Chapter 152. Extraordinary Meridians
On the night of November nineteenth.
In a quiet and elegant little courtyard within the Shangyang Residence.
Moonlight spilled like water over the osmanthus tree in the courtyard, casting mottled shadows across the ground.
Beneath the tree, Xu Yuan sat cross-legged, his eyes half closed, his aura heavy and still as a mountain.
After another round of the Jade Platform Stance Art, he finally felt that familiar swelling sensation within his meridians.
‘After a month and a half, I’m finally about to reach the Extraordinary Meridians!’
He let out a silent sigh in his heart.
When he had returned to the Shangyang Residence yesterday, just as expected, the moment he finished registering at the Affairs Hall as an eight-striped household guard, a crowd had surged forward to congratulate him.
Xu Yuan had naturally declined all the unnecessary social obligations and accepted congratulatory gifts only from a select few, such as the Second Young Master and the Fifth Young Master.
After exchanging a few words with Gao Sheng and the others, he had been arranged to stay temporarily in this little courtyard.
At this moment, he cast aside all distracting thoughts, focused his mind, closed his eyes, and mobilized his qi and blood to charge toward the final bottleneck of the Yang Qiao Meridian.
Inside his body, his qi and blood roared like a boiling river, surging and crashing, each wave rising higher than the last.
The immense power he had accumulated over the past month and a half was fully released at this moment.
Whoosh!
In the next instant, that barrier—which for other martial artists was several times harder than all the previous bottlenecks combined—was pierced through in a single rush. His qi and blood drove straight through and poured into a special meridian.
The Extraordinary Meridians and Eight Meridians were now fully opened at last!
An unprecedented feeling of exhilaration spread through his entire body.
Xu Yuan felt as though all his limbs and bones were cheering. Every pore on his body seemed to open wide. His qi and blood churned like boiling water within him, yet it remained perfectly orderly, forming a flawless circulating heavenly cycle.
He had finally reached the Extraordinary Meridians!
Xu Yuan slowly opened his eyes, a brilliant light gleaming within them.
He did not rise immediately. Instead, he quietly savored the completely different level of power now flowing inside him.
If the qi and blood of the eight-meridian stage had been like a rushing river, then what he possessed now was like a bottomless lake.
Its surface was calm and still, yet beneath it surged violent undercurrents that concealed astonishing power.
A moment later, he rose to his feet, drew in his chest, straightened his back, and began to practice the Thunderclap Fist.
When he threw a punch, there was no whistling sound as it cut through the air, no fierce gust of fist wind. It was merely an ordinary punch.
Yet at the very instant that punch was thrown, all manner of insights into the Thunderclap Fist flowed through his heart like trickling streams. In a sudden flash of understanding, he truly stepped into an entirely new level and reached a mysterious realm.
He felt that he had fully understood the essence and profound meaning of this martial art and thoroughly integrated it.
It could be said that, so far as this martial art alone was concerned, he had now reached the absolute peak, a level beyond which there was nowhere left to rise.
Thrusting, penetrating, chopping, smashing...
At this moment, Xu Yuan’s Thunderclap Fist was no longer bound by fixed forms. Every move came as freely as heavenly steeds soaring through the skies, effortless and natural, yet as perfectly obedient as his own arm. There was an inexplicable sense of wholeness and harmony to it.
This was true mastery appearing simple, a return to the unadorned essence.
Outwardly, there was not the slightest imposing display. No tearing of the air, no fierce fist wind.
But that did not mean its power had weakened. On the contrary, because everything had been restrained and condensed, its might was even greater than before.
Rustle, rustle, rustle!
A sudden gust of wind sprang up, and the leaves began to fall in a flurry. Yet those fallen leaves were stirred by the invisible force field around Xu Yuan’s body and whirled around him like flowing water.
Once more, he sank his shoulders and drew in his elbow, then suddenly shot out a straight punch.
Pa.
A pale-white burst of force suddenly flew nine inches out from his fist and lashed against the osmanthus tree before him like a bolt of lightning.
The trunk buzzed with the impact, leaving behind a deep mark nearly an inch deep.
It was hard to imagine just how destructive that strike would be if it landed on a person.
