"Chuan, stop practicing for now and come down for dinner. Master Luo called for you."
"Coming, Aunt. I'll be right down."
Meng Chuan quickly wiped the sweat from his martial arts training off his forehead with a towel and followed his aunt downstairs back to the house.
As soon as he got downstairs, Meng Chuan picked up the phone to call Master Luo back.
"Hello, Master Luo, what's up?"
"You just went to practice your fists, right? How did it go?"
"Success, six consecutive booms from a single strike!"
On the other end of the line, Luo Guanyun was momentarily silent, showing a bit of surprise at Meng Chuan's words.
Ever since Meng Chuan attained enlightenment, Luo Guanyun had been well aware of his rapid progress.
Every evening when training with Meng Chuan, he could visibly see his improvements.
But the problem is, any martial art that reaches mastery will normally hit a bottleneck.
Luo Guanyun believed Meng Chuan would definitely overcome it, but he didn't anticipate that the bottleneck wouldn't stop him at all; instead, he broke through it seamlessly.
"Can you maintain six strikes consistently?"
When practicing fists, martial artists sometimes experience a sudden enlightenment.
This enables them to instantaneously surpass the limits of their current martial arts; for instance, breaking through from five consecutive strikes to six.
However, once the state of enlightenment fades, there is often a regression in skill level, which frequently occurs during martial arts breakthroughs.
After regressing, martial artists usually have to spend considerable time pondering that moment of enlightenment to stabilize and enhance their fist skills again.
"Don't worry, Master Luo, I can maintain it."
With the "Once a Proof, Always a Proof" technique, regression for Meng Chuan was impossible; once acquired, its value was everlasting.
"Good! Let's find some time to go to the martial arts hall to test your Qi and Blood to see if you've broken through the fourth point to reach the third Qi and Blood Gate."
Since his disciple had started late in Qi Blood cultivation, Luo Guanyun paid extra attention to it.
"Master has some errands to run during the day, so you practice on your own, and come over at the usual time in the evening."
"Got it, Master Luo."
Actually, even if Master Luo hadn't mentioned it, he had other plans for today.
With New Year's approaching, Meng Chuan planned to give his friends some gifts, but he'd hardly touched the 300,000 money he had, so he felt a bit confident.
His uncle, having heard the phone call end, turned and urged:
"Are you done? Come and eat."
"Okay, Uncle."
"Are you going to your master's place later? I can drive you there."
"Master Luo has things to do during the day, so I won't go, I'll head over tonight."
His uncle picked up chopsticks and served food to Meng Chuan:
"Has martial arts training been tough lately?"
Meng Chuan wolfed down his food:
"Not tiring at all. I'm going to test my Qi and Blood in a couple of days; I've just mastered the fist skill, so there should be a minor breakthrough in Qi and Blood."
Meng Yongzhi's heart skipped a beat; Meng Chuan had just broken through to the second Qi and Blood Gate days ago, and another breakthrough would mean reaching his level?
"Are you about to enter the third Qi and Blood Gate?"
"Very likely, even if not, I can just enhance my body technique a bit more."
"Good job! You little brat..."
Meng Yongzhi was so excited he could hardly speak coherently. He's 46 and at the third Qi Blood Gate, and Meng Chuan is achieving that at just 16.
"Won't getting into Yong'an Martial Arts University be a certainty then?"
Meng Yongzhi couldn't help but expect it deep down.
With Meng Yongzhi's recent explanations, Xue Na had come to understand that her nephew's martial arts talent was not inferior at all.
She felt life was becoming more hopeful, and at this moment, she raised a glass and said:
"True gold fears no fire; keep on going, Chuan!"
"Thank you, Aunt."
"Cheers!"
...
[Tianwu Technology reminds you, Wanxiang Tiandi Station has arrived; please take your bags, wallets, and other belongings and exit the train in an orderly manner.]
When he went out, Meng Chuan still preferred taking the electric train—not only because it was fast and had no traffic, but mainly because of the densely gathered crowds on the train, where Yang energy was strong, deterring weak Celestial Demons.
Unless it was a Wise Celestial Demon, which had its own thinking and behavior logic, typical Unwise Celestial Demons instinctively avoided large crowds.
It is well known that Celestial Demons originate from Demon Nests, which are born in the Celestial Demon Realm, and their appearances are not entirely without pattern.
Allegedly, Celestial Demons oppose humans because they can leverage humans' negative emotions to ascend and enhance their power.
Whether it's sorrow, fear, or greed and jealousy, all emotional fluctuations in humans are nourishment for the demons' advancement.
Often, the largest negative emotions—profound sadness and terror—arise during death and separation.
Thus, during the period when a Level 4 Demon Nest appeared outside Yong'an City, Meng Chuan made an effort to stay close to crowds and maintain emotional stability to avoid encountering Celestial Demons.
Meng Chuan's current strength was still weak; even the most basic Celestial Demon was beyond his match.
However, Meng Chuan was always good at emotional management; even when practicing the National Righteousness Fist and facing public misunderstanding, he was indifferent.
In his daily life, he hardly experienced any major emotional fluctuations and calmly faced everyone and everything.
Having memories from a previous life, having died once already, really left nothing worth fearing.
So, the incident in Tong Family Lane was just an anomaly.
This information is all available on the Martial Arts Association's website, but because Great Chu is generally peaceful and the tall ones will block the sky from falling, Celestial Demon invasions are infrequent and the public isn't truly concerned.
This time, the Tong Family Lane incident wasn't covered up by officials. Instead, it was widely reported and publicized to instill a sense of caution in people's hearts.
People learn from experience, not from others teaching them.
People often only remember to be cautious after something happens.
...
Wanxiang Tiandi was a newly built high-end, large-scale shopping mall in Yong'an, covering nearly 160 acres, with a total investment of nearly a billion.
As he approached the entrance, Meng Chuan looked up to see an enormous, over a hundred-meter tall "Mechanical Tree," the Tree of the Future, standing majestically before him, exuding technological tension.
While admiring this man-made giant tree, Meng Chuan silently marveled at the rapid advancement of technology, which was in no way inferior to Martial Arts.
Before the rise of martial arts, technology was always the dominant theme of the world.
Although modern society, due to the threat of Celestial Demons, has seen martial arts development catch up, pushing science and technology off the pedestal.
But technology has developed so far that it remains undeniably useful.
On one hand, it can bring convenience to human life, and on the other, it can support martial arts development, despite the impurities in various martial arts supplements available on the market, future technology improvements will hopefully resolve these side effects.
Moreover, technological advancement also represents an enhancement in firepower.
One of the three major categories of Celestial Demons, the Solid Celestial Demons, can be eliminated using hot weapons once their Celestial Demon Force Field is destroyed.
However, the more dangerous categories, the Void and Conceptual Celestial Demons, require martial artists to fight them physically, with hot weapons being completely ineffective.
"Let's go inside to look around and choose some gifts for them."