Overdraw the future and become a peerless martial god

Chapter 8: Entry
The candlelight flickered in the Kung Fu Pavilion, and the three volumes of classics on the sandalwood shelf were covered with a thin layer of ash.

The black-robed instructor's withered fingers traced the gilded spine of the "Subduing Tiger Fist" book, his voice hoarse as a whetstone: "Intermediate Yellow Rank, small success can be achieved in three months, splitting rocks and cutting wood is no problem."

His fingertips touched the snake-patterned cover of "Spirit Snake Steps" again: "Advanced Yellow Rank. If one can master it to perfection, he can kill someone invisibly within ten steps."

Finally, he stopped at the last scroll of the Burnt Black Sword Manual: "As for this 'Thunder Blade Art', it is of the low Yellow Rank. No one has mastered it since the destruction of the Thunder Blade Sect thirty years ago."

Chu Ning stared at the winding lightning patterns on the sword manual. He reached out to touch it, but the instructor suddenly grabbed his wrist and said, "The martial arts are divided into four levels: heaven, earth, black and yellow. Each level is divided into three levels: high, medium and low. There are ten levels of warriors, with the tenth level being the lowest and the first level being the most respected. Although this sword technique is low-level..."

"Can it be qualified?" Chu Ning looked up suddenly.

"Of course!" the instructor sneered. "The master of the hall achieved his rank by relying on this technique. But you don't have that kind of talent. I advise you to choose the 'Subduing Tiger Fist'. Add fifty taels of silver, and I will teach you three killer moves."

The sound of cloth tearing interrupted the conversation.

Chu Ning had already torn open the seal of "Thunder Blade Technique", and the burnt ashes fell down, revealing the incomplete sword style diagram on the inner page.

The instructor's copper coins creaked in his sleeves, "He is indeed a rough and uncouth man from the mountains."

At the hour of You, mist was rising from the medicine pond in Jiayuan, and a sticky black slurry was deposited at the bottom of the pond, with a pungent fishy smell.

"Just entered the martial arts hall, and now he comes to the medicine pool. I can't believe he's a rich man."

"No, you're just pretending to be something you are not!"

"To be precise, it should be selling everything we have."

"Hahaha"

"Master Wang Li has already ordered that if this boy dares to enter the academy, he must report it immediately."

Chu Ning ignored it, thinking that the Wang family would not dare to mess around in the martial arts hall. He poured the bone-strengthening powder into the pool, and the medicine instantly boiled like magma.

"Squeak-"

The moment he stepped into the pool, his muscles felt as if they were being gnawed by thousands of ants.

"Uh!"

He groaned, digging his nails into the cracks in the pool's stone. The medicinal power of the Bone Strengthening Powder transformed into thousands of steel needles, piercing through his pores and into his muscles.

The skin first turned red as if burning, and then turned a strange purple-blue color. The blood vessels under the skin bulged out, as if earthworms were burrowing madly in the flesh.

“Kala——”

There was a sudden crisp sound in the spine, and each vertebra felt as if it was being hammered by a heavy hammer.

He vaguely saw himself turning into a red-hot iron ingot in a blacksmith's shop, being hammered repeatedly by an invisible giant hammer.

Half an hour later, the water in the pool had become as turbid as ink.

Mist was rising from the medicine pool in Hospital A. When Chu Ning climbed out of the pool, his muscles were as hard as iron under his light golden skin. He punched the stone lock, and the lock caved in.

He stared at the undispersed rock patterns on the peak of his fist. This was the sign of the perfection of "Rough Stone Hard Skill", but he still could not reach the threshold of "entry".

"A fake tenth-grade sword is fake after all." He grabbed the remaining scroll of "Thunder Blade Technique", and the charred pages shed ashes under the candlelight.

Thunder rumbled outside the window, overlapping with the clatter of horses' hooves as the Wang family's thugs kicked in the door three months ago. The cough of his elder sister, curled up in the corner of the kang, pierced his eardrums. He suddenly clenched his sword manual: "I can't wait!"

