"Hm?"
Upon seeing the bamboo scroll and the faint, ancient characters upon it, a hint of surprise appeared on Lu Yun’s otherwise calm face for the first time.
’This... is different from the usual "Imperial Palace Treasures."’
For the past few years, the items Brother Chu sent over were mostly relics from the Yin Dynasty.
For example, there were ancient paintings treasured by the founding emperor and Emperor Taizong of the Yin Dynasty, poems written in the imperial hand, and certain artifacts with special significance used by emperors throughout the ages...
Or exquisite jade artifacts from the Imperial Treasury.
In any case, every single piece was a priceless antique. But this time, it was actually a seemingly ordinary, even somewhat damaged, bamboo scroll?
Although Lu Yun was surprised, his hands didn’t stop moving.
After lifting the entire scroll from the wooden box, he gently placed it to the side.
Then, Lu Yun silently looked at the bottom of the wooden box.
As expected, there was something else there: a neatly folded piece of high-quality white paper.
’What on earth did Brother Chu send this time?’
’"Hard Qigong"... it looks very much like a Martial Arts Cultivation Technique!’
Lu Yun’s confusion deepened. The value of this bamboo scroll was probably not as simple as it appeared on the surface.
’Whatever. I’ll see what Brother Chu wrote first.’
Lu Yun reached out and picked up the folded white paper from the bottom of the box.
Every time Brother Chu sent one of these "Imperial Palace Treasures," he would include a handwritten letter briefly explaining the artifact’s origin.
Lu Yun unfolded the paper. The characters on it were written with a brush.
The handwriting couldn’t be called beautiful; it was even a bit crooked and sloppy. As a former Imperial Guard of the previous dynasty, Brother Chu was accustomed to using a brush his entire life and had always been dismissive of those fountain pens imported from the Western World.
Lu Yun, of course, didn’t mind the unsightly handwriting. Instead, his expression was focused as he carefully read it, character by character.
"Younger Brother Lu, may this letter find you well."
"Over these past five years, I have gradually entrusted to you all the treasures I could save. This item is the most precious thing I have ever encountered in my life."
"This item was found in an extremely hidden compartment in the Imperial Palace Yujie Hall. At that time, the Imperial Palace was in chaos. Eunuchs, Palace Maids... even some so-called ministers taking advantage of the turmoil were like a plague of locusts, frantically looting the treasures of every hall."
"No one noticed that behind a bookshelf in Yujie Hall, there was a hidden compartment in the wall that held a secret world."
"I took advantage of the chaos to sneak in and was fortunate enough to open the compartment. There was nothing else inside but this single bamboo scroll. Two words were carved on the inner wall of the compartment."
"Zulong Dynasty"
"After obtaining this bamboo scroll, I opened it to have a look. At first, I didn’t understand it, but upon closer inspection, I realized that this item truly came from the Zulong Dynasty of five hundred years ago!"
"Furthermore, what is recorded on it is neither history nor poetry, but an extremely profound and inscrutable Horizontal Body Cultivation Technique!"
"At that moment, I was ecstatic, believing it to be a heaven-sent opportunity. I thought I could use this supreme Cultivation Technique to break through my shackles and step into the long-dreamed-of Grandmaster Realm."
"However, after reading it through, I found the opening principles of this Cultivation Technique to be obscure and profound. It cannot be comprehended unless one has reached the realm of a Grandmaster of Huajin!"
"I am old and my body is weak, my qi and blood are in decline. The Peak of Anjin is my limit; I have no hope of achieving this in my lifetime."
"A thousand words cannot express everything, but it is all within this scroll."
"This bamboo scroll is my last and most precious treasure. I hope you will keep it safe. Do not let such a supreme inheritance from the Zulong Dynasty fall into the hands of Western World barbarians or those who have forgotten their ancestors."
"I fear my time is short. A storm is brewing in Yanjing City, and the pursuit grows tighter by the day. This parting may well be our last."
The letter ended there.
Lu Yun’s fingers, holding the letter, tightened slightly. ’A Horizontal Cultivation Technique from the Zulong Dynasty?’
’Only a Grandmaster of Huajin can cultivate it?’
No wonder Brother Chu was so solemn this time, and even implied in the letter that it was his last.
’He probably already sensed that he was in extreme danger, and perhaps he has already...’
Thinking of this, Lu Yun slowly put down the letter, his gaze returning to the ancient bamboo scroll on the table.
He didn’t rush to touch it. Instead, he extended the index finger of his right hand and flicked it through the air toward the thin string binding the scroll.
A strand of invisible Qi, barely perceptible to the naked eye, shot through the air and precisely cut the knot in the string.
The string snapped, and the freed bamboo scroll naturally sprung open a little.
Only then did Lu Yun reach out with both hands, lift the scroll from the table, and slowly unroll it.
The scroll was made of several dozen polished, dark-colored bamboo slips strung together. The characters on them were written with some kind of special ink.
His eyes swept slowly from right to left across the unrolled scroll.
The beginning featured three lines of large characters, written with the fluid and powerful strokes of a master calligrapher.
Qi surges from within, skin and fascia turn to refined iron.
Tendons and bones become like black gold, organs teem with vigor.
A single qi permeates the body, impervious to all techniques.
