Chapter 144: The Yin Yang Drink, Life Guardian

Almost at the same time Chen Chuan’s application was approved, the university also handed Tai Dongwei and the others their notifications from the examination committee. They were asked to head to their designated locations to carry out their unrestricted defense permit tests within half a year.

But they were just taking the Class C permit test, so it wasn’t as complicated. The location would be decided spontaneously based on when they wanted to take their test.

It didn’t matter to Tai Dongwei, of course. In any case, they were just there to keep Wei Jun company. They needed to wait for the Mutual Aid Group to notify them, join Wei Jun for the test, and think of a way to fail it. After all, the group had already paid them for it, so they had to carry out their tasks properly, no?

On the brighter side, since he could join Wei Jun for the test, it meant that the group trusted him. The unrestricted defense permit would not close the distance between him and the rich children, anyway. Instead, it would just make his life more dangerous. As a senior, he knew what had happened two years ago.

“Shen Zheng...”

He sighed. Tai Dongwei had received help from Shen Zheng in the past, even though he had already joined the Mutual Aid Group. Shen Zheng never looked down on him for that. Despite being an orphan, he had experienced true kindness from Shen Zheng.

At that time, he had hoped that Shen Zheng could lead his people to break the cage around them, but even someone like him had been unable to do it. He died at the cusp of success. Sometimes, Tai Dongwei wondered whether things would have been different if Shen Zheng had been able to go to Central City.

But that was just a fantasy.

He gave himself a mocking sneer and threw the notification on his desk before heading to his training room.

***

After Chen Chuan finished reading the details of the test, he called Cheng Zitong. “I got it, Mr. Cheng.”

Cheng Zitong was silent for a bit before saying, “Alright. I’m going to tell you the name of a place. We’ll talk there. Note it down.”

Then, he mentioned the address.

Once Chen Chuan wrote it down, Cheng Zitong said, “Tell them my name when you’re there.”

“Got it,” Chen Chuan said.

Once they hung up, he went back to his room and checked the map before riding to the south of the city. Half an hour later, he arrived at the place. The sign said that it was a teahouse, but it was actually a private martial arts training center.

There were many such places in the south of the city. Rich martial artists, like He Nan, sometimes set them up. They offered limited public access, while the owners invited martial artists they knew or were familiar with to spar and drink tea while admiring the scenery.

After Chen Chuan parked his bicycle, he went to the door and told the security guards Cheng Zitong’s name.

“You’re Chen Chuan, right? Mr. Cheng informed us about you. Please go up,” the captain said.

Chen Chuan went in and changed his shoes before going upstairs. The layout had an antique elegance and was full of natural charm. There was even a lit incense burner. He went to the side of the room facing the river and sat down on a reclining couch covered in cushions.

Since the room was rather tall, he could see green bamboo and the flowing river through the rounded open archway. When the wind blew, it made the bamboo leaves and the curtain sway gently. The curtain tassels danced, and Chen Chuan relaxed. It was easy not to think of anything while sitting there.

A moment passed before he heard a set of familiar footsteps. Chen Chuan checked his watch and found that fifteen minutes had gone by.

Cheng Zitong walked in with his briefcase, and Chen Chuan greeted him. “Hello, Mr. Cheng.”

“Well? Not a bad place, right?” Cheng Zitong said with a grin.

“It has a nice environment,” Chen Chuan answered.

Cheng Zitong sat down on the other side of the couch and leaned against the cushion to get himself comfortable. “I’m going to be teaching you over the next few days. You’ll only need to go back to the university occasionally.”

Chen Chuan noticed Cheng Zitong’s thoughtfulness and poured him a cup of tea from the teapot. “Is it to hide the fact that I’m taking the test?”

“We have to be careful, you know?” Cheng Zitong then pushed Chen Chuan’s hand down. “You don’t have to. I’m going to go in a bit. Sit down.”