The Hunyuan Divine Order exploded with blood in the sea of ​​consciousness:
[Currently, the Commander is attempting to rely on the lower-grade Yellow Rank technique: "Thunder Blade Technique"]

[Advance payment condition: Temper your body with lightning 100 times on a rainy night]

[Repayment conditions: Success is achieved by splitting a three-meter-thick boulder with one strike. After repayment, the next advance payment effect will be activated!]

[Warning: For those whose bodies are not yet at the highest level, forcibly withdrawing funds will result in a 70% risk of meridian rupture.]

"I must enter the rank, I have no choice."

In a flash, lightning and thunder flashed in Chu Ning's mind.

Chu Ning clenched the rusty knife tightly. The moment the knife was unsheathed, the first thunder struck the tip of the knife. The purple lightning ran along his arm into his heart meridian, and his entire right arm was instantly charred.

"Ugh—!"

He fell to his knees, the burning sensation instantly tearing his sanity apart, his muscle fibers rupturing in the high temperature, his skin carbonized by lightning, and his flesh charred black.

The second and third thunder tribulations followed one after another, and the blade trembled like a living thing in the lightning.

As the third thunderbolt pierced his shoulder blade, the rusted blade suddenly shrieked, its outer layer of rust cracking like a spiderweb, revealing the purple veins within, resembling dragon bones. Each lightning strike coated the bones with a layer of plasma. He stumbled and slashed with a fragmented "Cloud-Splitting Style," but the blade's flash was ten times sharper than before.

He staggered to his knees, his consciousness gradually becoming blurred.

……

Hallucinations emerge.

He saw his sister huddled in the corner of the dilapidated house, coughing with faint gasps.

He saw his father, hammer in hand, hammering the red-hot blade again and again, his voice muffled in the wind and rain: "A good blade must withstand a thousand hammerings before it can cut through the world."

"If I die here, what will happen to my sister?"

"This world has no room for the weak."

Chu Ning's eyes suddenly opened, and blazing lightning flashed in his pupils.

He gritted his teeth and stood up, facing the fortieth thunder.

When the forty-ninth thunderstorm struck, the sky and earth suddenly became as bright as day. Chu Ning was blown away by the blast, his back smacking the rock pillar, unaware of the debris digging into his flesh. "Again!" he roared, plunging his knife into the crevice.

The seventy-second lightning bolt flowed down the blade into the earth's veins, shaking the entire cliff face. Lava gushed out from the cracks, and Chu Ning's left eye was blinded by the lightning. His charred eyelids clung together, forming a hideous scar.

But he was smiling, because he felt an unfamiliar heat current rushing through his meridians. The power was like mist and lightning. Wherever it passed, the carbonized muscles turned jade again and condensed into a dense network of lightning patterns under the skin.

When the ninety-ninth thunder dragon swooped down, Chu Ning was no longer in human form.

His right arm was bare, the bones exposed, his left leg muscles charred and curled, yet with a last glimmer of clarity, he leaped into the air. The moment the rusty knife pierced the Thunder Dragon, thousands of purple lightnings exploded within him. The energy of the Rough Stone Hard Skill in his Dantian suddenly boiled over, and the internal energy that had been stagnant like a rock transformed into flowing thunderclouds that surged through the eight extraordinary meridians.

All this took place in Chu Ning's sea of ​​consciousness, and none of the other disciples in the A-Academy's medicine pool knew about it.

"This is." Chu Ning opened his eyes and tried to swing his broken right arm. The broken wood three meters away was split into two halves by the invisible energy.

He didn't understand the intricacies of a warrior's rank and simply thought it was a side effect of overdrawing his skills.

Chu Ning dragged his shattered body out of the medicine pool, his every step leaving a mark of lightning on the floor. He had no idea that the lightning patterns on his jade-like muscles were the hallmark of a warrior's "Qi Jin" (spirit energy) reaching a certain rank. Even less did he know that the sea of ​​thunderclouds and energy flowing through his dantian was the "Tenth Rank Qi Qi" that so many aristocratic family disciples so desperately sought.

After walking through several corridors, he noticed that the atmosphere was strange.

There was a lot of noise and footsteps, and the faint sound of metal clashing could be heard from afar.

