Huang Rong from The Return of the Condor Heroes: Guo'er, calm down.

As the sun began to set, a cool breeze swept through Zhongnan Mountain, causing the pines to rustle and whisper.

Yang Guo lay sprawled on the large blue stone, his eyes catching a glimpse of the forbidden area stele broken in two, and he suddenly remembered the punishment from the old Taoist priest Qiu Chuji.

The stone tablet was re-erected.

If this matter isn't handled well, those old Taoist priests from the Quanzhen Sect will have another excuse to cause trouble. Then, with wolves in front and tigers behind, I really won't be able to live like this anymore.

Yang Guo spat out the grass root in his mouth, patted his bottom, and stood up.

"Alright, since we're just killing time anyway, let's fix this broken stone tablet. It'll be a way of apologizing to our ancestor."

Zhongnan Mountain may not have much else, but it's covered in rocks. Yang Guo wandered around the pile of rocks for a while, and his eyes quickly locked onto a large, bluish-brown rock.

The stone is square, about five feet high and two feet wide. Although its surface is somewhat rough, it is flat and can be made into a fine stone tablet with just a little polishing.

Yang Guo circled the stone twice and then patted it.

"You're the one."

He assumed a horse stance and focused his energy in his dantian.

Having recently consumed the Nine-Turn Life-Reversing Pill and cultivated on the Jade Bed, although he hadn't learned any particularly exquisite techniques, his internal energy had undeniably increased significantly. In the past, he would have had to detour around this several-hundred-pound boulder.

But now...

"rise!"

Yang Guo let out a low shout, wrapped his arms around the boulder, and exerted force from his waist and abdomen.

With a few soft "crackling" sounds, the boulder buried deep in the soil shook a few times before he managed to pull it out.

A surge of heat flowed through his meridians to his limbs and bones, and Yang Guo felt full of strength. The weight of several hundred pounds on his shoulders did not feel strenuous at all.

"Hey! Looks like those pills weren't a waste of time!"

Yang Guo was secretly delighted.

This is the wonder of internal energy. Those who do not understand internal energy only possess a lot of brute force, which is exhausted once it is used up. But those who possess internal energy have abundant and inexhaustible strength; as long as they have a breath left, their power will never cease.

He carried the huge rock and strode back to the entrance of the forbidden area.

"Bang!"

With a muffled thud, the boulder hit the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Yang Guo dusted off his hands, his face not flushed or out of breath, and he even seemed a little unsatisfied.

"We have the stone, but what about the characters..."

Yang Guo looked at the bare stone surface and was at a loss.

The monument must be inscribed. These eight large characters, "Forbidden Land of Quanzhen, Unauthorized Entry Will Be Punished," represent the face of the Quanzhen sect; you can't just draw them on with charcoal, can you?

He searched his entire body, but found nothing—not even a decent knife, let alone a chisel or hammer.

"What should we do? Go back to the ancient tomb to get it?"

Yang Guo shook his head, immediately rejecting the suicidal idea. Going back now wouldn't just be about getting a chisel; it would be sending himself back to be used as a chisel.

Go to Chongyang Palace?

That won't work either. Am I currently being held in confinement by Qiu Chuji's organization?

"Even a hero can be brought down by a penny, and a chisel can stump Master Yang."

Yang Guo plopped down on the ground, braced himself with his hands behind his back, and sighed deeply.

With this push, his palm landed squarely on the broken old stone tablet.

As my fingertips traced the incomplete character for "death," a strange sensation traveled up my fingertips.

Yang Guo was stunned for a moment.

Although he had never carved a stele, he had seen many stone tablets. Ordinary stone tablets were carved by craftsmen using iron chisels, hammer blow by blow. The edges of the characters were sharp and angular, and they felt a bit prickly to the touch; you could even feel the fine marks left by the chisel.

But the handwriting under those fingers...

Yang Guo lowered his head, his gaze falling on the broken stele.

He stretched out his finger and felt around in the grooves of the strokes several times.

The inside of the groove is smooth and rounded, as if it had been washed by water for millions of years, without any harshness from being carved. Moreover, the depth of the strokes is extremely even, and the beginning and end of each stroke are smooth and natural.

Something's not right.

Yang Guo sat up straight, his brows slightly furrowed.

