chsdbacks Chapter 1 Nine Palaces Living Pole
Chapter 1 Nine Palaces Living Pole
"At eighteen, you'll be required to serve in the military and undergo three months of mandatory martial arts training!"
"You are still young now, and you may think this is a hardship. But you will know later that the big exam in three months may be your only chance to change your destiny."
"Success makes you a dragon, failure makes you a worm; whether you become a dragon or a worm, it all comes down to this one gamble!"
In the cramped and simple wooden house, Lu Ming slowly woke up. Hearing the continuous "thump-thump-thump" sounds of striking outside, he recalled the words the martial arts master had said a few days ago and shook his head.
It's barely dawn, and many people are already up practicing. Who thinks this is a hardship? Look at how all of them are rolled up!
However, after a while, Lu Ming also got up despite feeling sleepy.
He had experienced the college entrance examination in his previous life and was very familiar with it. After awakening his memories of his previous life a few days ago, he quickly integrated into it.
However, this world is different from the previous one. Here, martial arts are revered, and martial arts masters can reach the heavens and the earth, establish their own lineages, and be worshipped by all people!
He was born into a commoner family, and his only opportunity to learn martial arts was the martial arts service that everyone had to go through when they turned eighteen!
The military service was overseen by the local military service office and lasted for three months, culminating in a major examination.
Ultimately, half of the participants will be eliminated, forced to revert to civilian status, and forbidden from practicing martial arts. Those originally from farming families will be forced to farm, and those from artisan families will become artisans; no one is allowed to disobey these rules.
Secondly, half of those who reach the passing grade are eliminated, and they only obtain the status of martial artist. Martial artists can work in martial arts schools, security escort agencies, and other martial arts professions, and can continue to practice martial arts.
Those who ultimately remain are the true martial arts talents, qualified to join a martial arts sect.
It can be said that the military service exam will likely determine their fate for life!
Once you are able to enter a martial arts sect, it means that you will soar to great heights and become a person of high status.
Conversely, if they are eliminated and become ordinary citizens, they will have to rely on others for the rest of their lives.
Lost in thought, he quickly finished washing up, filled his stomach with dry food, and then pushed open the door to go out of the house. He immediately saw a narrow courtyard enclosed by earthen walls on both sides.
The surrounding area was lined with small courtyards like these. Each of the four hundred disciples had their own private courtyard, convenient for practicing their skills!
In the middle of the courtyard stood three rows and three columns of a nine-square-grid pillar. The spacing between the pillars was about 1.2 meters.
At this moment, before dawn, the sounds of walking on stakes and striking wooden stakes could be heard all around.
This is the martial art that the Martial Arts Department taught them: the Nine Palaces Living Stance!
It looks very much like the Nine Palaces Stance of Baguazhang from a previous life. The eight directions of Bagua, plus the central direction, make up the Nine Palaces.
However, the Nine Palaces Living Pole of the Military Service Division is a bit different. The upper body of all the wooden stakes is in the form of a puppet, with a chest, abdomen, hands and a head, and is not a straight wooden stake.
When disciples practice, in addition to walking on the stake, they must also strike specific parts marked with red dots to make a sound in order to be considered successful.
And not a single shot can be missed; it has to be nine shots.
only……
Lu Ming changed into his gray training clothes and came to the Nine Palaces Stance. His eyes flickered as he looked at the red dots marked on different parts of the nine wooden stakes.
Having been reborn, he was naturally unwilling to become an ordinary person and be driven by those martial arts experts!
Even if he doesn't become a martial arts prodigy and enter a sect, he should at least obtain the status of a martial artist in three months and be qualified to continue practicing martial arts.
However, this means he needs to be in the top 200.
If we're just talking about talent, his talent for martial arts is not weak.
The Nine Palaces Standing Posture, with its three breaths and nine sounds, is the entry-level technique. One breath is one inhale and one exhale, which takes about three seconds.
In just half a month, his Nine Palaces Living Posture had reached the level of five breaths and nine sounds, only two breaths away from entering the realm.
This talent ranks in the upper-middle range among all the disciples!
However, martial arts training is not just about talent.
He can only practice for a maximum of two hours a day, after which he must rest, otherwise he will definitely injure his hands, or even strain the muscles and joints of his legs and feet.
His parents died early, and he lived a difficult life on his own since childhood, with no extra money to buy medicine for his injuries.
Even excluding the few dozen wealthy disciples, most of the other disciples came from families with better financial conditions than him.