Chu Ning paused slightly and looked in the direction of the sound. He saw that the martial arts training ground in front was brightly lit and many apprentices were gathered in a circle.

"So they're conducting product testing."

His eyes moved slightly, and he walked towards the training ground unconsciously.

……

Torches flickered in the martial arts arena, Chu Ning walked steadily, and the shadows of the surrounding apprentices twisted on the blue bricks like a group of demons dancing wildly.

Instructor Zhou's sword was planted in the ground, the blade three inches deep into the bricks and stones. "Whoever can withstand three of my moves today will be considered a rank disciple!"

On the high platform, the owner Lei Wanjun slowly stood up and looked at the students in the field with a sharp gaze.

Everyone looked at each other, only Chu Ning was ready to make a move.

When Chu Ning stepped into the arena dragging a purple-patterned long sword, sneers suddenly broke out.

"Him? Dare to challenge Instructor Zhou?"

"Teacher Zhou is an intermediate-level warrior, his sword energy can cut through metal."

"This kid... actually has a familiar aura." Lei Wanjun looked at the young man in the field.

The dull thud of the scabbard hitting the ground cut off the sarcasm.

"Please teach me." The rusty and hoarse voice seemed to be fished out of a furnace.

Instructor Zhou narrowed his eyes and drew his sword. The dragon roar of the sword had not yet dissipated, but Chu Ning pounced on his prey like a hungry tiger.

Before the knife light arrived, the thunder force was released first, and the three-meter distance was reduced to one step by the purple lightning.

The moment the blade sliced ​​through the air, Instructor Zhou's pupils constricted. This move was supposed to go straight for the throat, but the broken blade unexpectedly twisted in mid-air.

"clang--!"

Instructor Zhou rushed back to defend, the two blades clashing, sending glaring sparks flying. Instructor Zhou retreated seven steps, smoke rising from his sleeves, while Chu Ning's blade pressed down, the incomplete "Mountain Breaking Style" carrying the force of wind and thunder, plowing a three-foot gully in the blue brick ground.

The apprentices watching were all horrified and couldn't believe their eyes.

"Second move." Instructor Zhou's voice deepened, and his goose-feather knife suddenly glowed green. "It's my turn."

The sword light poured down like a waterfall, and the energy of the entry-level warrior condensed into substance, transforming into nine green sword shadows that sealed the major acupoints on Chu Ning's body.

Chu Ning smiled.

He seemed to be completely disorganized, but with a crisp "crack" sound, the nine knife shadows shattered at the same time like glass.

"Impossible!" An apprentice overturned the brazier.

Instructor Zhou's astonishment froze at the third move. Chu Ning's knife was already three inches in front of his throat.

It's not fast, but tricky!
The force of the knife seemed to have predicted all his moves, like a thundercloud locking onto its prey.

"boom!!!"

The twin blades shot out, splitting the bronze gong in half. Instructor Zhou's hair and beard stood on end, and the powerful energy of a high-ranking warrior erupted. Bricks and stones flew like waves, and the onlookers were thrown to the ground by the surging energy.

When the smoke and dust cleared, everyone saw a scene that they would never forget.

Chu Ning knelt on one knee, the blade of his sword sunk three inches into the ground, and lightning patterns around him flickered like breathing.

"You have successfully entered the rank and can go to the government to register at any time." Instructor Zhou threw out the bronze medal, and his hand in his sleeve trembled slightly when he turned around.

The gilded plaque reading "Benlei Martial Arts School" trembled in the blast. The school's master, Lei Wanjun, crushed his iron heart and laughed wildly, shaking the tiles off the roof: "It's been thirty years! The Thunder Blade School has finally waited for its successor!"

In the distance, Instructor Zhou's eyes were gloomy. He quietly retreated into the shadows and whispered to a man in a black robe.

"The Wang family's bounty has been delivered, so you should do it cleanly."

The black-robed man sneered, "Don't worry, we've prepared 'Red Scorpion Powder' in the medicine pool. The death of a mere entry-level warrior in the medicine pool is nothing more than an accident."

(End of this chapter)