qi’ and ‘Transformation of Qi into Spirit’. In ancient times, the ‘Vitality’ in the ‘Transformation of Vitality into Qi’ referred to the essence of the world, the Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth. But now, this ‘Vitality’ referred to the energy and blood of the human body!”

Liu Yan mentioned in the book: ”Due to being unable to absorb energy from the surroundings, we could only absorb the essence in the human body. Thus, the experts practicing Internal Martial Arts were mostly very large eaters. Eating half a lamb in a single meal was really normal. Since they had to refine a massive amount of essence from blood, they obviously had to eat a lot more.”

Teng Qingshan nodded to himself.

Indeed, he himself was a really large eater.

In order to practice Internal Martial Arts, you need to have a strong body as well as adequate levels of energy and blood. Only when the essence and blood reached a certain extent, would one be able to gradually refine it into inner strength.