A Scroll of Infinite Glory

Chapter 127 Old Professions, Pathways to Internal Energy

As the sun's brilliance gradually dimmed, and the light of the rising moon was so faint that it could only illuminate the courtyard.

Fan Kelian lay in the wood-covered gate, immersed in a state of drowsiness. His upper body leaned against the pile of firewood, and he could not move his body. Only his double eyelids gradually opened with difficulty amidst the dried sweat.

His injuries were severe.

The wound on his shoulder, the loss of blood, and the torment of internal injuries made him feel as weak as a newly erected paper doll.

Fortunately, those people didn't seem to intend to kill him directly. The sealed acupoints, while restricting his movements, also curbed the blood loss. His foundation as a top-tier expert allowed him to maintain this extremely weak state, but one that was far from being in direct danger of death.

"I'm the only survivor in their hands now. Since they haven't killed me outright, they'll definitely try to transfer me to the Ministry of Justice. But during that process, someone will surely come to rescue me..."

Fan Kelian silently made plans in his mind.

The significance of a top-tier master is ultimately incomparable to that of those insignificant peripheral disciples.

Although the twenty-four protectors of the Fire Luo Path are all top-notch experts, several protectors and even one envoy have been lost since entering the Central Plains. Their positions have been vacant for several years, and no one has been able to be selected from the sect to fill the vacancies.

It wasn't until Qiu Ruzui joined the Fire Luo Path and fought his way up to the position of Eastern Venerable Envoy that he absorbed many talents into the sect, and only recently did he fill all the vacancies of the Twenty-Four Protectors.

Even with a severed arm, Fan Kelian still possesses the level of understanding of a first-rate master. As long as he rests and recuperates properly, it's no problem for him to recover to 80% of his peak combat strength.

The Fire Luo Path will not give up on a protector so easily, provided that the secrets of the Fire Luo Path are kept.

Whether driven by emotion or reason, Fan Kelian firmly believed that only with this assurance of his life could he have the energy to think about other things.

Think back to the smooth sailing you used to enjoy life, think about the delicious food, silks, treasures for others to admire, beautiful women who served you extravagantly, the pleasure of wanton plunder, and think about the enemies you defeated and deliberately humiliated.

Those memories made Fan feel a little more relaxed.

He often thought of the person who had defeated him, but whenever that face appeared in his mind, he forced himself not to think about it anymore.

Guan Luoyang's existence only evokes pain and anger in him. If he were to look to the future now, hoping to make a comeback and avenge himself after being rescued, it would be a ridiculous self-deception.

Fan Kelian didn't want to suffer, nor did he want to become a laughingstock. Neither of these two paths would make him a nobody in the martial arts world, someone who wouldn't live long. He couldn't let himself fall into that trap.

What will happen after we're rescued? We'll see after we're rescued and let the facts speak for themselves.

As Fan Kelian was slowly recalling her memories, she heard a soft, rustling sound.

His gaze involuntarily drifted over there, and from the woodpile on the right, a rat darted out quickly. As if sensing the presence of people, it paused and turned its head slightly before, startled, and then scurried towards the door at an even faster speed.

The Taoist temple was poor. The door to the woodshed was just a few planks pieced together, with visible gaps in the middle. There was also a gap of about one finger joint between the bottom edge of the door and the threshold.

The dirty, gray-haired mouse easily slipped out from there.

Fan Kelian was filled with resentment, unable to suppress the thought: How could they make me stay with rats...

Before he could even form a clear reason for his hatred, a small patch of pale color was used to seal the gap under the door.

It seemed that something white was squeezing into the gap from the outside, and after squeezing several times, it hit the threshold.

Was it the rat? Was it something the rat bit?

pat!

Two fingers hooked onto the threshold.

The weakened Fan Kelian's perception was greatly reduced. At first, he did not realize what it was. When he saw the two fingers, his heart trembled slightly. He quickly realized what it was and was furious.

"That's my hand! That dead rat dared to bite my hand..."

With a snap, fueled by rage, he bit off half of his back molar, holding it in his mouth along with the blood, waiting for the gray-haired rat to come in again so he could spit out the half-tooth and kill it.

Even if the acupoints are sealed, leaving only a faint trace of weak energy, it's nothing to martial artists, but it's more than enough to kill a rat.

Fan Kelian stared fiercely at the short, chubby, and pale hand that squeezed through the crack in the door, followed by the wrist, and the entire arm tried to squeeze through the crack.

That rat was really greedy and incredibly strong. It probably wasn't just one; it must have taken several rats together to carry that arm and repeatedly ram into the crack in the door.

The wooden gate creaked as it was slammed shut, and the pale hand that had reached inside shook repeatedly, its five fingers twitching erratically.

