Chapter 46: The Respiration Node Breathing Technique

“I’m ready,” Chen Chuan said calmly.

Cheng Zitong was pleased with his attitude, since he was sure that he was not a person good at counselling. If Chen Chuan started panicking, things would have become troublesome. Fortunately, Chen Chuan’s mental state was pretty good, so that saved him a lot of trouble.

“Let’s go to a training room,” he said.

They went to the adjacent training room, and Cheng Zitong had Chen Chuan stand in front of him. “I’m going to teach you the Respiration Node Breathing Technique. It’s a prerequisite for using refined force. Place your hand on my back and pay attention to my breathing.”

Chen Chuan did as he was told and placed his hand on Cheng Zitong’s back. Soon, he heard a sound coming from within Cheng Zitong.

Anyone practicing the basic breathing technique showed subtle signs of using it. As time passed, those signs smoothed out before fading entirely. In comparison, the Respiration Node Breathing Technique made quite a lot of movement and sound. It was like wind crashing in an empty cave. The sound was dull but sonorous.

As Cheng Zitong continued breathing, his entire body started trembling. Ripples even seemed to form beneath his skin.

That was not all. Since Chen Chuan was touching him, his body started trembling as well, and his breathing naturally started matching.

Cheng Zitong continued breathing for a little longer before stopping. “Did you sense it?”

“A little. I felt like my body was trembling along with your breathing,” Chen Chuan said with a nod.

“Those tremors are a manifestation of the Respiration Node Breathing Technique. You can use it to access the smaller, hard-to-reach parts that you usually neglect during training. The better you execute this breathing technique, the more thoroughly it works its way into your body.

“Once the breathing technique accesses those smaller, hard-to-reach parts in you, the mutated fascia tissue is stimulated and also makes its way into those parts to become the foundation of refined force.

“Without the mutated fascia as a support, you can forget about using the advanced, complete version of refined force. Those who only have a little mutated tissue or none at all can only use subtle force.

“In the past, this type of breathing technique was never taught to outsiders. But in this day and age, as long as you can pay and are qualified to learn it, martial arts universities will teach it to you.

“The version I’m teaching you is the version circulating within the university, based on multiple summarizations of experiences and revisions from our predecessors, not the old versions available outside. The best thing about it is that I don’t need to make you sit through a cumbersome lecture. I can teach you through the resonance of our breathing since your body will immediately recognize what to do. If you’re going to have a mentee in the future, you can teach them this way too.”

Chen Chuan nodded.

“I’m going to demonstrate it to you a few times so that you can remember it,” Cheng Zitong said.

He then showed it to Chen Chuan more than a dozen times. As Chen Chuan felt how it worked, he gradually grew familiar with it, or rather, his body learned its rhythm.

When Cheng Zitong noticed it, he sighed in relief and stopped the lesson. It had been a long time since he practiced this breathing technique, so he was a little rusty.

While mentors could teach their mentees this way, they did not actually

have

to do it this way. If a mentor had no patience, they could just throw a book at their mentee and tell them to figure it out themselves, though that usually meant they wouldn’t pick up the breathing technique even after a few months.

Cheng Zitong went back to the room and took out a small bottle from one of the two packets of medicine he had brought. He took out one pill and poured a glass of water for Chen Chuan.

“Here. While you need to apply the First Training Powder on your skin, you need to take the Node Activation Pill orally. Just take it as it is.”

“Thank you.” Chen Chuan took the pill with the water.

“Alright. It’s entirely up to you whether you can guide your mutated tissues to the parts where they should go next. You can take this pill multiple times a day, but the medicine’s effects will put your body under considerable stress. Even with your current physical abilities, I reckon that you can only take nineteen pills a day at most. Any more than that, and it would go over what your body can withstand, and you will be in great pain. In any case, try it for now.”

𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

“Okay,” Chen Chuan said.

He returned to the training room and tried to guide his breathing, just like how Cheng Zitong had shown him. But he soon realized that while Cheng Zitong had managed to breathe smoothly, it did not work the same way when he tried it. He could not control many parts of his body, and only one part of his body fully participated in the breathing.

