A Scroll of Infinite Glory

There are countless martial arts schools in the world today, and those with even a little influence have all summarized their own training procedures, each with its own unique approach.

Different people practicing the same style of boxing will develop different physical characteristics at certain stages, making it difficult to establish a unified and detailed standard to measure the strength of all boxers.

However, as the saying goes, different paths lead to the same destination. Regardless of the differences in the training methods of various schools, when martial artists reach a sufficient level, their strength and subsequent training directions will converge.

Ultimately, what we seek is nothing more than mastery in four aspects.

It evolved from the saying "External training of muscles, bones, and skin; internal training of breath," and is the theory of mastering the four trainings: training muscles, bones, skin, and breath.

These four training methods are not in any particular order; anyone can practice all four together during training.

However, due to differences in innate physical constitution and the emphasis on different training methods, one aspect often becomes particularly outstanding.

Mastering even one skill is enough to make one a renowned and powerful boxer for decades.

The ability to contract and expand muscles throughout the body, like that of Zhu Changshou, is an important sign of "mastering tendon training".

In martial arts, "tendon" is a very general concept. In reality, it refers to body tissues including muscles, ligaments, nerves, and blood vessels.

That's why there's a saying: "If your tendons are an inch longer, your strength will be ten times greater."

Even achieving just one aspect of this advanced level makes one a one-in-a-million master; talent and diligence in martial arts training are both indispensable.

Some people are limited by their innate physical condition and can never reach the threshold of mastery in any skill even after a lifetime of hard work. Zhu Changshou, the "Suppressor of the Eight Directions," is undoubtedly one of those people who are favored by heaven.

He was known for his great strength from a young age. By the age of eight, he was already able to compete with adult men in the village in terms of strength. He was spotted by a wandering Taoist priest who taught him the "Eight Pieces of Brocade for Strengthening Internal Divine Power" for half a year.

When he was in his early twenties, he could lift a millstone weighing over 400 pounds with one hand as easily as lifting a small pot lid.

Even so, Zhu Changshou, with his skills, struggled for more than ten years in Guangzhou before he could use the money he had stolen and robbed to hire a famous teacher again. In addition to practicing the Eight Brocade Exercises for internal strength cultivation, he also learned a set of combat skills. Only then did he vaguely grasp the path to mastering tendon training.

Seven years ago, Zhu Changshou participated in a major event and finally obtained some precious manuscripts, truly reaching the pinnacle of his tendon-strengthening skills.

This is the first time in seven years that he has revealed this level of skill to outsiders.

This leap and palm strike was like a giant bear leaping over a ravine, so fierce and powerful that Guan Luoyang instinctively chose to dodge. He lowered his body, bent over and curled up, seemingly only using his feet to exert force, but in reality, it was a tense force from his entire body that propelled him forward.

Zhu Changshou's palm strike missed its mark, creating a gap about half the size of a person in the courtyard wall. Bricks and stones collapsed, dirt flew everywhere, and the entire courtyard wall shook, with a slight tremor felt on the ground.

The expanded muscles made the bald old man look about 2.3 meters tall, but his hands and feet were still extremely nimble, without any sign of being bulky or sluggish.

When his first palm strike missed, he used the recoil to spin around and take a big step to catch up with Guan Luoyang.

The wind howled around him as Zhu Changshou's figure swept over him, landing a palm strike.

With nowhere to dodge, Guan Luoyang's foot suddenly rolled in a semi-circle on the ground, his knees turned, his waist twisted, and his shoulders rose. The momentum of his escape was thus twisted and contained in his left arm, which swung upwards from below.

Guan Luoyang's left fist made a distinct sonic boom in the air and struck Zhu Changshou's palm.

Bang! !

Both of them shuddered simultaneously.

But after Zhu Changshou was startled, he continued to pursue Guan Luoyang, who had no choice but to retreat. With each step back, he struck the ground with a palm, leaving four or five inches deep marks on the ground, and also leaving trails that stretched backward.

Guan Luoyang turned over the solid ground in the courtyard with his feet, and even the stone bricks were crushed by his trampling.

Wang Xiongjie retreated to the backyard of the living room, but through the archway and gaps in the wall, he could clearly see the battle taking place in that courtyard.

His face was pale, and sweat poured down his forehead, a result of both pain and shock.

Although Wang Xiongjie knew that Zhu Changshou's skills might be even better than his own, he did not expect that Zhu Changshou had actually reached the level of mastering tendon training.

