Sword Roaring in the Sky

Chapter 29: Golden Tendon and Jade Bone Fist

Half an hour later, the people from the Scorpio Cult dug out the naked Lao Xin from the roots of a big tree. He had been stabbed in the chest with a knife, his face was covered in blood and flesh, and he died in a very tragic way.

Lao Xin's tearful daughter Dujuan was weeping blood, and Lao Qingshan was in tears even more. The father and daughter hurriedly found a clean place to bury Lao Xin. They also asked Sun Yanwan for the assassin's head as a sacrifice and hastily held a funeral.

After the father and daughter had their funeral, Zhang Yuanqiao called them over and asked, "Do you want revenge?"

Lao Qingshan gnashed his teeth and replied, "Old Immortal Zhang is willing to avenge my innocent child. I will be so heartbroken that I will be reborn as an ox or horse in my next life to repay you."

Although Lao Ai was sad, she did not have much hope of revenge. After all, the power of the Demon Cult was known to the world. But since Zhang Yuanqiao mentioned this matter, she could not help but have some hope.

Zhang Yuanqiao handed over a letter and said, "You and your daughter should take this letter to the Songyang Sect and give it to my sixth junior brother."

Lao Qingshan's heart was filled with awe, and he shouted loudly, "I will definitely hand this letter over to Master Yin!"

After Lao Qingshan and his daughter left, Sun Yanwan asked curiously, "Master, what are you going to do?"

Zhang Qingxi smiled and said, "There's a deep hatred between us, the righteous sect and the demon sect. The demon sect can't do anything to the masters who have achieved fame in the righteous way, so killing the high-quality new disciples is common practice."

"Every time something like this happens, we have no control over what other sects do, but when our Songyang Sect loses disciples, it is always our Sixth Uncle who takes action, picking out a few powerful figures from the Demon Sect and killing them to serve as a warning to others."

"They've all been assassinated under the master's tutelage. The two kings, four emissaries, and thirty-six demon generals of the Demon Cult. One or two of them must die this time."

Sun Yanwan was speechless for a long while, thinking to himself, "The Songyang Sect is so powerful."

After this scare, Sun Yanwan refused to leave his senior brother too far for several days and practiced martial arts even harder.

One day, Zhang Yuanqiao was instructing Zhang Qingxi on a palm technique, and Sun Yanwan was watching from the side. After watching for a while, he began to ponder the Demon-Slaying Sword Technique, thinking to himself, "That day, I severed the assassin's arm with one sword strike."

"I remember that in that sword move, in addition to the Demon-Slaying Sword Technique, I also used the Hunyuan Posture. The two combined, that sword's power was far greater than usual."

"Could it be that the Hu family's Demon-Slaying Sword Technique and the Hunyuan Pillar are to be used in conjunction?"

He tried using a Hunyuan Posture to match the Demon-Slaying Sword Style. After using all 72 sword styles, he found that most of them were not very compatible. However, there were three sword techniques that were unique to use. He recorded them immediately and switched to a Hunyuan Posture to promote the 72 Demon-Slaying Sword Styles.

He had just tried the three-way Hunyuan Posture when Zhang Yuanqiao finished instructing the palm techniques and asked his two disciples to go back and rest.

Although Sun Yanwan only tried three types of Hunyuan Posture, it was like opening up a whole new world. He indeed discovered that a certain type of Hunyuan Posture could be combined with several types of sword techniques. Once two types were combined, the changes in sword techniques suddenly became exquisite.

He returned to his room, spread out a stack of yellow paper, and recorded all his attempts that day. Ten days later, he had practiced the thirty-six Hunyuan Postures, figuring out which Demon-Slaying Sword Styles each could be combined with. Although his internal strength hadn't improved an inch, his swordsmanship had suddenly improved by leaps and bounds.