Once Chen Chuan sat down, he said, “The test is going to take quite some time. If you disappear all of a sudden, it’ll catch people’s attention, especially when a number of the senior recommended students are going to graduate at the end of the semester. They’ll be paying extra attention to all who might pose a threat to them. Even though you’re just a freshman, you have to be careful.

“You should disappear occasionally over this period of time, then show up at your company or in the university. Tell others that I’m giving you special training. That way, no one will suspect anything in the future. What do you think of that?”

“It’s a sound arrangement. I have no objections,” Chen Chuan said and handed the papers to Cheng Zitong.

He read through them and got an idea of what it would entail. Then, he looked up and asked, “How long do you think you’ll need to start with the Second Limit’s training?”

Chen Chuan thought about it. “From around half a month to a month.”

“It’s not that long, then. I’ll start teaching you now.” Cheng Zitong slapped his knee and sighed with emotion. “To think that I’d be able to teach someone like you, while someone else is teaching his disciple with single-minded focus and doesn’t even let him go to the university. ‘The rules nowadays aren’t suitable for my disciple,’ he says. If that’s the case, why bother sending your disciple to the university in the first place?”

He produced a stack of documents from his briefcase. “These are reference materials from before and after reaching the Second Limit. Go through them.

“In the past, masters personally passed on their knowledge to their disciples. No one knows what knowledge is lacking or has been added. We’ve compiled the teachings and experiences together, sorted out the notes, and recorded them in books. The number of students who reach their potential is a thousand times higher than it was in the past. We also have plenty of martial artists who are continuously improving the standards of martial arts. Treating the secrets of old martial arts as treasure is putting the cart before the horse.”

Chen Chuan was used to Cheng Zitong grumbling about this whenever they got to this topic. He had to have been tormented quite a bit by the rules of old martial arts in the past.

He read through the documents. They were all rather useful notes left by previous students of the university. They were photocopies, which made them look cheap, but the value of their content was like gold.

Cheng Zitong packed up and took a sip of tea, then stood up. “I have things to take care of in the university, so I’ll be going back. If you find anything you don’t understand, call me. If I don’t understand it either, you can write to Lao He.”

“I’ll see you off,” Chen Chuan said and stood up too.

Once he sent Cheng Zitong off, Chen Chuan turned around and returned to the martial arts training center.

In the weeks after, he went to the training center downstairs for his daily training and rested upstairs, where he read and drank tea while admiring the scenery.

The training center also provided sparring sessions with experienced martial artists, but it was not for free, and Chen Chuan did not need that service just yet. If he wanted a sparring partner, he could just show his face in the university and look for some students itching for a spar. He could even ask some lecturers for a spar too. Most of the time, their standards and judgment were better than those of the martial artists outside.

Sometimes, Chen Chuan took time off to go to the company to clear out some old missions. As time went on, people in the university got used to Chen Chuan spending long periods of time away from the campus.

This lasted for around a month. At the end of April, Chen Chuan finally felt that he could no longer improve in the First Limit, and he only had two bone beads left.

He could sense that no matter how much he tried to stimulate the mutated tissue on his tendons and bones, the growth was minuscule.

This didn’t mean that his mutated tissue had stopped growing. Instead, they were restrained by his breathing technique and stances. Once those restraints were off, they would continue growing elsewhere.

Being able to tell this meant that he had gained great control and knowledge of his mutated tissue. It was like how a skilled martial artist could pull back a punch after throwing it, but not do so completely, because if they did that, the punch would lose all its power.

Based on the notes from Cheng Zitong, Chen Chuan could sense that this was the unique control granted by the All-Encompassing Force. Even if he lost a little bit of control over the mutated tissue in some area, he could use the mutated tissue from other parts of his body to restrain it.

That wasn’t the case for other people. They had to be careful when they stimulated their mutated tissue and slowly activate their growth while guiding them. If they lost control over their mutated tissue, it would grow like weeds. So, other martial artists had to protect themselves and couldn’t choose where they wanted their mutated tissue to grow. Because of it, if they were the slightest bit careless, they might end up losing control over or destroying their bodily functions.