A master boxer of this caliber is said to possess the strength of nine oxen and two tigers, and the ability to lift beams and replace pillars. In ancient times, before firearms were widespread, as long as he wore heavy armor, he would be an unparalleled warrior who could charge into battle, kill generals and seize flags as easily as taking something out of a bag.

If Wang Xiongjie were in good condition, he could still intervene, but now his hand has been chopped off and his wrist is bleeding profusely. He has torn pieces of cloth to wrap it up and tied it up, but it can only barely stop the bleeding. If he dares to get close, he might lose half his life if he is grazed by an attack from either side.

Moreover, that blue-faced ghost was truly bizarre. He looked to be only in his early twenties, yet he killed Li Piaoling so quickly just now. Now, he has actually held out in front of Zhu Changshou for so long, only showing signs of weakness.

Guan Luoyang even wanted to retaliate.

He had originally focused his strength into a fist, tensing his entire body, in order to hastily catch Zhu Changshou's two palms, which were like a wheel swinging and a battle axe slashing. This time, when he went to parry the attack, his left hand suddenly flicked its five fingers, changing from a fist to a claw, and went to grab Zhu Changshou's wrist.

With his fingers spread apart and the force on his arm loosening, Guan Luoyang managed to grab Zhu Changshou's wrist, but the remaining force of that palm strike still landed on his shoulder.

After being struck in the palm, he jerked his body, his shoulders and arms moving with fluid grace. He pulled back with his left wrist and raised his right fist to his elbow, throwing Zhu Changshou into the air and slamming him to the ground in the nick of time.

"not good!!"

Zhu Changshou lifted his body off the ground, let out a low shout, and exerted force with all four limbs in mid-air. He suddenly lowered his waist and swung his legs, his feet slamming down rapidly, his soles landing before his tailbone.

His cloth shoes with their multi-layered soles cracked, the stone bricks shattered, and his feet sank into the ground, submerging up to his ankles. However, he successfully avoided having his coccyx broken or his lumbar spine injured.

As soon as Zhu Changshou's feet touched the ground, his back was almost parallel to the ground. He then stretched out his left arm with all his might and swept it overhead.

Guan Luoyang twisted and shook his hands in opposite directions, releasing his grip and stepping back before Zhu Changshou's left fist could strike him.

Zhu Changshou missed his first strike, but his left fist slammed into the ground, forcing his body to straighten up. He turned around and stared at Guan Luoyang with a sinister gaze.

Half of the sleeve fell to the ground.

Zhu Changshou's right sleeve was torn by Guan Luoyang's twisting motion, and after half of the sleeve fell off, the deep bruises on his wrist and elbow were revealed.

The joints in these two places were clearly misaligned, and much of the subcutaneous flesh was torn, with blood seeping from the pores.

This was largely thanks to Zhu Changshou, who was a master of tendon training with high muscle strength. If it were an ordinary person here, Guan Luoyang's ruthless grappling move would have torn off his entire right arm, causing him to bleed to death.

Guan Luoyang's clothes on his left shoulder were also torn. Even if Zhu Changshou only had 30% of his strength left, his palm strike was enough to shatter a granite rock the size of a fist. How could a piece of coarse cloth possibly withstand it?

However, Guan Luoyang's shoulder skin was completely undamaged, and his wheat-colored skin appeared even more dull under the dim light, like a dull and lifeless bronze sculpture.

Zhu Changshou cleared his throat and said in a low voice, "Skin training is now complete!"

With mastery of skin training, one's skin becomes as sensitive as a cicada's, able to discern the direction of a gentle breeze, and possesses a mental alertness far exceeding that of ordinary people. Even with one's senses closed, one can move freely, and the toughness of one's skin surpasses that of rhinoceros hide.

During the Ming Dynasty, Qi Jiguang and Yu Dayou fought against Japanese pirates. Along the southeastern coast, they once used the Mandarin Duck Formation to trap and fight a master of martial arts who had mastered the art of skin-piercing. Even when shot from ten paces away, arquebuses only tore the man's clothes and caused minor bruises under his skin, without drawing blood.

Zhu Changshou could still maintain his composure on his face, but his thick, white eyebrows, which were trembling slightly, betrayed the shock that was rising within him.

There are probably only a handful of boxers who reached the pinnacle of boxing skills in their early twenties, going back to the Song and Ming dynasties.

The last great boxer this young was Yang Luchan.

