What a lucky world!

Chapter 26: Star-Breaking Steps into the Door!
The night is cool as water, and the evening breeze is gentle.

In the guest room courtyard of Yuanwei Escort Agency, Zhang Mu meticulously practiced the Broken Star Step that he had just acquired.

This was his first contact with martial arts.

This Star-Breaking Step comes from the Taoist Sanqing Mountain's Bugang Stepping Technique. It is not suitable for long-distance travel or leaping, but it is very effective for moving over extremely short distances.

Simply put, it is a technique of instantly unleashing the force of one's own footsteps to push the body forward.

Instructor Wang had also practiced the Star-Breaking Step and demonstrated its effects to Zhang Mu.

Well... the visual effect is similar to flash!
The moving distance is about half a meter.

It's not as exaggerated as flash teleportation, but it's still much faster than normal movement, and there's no sign of body movement beforehand, making it impossible to understand.

According to Instructor Wang, the Star-Breaking Step is also known as the Seven-Step Star-Breaking Step. Being able to take three steps in a row means you've gotten started, five steps means you've mastered it, and seven steps means you've achieved great success.

Zhang Mu followed the method in the secret book, drawing the internal energy from the empty cavity and walking inside his body. Soon he felt his feet slightly warm. The next moment, he took a step forward.

"Snapped!"

Zhang Mu fell to the ground.

"Sure enough, this Broken Star Step is not that easy to practice." Zhang Mu got up from the ground and patted the dust off his body.

This was the nth time he had fallen since he got the Star-Breaking Step.

Although the Tianji List has the function of deduction, Zhang Mu still feels that he will feel more at ease if he practices more.

What if the rewards for the Tianji Ranking are not settled in one month, but in one year?

What if the settlement points given by the Tianji Ranking are not enough for deduction?
These are what Zhang Mu is worried about.

Since I have nothing to do anyway, I might as well practice first.

……

Just as Zhang Mu was practicing the Broken Star Step, in a residential building in the outer city.

A young man in his twenties was kneeling on the ground, kowtowed continuously. In front of him, the one-eyed Li Er held a knife to the neck of an unconscious pregnant woman.

"Did you hear clearly what I asked you to do?" Li Er deliberately lowered his voice, and his voice sounded a little hoarse.

"I know, I know." The young man cried, but he didn't dare to make a loud noise for fear of angering the other party. He pleaded, "My dear, my wife is six months pregnant. Please don't hurt her..."

"Hmph, that depends on how well you do things." Li Er's words were without any emotion.

"I will definitely get it done. I will definitely get it done." The young man promised quickly.

Li Er nodded: "You'd better do it."

After saying that, Li Er grabbed the unconscious pregnant woman and rushed out of the house, disappearing into the night in the blink of an eye.

The young man ran out of the house, but he could not see his wife's back. He could only clench his fists and hit them hard against the wall.

……

"Snapped!"

Zhang Mu fell again.

He got up from the ground and rubbed his sore thighs.

Good news: Since I haven't been able to successfully perform the Star-Breaking Step, the internal energy consumption is not great.

Bad news: I haven’t been able to successfully perform the Star-Breaking Step!
Zhang Mu glanced at the clepsydra in the house and it was almost midnight.

In a while, this month will be over. According to Zhang Mu's guess, Brother Bang should settle the tortoise shell points for him.

Zhang Mu simply stopped practicing and sat on the stone bench in the yard, waiting for the refresh time to come.

Tick, tick, tick...

At this time, everything was quiet. Zhang Mu listened to the sound of dripping water from the clepsydra, and his heart gradually calmed down.

It has been a month since I traveled through time and space without realizing it.

Although he has been in Wan'an County, Zhang Mu also realized that this world is actually very big. Even a force like Yuanwei Escort Agency can only operate in Yongning Prefecture.

There are nearly three hundred such prefectures in the entire Dayun Dynasty.

It can be said that the territory is vast.

"I really want to go and see it for myself..." Zhang Mu sighed in his heart.

But if you want to achieve this wish, you must have strong strength. Now that he has offended a fox demon, can he only stay in the county?
"Fox demon!" Zhang Mu muttered to himself.

Just wait, when I become stronger, it won’t be you who kills me, but I will be the one who kills you... Just when Zhang Mu was daydreaming, suddenly a crisp "ding" sound rang in his head.

"coming!"