If the thirty-six moves of Hunyuan Posture and the seventy-two moves of Demon-Slaying Sword could be coordinated with each other, there would be as many as two to three thousand variations. I'm sure the Hu family predecessors who created these two martial arts didn't have the brainpower to do that. I'm afraid they would need an AI model like DeepSeek to do it. However, each move of Hunyuan Posture can be coordinated with at least three to five moves, and at most more than ten moves of Demon-Slaying Sword, which means there are hundreds of wonderful variations.

Sun Yanwan recorded all his thoughts and ideas. Now, his notes on studying the Ziwu Jing, Hunyuan Zhuang, and Dangmo Sword have accumulated 200,000 to 300,000 words, which is more than the number of words in any other secret book in this world.

If a person with ordinary talent were given this notebook and started to learn these three martial arts, his progress would definitely be several times faster than that of a person with the same talent.

The secret he figured out was known to very few people in the Hu family. They usually kept it to themselves and would not easily pass it on to anyone other than the most valued children. It was considered one of the biggest secrets of the Hu family.

But the people of the Hu family could never have imagined that there was a King of Rolls from Earth who, with a flash of inspiration occasionally, relied on constant permutations and combinations to deduce the most amazing secrets of this family sword technique.

After figuring out the secrets of Hunyuan Posture and Demon-Dangling Sword Technique, Sun Yanwan was practicing Hunyuan Posture seven or eight days later when he suddenly felt a heat in the back of his heart, a surge of true energy flowed through him, and another meridian was opened.

With the five meridians connected, Sun Yanwan was officially promoted to an eighth-grade warrior!
An eighth-grade warrior in the martial arts world would be the leader of a small gang.

Of course, there is a huge difference in strength between an eighth-grade warrior with third- or fourth-rate martial arts and an eighth-grade warrior with superior martial arts, and they cannot be compared at all.

Zhang Qingxi once said to Sun Yanwan, "Martial arts proficiency is determined by physical effort. Lying down won't do, but standing up will. The Nine Ranks of Martial Arts are detailed, but they're just theoretical. How can you calculate martial arts proficiency based on what's in the book? They're all rank six or seven, so there's no need to break them down. After all, once you've opened up all five meridians and learned our own boxing techniques, they won't be your match."

The implication is that even if the disciples of Songyang School are only at the eighth level, as long as they learn the basic boxing techniques, the sixth or seventh level warriors from ordinary small sects will not be their match.

The eldest brother said it lightly, and there was no need to elaborate. At that time, Sun Yanwan didn't think much of it. A few years later, when he was traveling around the world and had fought with others several times, he thought about this sentence again and realized how proud the eldest brother was!

After this meridian was opened, Sun Yanwan did not rush to find his master, but consolidated it for half a day. The next day he went to find Zhang Yuanqiao and reported that he had opened up the fifth meridian.

Zhang Yuanqiao was silent for a while before he said, "Since you have already opened up all five meridians, I will teach you the Songyang School's 24-Move Golden Tendon and Jade Bone Fist."

"Since ancient times, all martial arts have been divided into two branches: internal and external. The internal one cultivates qi, while the external one cultivates tendons."

"The human body has eight extraordinary meridians, twelve main meridians, and thirty-six hidden meridians. If you practice external martial arts, there are also twenty-four meridian tendons."

"The Songyang School is not only a martial arts sect, but also a branch of the Xuanhuang Dao of Taoism. They practice meditation and Qi training, and are known as the orthodox internal school. They primarily cultivate the Eight Great Meridians, the Twelve Main Meridians, and the Thirty-Six Hidden Meridians. Only this Golden Tendon and Jade Bone Fist cultivates the twenty-four meridians. This style of boxing doesn't seek to defeat the enemy, but only to temper the bones and lay the foundation for the future practice of superior boxing and palm techniques."

"If one can temper the twenty-four meridians in the body to perfection, one will have bones of iron and skin of copper, and immense strength. However, external martial arts do not cultivate internal strength. Most external martial arts masters will also practice an internal martial art. Only a very few of the most superior external martial arts can cultivate an unparalleled internal strength from the outside in."

(End of this chapter)