Book 1 - What Is A Genius - Chapter 11 - Peak Of The Battle Skills?

In He family, every directly-related member of the younger generation had an underground basement beneath their courtyards, precisely for the training of martial skills.
He Yiming opened his basement. Although this was not his first time entering the basement, this time, his heart was racing because this was the first time he’d come here to practice martial skills.
He didn’t immediately commence his training, instead, he took out the notes of Rolling Boulder Fist and carefully revised them to confirm that he’d everything in his mind. Subsequently, he placed his copied notes inside a special iron cupboard.
He Yiming retreated several steps and adopted a stance, before executing the contents of the Rolling Boulder Fist.
His Internal Energy instantaneously rushed into his palms. His both arms were crisscrossed, and he was continuously waving them one after another, at the same time, his body was also swaying according to a certain width. The Rolling Boulder Fist was definitely not the best battle skill in terms of offensive strength, however, in terms of continuous assault, it was unmatched and unrivaled in the metal-type battle skills.
If one could make full use of this skill, his entire being would surge towards the opponent like a huge rolling boulder. Especially, during contact with the opponent, if the opponent couldn’t suppress it within a short duration, it would keep on intensifying until it had struck the opponent down.
Rolling Boulder Fist had many sequences of movements, however, at the sixth layer, one could only train in a single sequence.
He Yiming was training at the center of the basement. Sometimes striking with his crisscrossed and bent arms at his front, while sometimes opening his arms wide and brandishing them in a circular manner. The entire room was echoing with the howling winds produced by his fists.
At this moment, his thoughts were completely fixed on this extraordinary battle skill. His Internal Energy was violently surging and was being drained away as if water from an open dam.
‘Ha…..Ha…’
Along with He Yiming’s continuous sequential movements, the winds produced by his fists were getting increasingly fierce. After completing the sequence once, He Yiming didn’t stop, instead, he increased the pace of his movements. Furthermore, the sequence of movements and the Internal Energy’s coordination attained a kind of extremely subtle state. The two mutually complemented each other, causing He Yiming to have a comfortable feeling like that of a fish obtaining water.
Eventually, He Yiming reached a corner of the room. At this point, by chance, he’d just finished the sequence again. With his body and mind fully immersed in training, going with the flow, his fist resolutely struck ahead.
With a bang sound, his fist heavily struck the flexible special wall of the room, causing a shallow dent to immediately appear at that spot.
He Yiming, as if awakening from a dream, returned back from his battle ambit and tongue-tied looked at the depression in front of him, as if not being able to convince himself that this was his masterpiece.
One should know this location had been specially constructed by the Family Master as a training ground for the young seedlings. The surface was molded with steel, being flexible and extremely tough. It was specially constructed for the younger generation to train in martial skills and test their cultivation.
Not to mention He Yiming had just advanced to the sixth layer, even if his Internal Energy had attained the apex of the sixth layer, he might not have been able to leave behind such a depression.
He looked at his fist. It was a little red and swelled up. He Yiming’s brows slightly creased, and his Internal Energy immediately switched to water type of Ripple technique. Layer upon layer, Internal Energy flowed through the meridians in his fist. After a short while, the swelling on his fist began to subside.
He again looked at the depression in front of him and was secretly alarmed in his heart. Being able to accomplish such a feat using the sixth layer Internal Energy, only had a single explanation: bringing forth the might of the battle skill to the fullest.
As he thought up to here, his mind turned blank.
He’d just recently began to practice this metal-type technique, could it be that, in such a short amount of time period, he’d been able to cultivate this class of martial skill to the peak?
When ordinary cultivators came into contact with a martial skill of some class, they would first carefully analyze and train, only then they would slowly begin to master it. Furthermore, the might of the martial skill they could bring forth would slowly increase along with their training, only then they would finally be able to reach the peak.
However, He Yiming’s circumstances seemed somewhat different. After little hesitation, he opened his copied notes and immediately looked at the description written at the top:
The peak effect of the sixth layer Rolling Boulder Fist: Capable of leaving behind depressions on pure steel.
Now He Yiming was certain that he’d displayed the optimum might of this martial skill.
He rubbed his nose while being extremely puzzled:
‘Could it be that my luck is good up to such an extent that my physique is extremely compatible with Rolling Boulder Fist as well?’
‘Even if this is the case, this speed is just too frightening.’
