Hey...It's been awhile, but at least I found a temporary solution so you guys don't have to read my annoying text at the top of every chapter now. Yay?
"That's it! That's how it is! There's no such thing as qi cultivation, the word 'qi' is way too misleading! It's electricity, that's what it is. The human body is filled with countless electrochemical signals. Everything from thinking to the coordination of organs all rely on electrical pulses."
Electricity was the energy that supported the activities of all living beings. It was electrochemical signals which transmitted the brain's intentions to the rest of the body. From the internal organs to the muscles, their ability to function all relied on the ever-present electrochemical reactions. Heat energy was required for the release of this bioelectricity, and the source of this heat were the cells at work in the body.
There was no such thing as the qi'hai, a place in the human body where qi was gathered and stored. Most body heat was generated from fat and muscles. The meridians were just a dozen of extremely important roads with a lot of traffic, while over 90 percent of acupoints and hidden junctions were points of intersection for vital energy. In geographical terms, they were essentially strategic crossroads!
"Meridians, acupoints, you can't unblock them, because for a normal healthy person, they're already naturally unblocked! If they weren't, you'd be completely paralyzed! In fact, if certain meridians and acupoints were actually blocked, you'd already be dead!"
Even if it were truly possible to cultivate some form of energy, the idea of breaking through acupoints and unblocking meridians to level up would still be wrong. Such a theory simply defied basic principles. It was like a transmission line; if the circuit itself was blocked, it would be useless no matter how powerful the electricity was, and would instead destroy the line from overheating.
"Every person is born with qi! Not just humans, but animals, too! This is the basis for all life activities. It's only blocked in the bodies of unhealthy people. If cultivation exists, it should be about strengthening the tolerance of these pathways, which is the vital energy system I'm currently sensing. The higher its tolerance, the stronger the energy of the human body."
It was like nuclear fusion; despite the fact that such a powerful energy source had already been invented, humans were still incapable of harnessing its power because there was no reactor able to withstand temperatures surpassing hundreds of millions of degrees.
Using the data that he saw and his own knowledge of biology, Huang Ji quickly came to understand the true essence of qi masked under all of the enigmatic language.
"Heat is the source of existence, while electricity of the source of life. The two together allow for the existence of living beings. It's the exact same for electronics. Humans are just a type of biological electronic.
"If you had to say that refined qi is real, then should it be called 'refined electricity'? Qi cultivation should also be called 'electricity cultivation'? Everyone's vital energy operates at a different rhythm. If a person could strengthen their internal energy--or should I say electrical field--just enough, and then drive it into another persons body through their fists, they would be able to intercept that person's life circuit and damage their life rhythm, creating all sorts of mystical 'internal injuries'.
"A simple palm thrust would be able to cripple a person's kidneys, or cause heart failure with a mere finger jab... On the flip side, it could also be used with the numerous positive junction points in the body to strengthen its capabilities."
The more he thought about it, the greater Huang Ji felt convinced. He could perceive any person's vital energy system. If he could learn how to use the energy within the human body, its uses would be infinite.
Humans weren't the only ones with junction points, animals and even plants had them, too! Huang Ji had seen before the junction points of trees. Theoretically speaking, he could also apply pressure points to trees.
Based on this, aliens were probably no exception! No matter what type of lifeforms they were, aliens must have still had a source of energy and pathways that supported their life functions. At most, they would just have a more special energy source. Even robots had these sorts of life pathways.
"Wait a second, robots? Then what about rocks? Does life and death exist for all things in the universe?"
The moment this thought appeared in his head, he immediately sensed the staggered pulse signal model1 of the computer. They existed internally and were also being emitted. But it wasn't only for the computer: the lights, fridge, router, and even the walls, bookcase, and floor...
"Shield! Shield!" Huang Ji immediately realized that he had to block out this information, but that momentary barrage of data was still enough to knock him out as he collapsed to the ground unconscious.
By the time he woke up, night fall was soon approaching. Enduring a splitting headache, Huang Ji rushed back to the apartment. He made it back just in time for dinner. Zheng Xuan simply assumed that he'd spent another afternoon reading again and didn't ask any questions.
After this experience, Huang Ji's plan to strengthen his body began to take shape. He first found an opportunity to log into the martial art enthusiast's cloud drive again and made a copy of all the martial arts and qi exercises they'd collected. He then started checking their "success rate" to select the best technique capable of regulating and channeling the human body's energy. Once it had become clear to Huang Ji the truth about "internal energy", the information pertaining to this data also opened up to him.
"What's all this crap. Their success rates are all ridiculously low!" Huang Ji shook his head as he went through them. The initial success rate check had already eliminated more than half of the martial arts! Some martial arts didn't have any effect in channeling the human body's electricity, or they had remarkably low success rates. There were only fifteen martial arts that had this effect when practiced! And out of these fifteen, thirteen of them had an energy efficiency rate of less than one percent!
