Ancient Strengthening Technique

AST 289 - Amalgamation of Movement Techniques!

Qing Shui laughed the moment he thought of Gongsun Jianwu. This supreme beauty was too frivolous, despised normal worldly conventions. Even when he scolded her saying that she had slight mental problems, she still felt that she was a tad better compared to Xi Yue, who was scolded as a crazed lunatic.

Qing Shui was deciding whether or not he should accept the challenge because his original intentions were to remain low profile, not showing off his true abilities so early.

However, yesterday it seemed as though Cang Wuya and Fei Wuji had the intention to let him and the two ladies, as well as others of the junior generations, to restructure their hall. But Qing Shui only had an extremely vague understanding of the Starmoon Hall. There was actually a supreme elder in the Gongsun Clan, as well as another elder and the chief disciple Gongsun Jianwu. The Gongsun Clan should still have some other hidden forces, like protectors and guardians.

There were only a limited number of Supreme Elders in the Heavenly Palace, and each of them was extremely powerful. Usually, they wouldn’t care about matters of the Heavenly Palace and would only interfere in events that had great impact.

Qing Shui decided to cast aside all these troublesome matters temporarily. At the very least, he was now under the protection of Cang Wuya and Fei Wuji and could be considered safe. The main objective of him joining the Heavenly Palace was to learn some of their consummate techniques, and now that he had learnt some of them, his objective could be considered already achieved.

He didn’t have a sense of belonging to the Heavenly Palace; he only felt goodwill towards people who treated him with kindness and ignored all other things. If people gave him an inch of respect, he would return the respect given by a foot. Kindness must always be repaid. Just like his goddess master Yiye Jiange, even now he was already making plans on her behalf when she steps into the Lion King Ridge in the future.

Sadly, Qing Shui knew that it would require at least twenty years. There were too many unknown factors through this period of time. Would he even be able to survive after storming the Yan Clan? And if he succeeded, will he get married? If sons and daughters were born to him, would his personality and priorities change then? There were too many variables! For the sake of his family, would he then be like now, still as determined to get revenge for the blood debt of Yiye Jiange? He truly didn’t know; no man could predict the future and nothing was eternal.

Inside of the Violet Jade Immortal, Qing Shui cultivated the Ancient Strengthening Technique and continued his normal routine – refining the soulshake bell, practising his alchemy, smithing, etc. In addition to that, he added the Cloudmist Steps to his daily routine. Now that he had already understood the essence of the Cloudmist Steps, he was like a fish in water when executing it.

Revising the old, while learning the new, practice makes perfect! Qing Shui didn’t know how many times he had executed the Cloudmist Steps in practice; he had entered into a state where he shut out all external distractions and was only focused on the Cloudmist Steps. This time round, as he stepped out with the Cloudmist Steps, he unconsciously executed the Free Spirit Steps together with it. Not only did the two skills not clash against each other, they somehow combined perfectly together. One of the discoveries he made was the massive boost he gained in speed after the two techniques were combined, causing his speed to be obviously many times faster even when compared to Canghai.

Qing Shui’s mouth was open wide in astonishment. This speed was truly terrifying, especially combined with his hidden weapons. He would even be able to deal with those that have a higher cultivation base than him. Even if he couldn’t defeat them, fleeing wouldn’t be a problem as well!

Qing Shui was overcome with joy. Back then his Ghostly Steps couldn’t keep up with his cultivation level until it evolved into the Free Spirit Steps. But from then on, there had been no improvement in his movement techniques.

Qing Shui didn’t know which realm had his Free Spirit Steps reached, but it has been a long time since he trained in that. He didn’t have the chance to learn any consummate movement techniques up till now – the Cloudmist Steps of the Heavenly Palace! However, Qing Shui didn’t expected that the Free Spirit Steps could actually combine together with the Cloudmist Steps, synergising extremely well. The Ancient Strengthening Technique was undoubtedly the strongest support-type cultivation art in this world! Using the essence of the Cloudmist Steps as main, while the insights from the Free Spirit Steps as support, his speed broke through his previous limits and had reached an extremely terrifying realm.

Qing Shui also doesn’t know if his Free Spirit Steps could be level up. There may be no limits to it, akin to the Deer Cantering Steps as well as Tiger Form. Initially he taught that the Great Perfection Stage was already the final peak, but after his insights gained at the back mountain with all the stones carvings and depictions, he realised that that was not the case.

“Seems like the degree of synergization between the two movement techniques is still not very high. I would probably need a period of time before I can fully master this.” Qing Shui spent another ten days in his spatial realm focusing on this technique, his hard work paying off as evidence by the increase in his speed. “Hehehe, this is a good thing.” After the training, Qing Shui laid on the ground for a rest, before exiting the spatial realm.