Reading this, Lu Yun’s first impression was that this "Hard Qigong" was clearly not an ordinary Horizontal External Training technique.
Lu Yun had seen many ordinary Horizontal Cultivation Techniques in his youth. They basically all emphasized tempering the tendons, bones, skin, and fascia from the outside in, nourishing the body with potent medicinal supplements.
But these first three lines directly pointed to "Qi surges from within," emphasizing a process from the inside out. It used the Qi of a Grandmaster of Huajin as the source to temper the skin and fascia, making them as hard as refined iron.
Next was strengthening the tendons and bones to be as tough as black gold, and finally, stabilizing the internal organs to make them full of vitality.
After completing these steps, one would reach the supreme realm of "A single qi permeates the body, impervious to all techniques."
At this, Lu Yun’s heart began to beat uncontrollably faster.
He had only recently broken through to Huajin, and he also had the Extreme Blue Martial Arts Modifier. He had just been wondering where he could find some Horizontal Cultivation Techniques to improve his own safety.
This Horizontal Cultivation Technique from the Zulong Dynasty, sent by Brother Chu, was simply a godsend—no, it was like a treasure tailor-made for him.
Lu Yun suppressed his excitement and continued to focus, carefully reading the even more profound and obscure text that followed on the bamboo scroll.
It mostly consisted of specific qi circulation routes and shortcuts for body tempering assisted by medicinal bath formulas.
These concepts completely exceeded the scope of Lu Yun’s existing Martial Arts knowledge, opening a door for him to a whole new world of Martial Arts.
He skimmed it once and roughly understood the realm divisions of this "Hard Qigong."
This Horizontal Cultivation Technique is divided into three floors.
1st Floor: Iron Skin. Using the unique condensed Qi of a Grandmaster of Huajin, one nourishes and tempers the skin and fascia of the entire body, day and night, following specific acupoints and meridian pathways.
Cultivating this method requires perseverance; according to the scroll’s description, it takes over a decade of hard work.
Only then can the skin and fascia become as tough as iron, impervious to ordinary blades, reaching a level where one can withstand bullets from common Western firearms and resist sneak attacks from various hidden weapons!
This 1st Floor is indeed simple for a Grandmaster of Huajin, but it still requires extremely high talent to comprehend the technique’s mysteries.
2nd Floor: Steel Bones. Building on the foundation of "Iron Skin," one further uses Qi to deeply temper the bones of the entire body, making them dense and tough, like steel tempered a hundred times!
The difficulty of this cultivation increases severalfold, and the time required is despairingly long.
The bamboo scroll explicitly states that it requires a full sixty-year cycle of practice to potentially succeed.
The 3rd Floor is Eternal Golden Fortress. This is the highest realm, requiring one to drive Qi deep into the five viscera and six bowels, the bone marrow, and even the blood for tempering!
This makes the internal organs as stable as mountains, qi and blood as condensed as mercury, bone marrow full, and blood teeming with vigorous life force!
After reaching this realm, the physical body is nearly perfected. It becomes impervious to fire and water, and common poisons, malevolent qi, and sinister forces will find it difficult to invade, dispelling all evil!
But the cultivation time... requires over a hundred years!
Reading this, even Lu Yun couldn’t help but feel a sense of speechlessness and... absurdity.
The 1st Floor, "Iron Skin," takes over a decade of hard work. For a Martial Artist who has stepped into Huajin, although it’s a long time, it’s still barely acceptable. After all, the increase in Defense Power is tangible.
But starting from the 2nd Floor, "Steel Bones," it gets a little ridiculous! A sixty-year cycle! Sixty years!
I ask you, in all the world, how many Grandmasters of Huajin can live long enough to finish cultivating this floor?
Grandmasters of Huajin certainly live longer than ordinary people, with vigorous qi and blood, but they generally only break through with great difficulty after their fifties or sixties. They are already "old geezers" by then!
Making them spend another sixty years practicing the 2nd Floor? They would probably die of old age before they even finished!
As for the 3rd Floor, "Eternal Golden Fortress," over a hundred years... that’s a realm straight out of myth and legend!
Perhaps it was only possible to truly master it in a legendary era like the Zulong Dynasty, which was said to be overflowing with Spiritual Qi and produced countless Qi Cultivators.
Perhaps there are peerless geniuses who can break through to become a Grandmaster of Huajin at twenty or thirty, but how many of those freaks of nature are there in the entire world?
The vast majority of Martial Artists, including a "genius" like Lu Yun himself, only reached the Peak of Anjin at the age of thirty.
Afterward, he hit a bottleneck and struggled at the Peak of Anjin for thirty agonizing years.
If it weren’t for the heaven-defying opportunity of the "Extreme Blue Martial Arts Modifier," Lu Yun wouldn’t just have failed to break through to Huajin—it’s questionable whether he would have even lived to seventy!
In his youth, in order to survive and fight in chaotic times, he drifted through various dangerous battlefields and gang conflicts, accumulating countless hidden injuries.
This was also why, at the mere age of sixty, Lu Yun’s hair was already white, and he even needed a cane to walk.
’No wonder Brother Chu said only a Grandmaster of Huajin could practice this Cultivation Technique,’ Lu Yun thought with a wry smile. ’Who can afford to spend this much time?’

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