Chapter 77: Chapter Seventy-Three: Self-inflicted Disaster
Translator: 549690339
Evening of March 2nd
“Big brother, what’s wrong?” The little boy stared anxiously at Tang Luo who was lying in bed, groaning in discomfort.
“My good little brother…” Tang Luo replied, his face deathly pale.
“I’ve come down with an illness that prevents me from leaving this bed. Could you bring me some food?”
“Sure, big brother! Hang in there!” The little boy instantly dashed off, not even stopping to apply any medicine.
Tang Luo stared blankly at the ceiling beams, a stack of martial arts techniques and secrets piled next to his hand.
It’s cool to be pompous for a moment, but the consequences are hard to bear.
On the bed, the boy was mired in thoughts about the universe, nature, human desires, and a rising regret started gnawing at his heart.
Would it make any difference being early or late for elderhood?
How did the efforts of others in the Secret Arts Pavilion matter to him?
Why couldn’t he keep his hands to himself, insist on challenging others, and poof, 4.50 points of spiritual power gone in one shot, with the opponent not even slightly hurt.
“Huge loss!” With despair, the boy turned on his side, facing the wall and continuing to reflect.
Undoubtedly, Tang Luo’s actions yesterday aroused the pride of the people in the Secret Arts Pavilion and they readily accepted his benchmark mechanism.
The commitment of achieving at least five Mortal Rank martial arts or one Yellow Rank martial art every month undoubtedly pushed everyone to the brink of a cliff, but the members of the Secret Arts Pavilion at that time appeared driven, declaring ‘Why not?’.
This resulted in Tang Luo, who originally had a substantial amount of private time, becoming extremely busy, with martial arts methods to be improved even stacked beside his bed.
Improving martial arts techniques was a difficult task. It wasn’t as simple as changing a human-level martial art randomly picked up.
Sometimes, the inability to modify it wasn’t due to the skill level of the modifier, but because the original intention of the martial arts technique itself completely blocked any possibility for improvement.
Improvements mainly came from a few aspects:
Enhancing the power of the martial art required locating additional meridians to aid the output, or adding other secondary effects to the original process where Qi circulates. Just like the merging of ‘Eagle Claw’ and ‘Dash Thunder Claw’, both martial arts techniques didn’t conflict but gathered spiritual energy in the five-finger meridians during their execution. This lucky fusion enhanced their power and added dual effects.
The next approach was to develop the potential of the martial arts technique itself, just like the ‘Heavenly Determination Fist’, which was a wide-ranging and lavish style. If other effects were carelessly added, the power of the martial arts technique wouldn’t increase, but rather decrease. In such cases, all that could be done is to develop its own Qi circulation route, like ‘Spiral Power’ or ‘Gas Solidification’.
The biggest improvement to a martial arts technique lies in the opportunity for a combined attack. Like the ‘Wind Attack’ maneuver from the Tongtian Domination Scroll. It started off as a single-move empty palm attack with a sharp attribute, but when executed with different spiritual energy frequencies, several palm forces would attract each other without merging. Instead, they would explode with across-realm combat power during collisions, like a chemical reaction.
These were the current methods of improving martial arts techniques, every single one of them not easy.
The Secret Arts Pavilion didn’t have any slackers. Everyone had been immersed in martial arts research for decades. Perhaps they started to slack off and stagnate, but their experience in martial arts research was increasing daily.
When faced with the challenge from the young Tang Luo, the entire Secret Arts Pavilion went all out, even the two most opportunistic – Old White Beard and Short Eyes – didn’t hold back.
After he accepted the most simple welcome ceremony, this grand martial arts technique modification war stirred by the young man officially began.
For Tang Luo, the biggest disadvantage was having insufficient rank. He who originally amassed over two thousand points of spiritual power, had it drop by 450 points after executing two sets of martial arts techniques. It felt like the transformation into the Mortal Realm was once again a distant goal.
For a martial artist, the spiritual power that could normally be mobilized was typically between twenty to thirty percent of their total spiritual power.
For instance, a peak Mortal Realm martial artist could mobilize about 333 points out of 999 points of spiritual power as needed.
Even though he was only 100 points away from making a breakthrough to the Mortal Realm, with over 1,800 points of spiritual power accumulated in his internal organs, it was impossible to mobilize this portion of spiritual power during combat without the aid of Dharma Aspect.
