Becoming an immortal from a canal worker

Fifteen days passed in the blink of an eye.

In the spacious courtyard, Chen Ping was practicing the Two Elements Palm technique.

He suddenly stopped and stood still, exhaling a long, white breath.

He then closed his eyes and quickly reviewed the palm strike in his mind.

The two principles divide Yin and Yang.

The Yin Palm technique is subtle and unpredictable, employing a ruthless approach specifically designed to dislocate bones and sever tendons.

Yang Palm is unparalleled in its fierceness and power, relying on brute force to overwhelm opponents.

The two approaches are completely opposite. Before achieving a certain level of proficiency, the two styles are clearly distinct and cannot be used interchangeably.

The so-called transformation of Yin and Yang, to put it simply, is all kinds of changes. When this palm technique truly becomes instinctive, the Yin and Yang, softness and hardness can be released at will, changing endlessly and making it impossible for people to understand.

But it's still early.

The palm strike just now, a yin palm, flipped at the last moment to connect with a yang palm. The two forces collided at the base of the palms, but instead of canceling each other out, they overlapped briefly before dissipating.

Although the transformation is still awkward and rough, with obvious pauses between transformations, it is at least usable in actual combat.

A line of text flashed across my retina.

【Two Elements Palm (Minor Completion)】

Current progress: 0/500

Chen Ping withdrew his hand and stood in the courtyard for a moment.

These past few days, I've had Bone Tempering Pills, and my Qi and blood have become proficient in the [Water Stabilizing Stance]. In addition, my corpse core, the bones of my upper body, including my skull, have also been tempered in these fifteen days.

He looked down at his hands, clenched his fists, and felt his blood and qi surging from his bones faster than ten days ago. His blood and qi surged throughout his body, and his strength was endless.

The Bone Refining Realm has been perfected.

The next step is to break through the tendon-strengthening stage.

The sun climbed over the courtyard wall, and the shadow of the soapberry tree shrank to a short section. Chen Ping stood in the courtyard for a while longer, slowly dissipating the remaining strength in his palm, and then went out to walk towards Lü Cheng's residence.

The sounds of people gradually rose in the street, a tofu vendor's carrying pole swayed past the alley entrance, and the faint sound of work chants drifted from the direction of the dock. It was another ordinary day in Qingkou Town.

Chen Ping stopped at the door of Lü Cheng's residence and knocked twice.

Footsteps came from inside, and the door opened.

Lu Cheng sat in the room and, seeing Chen Ping enter, raised an eyebrow: "Bone Tempering is complete?"

"Um."

Lu Cheng pointed to the chair opposite him: "Sit."

Chen Ping strode over and sat down.

Lu Cheng picked up the rough porcelain teacup beside him, skimmed off the foam, took a sip, and instead of getting to the point, asked in a deep voice, "Do you know where the most difficult hurdle is in the next stage of the Tendon Refining Realm?"

Chen Ping shook his head.

"It's not bitter," Lü Cheng put down his teacup, "it's slow."

He leaned back in his chair and said, "When you're strengthening your bones, you have a direct feeling of it. Your blood and qi seep into your bone marrow, and your bones become harder and stronger every day. You can see and touch it. But strengthening your tendons is different."

"Stretch the tendon a little, then let it solidify. After it solidifies, stretch it a little more. Stretching is easy, solidifying is difficult. After solidifying, it will shrink back. You have to keep doing this. Sometimes you can wait for half a month and then measure it again and find that it hasn't progressed at all."

Chen Ping suppressed these thoughts in his heart.

"Tendons are the channels through which qi and blood are transmitted," Lü Cheng continued. "Refining bones trains the foundation of your physical body and the amount of qi and blood stored, while refining tendons trains your control over these qi and blood."

He paused: "Your qi and blood are abundant now, and your strength is unparalleled, but how much of it can you actually deliver when you throw a punch? Thirty percent, at most thirty percent. The rest is all stuck in your bones and can't come out, a complete waste. It's not that your qi and blood are insufficient, it's that you can't control it, you can't command it."

