Ming Dynasty: I am truly not the Emperor of Longevity

With the presence of mental energy along the path of movement, the flow of internal energy ceased.

Only after Lu Chen reduced the intensity of his telekinetic perception to a very low level was the internal energy within the other party able to continue circulating.

Try to gradually increase the mental power used for perception; the opponent's internal energy circulation speed also slows down in sync, until it can no longer move forward at all.

How could this happen?

Lu Chen was filled with doubt.

I was clearly only using my telekinesis to sense the other person; I didn't apply any power to their body!

The opponent had only recently developed a sense of Qi and possessed a trace of internal energy. He was far from proficient in using internal energy; he could only follow the techniques to circulate the internal energy along a certain meridian path within his body.

According to Xue Ting, each time internal energy completes a major cycle within the body and returns to the dantian (lower abdomen) of the dantian, it will receive a slight increase in strength.

Of course, the amount of internal energy gained from completing one cycle of enhancement is very small, so small that even the cultivator himself cannot perceive it.

Only after repeating this cycle many times can a practitioner truly feel the increase in their internal energy.

The biggest difference between different techniques lies in the different internal energy circulation paths.

Some exercises involve fewer meridians in one cycle, making them relatively easier to practice.

However, when it comes to actually using internal energy in combat, it is often somewhat lacking.

Because it is necessary to quickly send a large amount of internal energy from the dantian to the required location in the body, the energy is transported through the meridians used during cultivation.

Once internal energy leaves these meridians, it not only flows slowly, but its intensity also weakens rapidly.

The more meridians one has trained, the more methods one can use internal energy.

According to Lu Chen's understanding, these meridians, which have been tempered countless times, are the highway network for the flow of internal energy.

People who have developed a sense of Qi have different aptitudes. Even when practicing the same technique, the time it takes for internal energy to complete one major cycle within the body can vary greatly.

The time it took Peng Rui, the Imperial Guard Captain who had just mastered the Qi sensation, to complete one large cycle was about five times that of Xue Ting back then.

In other words, to develop the same level of internal strength, it would take five times as long to train.

Xue Ting once said that it took him two or three years to train to the point where he could use his internal energy in actual combat.

As he continued to cultivate, his internal strength continued to increase, but after reaching a bottleneck, the rate of increase slowed down.

This bottleneck occurred ten years after Xue Ting developed a sense of Qi.

After that, although he continued to practice diligently, more than ten years later, his internal strength had only increased by 20%, and his efficiency was incomparable to that of the previous ten years.

In the last two or three years, Xue Ting himself felt that continuing to cultivate had become less effective than nothing.

Therefore, I reduced my daily training time and spent more time enjoying life.

The situation was similar for the other members of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Some, like Xue Ting, had already hit a bottleneck, while others had not.

The timing of encountering bottlenecks varies from person to person.

The last one, he practiced for almost thirty years before encountering a bottleneck.

Lu Chen assessed the actual destructive power obtained through questioning. Although the time spent on cultivation varied for each of the worshippers, their internal strength was actually quite similar when they first encountered a bottleneck.

After reaching a bottleneck, the efficiency of internal energy cultivation decreases, but it is not entirely without improvement.

Of course, there are currently fewer than ten internal martial arts masters providing information to Lu Chen, and it is still unknown whether there are any exceptions.

Xue Ting encountered a bottleneck in his tenth year of cultivation, making him the fastest among the several retainers, and naturally also the strongest in terms of internal strength.

In other words, his aptitude for cultivating internal energy was indeed the best among these people.

Lu Chen looked at Peng Rui, who was intently practicing his internal energy according to his orders.

He arranged for one hundred officers of the Imperial Guard to practice internal martial arts. It was not easy for one of them to develop a sense of Qi within a year, but unfortunately, he was not a good candidate.

It took Xue Ting two or three years to cultivate his internal strength to the point where it could be used in actual combat. Wouldn't it take Peng Rui, whose cultivation efficiency was five times lower than his, more than ten years?

Once one's internal strength reaches a bottleneck, becoming a true master requires as much as fifty years!

Even if I could provide Peng Rui with better cultivation conditions, allowing him to free himself from all worldly affairs and concentrate on cultivation, I could only increase his efficiency by 20% to 30% at most, and it would be impossible to go any higher.

It takes about ten years to use internal energy in actual combat, and thirty or forty years to become a master. That's still too slow!

Are people with excellent aptitude and suitable for practicing internal martial arts really that hard to find?

and many more!

Just now, I used a little too much mental energy to probe, which blocked the internal energy flowing along the meridians in Peng Rui's body!

Back when I tried to fight against "Ghost's Sorrow" with telekinesis and internal force, it was actually the same thing!

However, "Ghost's Sorrow" had much stronger internal energy than Peng Rui. At that time, what he was most concerned about was how to use his mental power to repel the opponent's internal energy.

Then, just like dealing with ordinary people, directly use telekinesis to attack the organs inside the opponent's body.

But actually, we overlooked a crucial thing!

The opponent's internal force and one's own mental force never appeared in the same place on the body at the same time. There was only confrontation and collision between the two, but no overlap or fusion.

"Ghost's Bane" is one thing, but he will definitely use his internal energy to resist my mental power.

But Peng Rui was his subordinate, and knowing that he was "using his internal energy" to check his cultivation progress, he could not resist.

What does this tell us?

The two intangible forces, mental power and internal force, are inherently mutually exclusive.

Even without any resistance, internal energy and mental energy cannot exist in the same location in the body.

In that case, could we try a different approach and use mental power to influence internal energy?

Lu Chen immediately increased the intensity of his mental power used for perception, and the internal energy that was circulating along the meridians in Peng Rui's body was also immediately blocked by his mental power and stopped completely.

This time, Lu Chen did not gradually reduce the intensity of his mental power to allow his internal energy to circulate as he had done before. Instead, he made his mental power move.

As expected, the faint internal force was not absorbed by the mental power, but retreated along the meridians.

At this moment, Lu Chen could clearly feel that the other person's heartbeat was starting to become somewhat abnormal, indicating that they were experiencing some discomfort.

According to Xue Ting, if the internal energy goes astray in the meridians when practicing internal martial arts, it will have a backlash on the body.

The deeper one's internal energy, the greater the damage to the body.

Peng Rui's internal energy was pushed backward by his mental power, resulting in the same backlash.

However, his internal energy is still very weak. Even when it flows in reverse, it only causes some discomfort and does not cause real harm.

Since this internal energy can be reversed by mental power, then...?

Lu Chen's mental energy instantly circled around to the back of his internal energy.

Sure enough, driven by mental power, this internal force began to move along the meridians required by the technique!

It's several times faster than Peng Rui cultivating by himself!