If Chen Chuan wanted to move into the Second Limit, he would have to change his medicine and breathing technique to guide his mutated tissue’s growth again. Only a more advanced breathing technique would allow him to remove the restraints on his mutated tissue and guide it to grow in the places necessary.

In the past, the First Limit was known as the True Seed Reserve. The Second Limit, too, had another name—Life Guardian.

In simpler terms, martial artists were nurturing and refining a second life within themselves. Once they entered the Second Limit, their combat prowess improved by leaps and bounds.

The crux of the Second Limit wasn’t in draining their energy to make the mutated tissue grow, but in guarding it. If they managed to do that, their lives would truly be their own.

The key of the First Limit lay in strengthening tendons and structuring bones, so mutated tissue mainly produced mutated fascia and bones, while the Second Limit focused on activating the organs and nourishing the viscera. At this stage, the mutated tissue spread to the organs and viscera and mutated them to provide more stamina and a stronger body to the martial artist.

No matter how strong a person’s tendons and bones were, they couldn’t provide nutrients, make qi and blood flow through the entire body, fill the body with energy, or activate refined force. All these came from strong organs.

That was why people in the First Limit could only release a few bursts of refined force. Their organs were simply unable to withstand it. Many of Chen Chuan’s previous opponents suffered from this.

After going through all the key points of the Second Limit in his head, Chen Chuan decided not to wait any longer. He was going to try and reach the Second Limit.

He stood up and opened the box Cheng Zitong had given him. Then, he took out a glass of viscous, colorless liquid from it and placed it in front of him.

It was the Energy Core Essence, a medicine that helped martial artists enter the Second Limit.

It could stimulate the organs and speed up the growth of mutated tissue in them. In the past, it was known as the Yin Yang Drink. Basically, after a person drank it, they could regulate their yin and yang energies.

Since people in the past were not all that good at preparing medicine, treated it as their sects’ secret, and could only master it through lots of practice, they had to do it according to the mandate of fate.

They believed that the cycle of fate went according to the sexagenary cycle, and it could be measured by the Yellow Bell pitch pipe. Since everyone practiced different martial arts, they needed to pick a special date suitable for them to drink the Yin Yang Drink.

There was some logic to it. After all, a person’s organs displayed different levels of activity at different times of the day. If they used a larger scale of time, such as encompassing the four seasons or even the movements of the stars, and aligned them when calculating the timing for taking medicine, it would create the sense of acting in accord with fate and moving with the flow of nature. Such a perception could provide immense psychological comfort.

There was no longer a need for that, though. The Energy Core Essence was just a toxic nutritional drink rich in calorie-dense nutrients.

After drinking it, the intestines would dissolve and absorb it, then send the nutrients into the blood. The blood would spread the nutrients through all the cells. The kidneys and liver would then filter out the toxins. Martial artists needed to immediately activate their heart and lungs through a breathing technique and refined force, but all the organs had to participate in the process. This would stimulate the mutated tissue that had already seeped into them, and it would begin growing.

This was hard in the past because the martial artists of old could not find a proper balance. If they accidentally added too much toxin, it would easily lead to an overdose, and the consequences would be dire. But if there was too little, they would not get the desired stimulation. If they kept drinking it, the body could get used to the toxin, thereby bringing their path of improvement to a dead end.

The Energy Core Essence was really difficult to prepare, even though it was the most crucial part of the process. Its materials were rare, and their price was so ridiculously high that the average person could not afford them. Things were, of course, different for the university students. As long as it was within the prescribed dosage, the university would provide them for free.

Chen Chuan looked at the Energy Core Essence. Since he had a lot more of the mutated tissue than his peers, he had asked Cheng Zitong to increase the toxicity level when preparing the medicine. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to get the desired stimulation. Honestly, even if it was a little over the limit, it would be okay for him because of his second self. He would absorb any additional damage.

Chen Chuan reached over, grabbed the glass, and drank everything.