Zhang Ruochen’s gaze held a sharp edge as he said with firm intent, “Mother, don’t worry! I will definitely cultivate to become a strong person as soon as possible and use my own strength to protect you.”
Taking the Blood Pill, Zhang Ruochen returned to his room and continued to cultivate with vigour.
“Your Highness, it is said that martial artists not only just have to take blood pills, but they also have to cultivate techniques, and they must possess cultivation techniques in order to open up their meridians.” The maid Yun’er said.
Concubine Lin looked at Zhang Ruochen’s back as he left, pursed her lips and nodded bitterly, saying, “I know! However, even the lowest grade of the technique is sold for more than 500 silver coins, so with my current financial resources, I can’t afford it at all. Moreover, now that the Queen and the State Master are presiding over the court, it is simply impossible for the Queen to allow Dusty to go to the ‘Hall of Collected Books’ to receive cultivation techniques and martial arts skills. It seems there is only one way out!”
Servant Yun’er said, “Your Highness is going to beg the Lin family? But three years ago, the Empress had already completely fallen out with the Lin family, so they would give His Highness the Ninth Prince cultivation techniques?”
“As long as they are willing to give Duan’er the cultivation technique, even if they want me to kneel on the ground and admit my mistake, I can still kneel just the same.” Concubine Lin looked as if she had thought of something from the past and couldn’t help but shed tears in her eyes.
“But it clearly wasn’t the Empress’ fault in the first place ……,” the maid Yun’er gave a soft sigh.
……
The inner space of the Time and Space Crystal Stone was very rich in aura, and the intensity was roughly twice that of the outside world.
One should know that in the Yunwu County Kingdom, those famous mountains and rivers would already be considered cultivation treasures if their aura concentration reached one and a half times that of the outside world, and would be fought over by all the great clans.
Sitting in the centre of the inner space, Zhang Ruochen took out the jade bottle containing the ten blood pills, poured out a blood pill from the jade bottle, and brought it to the tip of his nose to gently sniff it.
“Although the Blood Pill is refined from the blood of a savage beast, it doesn’t have a bloody odour, but instead carries a light fragrance.
When the alchemist refined the Blood Pill, he removed the blood odour from it and added Tiger Luo Grass and Mandragora Flower.
Taking the Blood Pill for a long period of time would not only provide the martial artist with a constant supply of physical strength, but also improve the martial artist’s meridians, bones, and internal organs, making the martial artist’s body stronger.
“It’s just a First Grade Blood Pill.” Zhang Ruochen gently nodded his head and muttered, “Thought that at the current cultivation level, taking a First Grade Blood Pill would be enough.”
Zhang Ruochen took one of the blood pills into his mouth, then immediately recapped the jade bottle and placed it on the stone platform.
Under the urging of the true qi, the blood qi of the blood pills, quickly melted away, providing Zhang Ruochen with an unceasing source of physical strength.
“Although I have reached the early stage of the Yellow Extreme Realm and become a martial artist, this physical body is just too thin and weak to be compared to other martial artists. I must refine my body to be strong, or else I will suffer a great loss when fighting martial artists of the same realm.”
For martial artists, not only did they just have to cultivate true qi, but they also had to cultivate martial arts.
“Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm!”
Zhang Ruochen’s mind surfaced this set of subtle palm techniques, which was enough to be ranked in the top three within the secret martial skills he remembered, and it was just right for him to cultivate right now.
With his legs spread apart and his waist disc sinking down, he filled his body’s true qi into his legs, fixing his body, and slowly raised a pair of arms and began to clap his palms according to some kind of subtle pattern.
In his mind, he imagined himself to be an ancient divine elephant of infinite power, an abyssal demonic dragon that swallowed clouds and spat out mist, and used all his strength in every punch he threw, as if he was trying to strike out every ounce of strength in his body.
With each palm strike, the muscles of the entire body were pulled, and the true qi in the body followed suit and merged into the muscles and sinews, causing the muscles and sinews to undergo a deconstruction, becoming even more powerful and tougher, and even fusing into one with the true qi.
Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm, a martial art with thirteen palm seals, belonging to the lower grade of the King Grade.
To be exact, if one was able to cultivate the Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm to the thirteenth palm, even if it was compared to a divine grade martial art, it would be similar.
Both feats and martial skills were divided into five ranks: human, spirit, ghost, king, and god.
The first palm of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm, “Barbarian Elephant Chasing the Ground”, when successfully cultivated, was comparable in power to a lower-grade human grade martial art.
The second palm of the Dragon Elephant Palm, “Flying Dragon in the Sky”, when successfully cultivated, is comparable to a middle-grade human grade martial art.
The third palm of the Dragon Image Prajna Palm, “Dragon Elephant Returning to the Field”, when successfully cultivated, its power was comparable to a human grade upper grade martial art.
The fourth palm of the Dragon Image Palm, “Dragon Image Shadow”, when successfully cultivated, its power was comparable to a lower grade Spirit Grade martial art.
……
The thirteenth palm of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm was known as the “Dragon Elephant Extermination”, its power was comparable to that of a divine grade martial art, and the power it exerted was unimaginable.
The first few slaps of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm could only be considered as low-grade martial arts, and their power was not strong. Moreover, the Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm was extremely hard to cultivate, and very few people were able to cultivate to the seventh palm.
After the seventh palm, every palm cultivation needs to consume a lot of time, a lot of energy, if you can’t resist the power of the body’s rigidity and yang, it is even possible to burn the body to spontaneous combustion.
It was because of these reasons that the Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm could only be considered a King Grade Lower Grade martial art.
Although the Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm was very difficult to cultivate, however, it was just right for Zhang Ruochen to cultivate now, and could refine his body to be strong in a short period of time.
“Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm First Palm, Barbarian Elephant Chasing the Earth.”
Zhang Ruochen first stood in a horse stance, then, stepping quickly, he rushed out violently and quickly struck out palm seals.
Quiet as a mountain, moving like a savage elephant.
Practising over and over again until he exhausted the true qi in his body, he wiped away the sweat and sat down on the ground, using the Divine Martial Seal in his brow to absorb the aura in the inner space of the Space-Time Crystal Stone, converting it into an unceasing supply of true qi.
In the inner space of the space-time crystal stone, after nine consecutive days of cultivation, he finally succeeded in cultivating the first palm of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm, the “Barbarian Elephant Chasing the Ground”.
Nine days in the inner space, but only three days had passed in the outside world.
“I wonder how strong the power of the first palm of the Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm will be when I execute it with my current cultivation level?”
Zhang Ruochen walked out from the inner space of the Space-Time Crystal Stone and came to the backyard, standing in the centre of the compound, running the true qi in his body and filling his legs.
“Barbarian Elephant Chi Earth.”
He stepped in a regular pace and violently rushed out.
As he stepped, a powerful force rushed up from his legs, through his waist, abdomen, and spine, surging to his back and shoulders, and spurting out from his arms.
Although it was only a palm strike, it mobilised the strength of every muscle in the body, and the explosive power was naturally quite astonishing.
“Boom!”
Both palms struck on top of a half-man high jack stone, then, immediately withdrawing his palms, he stepped on the footprints he had just made and returned back to his original spot at a rapid pace.
Zhang Ruochen looked towards the piece of jack boulder and saw that there were two additional shallow palm-shaped indentations on the surface of the boulder. At the bottom of the boulder, it had sunk about two centimetres down towards the soil.
Zhang Ruochen was still quite satisfied with the power of this palm.
Even though the Dragon Elephant Prajna Palm was now only a Human Grade Lower Grade martial art, it was more advanced than other Human Grade Lower Grade martial arts, and the power that erupted from it was more powerful.
“The higher the grade, the harder it is to cultivate the martial skill. If I were to directly cultivate a Spirit Grade martial art right now, it would be impossible to succeed in nine days, and it would take at least half a year or more. Moreover, with the amount of true qi in my body, I wouldn’t be able to execute a Spirit grade martial skill.”
The time spent on cultivating martial skills and training techniques had to be arranged reasonably.
If one were to favour the cultivation of martial skills and neglect the cultivation of gong methods, it would result in a slow cultivation realm.
If one favoured the cultivation of gongfa and neglected the cultivation of martial skills, one would suffer great losses when fighting others.
Regardless, after cultivating the first palm of the Dragon Image Prajna Palm, Zhang Ruochen finally had the initial ability to defend himself after 800 years.
In these nine days, Zhang Ruochen’s cultivation had also progressed tremendously, and the true qi in the qi pool had already been cultivated to full capacity, allowing him to start opening the second tendon.
But in order to open up a tendon, it was necessary to take the Marrow Cleansing Liquid. The Queen simply gave Zhang Ruochen only one copy of the Marrow Cleansing Liquid, which had been used when opening the first meridian.
How would one go about getting a second copy of the Marrow Cleansing Liquid, or even more?
“Ninth Prince, the Empress is looking around for you, what are you doing here?” When her maid Yun’er saw Zhang Ruochen standing in the centre of the courtyard, she curiously walked over.
Yun’er was the only maid beside Concubine Lin and Zhang Ruochen, roughly seventeen or eight years old, quite beautiful looking with bright eyes and a pointed chin.
Zhang Ruochen walked to the opposite side of Yun’er, blocking Yun’er’s line of sight so that she wouldn’t see the two handprints on the jackstone in the distance, and asked with concern, “Sister Yun’er, is the injury on your arm better?”
Yun’er gently shook her head and said, “It takes a hundred days to heal, I’m afraid it will take two or three more months to heal.”
The injury on her arm was the bone that was broken a few days ago when she was pushed out by the eighth prince with a slap. For maidservants like them, not to mention breaking the bones, even if they were clubbed to death, the eighth prince would not need to take any responsibility.
In a world where the strong are honoured, the weak have no status at all.
Zhang Ruochen said, “Why don’t you purchase a copy of the Sinew Breaking Cream?”
Yun’er endured the pain in her arm and smiled bitterly, “A single copy of the worst Sinew and Bone Breaking Cream would cost two hundred silver coins to buy, and inferior people like us simply cannot afford to use it. Ninth Prince, it’s good enough that you can care about us slave girls. Hurry up and follow me to see the Empress, today, we’re leaving the palace.”
Zhang Ruochen followed behind Yun’er and asked curiously, “Leave the palace? Where to?”
“To see Muddy Shan! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her, you must be very happy, right?” A bright smile appeared on Yun’er’s face as she stared at Zhang Ruochen.
Every time he said “Muddy Shan”, he would definitely blush and be as shy as a big girl.
“Who is Muddy Shan?” This sentence Zhang Ruochen just wanted to ask, but immediately swallowed back.
Obviously, the Zhang Ruochen who was sick and dying before his death must have known that woman called Muddy Shan, and listening to Yun’er’s tone, their relationship might even be quite extraordinary.
If Zhang Ruochen asked “who is Muddy Shan”, he would definitely be exposed. Since that was the case, it would be better to remain silent and say as little as possible.
Fortunately, Zhang Ruochen had been weak and sickly all these years, and apart from Concubine Lin who had always cared for him, he seldom came into contact with people, otherwise, he would probably have been suspected already.
Yun’er was slightly surprised to see that Zhang Ruochen was surprisingly calm, but she didn’t think much about it and continued to walk towards the compound where Consort Lin lived.