In the end, the remaining two martial arts with energy efficiency rates higher than one percent were Tai Chi and Xing Yi2. Their efficiency rates were 4.57% and 3.82% respectively. It was worth mentioning that the efficiency rate reached as high as 16% when the two of them were practiced together and mastered. And this was merely the theoretical upper limit. Just practicing the martials arts didn't guarantee anything!
It was quite simple. Throughout all of history, only twenty people had ever mastered Tai Chi to the extent of sensing the energy and feeling a warm sensation in their bodies, and only two were able to project this electricity from the bodies. As for Xing Yi? It was about the same. There were only 34 people in history who could sense the energy, and only one who could project the electricity. Even then, it was because that person was simultaneously a master of Tai Chi and many other styles.
All of this was so amazingly...pathetic! More importantly, both of them required at the very least dozens of years of hard training for a significant portion of one's lifetime just to attain the possibility of channeling the energy within the body.
"Crude, these methods are too unrefined. While their combat techniques and methods for exerting force are very impressive, their ability to channel energy is only barely useable...
"But it does make sense. It's not like the inventors of these martial arts could sense the vital energy pathways. Even their fundamental theory is the product of meridian theory, guesswork, and the experience of generations of people passed down using cryptic language. All of this finally culminating in our recent history with the creation of these few internal martial arts capable of utilizing energy.
"Their understanding of the nature of this energy is fundamentally wrong. It's already amazing how they could achieve the effect that they have now. The main targets of these martial arts are blood circulation and utilization of force. They merely indirectly, by pure luck, managed to have an effect on channeling energy."
Thinking about it, Huang Ji realized there was no way he could just practice the martial arts as they were. Maybe they were incomplete, or maybe that person didn't manage get their hands on anything truly amazing. But more likely than not...a channeling technique with a high efficiency rate simply hadn't been invented yet.
The reasoning was simple. Tai Chi was ranked number six in the world, and seventh in all of history. A "peerless martial art" with a historical ranking of number seven only had an energy efficiency rate of 4.57%. It was easy to imagine the insignificant amount of progress humanity had made in terms of developing our vital energy.
These martials arts could only be used as a reference for the guidance and channeling of the human body's energy. Based on the fact of how many hidden acupoints there were that had yet to be named, he could tell that these hidden acupoints simply had never been discovered before...
They didn't even have alien names, which meant that not even the aliens had discovered them. Of course, instead of a matter of being unable to find them, it was probably more like they just couldn't be bothered to record them.
At the same time, because no one had ever been able to see the vital energy system, nobody had ever tried to invent a channeling technique specifically targeting the vital energy system. Maybe the aliens had, but their channeling technique would only be suitable for the own bodies and would be completely ineffective on the human body.
"My only choice is take make my own modifications. But even I can't easily invent a new technique with a high efficiency and quick progression rate. My knowledge is still lacking. For know, I can only do it the dumb way."
Another three days passed by where Huang Ji had spent all day and night studying. With the exception of the necessary rest and sleep, he fully devoted himself to studying medicine and modifying the martial arts.
He employed a brute-force approach to the modification, and that was to simply mix and match together all of the martial arts. History had already proven itself. People who practiced Tai Chi and Xing Yi together had reached an efficiency rate as high as 16%. This was four times higher than practicing Tai Chi alone.
His way of combining the martial arts was very simple. Combine every single martial arts together into one big martial arts, and then remove the parts that reduced the efficiency rate. Going through everything one move at a time, the countless techniques were all like pieces of a puzzle that he was constantly rearranging. But there were far too many possible combinations. In the past three days, Huang Ji had put in a total of 20 hours of work, yet all he'd managed to come up with was a technique with a efficiency rate of 19.89%.
On the other hand, it had already surpassed all known internal martial arts, capable of achieving effects with only four to five years of practice.
"Something doesn't feel right..." Huang Ji knew that this was already an extremely powerful martial art. In the eyes of today's martial artists, this was a comprehensive martial art that had managed to perfectly combine the essence of over a hundred different martial arts and schools of thought into one. However, he had a feeling that he could do better.
"That's it!" Huang Ji slapped his forehead upon realization of the problem. The creators of these martial arts were all ignorant of the vital energy pathways. Their channeling techniques were all established without any knowledge of the hidden acupoints and meridians, only achieving their effects through indirect means. As a result, no arrangement of the techniques would ever be perfect. These techniques had no concept of hidden acupoints or bioelectricity.
"I have to do it myself. I need to invent the techniques for 'electricity cultivation' based on my knowledge of hidden acupoints."
......
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1. I have absolutely no clue about the meaning of the original Chinese text, and also have no clue about the meaning of what I translated it too↩
2. Internal martial arts are characterized by an emphasis on philosophy and the development and harmony of mind, body, and qi. Tai Chi, Xing Yi, Bagua (Eight Trigrams), Baji, are the four big internal martial arts styles.↩
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