Ok? !

Fan Kelian suddenly realized something was wrong.

The fingers didn't seem to be waving futilely; rather, it seemed as if they were digging into the ground with force, several fingers taking turns thrusting forward, causing the wrist and severed arm behind them to repeatedly try to squeeze through the door crack and crash in!

What's going on?!

A small piece of the door panel, which had a few small wormholes, was knocked off, and pale fingers ran swiftly, the entire severed arm bursting in.

The cold night wind chased after the severed arm through the doorway and blew into the room, instantly turning Fan Kelian's face pale.

He saw his arm running around on the ground like a headless rat, leaving trails of friction on the dirty ground.

Fan Kelian swallowed the blood and broken tooth in his mouth without realizing it, and let out a chuckle.

"True... true qi controlling objects, or illusion? Trying to use this method..."

The dry words came to an abrupt end.

Those pale fingers crawled up Fan Kelian's body, from his calves to his knees. Each time a finger touched him, a slight sensation was felt, transmitted through the fabric.

The hand crawled up from the right hip to the lower abdomen, grabbing the layers of fat that had accumulated there. The severed arm also pressed against it, moving along with the icy coldness of a corpse.

Fan Kelian felt the thing crawl to the wound on his right shoulder, and it even stuck out a finger and tapped the wound.

Except for his eyes and mouth, he couldn't move his whole body, and he couldn't even turn his neck. He could only rely on his senses and the incomplete scene in front of him to guess what was happening.

A cold wind howled through the doorway. The hand crawled along the wound a few times, the severed arm touched Fan Kelian's neck and chin, and then fell down.

Fan Kelian's pupils contracted sharply, and he held his breath.

This was originally a part of myself, but now it brought an unparalleled sense of foreignness.

The finger kept moving around the wound, even trying to burrow inside...burrow! It burrowed inside!!!

Fan Kelian's hair stood on end; if it weren't for the hair crown holding it down, every single strand would probably have jumped up.

He couldn't figure out how it got in there, but he really felt something go inside.

The icy sensation is divided into five, six, or many threads, moving under the skin like nematodes.

"Hehehe..."

Fan Kelian's senses were overwhelmed by panic and an eerie emptiness. Time seemed to slow down, and he made short, strange noises in his throat.

"Help! Help!"

He didn't know how much time had passed, but he seemed to see countless strange, hallucinatory things.

A smiling face appeared on the severed hand? The withered hand bone, wrapped in a sleeve, fell off? The flesh on the bone turned into gray calluses? Something was wriggling inside the densely packed little calluses?

It's about to break open; it's about to grow.

"Get out! Get out! Help! Someone help me!"

Separated by a wall.

Inside the courtyard.

Guan Luoyang looked at An Feiyu, who peered through the crack in the door into the wooden gate. He was still several meters away from the door.

"What...did you do?"

"A little trick," An Feiyu said. "Inspiration from those enemy squad videos, plus a little of my own idea, well, just a little bit."

He pinched his right index finger and thumb together, indicating that his index finger should stick out a little bit more.

"A severed arm is also considered a non-living object. After learning the Mind-Intent Method, I can temporarily revive it. The effect of this revival is very weak and cannot be used for combat. However, people always have some special feelings about a part of their own body. Using this as a medium, we can do something about it."

Guan Luoyang, puzzled but impressed, asked, "So now if you ask him something, he'll tell you?"

"Don't rush, this is just the beginning."

An Feiyu revealed a confident expression and said, "Based on your experience and Chen Shouzhen's words, the top-tier experts here are not so easy to deal with. Although psychological and mental strength may not be directly related, their current level is not enough to defeat him..."

He stroked his beard, a subtle hint of anticipation on his face. "Actually, generally speaking, when people have similar experience and strength, the villains tend to have weaker mental fortitude. After all, upholding justice and kindness is much harder than indulging in desires and committing evil deeds."

"We should be thankful that this person is just the kind of utterly wicked bastard, but not to the point of being a psychopath whose values ​​are completely warped. Hehehe, I've arranged several scenes for this plot, I wonder how long he can last."

Guan Luoyang's expression also turned strange. He glanced inside the wooden gate and said in a low voice, "Excuse me, but what did you do before?"

An Feiyu's smile faded slightly: "Oh, a third-rate, flop horror movie director."

Guan Luoyang was skeptical: "With your level of skill, you're still a third-rate flop? Or is the film and television industry in your hometown that developed?"

"It's probably because the first half of my horror movies is particularly terrifying, but in the end, there's always a hero who defeats the terror."

Anfei touched his earphone with his finger and said softly, "Besides, I don't like heroes who have a lot of build-up. A hero is like a miracle, who has to fall from the sky at the last moment and crush everything in an unexpected way."