The next day, when Qing Shui went to the public square for his morning practice, there were already many people there discussing the challenge issued by the Gongsun Clan’s second young master to Qing Shui, even rumors of Qing Shui being related to Cang Wuya started spreading around.

“That Qing Shui was the person who crushed the gang of the third young master from the Gongsun Clan. This time round there would surely be a good show to watch. I wonder if Qing Shui will accept the challenge from the second young master of the Gongsun Clan,” someone in the crowd exclaimed in excitement.

“With no power behind him, how could he dare say Xi Yue is a lunatic? Shattering the bones of all of Gongsun Clan’s third young master’s subordinates, and even threatening to break his legs. Do you think really he is someone without a powerful background?” another random person replied.

“I heard he was the long lost grandson of Supreme Elder, Cang Wuya,” someone added.

Qing Shui stayed silent.

Qing Shui knew that after he was challenged by Gongsun Jianyun, the matter was probably spread by those in the Gongsun Clan. This was to force him to accept the challenge. After all he had been through, how could his heart be bothered by how others looked at him? Ignoring them, Qing Shui faced the direction where the sun rises, as he slowly closed his eyes.

Insight!

Qing Shui felt that he made vast improvements when he previously practised the Taiji Fist and the Cloudmist Steps after he entered into the state of epiphany. However, Qing Shui understood that gaining insight was far from enlightenment, but even so, flashes of insights would already hasten training and cultivation speed by a huge degree.

Moving his body in motions of the Taiji Fist, his speed was even slower compared to the day before, but yet the slowness in his speed seemed to be cloaked in a layer of profoundness!

“Look at the strength undulations when he punched out. Although his movements are so slow, the amplification of strength is at least ten times,” somebody sighed in admiration.

“You hadn’t seen him punching at his ‘fast’ mode before. His attack speed at the very least, is as fast as lightning!”

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After casually eating breakfast, Qing Shui headed towards Cang Wuya’s location and when he arrived, the two ladies were already criticizing their Cloudmist Steps. The training space allocated there was vast and had a sense of serenity in the air. From afar, the silhouettes of the two beauties were already extremely enchanting. Canghai Mingyue emanated an imposing air when she executed the steps and Huoyun Liu-Li was even more charming than usual.

After seeing the appearance of Qing Shui, Huoyun Liu-Li broke out into a smile and happily ran up to and pulled Qing Shui along for him to join them in their practice together. Many question marks bloomed in his mind but he could only let himself be pulled along.

“Liu-Li wishes to compete in speed against you.” Canghai Mingyue smiled.

“Compete in speed?” Qing Shui stared at Huoyun Liu-Li in confusion.

“She just grasped the essence of ‘slowness’ in the steps, and combining it with her total insights, and even I lost out to her.” Canghai Mingyue continued with a laugh.

“Ah, how do you want to compete?” Qing Shui grinned staring at the two beauties who were watching him in anticipation.

“From here to the great pine tree over there, let’s see who returns first.” Huoyun Liu-Li pointed to a huge tree about three hundred meters away in the distance.

“Sure, can Yueyue be the umpire? We will begin when she says start.”

Qing Shui and Liu-Li stood ready at the crude line the ground drawn by Canghai Mingyue. As Canghai Mingyue announced the start, Huoyun Liu-Li immediately dashed out, her movements appeared blurry, her steps extremely quick.

Qing Shui was in no hurry, he especially took the time to admire the bouncing of Huoyun Liu-Li’s perky butt cheeks before he burst into motion. Qing Shui didn’t use the ‘sliding steps’ of the Cloudmist Steps nor did he understand how to use the ‘slow steps’, but rather, he used the combination technique between Free Spirit Steps and Cloudmist Steps, which resulted in a burst of speed so fast that he was instantly next to Liu-Li and as long as he stretched his hand out, he could embrace her into a hug.

Huoyun Liu-Li was shocked beyond words. She had a head start of a few seconds, yet Qing Shui was already beside her. However, in spite of this she still continued methodically executing the sliding steps while using the insights of slowness to complement it, raising her speed to her maximum, fully bringing out the essence of the Cloudmist Steps.

Canghai Mingyue had a bitter smile on her face as she stared at Qing Shui. From what she could see, Qing Shui was only utilizing the ‘common steps’ of the Cloudmist Steps. These ‘common steps’ were executed only when the user wanted to travel long distances. It was the step that could be sustained the longest and used up the least amount of energy. Despite this, there was something different. From her observations, Qing Shui’s ‘common steps’ had a blurry quality similar to the essence of the ‘slow steps’, but yet Canghai Mingyue definitely knew that what Qing Shui was using was merely the ‘common steps’!