Many people have ample medicine for injuries. Although they can't practice all the time even with medicine, they can still practice for at least one or two hours more each day and have twice the skill level of him.
Without a clear advantage in talent, his final results were not optimistic.
"That's not fair!" Just then, someone nearby said, "Chen Jinyang, Shen Jue and the others have practiced martial arts since they were young, they're not even on the same level as us, yet they're being tested together."
"It's always been true that it's difficult for children from poor families to achieve great things! Even if those people only start practicing martial arts now, their families have a large supply of medicine for injuries, which is something we can't compare to."
"How can our three months of hard training compare to their decades of accumulated experience? The Military Service Department claims to be selecting geniuses, yet they fail to see this unfairness!"
Once one person started it, those around them immediately felt the same way and expressed their resentment.
Boom boom boom!
Just then, Lu Ming suddenly heard a knock on the door.
He opened the door with a puzzled look, and his eyes lit up immediately. The man who came in was burly and imposing; it was none other than Shen Jue, the young master of the Shen family in the city!
Shen Jue was wearing a white training uniform. Compared to his gray coarse cloth training uniform, the white training uniform was made of silk and was bright and shiny, making the difference immediately apparent.
Upon seeing this, Lu Ming felt a surge of excitement. Only disciples who had mastered the Nine Palaces Stance to the point of three breaths and nine repetitions or more would be awarded this white training uniform.
There are now about two hundred martial arts disciples dressed in white training uniforms.
In other words, in just half a month, he had fallen to below 200th place and was on the verge of elimination!
Therefore, after he awakened his memories, he tried to earn money to buy medicine for his injuries so that he could practice more every day. Shen Jue was one of his clients.
Seeing him open the door, Shen Jue immediately said:
"Lu Ming, tell me another top-tier luxury item so my friends can broaden their horizons, hehe! See if I can get them a few martial arts manuals to look at."
Shen Jue's words were rather impolite, which Lu Ming inwardly grumbled, but he didn't say anything more, instead using the words he had already prepared:
"Senior Brother Shen, that's the anthill."
Shen Jue frowned and said, "Ant nest? You mean the anthill? What's so luxurious about that?"
Lu Ming laughed and said, "Ordinary ant nests are nothing special."
"But if you pour the liquid made from melted gold into an ant nest, creating a golden ant nest, that would be extremely extravagant."
"The luster of gold, combined with the intricate network of tunnels in an anthill, makes it an absolute luxury item."
"There's only one drawback: gold is too expensive, and it's quite heavy, making it difficult to build an entire anthill..."
Before he could finish speaking, Shen Jue exclaimed with great joy:
"Great idea! You've come up with something great. I knew I hadn't misjudged you!"
"I'll go get one right now."
"Lu Ming, you're a talented person. If you don't pass the big exam later, you can work for me."
As Shen Jue spoke, she handed him a bottle of ointment, then turned and hurried away.
Lu Ming watched his retreating figure, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
Having been immersed in five thousand years of Chinese history in his previous life, he naturally knew about some extremely luxurious items, so he used these "creative ideas" to exchange with Shen Jue.
He had initially thought that the Golden Ant Nest was too expensive and might not suit Shen Jue's taste, but he didn't expect that Shen Jue would so easily agree to get one.
Ordinary people could never earn that much gold in their entire lives; to Shen Jue, it was just a toy to play with.
Is this the unevenness of the world?
As for serving Shen Jue? That's just a euphemism; in reality, it's being a servant. For someone who failed the imperial examinations, being a servant of a wealthy family is the best possible outcome.
Lu Ming shook his head dismissively and turned back to the courtyard.
Holding the medicine in his hand, a sense of joy welled up inside him. He didn't feel that this major exam was particularly unfair.
Luck and family background are sometimes also part of one's strength; he understood this principle in his previous life.
Similarly... his supernatural abilities panel is also a part of his strength!
boom!
After closing the courtyard gate, Lu Ming's eyes flashed. He opened the medicine bottle and applied some of the brown ointment to his fingers, thighs, knees, and ankles.
The area where the ointment was applied felt cool at first, then slightly warm, and the pain caused by yesterday's excessive walking quickly subsided.
Without hesitation, he took a step forward, his hands in front and his body behind, and began to walk the Nine Palaces Living Stakes.
He walked in an arc around the stakes, his eyes fixed on the red dots on each stake, striking the stakes with his hands as he saw them.
"Knock knock knock..."
Five breaths passed, and the wooden stakes resounded nine times. He then stepped out from the other end of the nine-palace stakes.
[Evolving acupoint supernatural power (99/100)...]