Chapter 150: Huoye's Talent

Huoye ultimately agreed to Huo Xialan's request because he urgently needed to grow stronger, and martial arts were likely the fastest means for him to advance.

"Come on, follow my lead. Hold your horse stance steady, press the tip of your tongue against your upper palate, and breathe slowly using the breathing technique I taught you. Swallow your saliva and guide it down into your abdomen. Ah, Junior Shangguan, don't just stand there watching, join in and learn too." Huo Xialan began teaching Huoye while also intending to instruct Shangguan Yudie along the way.

Shangguan Yudie looked somewhat bewildered. She pointed at herself and stared blankly at Huo Xialan, as if asking, "Can I do it too?" In front of strangers, her words remained as sparse as ever.

Huo Xialan nodded and said, "What I am teaching right now are just the foundational breathing methods, nothing worth keeping secret. Come on, learn together."

Upon hearing this, Shangguan Yudie looked at Huoye, leaving the decision to him with the look of: If you say I should learn, I will learn. Shangguan Yudie looked as obedient and compliant as a newlywed bride.

Huoye nodded, his eyes glowing with eagerness, conveying: Hurry up and learn, I desperately want you to learn!

Thus, Shangguan Yudie walked over to Huoye, imitated his posture by placing her feet shoulder-width apart, held her arms level in front of her, and settled into a horse stance.

Huo Xialan nodded in satisfaction, then began explaining while monitoring their breathing.

"In the era of superpowers, which are ancient traditions preserved from the era of arcane arts, there is a clear distinction in strength between Eastern and Western civilizations. Do you know why?"

Huoye thought for a moment and then asked, "Is it related to the breathing technique you're teaching us?"

Huo Xialan nodded and said with gratification, "That's right. Western methods mostly lean toward magic, focusing on communicating with the elements of the world and then executing special techniques. Although there are a few who train as knights, they are a tiny minority. The arcane traditions of the East are different; Eastern practices focus on exploring the inner self."

Huo Xialan ticked off the items on her fingers one by one. "Chinese martial arts, Japanese ninja and samurai, Indian classical yoga, and so on... Most of these require exercising the body through special breathing techniques, and the specific breathing technique varies depending on the method. The breathing technique I left in the manual earlier is simply the most basic art of breath cultivation."

Huoye took over while holding his horse stance, "The superpowers of ability users originate from breathing. Chemical reactions generated through breathing produce superpowers stored in cells. With the assistance of special breathing techniques, superpowers can be generated even more efficiently. The breathing technique of martial arts is called internal energy, and the energy generated by breathing is called internal force. When an ability user utilizes internal energy, the internal force formed by superpowers is bound to be extremely powerful. I have tested this point before."

Huo Xialan nodded, "That's right, exactly. Internal energy is one aspect. Chinese martial arts emphasize practicing internal strength for breath, and external strength for muscles, bones, and skin. Tempering the physical body is essential. However, with your individual superpower level, it is very difficult to achieve this, and I don't even know if this horse stance training will be useful for you."

Huoye knew his own situation best. Given his immense strength, could merely holding a horse stance consume that much effort? Therefore, after a brief thought, he asked, "Should I be able to add weighted loads?"

Huo Xialan was momentarily stunned, then replied, "Well, you can, but your strength is so great that preparing the right amount of weight right now is a bit..."

"Thud!" Before Huo Xialan could finish speaking, Huoye tapped his interface, and a large pile of heavy, hard objects crashed heavily onto the ground. Following a loud noise, it actually smashed a large crater directly into the floor.

Huo Xialan stared dumbfounded at the obviously unbearably heavy weight blocks on the ground and asked in shock, "This is..."

Huoye casually replied, "Ah, earlier during our Polaris physical training around the school, I wore a full set of weights just like this. This pair probably weighs about five hundred kilograms. Just in case I might find a use for them, I recorded them into the VRF."

Huo Xialan drew a sharp breath at that moment. That meant this pile of weights genuinely weighed a thousand catties!

"Ahem, enough, it's definitely enough," Huo Xialan said reluctantly. Comparing the difficulty of her own initial pile-training with Huoye's current setup, she could only comfort herself with the thought that circumstances vary from person to person.

Are you kidding? Would an ordinary person practice a horse stance with a 500-kilogram load?

Huoye equipped the weights and continued holding the horse stance.

Huo Xialan walked behind Huoye and gently placed her hand on the Dazhui acupoint at the back of his neck.