Zhang Mu's face lit up with joy, and he quickly sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, concentrated his mind and calmed his breath, and entered the spiritual space of the Tianji List.

……

The Heavenly Secret List was suspended in the spiritual space. As soon as Zhang Mu's consciousness entered, he looked directly at the tortoise shell below the list.

Sure enough, the numbers above changed.

【ten】

Ten tortoise shell points.

Compared to the little bit I got last time, this time it’s ten times more.

Just as Zhang Mu had guessed, the rewards for different rankings were different. Last time, he was in the 91st-100th range, so he only got one point. But now he was in fourth place, which was the 1st-10th range. If there was a slight difference in each range, he could now get ten points.

After confirming that the rewards would be distributed monthly, Zhang Mu once again turned his attention to the list.

Just like last time, his own name was flashing, which meant that he was in a state where he could choose to deduce.

Zhang Mu did not hesitate and stared at his own name with his spiritual sense.

The next moment, several pieces of information appeared in his mind.

[Human Meridian Acupoints Diagram: (Incomplete) This diagram depicts the meridians and acupoints in the human body. Is it deductive?]

[Broken Star Step: A martial art form derived from the Taoist martial art "Stepping on the Divine Powers." Should I deduce this?]

Zhang Mu did not hesitate and used his spiritual sense to select [Star Shattering Step] again.

Deduction!

In an instant, Zhang Mu felt his consciousness surge, and a picture emerged in his mind.

It was the scene of himself practicing the "Broken Star Step" in the courtyard before. He failed again and again and fell again and again, but the difference was that right above this picture, there was a "cross" floating.

Then, "ten" became "nine".

It was still the scene of him practicing in the courtyard. At this moment, all the mistakes he made in previous practice and how to correct them emerged in Zhang Mu's mind. Then he saw Zhang Mu practicing again in the picture. Although he would still fall, he successfully performed the Broken Star Step four or five times out of ten.

Then, "nine" became "eight".

The same problem information that appeared before appeared in Zhang Mu's mind again. After receiving this information, Zhang Mu in the picture's success rate in practicing the Broken Star Step increased sharply, and he succeeded eight or nine times out of ten.

Soon, "eight" became "seven".

In the picture, Zhang Mu's Star-Breaking Step was 100% successful, and he could even connect to the second step and teleport twice in a row.

The deduction continued. When the number "seven" became the number "six", more deduction information emerged in Zhang Mu's mind. The Zhang Mu in the picture could already perform two teleportations skillfully and began to try the third step.

The number changed again, from "six" to "five". After the second step, all the problems and correction plans were accepted by Zhang Mu. Zhang Mu in the picture walked lightly and teleported three times in a row.

At this point, Zhang Mu immediately stopped deducing.

With five tortoise shell points, he was able to deduce the three entry-level steps, which had fulfilled Madam Zhuang's requirements.

It’s not that Zhang Mu doesn’t want to directly deduce the Star-Breaking Step to perfection, but mainly because Zhang Mu is worried that the remaining five points are not enough.

Moreover, the Broken Star Step was only a physical martial art that Zhang Mu had prepared to deal with the killer. It was only for survival and had no lethality. Zhang Mu had to reserve some for the fighting martial art, otherwise he would not be able to win even the leaderboard later.

Thinking of this, Zhang Mu had an idea and withdrew from the deduction.

After taking a look at the list and seeing the number "five" prominently displayed on the tortoise shell, Zhang Mu withdrew from the spiritual space.

Zhang Mu opened his eyes, looked at the clepsydra in the room, and was surprised.

It’s already five o’clock in the morning.

It took him more than three hours to comprehend this time.

Zhang Mu stood up, mobilized his internal energy, and began to try the Broken Star Step himself. However, what made him speechless was that he just took a step and he fell out.

After getting up from the ground, Zhang Mu thought about it and realized where the problem lay.

Different from the martial arts that you had comprehended before, [Green Pine Fist Sutra] is simply about setting up a fist stance, and the focus is on sensing the innate martial energy in the body, so once you comprehend it, you can start practicing it directly; and for [Broken Star Step], just comprehending it is not enough, the coordination between the body and the internal energy must be seamless.

It’s like a top gamer who has retired for two years and returned. Although his awareness and skills are still there, his body still needs some time to adapt.

Alas, I thought I could just idle and be lazy after learning the deduction, but I didn’t expect that I still had to practice in the end!
Zhang Mu sighed helplessly, then cheered up and started practicing again...

(End of this chapter)