Guan Luoyang was speechless for a moment.

If you cram a superhero into a horror movie and don't bother with any build-up, then who else will be the target if not you?

"Maybe, well, it would have been better if you had been a director of tokusatsu films back then?"

An Feiyu turned around and looked at Guan Luoyang in surprise, "A kindred spirit! It took me ten years to figure this out after working in the horror film industry. Unfortunately, I became a reincarnator in my first year of switching to tokusatsu."

"That's such a pity. Alright, you continue the interrogation here, I'll go check on them."

Guan Luoyang didn't want to dwell on the topic any longer, so he quickly replied with two sentences and went into the bedroom.

The bedroom still contained the same few bamboo mats spread on the floor.

Gu Lanxiang sat on one of the mats, holding a wine gourd in her hand, watching the young Taoist priest practice his breathing exercises.

The young Taoist priest Xia Qing lay on his mat, his palms facing the sky, and slowly withdrew his hands from above his head to pick up the white jade bracelet—the Jade Snow Dragon Ring—placed in front of him.

According to Chen Shouzhen, the Heavenly Mystery Jade Mirror and the Jade Snow Dragon Ring, although crafted by different masters long ago, belong to the same type of treasure and should be used in a similar way.

The Heavenly Jade Mirror requires the Lushan School's internal cultivation method, which involves infusing it with true energy at specific times each day in order to activate its wondrous functions and maintain its effects.

The Jade Snow Dragon Ring likely requires the Ice Age School's internal cultivation techniques to accomplish this task.

The internal energy cultivation methods of various schools and sects in the world, due to their different attribute biases, will be particularly active at certain times during the daily practice process.

Simply being active has little impact on combat strength, but training during these specific times will make progress easier.

For example, the most prominent figures in the righteous martial arts world today, Lao Jun Mountain and Shaolin Temple, are both ancient and Buddhist, but they only flourished during the Zhenguan era of the Tang Dynasty and have maintained their peak to this day.

Because of their fame and large number of disciples, the martial arts techniques of these two schools have inevitably had some minor characteristics leaked out. The introductory mental cultivation method of Lao Jun Mountain is most active at Chen Shi (7-9 AM) and You Shi (5-7 PM), while that of Shaolin School is most authentic at Zi Shi (11 PM-1 AM) and Wu Shi (11 AM-1 PM).

The timing of infusing true energy into the Jade Snow Dragon Ring should align with the characteristics of the Glacier School's mental cultivation method.

It's a pity that of the four disciples of the Snow Sweeping Taoist Temple, only one actually practices the Ice Glacier School's mental cultivation method.

This important task can only be entrusted to the young Taoist priest to try out for now.

As the glacial energy was poured in, a layer of chill spread from the young Taoist priest outwards, only to quickly recede, as if absorbed by the Jade Snow Dragon Ring.

The jade dragon ring, made of high-quality jade but with simple carving, was now faintly glowing.

Guan Luoyang's communication jade token, which he kept in his bosom, trembled slightly. He took it out to check and found it was a message from Gu Lanxiang.

"I took a look at those three manuals. One of them is an internal energy cultivation method. According to it, the Ice Glacier School's internal energy cultivation is most pure and easy to practice for three quarters of an hour every day. If he wants to infuse his true energy, he may have to continue for that long."

"Those three manuals aren't very compatible with me, but they might be useful to you."

Guan Luoyang nodded to Gu Lanxiang, then walked to his own mat, folded the bedding to its highest point, and sat down to look through the manual.

These three manuals are "Thirteen Hands of Flying Snow and White Rainbow", "Thousand Branches of Jade Flower Sword", and "Ice Glacier Heart Method".

The first book is about the techniques of receiving and sending hidden weapons, which can also be used as palm techniques. It is quite unique. However, the main hidden weapon explained in the book seems to require a special craftsman to make.

The second book is about swordsmanship, with sword moves interspersed with techniques involving hand gestures and finger manipulations, yet the author claims to be a top-notch pressure point master.

From Guan Luoyang's perspective, the potential of these two martial arts manuals is far inferior to that of the Bai Family Holy Fist, but the acupoint striking technique is something he has never explored before, and it is worth studying carefully.

After carefully memorizing the acupressure points, he opened the Ice Age Heart Manual.

"Inhaling and exhaling, guiding the flow of internal energy, first cultivating the sense of energy, then practicing true energy... until, in walking, sitting, and lying down, at all times, without thought or intention, true energy circulates continuously and naturally grows stronger..."

Having just finished reading this general outline, Guan Luoyang's expression, which had initially been rather indifferent, became serious.

(End of this chapter)