A Mortal Rank martial technique, generally speaking, had an output ranging from 20 to 80 points. Even the most powerful strike wouldn’t exceed 400 points – and that could only be achieved by using a specific Qi-Gong method that mobilized a large quantity of spiritual power.
Without a doubt, mobilizing such a large amount of spiritual power would be followed by an extended period of recharging.
Once a martial artist reached the Mortal Realm, they become fundamentally different from those in the Mortal Rank. Yellow Rank techniques surpassed the Mortal Rank in both variety and function by a large margin – and most importantly, in the output of spiritual power.
A common Yellow Rank technique produces an output exceeding 300 points with each move. Its power far surpasses that of the Mortal Rank techniques, and the Yellow Rank Ultimate Moves come in all sorts of varieties, ranging from a minimum of 2000 points to nearly 4000 points at most.
For Tang Luo, even as an absolute spiritual power controller who didn’t need to recharge, he could only modify Mortal Rank techniques, given his current spiritual power level of less than 2000 points.
And the rules of the Secret Arts Pavilion state that the contribution derived from improving five Mortal Rank martial techniques equates to improving only one Yellow Rank technique.
For the elders of the Secret Arts Pavilion, they only needed to improve one Yellow Rank technique to match the efforts of Tang Luo’s five. What was even more painful was the fact that Tang Luo, who initiated this challenge, would find it unbearable if he were to be outdone by the Secret Arts Pavilion members in the first month.
Therefore, improving five Mortal Rank techniques was just a false proposition. Tang Luo’s primary aim was to be in the lead with a minimum of thirty or more Mortal Rank techniques.
Due to their years of diligence, the researchers of the Secret Arts Pavilion had surely squirreled away a myriad of improved Yellow Rank techniques for their personal use. They would likely put those techniques to use in this competition, just to save face.
It was easy to imagine that if these Secret Arts Pavilion members were able to garner prestige in the first two months, it would be difficult to thwart them later on.
So Tang Luo decided to commit himself. He massaged his throbbing temple, sat up, grabbed a martial arts book, and began reading again.
In the distant corner, two large crates were overflowing with Mortal Rank martial arts techniques.
Upon the return voyage of the Wancheng Treasure Ship, the Tang Clan welcomed a windfall, and countless new rules were brought back home in triumph.
What came along with it was the stunning new administrative strategy of the Clan Hall that blew everyone away.
Among the eight fighters from the Fierce Realm who came with the trading ship, four expressed their intention to join the Dark Thunder Hall directly.
Furthermore, five hundred martial artists from the Mortal Realm dove headfirst into the new hall. This transformed the fledgling hall, initially home to five hundred weaklings, into a formidable entity in North City of Xiling.
Also, Tang Zhi, the Clan Leader, overtly supported his younger brother by allocating many craftsmen and resources to the Dark Thunder Hall.
This humble hall started to grow at an astonishing rate and rapidly blossomed into the Tang Clan’s second-largest martial arts institution.
At this moment, the ambition of Dark Thunder Hall to compete with the Martial Hall became crystal clear to everyone. They all seemed to have seen through Tang Zuo’s plan.
If I can’t beat you within the organization of the Martial Hall, I’ll create an alternative path. Let’s see if the Martial Hall you lead can maintain its superiority, or I’ll surpass you.
At the clan meeting in March, the new Sect Head, Tang Zuo, also declared the mission orientation of the Dark Thunder Hall: “Our Dark Thunder Hall only accepts missions that involve commando attacks and assassination.”
This ruthless and aggressive stance made the clan members look at Tang Zuo in a new light.
They were well aware that these commando and assassination missions were mostly long-accumulated tasks that typically required forced assignment. It was surprising that Dark Thunder Hall had chosen such missions as its main focus.
But how many nails can a good iron hit? Even with four individuals from the Fierce Realm and five hundred from the Mortal Realm, after several commando and assassination missions, they might be reduced to tatters long before they can compete with the Martial Hall.
The clan members found the new Sect Head, Tang Zuo, overly eager to prove himself.
Meanwhile, Tang Sen maintained his stoic and steady demeanor without showing any change in his expression..
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