Huoye felt the cool touch of Huo Xialan's slender fingers and was momentarily startled. But before he could ask, Huo Xialan placed her hand on Shangguan Yudie's Dazhui acupoint as well, saying softly, "Don't move, both of you. I am now using my own internal force to guide your internal energy."

As soon as Huo Xialan finished speaking, Huoye felt a wave of warmth starting from three points across his entire body, slowly flowing into his limbs and bones. According to Huoye's memory of ancient texts, these three points were respectively the upper, middle, and lower Dantian of the human body.

The Dantian was originally a term used in Taoist cultivation of the internal elixir regarding essence, breath, and spirit, consisting of the upper, middle, and lower Dantian: the upper Dantian is located at the Yintang acupoint of the governing vessel, also known as the "Mud Pill Palace"; the middle Dantian is located at the Shanzhong acupoint in the chest, where ancestral breath gathers; the lower Dantian is the Guanyuan acupoint of the conception vessel, three inches below the navel, which is where essence is stored.

In the concepts of the ancients, the physical body represents nature while the soul represents destiny, and the words "life and destiny" originated from this. The ancients referred to essence, breath, and spirit as the three treasures, viewing the Dantian as the place where essence, breath, and spirit are stored, thus holding the Dantian in extreme reverence as the "foundation of life and destiny."

These three Dantians are of paramount importance to the human body in ancient Chinese culture. As expected of a foundational breath-cultivation method, starting with the three Dantians—while not necessarily exceedingly profound—is upright, balanced, and peaceful. It is likely that deviation or demonic obsession is a rather difficult thing to happen with this breathing technique.

"How does it feel?" Huo Xialan asked.

Huoye said, "It feels warm, like streams of hot springs flowing through my body, slowly moving along a prescribed route. Although it seems slow, it is unobstructed and feels very comfortable."

Meanwhile, Shangguan Yudie simply stated, "Me too."

Huo Xialan nodded and said, "Remember this feeling. These warm currents are the superpowers generated through the breathing technique, which is your internal energy. The route is your meridians. The two of you are already powerful ability users, so your bodies lack the impurities of ordinary people who have never practiced martial arts, which is why you are still able to study internal energy. Otherwise, for ordinary people at your age, the meridians are basically already too difficult to train. No matter how high their natural talent, it is hard to achieve greatness."

Immediately afterward, she looked at Huoye and asked with a tut, "You're twenty years old this year, right?"

"Nineteen, I won't turn twenty until after February fourteenth," Huoye replied.

"Then in my view, your previous nineteen-plus years were an utter waste of natural gifts!" Huo Xialan said solemnly.

"What do you mean?" Huoye was puzzled.

Huo Xialan replied immediately, "What I am doing right now is using my internal force to lead the slight internal energy generated by the two of you, forming a complete cycle within your bodies. Do you know? Your speed in running the cycle is much faster than Junior Shangguan's. Your meridians are clear and unobstructed, as if they are exceptionally transparent by nature. Not to mention the ordinary twelve principal meridians, even the conception and governing vessels, which martial artists generally acknowledge as difficult to open up, are natively unblocked in you. You are simply a genius for martial arts!"

"I dare say, if you hadn't been constantly studying those Western superpower-circulation methods since childhood, but instead had learned martial arts in our Huo family from a young age, you might already be an peerless grandmaster that even your father could never hope to surpass!"

The more Huo Xialan spoke, the more excited she became, and she was on the verge of blurt out words like "Why don't you come home with me?" Such a cousin, such a head of the family—both she and the Huo family needed them far too much!

Huoye clearly felt Huo Xialan's excitement, but he just smiled faintly and said, "I roughly understand what you're saying, but Senior, I think your words are somewhat hasty."

"Granted, the martial arts of your Huo family are indeed very powerful, and perhaps I really am well-suited for this cultivation. But no matter what, my old man is the strongest human being in existence, and hasn't your Huo family also failed to produce anyone who can surpass him? Of course, I'm not saying Huo family martial arts are no good; it's just that I don't regret being the adopted son of Eddie Halls. On the contrary, I am proud of it!"

"Therefore, in order to become a person like him, and in order to surpass him, I need to greedily devour all kinds of knowledge and skills like a Taotie. Since you say martial arts are very suit for me, I will find every possible way to obtain martial arts manuals from your Huo family, by any means necessary!"