Martial God

He Yiming returned back to the manor at the maximum possible speed and hurried to his eldest uncle’s place, which was the courtyard where the Book Pavilion was situated.

As he entered the courtyard, his footsteps immediately halted and his eyes turned a lot more attentive.

Apparently, he somehow felt a strong pressure. This pressure was specifically directed at him. After a short duration, this pressure dissipated without a trace.

This courtyard was one of the most significant locations in the estate and was incomparable to the small and insignificant courtyard he lived in. Apart from the main hall, it had two side halls. The pressure just now was coming from one of these two halls.

He Yiming faintly shook his head, and the face of his eldest uncle, He Yiquanxin, appeared in his mind. He had a feeling that the recent pressure must have come from his eldest uncle’s attentive gaze, and after looking at him, the former had withdrawn his gaze.

He didn’t know how he came up with this thought, but he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

After hesitating a bit, he didn’t go to the side hall to pay his respects to his eldest uncle, and instead directly entered the main hall, where He family’s collection of books existed.

In the third generation, anyone who had attained the sixth layer was qualified to enter this place to, check out or select, Internal Energy techniques. Everyone obviously knew the principle of ‘biting off more than one can chew’. This was also the reason that this was only He Yiming’s second visit here.

After He Yiming entered the main hall, in the side hall, He Quanxin’s brows creased, and a faint suspicious expression emerged on his face. He had already discovered He Yiming when the latter had entered the courtyard. Thus, he distantly watched him. However, the movements displayed by He Yiming astonished him. Especially when He Yiming glanced towards his place, he almost doubted whether He Yiming had become aware of his gaze.

However, the next instant, he discarded this thought.

‘He Yiming is merely a sixth layer Internal Energy cultivator, so how could he discover my gaze? This is merely me being excessively suspicious. He Yiming must have casually come here, so, he thought about paying his respects to me, but since he was afraid that I am in closed-door cultivation, he didn’t dare disturb me.’

After being convinced of this reasoning, He Quanxin’s mind eased up, and he once again focussed his attention on his cultivation.

He Yiming pushed the door and entered the Book Pavillion. The books were methodically arranged. Although the bookshelves were not small, the number of books was quite lacking.

He Yiming, without pausing, directly walked up to a random bookshelf and casually selected a book.

As he opened it, he couldn’t help but be a little surprised.

Skin Tightening technique. A wood type supplementary Internal Energy scripture.

He bitterly laughed in his mind. How did he end up choosing such a book?

All types of techniques in any attribute were divided into three categories. In addition to primary Internal Energy cultivation techniques, there were battle skills and a few supplementary type cultivation techniques.

Not much is needed to say about primary Internal Energy techniques or battle skills. One was the basis of cultivation, while the other increased one’s battle strength. For cultivators, both of these were extremely crucial.

The third kind of techniques didn’t seem that important. For example, this wood-type Internal Energy supplementing technique, the Skin Hardening technique, allowed cultivators to tighten their skin and increase their defensive capabilities to a certain degree. In addition, this skill had another strange use. After cultivating this technique to a profound level, one would be able to cluster the layers of facial skin together and change appearance to some degree.

However, cultivating this technique to such a profound realm was no easy feat. The amount of effort one had to put in would not be worth the gains. Therefore, even though this technique was not rare, people cultivating in it were extremely few. At least in He family estate, probably no one cultivated in this technique.

He Yiming was about to put it back, however, his thoughts suddenly stirred.

By the lake, after hearing his ninth brother’s words, that indistinct idea had suddenly begun to clear up in He Yiming’s mind.

After his fortuitous encounter inside the lake, he began to cultivate a new technique, the Ripple technique. And while cultivating a new technique, he was able to successfully cross the bottleneck of the fifth layer. Subsequently, like a boat rises along with a tide, his metal-type Internal Energy also advanced along with his other technique.

However, was he able to advance because he’d cultivated a new technique?

He Yiming was not completely certain, however, this method, at least, deserved a try.

Therefore, he hurried back to the manor and made a decision that he would cultivate whichever technique he selected.

However, he didn’t expect that he would randomly select a supplementary technique. Perhaps this was the will of heavens.

