Chapter 23: First Encounter with Ancient Martial Art Practitioner, Top Master Hidden Among the Crowd
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
As soon as the instructor finished his sentence, someone objected immediately, “Everyone is punished to run? Those who successfully gathered within ten minutes are punished to run too?” One person was late and everyone was punished. It was obviously unfair.
Instructor Zhang Lizheng scanned through everyone with his piercing gaze, speaking harshly, “Exactly. When you are in the same squad, if someone is late, everyone else will be punished too.” As soon as the instructor finished speaking, a burst of disagreement could be heard from the crowd. Everyone was whispering to each other, looking flurried.
“What? Everyone will be punished?””What if someone was dragging their feet?””How can you do that? That’s so unfair!”
Zhang Lizheng frowned and yelled, “Silence!” His cold voice frightened everyone and all the arguments immediately stopped.
“A squad operates as a whole body. All of you will rise and fall together. In the future if anyone makes a mistake, the whole squad will be punished.” The instructor’s words left no room for negotiation. With this sentiment, members of the same squad would most likely look after each other and prevent their teammates from making any mistakes.
Mo Wen had witnessed this kind of technique before, in the other world’s army. For example in a small team of ten people, if anyone dared to duck out when going into battle, the whole team would suffer the consequences. It was done to strengthen supervision and on top of that, it also helped to strengthen the cohesive force among the teammates resulting in a more united team.
The training on the first day was simple. There wasn’t a five-kilometer-long run or any other sort of physical training like push-ups, sit-ups, or weighted squats. It was just some simple military foot drill practices like standing at attention, standing at ease, numbering off, straddling, saluting, squatting, sitting, marking time, and turning left and right.
These were simple commands, but the rules were strict: anyone who moved slightly off from the standard movement would receive harsh criticism. In some serious cases, students may be singled out to receive corporal punishment.
Besides that, there were forward marches and halts, double marches and halts, goose step march and halt, and marching in squares. For the entire following week, it was all simple military foot drill practices. It wasn’t too stressful. But at the same time it was not an easy task being asked to demonstrate perfect movement and to be in absolute sync with everyone. For students who had just started military training, it was very stressful.
In the blink of an eye, a week of military training had passed. The students shifted from the initial curiosity and excitement to pained moaning and groaning. These were all students with thin skin, ones who always sat in the classroom. They couldn’t have handled the intensive training required in the military. It was still bearable for a day or two more, but after a prolonged period of time, it became harder for the students to persevere. Especially since military training had just started and even more intense training awaited them.
Due to the exhaustion, some people started to play tricks and thought of ways to slack off during military training. It was easy to get into the military region but hard to get out, and it was even harder to fool the instructors. They were stuck there unless the school and their parents spoke up and asked for the military training to be stopped. No matter how much the students dreaded military training, they still had to persist.
As for Mo Wen, he wasn’t bothered so much. Back in his old days he traveled across the barren mountains and great lakes. He was exposed to both sun and rain and sampled hundreds of poisonous herbs; he had lost count of his sufferings.
After a week of basic training had ended; they would start physical training like five-kilometer-long runs, push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups and so on. Besides that, there were also other activities to do: wrestling, archery, swimming, escape training, outdoor survival, and training to handle emergency situations. It was no longer just simple training like marching and foot drills.
A month of training time was very short and there were many things to be learned. Fortunately, everyone who was admitted into Hua Xia University had strong learning ability.
In the evening, after a day of intensive training, the students had a bit of free time. There were students who would take to the field for a stroll; even couples wandered the running track whilst holding hands.
Of the four battalions, there was one designated for female students and contained about 500. Many of the males seized this opportunity and flirted with the girls. There were indeed quite a few couples that formed despite the time-consuming and intensive military training. Students nowadays were very casual about dating. Since youth was a time to make memories, there was nothing preventing them from making rash decisions. It was a time to seize the day and enjoy their youth while they still could. Most students really only cared about today and didn’t think further to tomorrow.
In the corner of the training ground, Mo Wen hung on a horizontal bar while silently doing pull-ups. He had been doing pull-ups on the horizontal bar for half an hour. To any onlookers they would surely be amazed by Mo Wen’s endurance.
In terms of physical training, the basics were not enough for full military incorporation. Refining the body took continuous manipulation. To fully discover each person’s potential would take time. At the beginning of training, it wasn’t as difficult but with harder training came harder work. It would become harder to improve. However, building a good physical foundation during the beginning training sessions would allow for better results in the future.
