Chapter 67: Wilderness Training, Extreme Hardship
About a day later, Zhang Peng hurried back to the library and took Chen Ming away.
After learning that Chen Ming had defeated Lu Genggeng, along with the series of events that followed, Zhang Peng showed little emotional fluctuation. He only let out a small sigh of relief.
"No matter what you do, do not absorb a thousand-year Spirit Bone. That kind of thing will only take up one of your Spirit Bone slots. With your talent, it is better to have no Spirit Bone than to absorb a thousand-year one, understood? Unless it is an external Spirit Bone or some other growth-type treasure, every Spirit Bone must be considered carefully."
"As for making Lu Genggeng cry, don't worry about it."
Zhang Peng waved his hand, and a beast spirit separated from his shadow. A short while later, it returned to him.
"Alright, I've already warned Hate Douluo. If he doesn't discipline his grandson properly, I'll break his legs. If anything happens to you, I'll twist his head off."
In Zhang Peng's eyes, the Rank 91 Hate Douluo was nothing more than a weakling he could defeat with one hand. Since neither of them could be considered good people anyway, Zhang Peng's threat was perfectly righteous.
No matter how much Hate Douluo doted on Lu Genggeng, he could only swallow his anger and yield before Zhang Peng.
Taking Chen Ming with him, Zhang Peng left the Holy Spirit Cult's headquarters and headed toward a remote, undeveloped region.
Whether on the Douluo Continent or the Sun Moon Continent, there were actually many undeveloped areas. Some were too remote to develop, while others were too barren to be worth developing. These places, devoid of human presence, became paradises for Spirit Beasts.
Given the status of master and disciple, as well as their consumption of Spirit Beasts, only such a place would allow them to fully unleash themselves.
Zhang Peng brought Chen Ming to a primeval forest located near the coastal edge of the Douluo Continent. Although the origin energy of heaven and earth here was far inferior to the core area of the Evil Demon Forest, it was still fairly good among Spirit Beast gathering places.
On the outskirts of the primeval forest, Zhang Peng casually killed a two-thousand-year bear-type Spirit Beast and occupied its cave. After clearing away the traces left by the bear-type Spirit Beast and furnishing the interior with some furniture, the cave became a temporary residence for Zhang Peng and Chen Ming.
In this sparsely populated primeval forest, Zhang Peng began teaching Chen Ming his cultivation insights and profound truths.
For the first few days, Zhang Peng personally took Chen Ming out, planning routes and exploring the locations of various Spirit Beast groups. Later, once Chen Ming had begun adapting to the environment, Zhang Peng simply stayed in the cave and issued tasks to Chen Ming every day.
Sometimes he had Chen Ming hunt a Spirit Beast in a distant location. Sometimes he had him gather medicinal herbs from a specific terrain. Through this, Chen Ming constantly traversed the primeval forest, clashed with all kinds of Spirit Beasts, and learned how to deal with different situations.
It was also in this environment that Chen Ming gradually began turning some of his internal cultivation ideas into reality.
In his previous life, Chen Ming had read many wuxia novels. Some of the cultivation techniques inside were entirely fictional, but many moves and training methods were relatively realistic.
Chen Ming had even read books on martial arts in the library and knew a little about how they were practiced.
Among them, Chen Ming focused on three things.
The first was a hand-tempering method, Iron Sand Palm.
The method involved pouring iron sand into a large pot, mixing it with medicinal herbs, and then repeatedly thrusting both hands into the iron sand to temper and polish them. Different medicinal formulas and hand-washing medicinal wines would produce different schools of Iron Sand Palm.
Although Iron Sand Palm seemed like a common palm technique that almost everyone in wuxia novels knew, it was actually a high-level martial art that required painstaking effort to master.
It emphasized "Qi penetrating the palm, power reaching the four extremities," and "the fist originates from the heart, while power originates from the palm." Once it reached major achievement, it was enough to shatter stone monuments.
Chen Ming did not know the medicinal formulas for tempering Iron Sand Palm, nor did he know the recipes for hand-washing medicinal wine. However, he could use the Blood Medicine Art as a core and combine it with various medicinal formulas to make targeted improvements.
He chose to use Spirit Beast blood as a medicinal primer, combining it with many medicinal herbs. He captured the Five Poisons, crushed them, mixed them into the iron sand, then heated the iron sand with fierce fire to temper his palms.