After pondering for a short while, He Yiming moderated his thoughts and didn’t place the book back, but instead started to copy it down on the table in the centre of the room.

The book didn’t have much content, thus, He Yiming didn’t have to exert much effort. Furthermore, his Internal Energy had reached the apex of the sixth layer and was touching the bottleneck for the next level, thus, his eyesight and wrist control had naturally improved a lot. With the brush in his hand flying like a serpent-dragon, he was finished copying everything in an hour.

He placed the original book back to its place and walked out with the new book.

If he’d been at a big clan or big sect, even walking out with copies would not have been easy. However, this was an insignificant matter in the He family. No one stopped him or made inquiries as he left the building. All the children themselves would also not take the original scripture outside the room.

Actually, they didn’t know that all the scriptures in the Book Pavilion were also copies. The original ones were with their old man. Otherwise, the rules here would not have been so relaxed.

Upon returning back to his place, He Yiming closed the door and stuck a wooden stick in between, signifying that he was cultivating behind closed doors and should not be disturbed.

He entered his room and opened the recently copied Skin Tightening technique, before silently reading out the contents inside his mind and contemplating the meaning behind every word.

This was the most important task for a cultivator while starting on a new technique. First, a cultivator must carefully study and research the technique, before training in it. If one attempts to rush to the cultivation part after getting hands on an Internal Energy technique, the conclusion would definitely not be anything good.

Little by little, He Yiming eventually finished reading the book.

While thinking about the meaning behind the words, he soon discovered that this type of supplementary technique was, both, very easy and very hard.

Supplementary type techniques were not like the primary techniques which intensified Internal Energy. Therefore, cultivation of such techniques relied on one’s’ original Internal Energy. Supplementary techniques were same as battle techniques in this respect.

However, in comparison to the battle skills, the course of supplementary techniques was much simpler at the beginning. In He Yiming’s opinion, with his sixth level Internal Energy, this technique’s initial cultivation would not be difficult at all and would be much easier than the cultivation of battle skills.

However, along with the improvement in the Internal Energy, the cultivation of supplementary techniques would become increasingly difficult. For cultivating this technique to the extent of being able to change appearance, one had to possess Internal Energy of ninth level, and even after that, one would have to exert an enormous effort to succeed.

Furthermore, circulating Internal Energy on the face was an extremely challenging task. Without being a genius in this respect, extremely few people would be able to accomplish this task.

In comparison, cultivating battle skills was not so challenging in the later stages.

Upon comprehending all of these things, He Yiming let out a long sigh.

‘No wonder so few people cultivate in such techniques. This is simply a chicken rib.1’

Faintly shaking his head, He Yiming decided to cultivate this technique nevertheless. In any case, his aim was not to cultivate another technique but to verify his hypothesis.

As a precaution, he went down in his training room. As he was about to begin his training, he suddenly had a strange feeling.

A sixth layer cultivator, cultivating two differently attributed main techniques, and currently intending to cultivate his third secondary technique? If he told someone else, he would instantly be labelled as lunatic on the spot.

After mockingly smiling at himself once, He Yiming moderated his thoughts and began to slowly circulate his Internal Energy according to his notes.

The beginning of the Skin Tightening technique was extremely easy. Anyone with a foundation in Internal Energy would be able to cultivate to some extent. Though, the same cannot be said about obtaining results.

After He Yiming entered his cultivation state, his Internal Energy began to travel according to the course mentioned in the scripture at an unimaginable speed.

Along with his Internal Energy flowing through the meridians, the skin on his body automatically began to tighten, seeming like old patches of skin.

Although the defensive capability produced by such a skin-tightening was not too good, on the first try, being able to obtain such accomplishments and a result which almost felt like a labor of cultivation of countless times, was enough to frighten anyone.

Eventually, after Yiming began to feel faint stabs of pain coming from his Internal Energy, he stopped cultivating.

He knew that these faint stabs of pain implied that, after this point, his body couldn’t keep up with this technique’s Internal Energy consumption. If he wished to further cultivate this technique, he would have to advance to the next step.

He opened his eyes and patted his hands, before silently feeling the state of the Internal Energy inside his body. Gradually, a faint yet extremely strange expression emerged on his face.

Not worth it.