Under normal conditions, it would be impossible for Mo Wen to do pull-ups continuously for half an hour. But he was using Dragon Tiger Fist to explore deep within his body for potential. Dragon Tiger Fist wasn’t just for boxing training; it was an inside-out, body-refining technique. It regulated and stimulated the Vigour Qi, Essence Qi, and Blood Essence in the body. This allowed one to reach its goals of training the body and exploiting talents. One could practice Dragon Tiger Fist while standing, sitting, laying, exercising, or even sleeping.
Training your body was divided into external training and internal training. The external training was best achieved with boxing; the effect on internal training was best achieved during a high intensity workout. Only by training both the external and internal could one be fully refining their body.
A slightly wheezing voice rang beside Mo Wen and said, “Mo Wen, you are a total freak.” A meter away from and parallel to Mo Wen’s horizontal bar was another horizontal bar. There was a person hanging on it too; he was doing pull-ups strenuously. His stamina was obviously running low as he was far from being as natural and smooth as Mo Wen. If anyone knew that the two of them had been doing pull-ups continuously for half an hour, they would be stunned.
The person beside Mo Wen was Wang Yuan, his bunkmate who slept on the top bunk. Ever since he discovered that Mo Wen underwent fitness training alone for long periods of time after the military training had ended, he got competitive and started training together with Mo Wen.
After two days of training, he was exhausted after training while Mo Wen seemed to be totally unaffected. Even Wang Yuan, who had always been called a freak in the fitness sense, couldn’t help but to call him a freak.
Wang Yuan’s was in good physical shape, so much so that normal people would have to work twice as a hard to be on his level. Mo Wen’s physical fitness was actually weaker than his too. However, Wang Yuan didn’t know that Mo Wen wasn’t just purely training his physical fitness, but he was also practicing a body-refining technique – Dragon Tiger Fist.
As Mo Wen trained, his stamina was replenished at the same rate. The replenishment of his stamina was quite little compared to amount spent. In comparison to Wang Yuan who was purely burning through his stamina, Mo Wen was much more relaxed.
After a week of training, Mo Wen’s physical fitness had improved drastically. He could do half an hour of pull-ups without flushing or panting. His moves were smooth and natural. He was a freak in the eyes of those who didn’t understand his secret.
Wang Yuan slanted his eyes towards Mo Wen while panting and spoke helplessly, “Mo Wen, if my guess is correct, you practice ancient martial arts too right?”
Even a normal person had extraordinary talent would have trouble doing pull-ups continuously for half an hour without their cheeks flushing or being out of breath. Even Wang Yuan couldn’t do pull-ups much longer after half an hour.
Only someone who had practiced ancient martial arts would have such powerful physical strength. Even though Wang Yuan was only beginning his training in ancient martial arts, he was well aware of how powerful some ancient martial arts practitioners were.
A glint of puzzlement flashed past Mo Wen’s eyes. “Ancient martial arts?” He glanced at Wang Yuan in surprise; then quickly understood what he was saying.
The so-called ancient martial arts were most likely of the Neigong [1] kind. It was often practiced in Mo Wen’s old world. Before this he had noticed there was Inner Qi in Yun Xiaoman’s grandfather’s body and now, after his encounter with Wang Yuan for the past few days, he noticed there was slight Inner Qi in Wang Yuan’s body too.
Wang Yuan’s Inner Qi was very low and insignificant compared to Yun Xiaoman’s grandfather. However, with Mo Wen’s sensitivity and skilled detection, he could still sense its presence.
Wang Yuan and Yu Xiaoman’s grandfather were most likely the same kind of people, or rather he should say they were the same kind as him. They were all warriors that had practiced Inner Qi. The only difference between them and Mo Wen was that they seemed to be hiding in the dark, unlike Jianghu and martial arts circles which were world renowned.
Mo Wen raised his eyebrow and asked, “Which realm are you at now for your ancient martial arts training?”, pretending to be casual. Honestly, he knew nothing about the warrior system on Earth. Now after encountering Wang Yuan, who seemed to practice Inner Qi as well, Mo Wen wanted to pry some information out of him.
[1]: Neigong (内功) refers to any of a set of Chinese breathing, meditation and spiritual practice disciplines associated with Daoism and especially the Chinese martial arts.