"Refining the tendons is like undergoing a complete transformation." Lu Cheng picked up his teacup again, raising his voice. "A martial artist with long tendons can mobilize more qi and blood at the moment of throwing a punch. A person with tendons three inches long might only be able to mobilize 40% at that moment, while a person with tendons four inches long can mobilize 60% at the same moment. The extra 20% is the difference between life and death."

"It's not that having longer tendons means you can use up all your qi and blood," he put down his teacup, "but rather that in that instant of exertion, those with longer tendons mobilize more, while those with shorter tendons mobilize less. The difference lies in that one breath."

"Ordinary martial artists who practice tendon training rely on their own exploration to reach perfection, with tendons measuring three inches and two li in length," he paused, took out a booklet from his sleeve, and pushed it in front of Chen Ping, "This book, 'Tendon Training Method,' is the Green Robe Society's most treasured possession. If you practice according to this, you can reach four inches and six li in length, and you can deliver half the power of your qi and blood with a single punch."

Chen Ping picked up the booklet and flipped through it. Inside were methods for stretching muscles, with annotations for each posture, including the force application route, breathing coordination, and the timing for solidification.

Chen Ping closed the booklet, tucked it into his robes, stood up, and clasped his hands in thanks: "Thank you, Master."

Lu Cheng waved his hand: "Go ahead."

He returned to his own courtyard.

Old Liu was squatting in front of the stone stove, starting a fire to boil water.

Hearing Chen Ping's footsteps, he glanced sideways at the booklet peeking out from Chen Ping's arms.

He threw down the firewood in his hand, stood up, walked over and unceremoniously snatched the booklet away, casually flipping through a couple of pages.

"Mediocre talent."

Old Liu scoffed and threw the item back: "Only a mediocre person would practice this."

Chen Ping caught it, glanced at him, and asked, "Do you have something better?"

Old Liu grinned, revealing his yellow teeth, and didn't respond at all.

He turned and went into the inner room. A short while later, he came out with a few crumpled pieces of yellow paper and a charcoal pencil, and slammed them directly onto the stone table in front of Chen Ping.

"Sit down, I'll read it, you remember it."

Chen Ping took the paper and pen and sat down at the stone table.

Old Liu sat down opposite him, cleared his throat, and began to dictate.

He said it sentence by sentence, and Chen Ping took notes sentence by sentence.

Once a sheet of yellow paper is filled, the next one is replaced.

The two of them wrote in the courtyard for almost half an hour before Liu Laoguo finally stopped talking.

Chen Ping read through what he had written down from beginning to end.

The stretching route is largely similar to the "Tendon Strengthening Method," but the details are different everywhere. The timing of solidification is more precise, and the coordination of breathing is more particular. There are several methods that are completely absent from the "Tendon Strengthening Method." You can feel it just by reading the text. It is much more refined than the book given by Lü Cheng.

He looked up at Liu Laoguo and asked, "If you train like this until you reach perfection, how long can your tendons grow?"

Old Liu put the pipe in his mouth, lit it, took a deep drag, slowly exhaled white smoke, and extended a finger.

"Six inches and two centimeters."

Chen Ping stared at him for a moment: "Where did you come from?"

Old Liu slammed his pipe against the edge of the stone table, shaking off the scalding hot ash.

He lifted Songla's eyelids and chuckled, "Back when I was young, I was running a canal on the Yellow River. I accidentally picked it off a dead person while I was licking blood off my knife. I have a good memory, so I remembered it."

"Does this method have a name?"

"Stretching Record"

After saying that, Liu Laoguo got up and went straight into the kitchen.

Soon, the rough sound of a spatula clashing violently came from inside, and he shut up completely.

Chen Ping lowered his head and carefully gathered up the several densely packed yellow papers on the table.

Fold it in half, fold it neatly, and press it close to the deepest part of your body.

Six inches and two centimeters.

Everyone has a weakness or secret they don't want to be exposed to the light of day.

Since Liu Laoguo was willing to read this to him without any hesitation, it meant he trusted him completely.

Since the other party was unwilling to elaborate on their origins, Chen Ping would never press further.