The man who was frail and sickly from childhood, pretended to be mute to secretly learn boxing in Chenjiagou, and after a few years he had mastered the art of internal energy cultivation. He even surprised the old and young people of Chenjiagou, who broke the ancestral rule that "Chenjia boxing is not passed on to outsiders" and married the clan chief's daughter to him.

He was also the same Yang Wudi who later founded his own sect in the capital and carried the title of invincible for twenty years.

"Invincible!"

Even if Zhu Changshou had a high opinion of himself, he never thought he could be compared to someone who could make such a name for himself and live to a ripe old age.

Could this blue-faced demon in front of me also become a grandmaster of boxing in the future?

Zhu Changshou was unwilling to believe it. His eyes flashed, and suddenly he thought of something. He slowly said, "So that's how it is. Which member of the Boxers was your master back then?"

"The Dragon Head and the Swordsman are doomed, the Arhat and the Goddess of Lightning are from the imperial court, and your master is either the Thunder God or a martial arts instructor—surely not Dai Haichen or Li Sutang from the north?"

Back then, the Qing Dynasty was tyrannical and foreigners were brutal. The Boxer Rebellion rose up in Pingyuan and spread everywhere in less than three months. Countless martial arts practitioners joined the movement. In particular, when the imperial court recognized the Boxers and changed their banner to "Support the Qing and Destroy the Foreigners," even more skilled individuals joined the movement.

It is said that at its peak, the Boxer Rebellion had gathered more than a dozen master boxers who had reached the highest level of skill in their eight major branches: Qian, Dui, Li, Kan, Zhen, Gen, Xun, and Kun.

They met and practiced martial arts in Tianjin. Knowing the power of foreign guns and cannons, they were willing to set aside sectarian differences and exchange ideas between the North and South. They left behind many precious manuscripts, recording the secrets of boxing that only great masters could discover.

Although the Qing Dynasty later fell apart and the Boxers were suppressed by the Qing government and the Eight-Nation Alliance, their spirits scattered, it was not difficult for the other great boxers to escape, except for a few who refused to flee. They naturally carried the manuscripts from that time with them.

Who in the world can practice martial arts without taking detours? There are quite a few who have even disabled themselves through practice.

Unless one obtains the original manuscripts and has a renowned teacher imparting all their knowledge, one can minimize pitfalls and make rapid progress.

Guan Luoyang adjusted his position, bringing Zhu Changshou and Wang Xiongjie into view, and snorted coldly, saying, "I don't understand what you're saying at all."

"Pretending not to understand? That's right. The city was burned and looted every day, with fires burning day and night. Anyone with a grudge was labeled a Christian and their entire family was killed, not even babies were spared. At its peak, probably 70% of the Boxers were the kind of people you wanted to kill. No wonder you want to distance yourself from them."

Zhu Changshou chuckled and laughed, his right hand trembling as he said, "But I'm not afraid to tell you, back then at the main altar of the Kanzimen in Tianjin, I also accepted the palace's invitation. Those who truly abided by the Boxer Rebellion's rules and upheld so-called morality, at least eighty or a hundred of them died at my hands."

Between his words and breaths, there were some strange noises. He had already used the breathing method from the Eight-Section Brocade for strengthening internal energy in an attempt to treat the injury to his right arm, but the effect was minimal. He was speaking the words of the Boxers in an attempt to provoke the young man opposite him, but he did not expect that the other party would not be moved at all.

Guan Luoyang remained calm, taking in the entire scene in the courtyard. Zhu Changshou's eyes widened, and he gritted his teeth.

Just as the word "cross" was finished being spoken, both sides moved simultaneously.

Zhu Changshou, maintaining a wary posture facing Guan Luoyang, suddenly retreated.

He didn't care about the roadblocks behind him at all. He gathered his strength in his back, first smashed through the courtyard wall, rushed into the back of the living room, and then crashed directly into the living room.

Guan Luoyang leaped to the left and forward, his toes landing in the ground, pressing against the back of the blade, and lifting it up.

With the sword in hand, a sharp whistling sound seemed to echo through the air.

A young figure, covered in bloodstains, swiftly leaped over the gap in the collapsed courtyard wall and gave chase.

Several loud cracking sounds came from the living room. Guan Luoyang had just chased into the back door when he saw Zhu Changshou near the front door, one arm around the pillar that he had just kicked and broken, veins bulging on his face, arching upwards.

Several important pillars and load-bearing walls in the living room are all cracked.

