It was a cold winter night. The sky was dark purple and the ground was silver white.
Yuan Qi came out of a tavern and walked into a secluded alley, still a little drunk.
It was his thirtieth birthday.
At thirty years old, Yuan Qi was still a third-rate figure in the martial arts world.
In terms of appearance, he could be considered ordinary and could not be considered handsome.
In terms of intelligence, he could be considered reasonable, but he couldn't be considered smart.
As for martial arts … he was indeed better than the average person. Unfortunately, his master was just a third-rate person like him, and could only teach him some superficial martial arts.
All in all, he was a man with mediocre looks, mediocre intelligence, and mediocre martial arts.
In the martial arts world, people like him would never be able to make a name for themselves.
If someone had said to him, "You can be the leader of the martial arts world in the future." He would have thought it was a joke or even a mockery.
However, someone really did say it …
It was a blind fortune-teller with a hunched back and a face full of ulcers.
On this cold winter night, the blind man sat at a broken table by the roadside with a long banner propped up, waiting for customers.
Yuan Qi, who was passing by, saw the blind man and walked over to sit at the table.
"Sir, it's late," Yuan Qi said.
"So what?" The blind man's voice was very strange. It was very hoarse, as if someone was strangling him.
"There's no one on the street," Yuan Qi said.
"I know," the blind man replied. "I can hear it."
Yuan Qi smiled and shook his head. "Sir, I have some loose silver here. You can take it and go back …"
"I'm not a beggar." The blind man knew what Yuan Qi was trying to say and interrupted him.
Yuan Qi pursed his lips, thinking that the blind man didn't know what was good for him. However, on second thought, he felt that the blind man had some strength of character.
"Then … Sir, please read my fortune," Yuan Qi said after some thought.
"Sure, what do you want to ask?" the blind man asked.
"Ha …" Yuan Qi chuckled.
Originally, he didn't want to do any fortune-telling, but he saw that the blind man was pitiful … he was still standing on the street in the cold, so he wanted to give him a few taels of silver to let him go back.
But since he didn't want to, Yuan Qi casually replied, "Then I'll ask about your future."
Yuan Qi knew a thing or two about fortune-telling … It was a skill that required careful observation of one's words and body language.
It was not easy to make a living out of empty promises. Flattering, coaxing, provoking, scaring … Different people needed different ways of dealing with them. If one wanted to make a living in this field, one had to prepare at least dozens of speeches. Not only did one have to know them by heart, one had to know how to improvise. If one spoke well, it wouldn't be difficult to earn some money to make a living. However, if one said something wrong, not getting paid was considered light. Being beaten and scolded by others was also a common occurrence.
Yuan Qi had been in Jianghu for many years and had interacted with people from all walks of life. He knew a thing or two about all kinds of things … At this moment, he did not want to make things difficult for the blind man, so he asked a 'beginner' question. In his heart, he thought … it would be enough to listen to him brag a little.
Unexpectedly …
"Alright." The blind man said and stretched out his hands, "Dear customer, let me touch your face."
Yuan Qi looked at the man's rough and skinny hands and shook his head with a bitter smile, "Alright."
He was a big and burly man, so he wasn't afraid that this blind man would take advantage of him. If he wanted to touch him, then so be it.
So, Yuan Qi guided the blind man's hands and placed them on his temples.
To Yuan Qi's surprise … the blind man's hands were very warm and not as cold as he had imagined. His hands were also very strong and gave off a sense of sturdiness that did not match his appearance.
Soon, the blind man had touched Yuan Qi's forehead, cheeks, chin, even the top of his head and behind his ears. Then, he retracted his hands.
"Heh …" Yuan Qi saw that the blind man had lowered his head and did not speak. He guessed that the blind man was going to deliberately mystify him. He laughed and asked, "How is it? Mister. "
"Since you're asking about your future, I'll give you one …" The blind man replied in a low voice, "From today onwards, you will practice martial arts as usual and walk the martial arts world. Within ten years, there will be no more than three people who can stand shoulder to shoulder with you in the martial arts world. By then, if you haven't deviated from the right path, the position of the chief of the martial arts world will be yours. "
When Yuan Qi heard this, he was stunned for a while before he reacted. Then, he laughed out loud, "Ha! Hahahaha … "He laughed so hard that he could barely open his eyes," Mister, heh heh … according to what you said, as long as I practice martial arts diligently and don't do evil … I'll be successful in ten years' time, at most? "
The blind man did not answer his question. Instead, he asked him a question, "Is today your birthday?"
"Hmm?" Yuan Qi was stunned when he heard this. Then, a suspicious look appeared on his face as he replied, "Yes …"
He did not know how the blind man guessed that today was his birthday. He only knew that … it was not a stupid question like "Have you been troubled in your life recently?". It was a fact that the probability of him getting it right was less than one in three hundred.
