Chapter 40: Chapter 40 Five Elements Fist and Yijin Scripture (Seek follow-up reads, seek Yue tickets!)
In fact, once you complete the process of “Qi Rushing to the Disease,” you get a comprehensive enhancement. It’s no joke that after a hundred-day Foundation Establishment, you would truly undergo a total transformation.
At that time, whether it’s the strength of the blood or anything else, there would be a significant improvement.
But it was the enhancement to the blood strength from practicing Ba Duan Jin that gave Wang Sheng inspiration.
If that were the case, why not strengthen the body to an extreme degree before starting “Refining Essence to Qi,” and produce an exceptional “Great Medicine.”
Therefore, he still needed a Cultivation Technique that could enhance the body in other ways.
This world definitely had Cultivation Techniques to offer, and no civilization’s heritage could be simple, but he couldn’t get his hands on them, at least not for now, and he also had to worry about potential conflicts.
So, he could only rely on the Cultivation Techniques in his mind.
Of course, all the Cultivation Techniques in his mind were for health cultivation, and not as well-practiced as Ba Duan Jin; he could only say he might manage to practice them, but the progress would definitely be at the starting point.
Even as a Martial Artist with limited vitality, he had a lot to do every day. His schedule was packed, so he had to choose wisely to ensure maximum benefit.
Finally, after careful consideration, Wang Sheng selected two Cultivation Techniques.
These two were also quite famous—
Xingyi Boxing and Yijin Scripture.
First was Xingyi Boxing; the Twelve Forms Fist, imitating the forms of animals such as dragon, tiger, monkey, horse, snake, etc., was extremely well-known.
But Wang Sheng wasn’t going to practice Twelve Forms Fist.
What he intended to learn was precisely Xingyi Boxing’s five fundamental punches, Five Elements Fist.
Splitting, Crashing, Drilling, Exploding, Cross—these five fundamental punches of Xingyi Boxing correspond to the Five Elements of metal, wood, water, fire, earth, hence the name Five Elements Fist.
And these Five Elements correspond to the lung, liver, kidney, heart, and spleen— the five internal organs of the body.
The Five Elements and internal organs theory is also an important aspect of Chinese medicine and is often mentioned in health maintenance.
Therefore, in his previous life when Wang Sheng focused on health maintenance, he looked for a Cultivation Technique that could strengthen the internal organs.
The basic techniques of Five Elements Fist could each benefit one of the internal organs, enhancing them, creating an organic whole from the body’s internal organs, meridians, limbs, and bones.
This is why Wang Sheng practiced it for a while, wanting to strengthen his internal organs.
Unfortunately, he gave up later due to various reasons and mainly practiced Ba Duan Jin.
However, he hadn’t learned the full Twelve Forms Fist of Xingyi Boxing, but he still remembered the most basic Three-body Form and Five Elements Fist, and could pick them up again to try and enhance his internal organs with the progress bar.
After all, Inner Core Skill and the internal organs are closely related.
The “Five Qi Toward the Yuan” in Five Qi Chaoyuan is associated with the internal organs.
After witnessing the remarkable effects of Ba Duan Jin, practicing it in advance could bring unexpected surprises.
Then there’s the Yijin Scripture—an incredibly famous technique in various martial arts novels.
Talk of “transforming tendons and marrow, total rebirth” is common, and it’s often said to be a divine skill of the Shaolin temple.
However, in his past life, when Wang Sheng wanted to try cultivating it, he discovered that there were also claims that it was created by Zining Taoist of the Tiantai Sect because Yijin Scripture involves room techniques for health maintenance and many Taoist theories.
Neither origin story is definitively proven, and Wang Sheng didn’t bother to investigate their authenticity; he just needed a practice that worked.
Yijin Scripture, like Ba Duan Jin, is one of the ancient Guiding Skills.
Its primary functions are simple body strengthening and disease prevention.
What Wang Sheng valued was the “tendon-changing” aspect of Yijin Scripture.
“Tendon” implies muscles, tendons, and fascia.
The effect of Yijin Scripture is to transform the muscles and bones throughout the body and open up all the meridians.