This doesn't look like it was carved from iron at all; it looks more like... more like writing on soft clay.

However, this is a unique type of Qinggang stone from Zhongnan Mountain, which is extremely hard. Ordinary swords and knives can only leave a white mark at most when they cut into it.

A bold conjecture suddenly popped into Yang Guo's mind, a conjecture that made him gasp in shock.

"Was it written with your fingers?"

He extended his right index finger and carefully placed it into the stroke of the character "死" (death).

Perfectly fitted.

The width of that stroke was exactly the same as the thickness of his finger!

Even at the turning points of the strokes, you can feel the arc of the knuckles pressing down.

"My goodness..."

Yang Guo felt a chill run down his spine.

If this character was truly written on a stone by a person using their fingers, how strong would that person's finger strength have to be?

That would mean treating this iron-hard oak stone like tofu and squeezing it!

Although Yang Guo had never witnessed a true master's move, his eccentric adoptive father, Ouyang Feng, was one of the Five Greats of the martial arts world. He had seen his adoptive father shatter a boulder with a single palm strike during a fit of madness.

To smash a stone, one must rely on powerful palm force to break it with sheer force.

Writing on this stone is a different matter.

This requires concentrating all the body's internal energy into a single point at the fingertip, keeping it focused and unyielding, possessing both indestructibility and exquisite control. Too much force, and the stone shatters; too little, and it cannot be carved.

Moreover, judging from the handwriting, it flows smoothly and is completed in one go, clearly indicating that the writer put it into writing these eight characters effortlessly and without any effort.

"That old bastard Qiu Chuji said that this stone tablet was erected by Patriarch Chongyang himself..."

Yang Guo muttered to himself, a hint of awe appearing in his eyes.

Wang Chongyang, the Central Divine.

That Taoist priest who overpowered the Eastern Heretic, Western Poison, Southern Emperor, and Northern Beggar to win the title of the number one Taoist in the world.

Yang Guo knew of this person, but only thought of him as a legendary and powerful figure, without any direct impression. But now, looking at the inscription on the broken stele, he truly realized the weight of the four words "Number One Under Heaven".

"Such finger strength, even Uncle Guo might not be able to do it, right?"

Yang Guo secretly pondered this in his heart.

While Guo Jing's Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms are unparalleled in their power and ferocity, they are still palm techniques. When it comes to the refined skill at the fingertips, he probably couldn't reach that level of mastery that turns stone into mud.

"Hey, if I had that kind of ability, would I have needed to run in that ancient tomb?"

"With a single finger strike, wouldn't Sister Dragon be crying for her parents and utterly routed?"

Yang Guo looked at his fingers and felt somewhat discouraged.

He tried to circulate the little internal energy he had just acquired, forcing the true energy to his fingertips, and then forcefully poked at the rubble beneath him.

"Ouch!"

A scream.

The stone didn't budge, but Yang Guo almost broke his finger. He was in so much pain that he kept shaking his hand, and tears were almost streaming down his face.

"The difference! That's the difference!"

Yang Guo rubbed his swollen fingers, looking dejected.

It seems that although I have internal strength, how to use it is a complex subject. I am now like a beggar guarding a mountain of gold, possessing great strength but unable to even pierce a stone.

Just as he was feeling sorry for himself, his gaze inadvertently swept over the broken surface of the monument.

The stone tablet was broken in the middle, right at the character "禁" (forbidden).

The broken edges were jagged, revealing the bluish-gray stone underneath.

However, in the middle of those jumbled rocks, there was a small patch where the color seemed a little off.

Although they were all bluish-gray, that small patch was slightly darker in color, and its texture looked a little finer than the surrounding stones.

If Yang Guo hadn't been staring blankly at the broken surface, and if the setting sun hadn't been shining its light directly on that spot, an ordinary person would never have noticed this subtle difference.

"Um?"

Yang Guo's curiosity was instantly piqued.

He leaned closer, squinting as he examined the object closely.

The darker-colored area was about the size of a fist and was round.

Yang Guo reached out and gently scraped that spot with his fingernail.

"Sizzle..."

As the fingernail scratched across the surface, it kicked up a fine layer of stone dust.

This feel...

It doesn't look like stone; it looks more like some kind of clay mixed with stone powder!

Yang Guo's heart stirred.

The stone tablet in this forbidden area is actually hollow inside?