"Good!" After receiving a reply, the blind man said loudly, "Good!" Then, he said, "It seems that this is the will of the heavens."
He muttered a few strange words, then … he suddenly grabbed Yuan Qi's left arm that was resting on the table.
At this moment, Yuan Qi was mostly sober. He took a deep breath of cold air to clear his mind, "Mister … what do you mean?"
"You've been practicing martial arts since you were twelve. You've only been apprenticed to one master. You've learned four and a half sets of martial arts from him, and four of them are the worst of the worst …" The blind man suddenly started talking to himself.
Yuan Qi's heart skipped a beat when he heard this. This was because what the blind man said was exactly the truth …
When Yuan Qi was young, he came from a wealthy family. He went to private school for a few years, but he was not cut out for studying. Even after a few years, he did not make much progress. So … when he was twelve, his father invited a very famous martial arts master in the county. Yuan Qi became his disciple, and from then on, he gave up his studies and started practicing martial arts.
Of course, this martial arts master's' fame 'was limited to the county where Yuan Qi's family lived. In the martial arts world, he was a third-rate figure. Fortunately, although this old master's martial arts skills were limited, his ethics were impeccable. He taught Yuan Qi everything he knew and strictly supervised him. Before he died, he even passed on half of his master's secret manual to Yuan Qi.
"Who … who are you?" Yuan Qi asked in shock. "How do you know …"
The blind man ignored Yuan Qi's question. He grabbed Yuan Qi's arm and continued, "The half set of martial arts you didn't learn is called 'Fated Star Mysterious Technique'. It's a peerless technique that has been lost for a long time."
While the blind man was talking, Yuan Qi felt a warm current flowing into his arm and moving in a specific pattern in his meridians.
"This type of martial arts is very strange. No matter how much you practice, you won't feel any improvement in your skills …" The blind man explained calmly as he channeled the energy into Yuan Qi. "Every year, the Fated Star Mysterious Technique can only be improved once, and the time to do so … must be on the day of the practitioner's birthday. Once that day is missed, then the cultivator's previous year's worth of painstaking cultivation will all go up in smoke. "
Hearing this, Yuan Qi's mind buzzed and he almost fainted.
Obviously … Yuan Qi had practiced the Fated Star Mysterious Technique before, and he had studied it very hard.
Even if he didn't know that this was a peerless martial art, and didn't even know what the martial art he was practicing was called, he could still see that the mental cultivation method in the "half of the secret manual" was much more profound than the martial arts taught by his master.
Anyone who mingled in the martial arts world was ambitious. Yuan Qi also knew that for someone like him who was still mediocre at the age of thirty, that half of the secret manual was probably his last hope to make a name for himself.
However, in the past few years, no matter how hard he tried to practice that half of the mental cultivation method, he couldn't use it to improve his skills. He felt that … it was more practical to practice those shallow martial arts. At least he could feel that his skills were gradually improving.
Until today, when he heard the blind man's words, Yuan Qi finally knew the secret hidden in that half of the secret manual.
"Senior …" Yuan Qi had changed the way he addressed the blind man because he knew that the man in front of him was not a fortune-teller, but an expert that he had never met before.
"Stop talking." The blind man interrupted him again. "Remember the direction of my cultivation method. This is not in your half of the secret manual …"
Yuan Qi heard this and immediately closed his eyes, concentrating on memorizing it.
He was a man with bad luck, so he knew that he had to seize the opportunity.
Yuan Qi knew that he wasn't the kind of martial arts genius who could master it in one try, and this fortuitous encounter … he probably wouldn't have a second chance, so he had to try his best to remember the other party's cultivation method.
The north wind whistled and the night grew darker.
After an unknown period of time, the blind man withdrew his inner energy and let go of Yuan Qi's hand.
"Alright, I've used my inner energy to help you break through the Destiny Mysterious Technique. This year's end … the Mysterious Technique that you've accumulated in the past year has been activated. I'm sure you can feel it …" The blind man's breathing was still very steady when he spoke, which showed that his inner energy was unfathomable. "From today onwards, you'll still cultivate according to the mental cultivation method in your half of the secret manual. On your birthday, use the method I taught you today to circulate your inner energy … Only then can you unleash the true power of the Destiny Mysterious Technique."
Before he could finish speaking, Yuan Qi had already knelt on the ground and kowtowed three times while trembling.
"Thank you, senior!" Yuan Qi almost choked with sobs as he said these four words.
Naturally, this was not some kind of performance. It was an action that came from the bottom of his heart.
Yuan Qi's forehead was already bleeding on the cold snow … his eyes were also filled with tears.