Eventually, it could lead to an inner robustness that could effortlessly break bricks and stones.
Wang Sheng first needed the strength enhancement and meridian-altering effects of the Yijin Scripture, and secondly, he wanted to know how much progress the vigor from within would bring to his own strength.
However, because he had practiced the Inner Core Skill, the meridians inside his body had all been unblocked long ago, and he was unclear about what results the Yijin Scripture might bring.
Theoretically, after completing Qi Rushing to the Disease, the effect of a complete transformation would be more thorough than that of the Yijin Scripture.
Comparing both the Five Elements Fist and the Yijin Scripture, Wang Sheng still planned to first master the Five Elements Fist before approaching the Yijin Scripture gradually.
This decision, however, would require an adjustment of his schedule once again.
After some thought, the only option was to carve out time from his Inner Core Skill and Ba Duan Jin practice.
Once the Martial Artist’s plague was resolved, he no longer felt such a profound sense of urgency.
The day after making his decision, Wang Sheng began practicing the Five Elements Fist.
Xingyi Boxing fundamentally never strays from the Three-body Form, so naturally, Wang Sheng started with the Three-body Form to adjust his state completely; all the moves and forms of Xingyi Boxing are based on the Three-body Form’s posture and principles.
“Wuji Formation… feet together in a stand…”
After practicing the form several times, Wang Sheng internalized the principles of the Three-body Form into his body before he commenced practicing the Five Elements Fist.
The first was the Splitting Fist Formation, representing metal, a very aggressive basic boxing method connecting to the lungs.
An ancient saying goes, “Metal generates water, for water nourishes metal; The lungs and kidneys are kin; Split open the fiery mountain to clear the elixir furnace, drill out the kidney water to overturn Kunlun.”
As Wang Sheng threw out the Splitting Fist Formation, he quietly chanted the verse.
In fact, this verse reflected one of the principles of the Five Elements Fist, the mutual generation and overcoming between the Five Elements; practicing one exclusively could lead to an imbalance in the five organs and Five Elements.
Thus, the Five Elements Fist should be practiced in sequence, completing an entire set of moves.
After the Splitting Fist Formation came the Drilling Fist, then the Crushing Fist Formation… and finally the Cross Fist Form.
In the first set, Wang Sheng himself was not particularly familiar and felt somewhat awkward in his movements.
But, with a foundation in martial arts, after practicing several sets, he quickly became more fluid, though he lost count of how many sets he had practiced.
He seemed to feel a jolt in his five organs, as if something had settled into place; a breath of stale air was expelled, and his body felt much more relaxed.
But this feeling lasted only for an instant before disappearing again, somewhat similar to his prior experience with the Eight Extremes Fist.
Sure enough, Wang Sheng soon saw a progress bar.
“Five Elements Fist: 1 (5%)”
The progress bar for the Five Elements Fist appeared.
Next, he simply had to continue making orderly improvements.
However, without a Breakthrough, the Five Elements Fist could only take someone to their natural limits, enhancing the ordinary functioning of a person’s organs slightly.
Now that he was already a Martial Artist and had gone through the Finding Disease and Flipping Illness stages, his internal organs were much stronger than an average person’s. Likely, the Five Elements Fist wouldn’t be of much help to him until he had a Breakthrough.
“No big deal!”
He was already accustomed to grinding and incrementing progress bars.
After the Five Elements Fist would come the progress of the Yijin Scripture, which also included elements of boxing.
Wang Sheng spent some time practicing the boxing techniques, and soon a progress bar for the Yijin Scripture appeared as well.
“Yijin Scripture: 1 (1%)”
The progress of the Yijin Scripture was even lower, as Wang Sheng had only superficially practiced it in his past life, and being able to see a progress bar at all was lucky.
Looking at the two new progress bars, Wang Sheng knew that he probably needed to manage his time even more tightly.
He could only hope that after the Breakthroughs of these two Cultivation Techniques, they would bring him a pleasant surprise…
(Just over 20 more fans, and we can summon the dragon, it’s the end of the month, any monthly tickets or a two-point reward maybe?
P.S. Made some changes, Martial Artist level one is now referred to as First Grade, and so on.)