After hesitating for a bit, he eventually laid down the Rolling Boulder’s notes, which seemed a thousand jin in weight, and picked up the other martial skill, Silk Palm.
His fingers lightly caressed the notes as he pondered over it word by word.
He was certain that he hadn’t touched this martial skill before, furthermore, he’d only been in touch with a water-type cultivation technique for merely two days, however, he didn’t know why, but the contents of the Silk Palm felt extremely familiar to him, as if he’d cultivated in this martial skill beforehand.
He Yiming’s mouth slightly twitched. He was sure that he hadn’t gone insane, rather he truly understood the contents of this martial skill just by looking, and even understood it in depth. This was mere feeling, however, this feeling was extremely strong and real.
He Yiming laid down the book with a strange face and walked up to the middle of the room. The Internal Energy in his body immediately began to circulate corresponding to the water type cultivation technique, and his body began to move in a demonic manner.
Rolling Boulder Fist and Silk Palm were two distinct techniques. One emphasized on soft and flexible defense, and attack while defending; being extremely effective in attacking by borrowing strength from the opponent. While the other was offense centralized masculine kind of technique; while confronting an opponent, one would be able to become extremely imposing, causing the opponent to not being able to display his full strength.
As He Yiming began to exhibit Silk Palm, bizarre sounds began echoing in the entire room, seeming like hisses of a viper. Ordinary people would have been scared witless by such sounds. Furthermore, Yiming’s complexion turned heavy. Although his movements seemed soft, relaxed, and didn’t seem as powerful as that of the Boulder Rolling Fist, however, the force of air that was slowly rising up in the room didn’t seem the least bit inferior in comparison.
Suddenly, He Yiming hurriedly took several steps as if riding on a wind-fire ball, and instantly arrived at the location where he’d recently made that dent, before emitting out a lightly fluttering palmprint.
There wasn’t any sound, however, when He Yiming’s palm moved up, right next to the original dent, there was another dent.
These two dents hardly seemed any different, however, their appearance seemed somewhat different.
The depression caused by the Rolling Boulder Fist was somewhat distorted. The area of the dent seemed a little bigger. This was the result of an instantaneous explosion of a strong destructive power. While the depression caused due to Silk Palm was smoother and was a bit ahead in terms of depth.
As He Yiming looked at such depression marks in this seemingly impossible to penetrate flexible-wall, he felt quite regretful. If he’d learned any of these two skills before his encounter with the fox bear, he would have definitely caused that big fellow begging for death in a single strike.
‘This is the might of a martial skill. If one could bring out full potential of a martial skill, even challenging someone of higher level might not be completely impossible.’
‘But if I don’t remember wrong, be it father or elder brother, they both said that cultivation of martial skills is not easier than the cultivation of the Internal Energy at all. They even said that it was simply too hard. Sometimes, bringing forth the full might of a certain kind of martial skill is even difficult than advancing in levels of the Internal Energy.’
He Yiming scratched his head. He couldn’t understand at all. This was considered extremely hard?
After cultivating Silk Palm, He Yiming was certain about one thing: He had truly been able to display the might of these two techniques up to their peaks.
Because he’d been to his third brother’s training room. He’d seen his third brother training with his own eyes, furthermore, he’d also seen the impressions in that room’s wall.
In his opinion, both, his third brother’s training process and the impressions on the wall, were inferior to that of him.
This was not an excessive faith in himself, but an extremely impartial assessment. Though, he knew that if this assessment leaked out, what awaited him would certainly not be anything good.
Because he would be absolutely incapable of explaining how could he cultivate two martial skills to the peak within a single day. Although this was only up to the apex of the sixth layer, it was already an extremely extraordinary feat. Moreover, these were two differently attributed martial skills. Even though He Yiming was ignorant, he knew that probability of such a feat happening was much less than the chance of him running into a fox bear in the mountains.
He was feeling apprehensive. Improvement in strength was definitely a good thing, however, in his opinion, this good thing was also a burden which was hard to bear.
He had thought about informing these things to his elders, however, he gave up on doing so. He knew that such a condition of his body was too strange.
He was vaguely aware that this change had some connection with his strange encounter at the lake. After that day, his feats could no longer be covered with the word ‘genius’, if one insisted on looking for a word to describe his feats, that would be ‘devilish’.
And this was also the true reason he absolutely didn’t dare to open his mouth….