Xu Yuan withdrew his fist and stood still. With a flicker of thought, he opened the panel in his mind.
[Skills: Jade Platform Stance Art (Completion 100%), Thunderclap Fist (Completion 100%), Golden Bell Shield (Minor Mastery 49%)]
[Aptitude: 44 (One in Ten Thousand)]
[Martial Seed (2): Berserk, Paralysis]
“Hoo...”
Xu Yuan slowly let out a breath of turbid air.
He had finally trained both the stance art and the Thunderclap Fist to completion.
His aptitude had increased by four points, and he had gained two more Martial Seeds.
His spirits rose. Without the slightest hesitation, he immediately used both seeds on the Golden Bell Shield.
This was a ranked martial art. The attribute extracted from it would surely be anything but ordinary.
[Golden Bell Shield attribute extraction failed...]
[Golden Bell Shield attribute extraction successful. Obtained attribute: Rebound Shock.]
In the next instant, a strange sensation rose from the depths of his heart.
It was as though something inside Xu Yuan’s body was growing and leaping, each wave rising higher than the last, until it swelled into towering billows.
A moment later, everything returned to calm.
Once he had collected himself, he looked at the panel again.
[Skills: Jade Platform Stance Art (Completion 100%), Thunderclap Fist (Completion 100%), Golden Bell Shield (Minor Mastery 49%)]
[Aptitude: 44 (One in Ten Thousand)]
[Martial Seed (0): Berserk, Paralysis, Rebound Shock]
“So it failed once again... Could it be that the higher the rank, the greater the chance of failure?”
Xu Yuan stroked his chin and pondered for a moment.
After all, when he had extracted Berserk before, it had succeeded on the first try.
But when extracting from the Thunderclap Fist and the Golden Bell Shield, both had failed once. It seemed that attribute extraction also depended on probability.
He shook his head and stopped dwelling on it. Instead, he turned his attention to this new ability.
Rebound Shock, just as the name implied, meant borrowing the opponent’s force and rebounding it back, allowing himself to suffer the least possible harm.
This was originally one of the Golden Bell Shield’s inherent abilities, but it could only be used while defending, and its limitations were considerable. The moment he made any movement, that ability would disappear.
But now...
‘As long as I suffer a heavy blow, I can reduce the damage I take by twenty percent and convert it into a ten percent increase in power!’
Xu Yuan’s eyes shone brightly.
This was downright a divine skill for group battles!
It reduced damage by twenty percent and could even turn that force around to enhance his own power. If it were used together with Berserk and the Golden Bell Shield...
Even Xu Yuan hardly dared imagine how terrifying that stacked combat strength would become.
“Not bad at all. I wonder, now that I’ve reached the eight-meridian stage, whether I can go exchange for the Layered Wave Palm?”
Xu Yuan murmured to himself. He had coveted that martial art for a long time, and besides, the battle merits from killing Bai Jinwu had already been distributed.
After splitting the rewards with Qin Chuan, he had received more than two thousand battle merits. Exchanging them for that martial art would definitely be more than enough.
“For now, I can only wait and see... In the meantime, I should practice the Golden Bell Shield some more.”
With that thought, he withdrew his attention and looked up at the night sky.
The moonlight was like water, and the stars glittered in countless points.
The nights of November already carried a trace of winter’s chill.
Yet Xu Yuan felt only warmth throughout his body, along with an indescribable sense of ease and bold ambition.
Not long ago, he had still been a menial worker struggling to survive from one day to the next.
Now, in only a year or two, he had already stepped onto the threshold of the Extraordinary Meridians. Looking across the entire Shangyang Residence, there were only a scant few who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.
And ahead of him, an even broader world was waiting.
The Organ-Nourishing Grandmaster level...
That mountain gate behind the Eldest Miss...
A faint smile rose to Xu Yuan’s lips.
No rush. The road was still long. He could walk it slowly.
He turned and went back inside, sinking once more into cultivation.
As the night deepened, all sounds faded into silence.
Only the osmanthus tree in the courtyard, marked by the imprint of his punch, swayed softly in the wind, giving off a faint rustling sound.