Cheng Zitong saw the difficulty he faced. “This is normal when you just start out, because some parts of your body don’t have any mutated fascia. You need the medicine to stimulate its growth and the breathing technique to push it to those places so that you can activate those parts of your body.

“The breathing technique and the mutated tissue complement and enhance each other. So, after you become familiar with this breathing technique, you will also be able to sense the mutated tissue in you. You’ll even sense its growth and spread within you, so you’ll know if something starts going wrong. You won’t have to wait until the mutated tissue hurt you and bring you pain to deal with it.”

Chen Chuan understood what he meant and turned to look at his second self. Many parts of it were blurred out, and the blur was still spreading like fluctuating waves. It showed that Cheng Zitong was telling the truth.

Unlike when learning the basic breathing technique, the most important part of practicing this one was the stimulation from the medicine. Chen Chuan’s second self could absorb the damage he took after a cycle, but not during it, so he could only repeatedly guide his breathing and the growth of the mutated tissue.

But he still believed that there was a way for him to speed up this process—taking more pills to stimulate the growth of the mutated tissue to achieve his goal. As for the damage and pain the pills would bring him? He could just have his second self absorb it all.

He was not in a hurry to do that, though.

He focused on the breathing technique and tested it repeatedly. Whenever the pill’s effects disappeared, he took another one.

Cheng Zitong watched by the side. He knew full well the pain and torment the pills brought, so when he saw Chen Chuan taking pill after pill without batting an eyelid, he thought that Chen Chuan’s pain tolerance was out of this world.

After the tenth attempt, Cheng Zitong said, “Enough for now. Take a few packets of nutritional paste and do some simple exercises for your body to recover. We can continue in the afternoon.”

It was only at that moment Chen Chuan noticed that it was noon, even though he felt like only a short time had passed. He took five packets of nutritional paste and rested for a while, then did some stretches, just as Cheng Zitong told him to do. When his mind and body recovered, he jumped back into the fray.

In the afternoon, he took another nine pills to guide his breathing.

“Alright, let’s stop here for the day,” Cheng Zitong said.

Chen Chuan looked up. “I’d like to continue, Mr. Cheng.”

“Nineteen pills is already a lot. You’ll be putting too much of a burden on your body if you take more. This breathing technique, just like any other breathing technique, hurts your body. This isn’t some game. I understand that you want to master it as quickly as possible so that you can start practicing refined force, but you can’t rush this,” Cheng Zitong said with a frown.

“I know my body. I used the Limit Breaking Strike before this, and it never hurt me much. I don’t find the pills and breathing technique to be much of a problem. Please believe me. I don’t joke about my life.” Chen Chuan looked straight into his eyes.

“Is that so?” Cheng Zitong was stunned, but Chen Chuan had been really extraordinary while practicing the breathing technique. After some thinking, he said, “Based on your words, this is part of your talent. You have great pain tolerance. Then, naturally, you can withstand more of the medicine. I can’t tell whether this is good or bad for you, but if you insist, I’m going to respect your wishes.”

After getting his permission, Chen Chuan took five more pills, because that was the most Cheng Zitong would allow. If Chen Chuan showed that he was truly fine after that, he would be allowed to continue.

The next day, after Cheng Zitong checked that Chen Chuan was okay, he felt relieved. Unbeknownst to him, Chen Chuan had transferred all the injuries he sustained from the breathing technique and medicine to his second self.

Chen Chuan did not go to any public lectures but stayed in his training room to focus on practicing the breathing technique. The number of pills he took every day increased steadily. At the same time, he continued practicing the basic breathing technique. Since he was not actually talented, he needed to continue maintaining it.

Through the stimulation from the medicine and the breathing technique, he could sense his mutated tissue growing in the deeper parts of his body. He did not know how long he had been training, but one day, he had a feeling that he was on the cusp of mastering the Respiration Node Breathing Technique.