Zhu Changshou actually learned the methods Guan Luoyang had used before.

However, Guan Luoyang only designed to collapse a small section of the corridor. Zhu Changshou, who only had one arm left, destroyed the entire living room, and managed to do so in the blink of an eye.

"Nine oxen and two tigers, supporting the beams and replacing the pillars" is not just empty talk.

When the pillars of the front door were arched up, the entire living room tilted backward and collapsed.

At that moment, Guan Luoyang felt that everything around him had become his enemy.

Beams, rafters, tiles, bricks, animal carvings on the roof ridge, and ceramic fragments of tables and chairs that were smashed by a heavy object from above.

All the lights in the living room went out with a deafening roar.

Guan Luoyang exerted all his strength, slashing and dodging repeatedly, and with the added defensive power of his fully developed skin, he finally managed to survive the worst moment of the living room's collapse.

But as the remaining wreckage teetered on the brink of collapse and was about to tumble, a loud shout rang out, and Zhu Changshou's imposing figure rose again. The half-pillar he was holding under his left arm was like an iron-horned chariot about to smash through the city gate, crashing through piles of ruins.

Amidst the scattered and chaotic remains of tables, chairs, bricks, and tiles, it bumped into Guan Luoyang.

The only advantage of someone who has mastered tendon training over someone who has mastered skin training is strength.

Even though one of his hands was no longer usable, Zhu Changshou's strength completely surpassed that of Guan Luoyang.

With the living room collapsed and obstacles everywhere, Guan Luoyang found it difficult to move forward, and even dodging was greatly affected.

Zhu Changshou, however, could ignore all these obstacles, trampling over the broken tiles and cracks, even taking the debris with him as an auxiliary attack, creating this powerful collision.

Guan Luoyang had no way to avoid it, and his first reaction was to sheath his sword.

It would be extremely unwise to try to chop down a pillar that is more than two meters long and over thirty centimeters in diameter with a light knife.

With the scabbard on his left side, Guan Luoyang's action of sheathing his sword was the shortest, quickest, and most natural, allowing him to tense his skin once again.

All the strength in his body was concentrated in the moment he raised his hands, and Guan Luoyang's ten fingers pierced the other end of the pillar, causing him to stagger backward.

When anyone is staggering and out of balance, they cannot exert their full strength.

Twelve steps behind Guan Luoyang was a crumbling wall.

When the pillar rams him against the base of the wall, the collapsing wall will restrain his body, and the pillar will repeatedly grind and ram him like an iron pestle until it crushes him to death.

But as he staggered, with each shrug and shake of his arms, the cracks where Guan Luoyang's hands were inserted became deeper and longer.

That was the original prototype of Li Piaoling's Yao Chi Shou technique, an inch-by-inch striking method from Crane Fist.

Although it cannot deliver short bursts of force from any part of the body from the shoulder to the fingers in any direction like Yao Chishou, the original short burst strike method is simple and direct.

When Guan Luoyang staggered back nearly ten steps, he had already swung his arm and struck more than twenty times.

Whether they live or die is just two steps away.

Guan Luoyang pressed his elbows together and pulled outwards sharply. With a final jerk, the crack finally pierced through the entire pillar, tearing it in two along the original grain of the wood.

The cracked pillar was shaken apart by Guan Luoyang, but Zhu Changshou's momentum did not diminish in the slightest. He covered the remaining distance in one step, replacing the original pillar with his fist, and charged towards Guan Luoyang's heart.

At this distance, with the power of this charge, the advantage of strength will continue to be maximized, and no matter what move Guan Luoyang uses to block it, he will not be able to stop it.

Only by drawing the sword.

His knife was on the left side of his waist. It was too slow to draw it with his right hand, so he used his left hand to draw it from behind.

choke!

The moment the blade was drawn, it emitted a piercing screech, and the blade's light chased after the screech, slicing across Zhu Changshou's face. His punch also sent Guan Luoyang flying.

Guan Luoyang flew over the broken wall and crashed to the ground, spitting out a mouthful of blood. He sprang to his knees and turned his head warily toward Wang Xiongjie, but there was no one there.

He jumped onto the wall, found the direction Wang Xiongjie had fled in, and immediately gave chase.

Amidst the ruins, only Zhu Changshou remained standing, his eyes reflecting Guan Luoyang's unwavering back, his face contorted with rage, humiliation, and resentment.

A bloody gash split open on Zhu Changshou's face, and his tall, muscular figure collapsed to the ground.