Chapter 22: Peak
Changfeng Martial Hall.
Due to Shan Hu's exhaustion from yesterday's practice session, she overslept that morning and arrived at the martial hall slightly behind schedule.
As a result, by the time she entered the martial hall, she found that everyone was gathered in the training area.
There was Yang Danqing, Xu Huan, and Zhang Le, as well as two coaches who had not taken the day off. There were also a few trainees who came early.
They were not training. Instead, they were watching someone warm up. It seemed like that person was going to undergo some sort of test.
Naturally, that person was….
"Li Pin is back?"
Shan Hu was delighted.
Boom!
In the next moment, a muffled boom came from the Force-measuring machine, and the entire apparatus seemed to shake fiercely.
The sound startled Shan Hu.
Immediately afterward, she seemed to have thought of something. With large strides, she quickly arrived in front of the Force-measuring machine.
When she saw "391" displayed on it, her eyelids jumped, her mind zapped.
With disbelief written all over her face, she uttered, "How is this possible!?"
"This kind of strength…!"
"Core Force! Core Force! This is Core Force!"
"Amazing! This is amazing!"
Yang Danqing, Xu Huan, and Zhang Le didn't fare any better than her. They were just as shocked as she was.
Among them, Yang Danqing's expression was full of emotions as he thought of how "the younger generation will surpass the older."
Shan Hu felt as though she had fallen into a dream. "What's going on? Core Force?! The Force that Li Pin hit out… was really Core Force!?"
In the past month, Shan Hu hadn't even spent time celebrating the Astral Advent Festival and had instead invested all her time practicing hard. Whenever she had time, she would ask her master to teach her about Force circulation.
In the end, her effort did not fail her. She felt that she had made great progress and that achieving Covert Force was just around the corner. So much so that she had intended to spar with Li Pin after he returned from his hometown, but to her surprise, it turned out that… he had achieved Core Force?
Shan Hu was bewildered. "Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?"
"I met Li Pin in the morning and spoke out of courtesy, commenting that… it had been a month since we've met and that he must have improved tremendously…." Xu Huan's expression was very complex. "I swear, I was just being polite at that time, but… he nodded and shared that he had realized the extraordinary unification of the Core Force.…"
Xu Huan's expression appeared a little unnatural.
When Li Pin told him this, he only had one thought in his mind at the time, and that was: "Are you f*cking kidding me?"
A level-two martial artist manifested Core Force after just a trip back to his hometown?
Were there cheat codes like this?
Zhang Le laughed bitterly and said, "It's my fault. I was the one who insisted on making him take the test. You guys saw the results."
He glanced at Li Pin, who was adjusting his qi and blood circulation, and opened his mouth to say something. However, in the end, he was only able to come up with three words that summarized the situation.
"What a monster."
"Turns out that there are really geniuses in this world," said Yang Danqing.
He continued, "Before the Astral Advent Festival, Hall Master Fang said that he will be letting Li Pin take charge of the newly opened martial hall and pay him a million yuan a year. Back then, I was a little unconvinced. Li Pin's talent is indeed good, but the person in charge of a martial hall would need to achieve Transformative Force. It'd take him at least a few more years at least.
"At that time, I could only comfort myself by saying that Li Pin is handsome and young people would admire his looks. It's understandable that an old man like me will not receive the same kind of treatment. But now, it seems…." He shook his head somewhat sullenly. "People can't be compared."
Shan Hu was trembling slightly as she took a few steps and arrived next to Li Pin. "Core Force, Core Force…."
It took her a while before she was able to open her mouth and ask, "You've… mastered Core Force?"
"Mmhmm." Li Pin nodded. "I encountered a Demonic Cat on my way back to my hometown"
"A Demonic Cat?!"
When these words came out of Li Pin's mouth, the pupils of Shan Hu, Yang Danqing, Xu Huan, and Zhang Le all constricted at the same time.
"A Demonic Cat?!" Shan Hu shouted a second time.
She was well aware of what a demonic cat meant.
"That's right. In that situation, between the Demonic Cat and myself, one of us had to die," Li Pin narrated in a calm tone as if he were talking about a trivial matter. "At that moment of life and death, I completely shut out all thoughts and threw a punch. When that punch was thrown, I felt that my spirit, willpower, as well as qi and blood, all boil at the same time, becoming one.
"Ultimately, I seized the positional advantage and killed the demonic cat after exhausting all my qi and blood. After that, I found out through careful studying that the Force I had exerted was Core Force."
Li Pin knew that news of him slaying the demonic cat wasn't necessarily accessible to ordinary martial artists, but he also knew that, sooner or later, Fang Lingjue would hear about it. Not to mention that it wasn't anything unseemly, so he had no scruples speaking about it openly and calmly. However, it was his calm narration that made the four of them imagine how precarious the situation was at that time.
It was as Li Pin said—either himself or the demonic cat had to die.
One would experience great horrors when they were in life-and-death situations.
Many martial artists comprehended the key to Force circulation in the midst of life-and-death situations. They would then enter a brand new domain.
They had originally thought that such incidents could only happen in stories, movies, and novels. But to their surprise, it occurred right before their eyes.
A Core Force that was mastered when one's life was at stake.…
This was something that they couldn't be envious of.
"Genius." Yang Danqing gave a heartfelt sigh of admiration. "Now that you have mastered Core Force, it's only a matter of time before you condense qi to form a Core. Your future is limitless, Master Li."
"I never thought I would have the honor of witnessing the rise of a genius," Xu Huan said. "Master Li, you signed up for this season's Jiang Province Martial Competition? I'm waiting to see how far you can make it into the competition then."
Zhang Le also sighed with deep emotion. "Mater Li, I've never doubted that you will be able to develop Core Force. I just didn't expect that this day would come so quickly."
This young man who had only joined the Changfeng Martial Hall for less than three months had astonished them immensely. He also made them understand the gap between them and true geniuses.
"I had already mastered the Tiger-Leopard Thunder Sound and achieved Covert Force even before I went to university. Although I haven't trained for the few years I was in university, I would still speculate on the wonders of Transformative Force from time to time.
"When my physical fitness improved in the past few months, I naturally stepped into Transformative Force. I guess Hall Master Fang saw that and was assured to let me oversee the new martial hall," Li Pin explained with a smile.
"A twenty-two-year-old Transformative Force practitioner… A Transformative Force practitioner that has realized the Core Force…. This is amazing! I'm afraid only the disciples who were carefully nurtured by Martial Saints to inherit their legacies would be able to reach this level of achievement at such a young age."
At this moment, Yang Danqing slightly adjusted his mindset. After all, he was old and only wanted to stay in the industry until he retired. He had no intention to fight his way up.
Thus after adjusting his mindset, he was in the mood to joke. "You wouldn't be the hidden disciple of a certain Martial Saint, right, Master Li?"
Li Pin laughed. "Core Force does not equate to having achieved Core Formation. Moreover, I have already depleted all my previously accumulated experience. I can only rely on myself to continue again step by step."
Yang Danqing, Shan Hu, and the others only thought that the "previous accumulation" Li Pin was talking about referred to his years of martial arts practice while he was in high school and college. They didn't know that Li Pin was talking about the ten or more years of his past life.
In his previous life, he had reached the peak of Transformative Force and was able to strike a few blasts of Core Force at the cost of his qi and blood loss.
The current him on the other hand…had completely caught up with him in his previous life and recovered to his peak state.
Now, without any more experience he could rely on from his previous life, he could only depend on himself to continue down this path of his in the future.
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