While training his palm strength, he absorbed blood malice and toxins into his palms, aiming to eventually cultivate a pair of Blood Malice Palms. The palm force would be fierce and carry potent poison. A single strike would cause both internal and external injuries.
When ordinary people practiced Iron Sand Palm into Poison Sand Palm, it would cause some degree of backlash. However, Chen Ming's traits could help him control this.
The second was a body-refining method, Iron Shirt.
Like Iron Sand Palm, it was a technique that looked common but was actually extremely practical. By constantly striking the body's surface and using special internal training methods to strengthen the bones and muscles, many people in Chen Ming's previous life who could bend spears with their bodies had practiced Iron Shirt.
However, unlike Iron Sand Palm, which used blood malice to refine poison palms, Chen Ming chose to use whale-type Spirit Beast oil combined with many medicines as support when practicing Iron Shirt.
The main focus was internal and external toughness, forming a unified whole, and maximizing the durability and defensive power of his Abomination Martial Soul. The Iron Shirt of his previous life might not necessarily have been able to resist blades and spears, but Chen Ming's Iron Shirt in this life would certainly be strong enough.
After one offensive technique and one defensive technique, the third thing Chen Ming chose was a movement technique, Flying on Grass.
This was a general training method. Simply put, it involved adding weight to one's feet and body, then constantly running through various environments. Eventually, after removing the weights, one would become as light and swift as if flying across grass.
Chen Ming's massive Martial Soul meant he did not need too much agility or delicate dodging. What he needed was wide-range, high-intensity explosive movement. Therefore, instead of trying to obtain the Tang Sect's Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, Chen Ming focused more on training his own burst power.
Although these training methods were fairly common techniques from Chen Ming's previous life, common did not mean ineffective.
The more common a technique was, the more practical it had to be, and the more it needed its own advantages. Otherwise, with so many common techniques in existence, why would anyone learn one that was not worth the cost?
Of course, turning these ideas into practice still came with many problems, but Chen Ming had a teacher. Zhang Peng was more than capable of helping Chen Ming correct the details and translate these techniques from his previous life into actionable training tasks.
After gradually matching the training methods with the cultivation route of his internal skill and slightly changing the path and flow speed of spirit power through his Meridians, what Chen Ming displayed was a "self-created Spirit Ability" that even Zhang Peng had to nod at in approval.
Normally, practicing under a waterfall would have been a very reasonable cultivation method. The problem was that Chen Ming carried toxins and plagues. If he trained beneath a waterfall for a long period, the toxins seeping from his body would enter the water source and cause problems for the entire ecosystem.
Although Chen Ming did not mind consuming large numbers of Spirit Beasts, he still wanted to avoid destroying the natural environment as much as possible.
During training, Chen Ming's adaptability gradually began to show itself. Through repeated beatings, impacts, and cultivation, his body grew stronger at an unreasonable speed.
Iron Sand Palm and Iron Shirt were originally external skills that required more than ten years of painstaking effort to reach major achievement. However, with Chen Ming's adaptability, his body rapidly grew during the tempering process, and the progress of these two external skills advanced at rocket-like speed.
Most external skills used the human body's natural adaptability, slowly stimulating the body through day after day of training to achieve the desired results.
Whether it was ordinary physical exercise or external skills like Iron Sand Palm and Iron Shirt, their essence was the same. There was nothing particularly mysterious about it.
But Chen Ming's adaptability was dozens of times stronger than that of an ordinary person.
A wound that would take a normal person several months to recover from would mostly heal on Chen Ming in a single day. Environments that normal people could not tolerate could be adapted to by Chen Ming in a short period.
He began by using trees as targets, then gradually moved on to using Spirit Beasts as sparring partners.
Every injury and every stimulus made Chen Ming's body more suited to the surrounding environment.
During this process, Chen Ming also gradually gained a deeper understanding of his Golden Finger.
Suppose he wanted to hold his breath underwater. His Golden Finger would gradually increase his lung capacity and reduce his oxygen consumption, allowing him to hold his breath for a long time like a whale.
If he continued adapting to an underwater environment and developed the desire to stay underwater for long periods, then given enough time, his body would mutate even further. It might begin to grow organs like gills for underwater breathing, completely altering his biological structure.
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