These tears carried too many emotions of a mediocre person: bitterness, helplessness, despair, lamentation, joy, longing, excitement, and sorrow.
That moment of realization was something that Yuan Qi would never forget.
"No need to thank me. As I said … this is the will of the heavens." As the blind man spoke, he stood up and fumbled for the wooden banner beside him. "For you to be able to meet me at this time and place, and for me to tell your fortune, this is something that only the heavens can predict."
He paused and continued, "Actually, before you even sat down, I've already found out about seventy to eighty percent of your martial arts and inner energy. When I raised my hand to feel your bones, I wanted to tell your fortune, but I didn't expect to find half of the Destiny Mysterious Technique … "
When the blind man said this, he slowly turned around and continued, "In today's Wulin world, the people who can create their own martial arts are almost extinct. And the divine skills left behind by the ancestors are gradually being lost in the hands of idiots who know how to teach but don't know how to learn but don't know how to teach." He shook his head and coldly snorted, "Humph … I met you by chance. If my little effort today … can make the Destiny Mysterious Technique reappear in the world, it can be considered as adding some interest to the martial arts world which is getting worse and worse with each generation. "
At that time, Yuan Qi couldn't understand the meaning of the blind man's words at all, but twenty years later, Alliance Master Yuan … seemed to understand.
For those ordinary people who struggled in Jianghu, "obtaining" was the most important thing.
Peerless martial arts, great wealth, great fame … these were all things that they wanted to obtain.
But for an otherworldly expert like the blind man, "obtaining" wasn't that important.
When one's martial arts reached a level where it was difficult to obtain defeat, what one obtained was loneliness; when one's wealth reached an uncountable amount, what one obtained was numbness; when one's fame reached a level where the world knew about it, what one obtained was emptiness.
A person who was strong to the point of loneliness, numbness, and emptiness would either walk towards destruction or transcendence.
Blind was clearly a transcendent person. Transcendent people would cross oceans for a moment of glory and would stop moving forward for a speck of dust. However, they would not toil for fame and fortune, nor would they feel great sorrow or joy for the gains and losses in front of them.
Unfortunately … although Yuan Qi understood many things now, he was no longer the Yuan Qi of the past. He knew what a transcendental person was like, so he also knew … that he could never become that kind of person.
…
Twenty years later, in Buried Heart Valley.
Boom —
A gust of wind blew, and the palm shadow was like a mountain.
Who in the martial arts world could block Yuan Qi's seventy percent power?
The answer was … no one could.
Unlike those famous people who became famous at a young age and had a smooth life, the first half of Yuan Qi's life was miserable. He deeply understood the pain of being a mediocre person, and the fear of this pain … was his endless motivation.
Driven by this motivation, Yuan Qi's cultivation of Mysterious Art far exceeded the blind man's estimation … After twenty years of accumulation and twenty breakthroughs … Yuan Qi's Fated Star Mysterious Art had long reached the realm of perfection.
Since he ascended to the throne of the Wulin Alliance with the title of "Number One Martial Artist in the World" ten years ago, he had never used his full strength again. Because since then, in the entire martial arts world, there was no one who could be on par with him.
In the blink of an eye!
The power of Yuan Qi's palm easily broke a big tree, and conveniently split Song Wuqi, who was hiding behind the tree trunk, into two.
The blood and organs that spurted out were particularly eye-catching in the green forest. Under the light of the fog, it was as if they were glowing …
None of the martial artists who had witnessed this palm strike were not amazed by Yuan Qi's strength … To them, that palm strike was simply a realm that they would never be able to reach in their lifetime.
However, there were also people who showed disdain and ridiculed, "Tsk … it's not that strong … I'll develop the performance of Rankyaku again and I should be able to kick out a move with similar power."
"I'm curious …" Hua Jian ignored Brother Jue and said, "In a wuxia scenario, will a humanoid NPC of this level be killed by a normal bullet?"
"Yes, we've tried." "Actually, bullets have a miraculous effect in this kind of scenario. Most of the NPCs that are not that strong can be killed by a normal gun, and they are practically defenseless against this kind of attack. Even though this is not the case for boss-level NPCs, they can still be killed from a long distance with a more powerful shooting skill." "That's right," Ruo Yu said.
"Hmm …" Hua Jian sighed. "I suddenly feel like … there's a problem with the arrangement of the players for this match."
"Tsk …" Brother Jue knew what Miss An meant, so he shook his head and said, "So what if Xiao Ling can counter the NPCs in the scenario? We're having a competition, okay? The line-up I arranged is to deal with Red Cherry, not the scenario. Furthermore … the scenario is random, so how would I know it will be a wuxia world? "
"Why would someone who is so obsessed with completing the scenario use such an excuse?" Ruo Yu said coldly. "Then I'll have to see … how you're so focused on the 'competition'."
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