Chapter 4 - Practicing the Five Form Fist[1]
Chapter 4 – Practicing the Five Form Fist[1]
Seeing Xiong Batian and his group leave, the surrounding students also left as well. However this matter very quickly spread throughout the whole school. Especially so for the class that Xia Ping was in, the sixteenth class of grade twelve, where basically everybody knew about it.
After all, this affair involved their classmates. It wasn’t possible for them to not notice even if they wanted to.
Xia Ping’s face was very calm though. After he finished eating lunch, he headed back up to the school rooftop. There was still half an hour left before class and he wanted to use that time to find out more about the Grand Hatred System.
“System, before you said that I can exchange things for Hatred Points. How do I go about doing that?” Xia Ping asked.
With a “ding” sound, a virtual interface appeared in his head. On it was a shop section with a list that displayed weapons, medicinal pills, cultivation methods, martial skills, and the like. Everything was included, as if it was a website where everything could be bought.
“Master, everything there can be bought as long as Master has enough Hatred Points,” the System’s voice stated.
Xia Ping rubbed his chin, “Anything can be bought?” With a thought, he immediately clicked open the cultivation methods section, abruptly causing a tab to pop up.
On it, a list of cultivation methods was displayed.
Great Emperor Scripture
Grade: Divine
Price: Ten billion Hatred Points
Void Scripture
Grade: Divine
Price: Ten billion Hatred Points
Star Devouring Incantation
Grade: Divine
Price: Ten billion Hatred Points
Dark Birth Demonic Prison Scripture
Grade: Divine
Price: Nine billion Hatred Points
Yin Yang Life and Death Incantation
Grade: Divine
Price: Eight billion Hatred Points
…………
Xia Ping was stunned at the prices he saw. If it wasn’t in the double digits of billions, then it was in the single digit billions. How could he even buy any of this?! He took a look at his own Hatred Points: one hundred and twenty. That amount wasn’t even enough to buy a word from those cultivation methods.
“Forget it, I already have the [Pure Yang Everlife Incantation]. Looking at these cultivation methods is useless for me. Perhaps the martial skills section will be better.” Xia Ping’s eyes flashed. A cultivation method of the martial path was the very foundation of a martial artist. Not only did it help refine the body, it also helped in the absorption of universal spirit energy, thus allowing a person to evolve into a superhuman.
However, martial skills were the unrivalled techniques that allowed one to wield that strength. The more powerful a martial skill was, the more frightening it became. Some martial skills could only turn fifty kilograms of force into fifty kilograms of destructive power, yet more profound martial skills would be able to turn that exact same fifty kilograms of force into five hundred kilograms of destructive power! This was the difference between martial skills!
Of course, the stronger a martial skill was, the harder it was to master it.
Thinking up to here, Xia Ping used a thought to open the martial skills section. Immediately, a new tab popped up with countless amounts of powerful and mysterious martial arts skill manuals displayed.
Great Desolate Heaven Imprisoning Seal
Grade: Divine
Price: Ten billion Hatred Points
Reincarnation Fist of the Six Paths
Grade: Divine
Price: Ten billion Hatred Points
Immortal Slaying Sword Incantation
Grade: Divine
Price: Nine billion Hatred Points
Palm Art of the Eight Desolates and Six Directions
Grade: Divine
Price: Eight billion Hatred Points
Void Teleportation Step
Grade: Divine
Price: Seven billion and five hundred million Hatred Points
…………
Xia Ping felt completely frazzled. He only had to look at the names of those martial skills to know just how powerful there were, yet that was all he could do, look. As for buying any of them? With all those zeros, even if you killed him, it still wouldn’t be enough to make up for a portion of the cost.
Despite using using an area-wide taunt, mocking his entire class and all its students in the process, he only managed to get one hundred and twenty Hatred Points. Then how many years would it take if he wanted to earn more than a billion?
“Master, there is no need to worry.”
The System seemed to have detected Xia Ping’s mood. “As long as Master keeps working hard and does not falter, then with the passing of time, earning more then ten billion Hatred Points is very simple. At that point, Master can then buy whatever Master desires in the shop.”
“Bullshit! You say it as if it would be so easy.”
Xia Ping’s lips twitched. First, let’s not talk about how long it would take to earn ten billion, just the process of earning Hatred Points alone was more then enough for him to choke on.
To simply get one hundred and twenty Hatred Points, he became the public enemy of the entire class, and even caused Yang Wei to try and get revenge on him. If he wanted to earn more then a billion Hatred Points, how much enemies did he have to make?!
He carefully calculated a bit. If he wanted to earn ten billion Hatred Points, then it was likely he had to make the entire population of Yanhuang Star hate him. At that point, saying he was the enemy of the entire world wouldn’t be going overboard.
As he thought of how the entire planet would become his enemy with everybody looking for him to get revenge, so consumed by utter hatred that they wanted to kill his entire family, his head felt as if it would explode.
“Forget it, right now I don’t have to think about any of this just yet.”
Xia Ping contemplated it for a moment. “Actually, I don’t really need ten billion Hatred Points, I only require enough to exchange for the things I need. In that case as long as I only offend ordinary people, then I should be okay.”
Although this System was very dangerous with high risks, after all he had to continuously make enemies, but if he used it right, then it would help him glimpse and rise to the very peak of the martial path.
“Although Master can’t purchase any of the extravagant products yet, the less expensive ones should be enough to satisfy Master’s needs for now,” the System stated.
Upon hearing this, Xia Ping immediately gave another command, “List all of the martial skills by price from low to high.”
With a “ding”, the martial skills page instantly refreshed. Now, appearing on this list were cheap martial skills. Some of them, such as the Basic Fist Art, were so cheap that they only costed five Hatred Points. The problem? These martial skills could be found pretty much anywhere.
“Eh? Why is it that this Five Form Fist costs a hundred Hatred Points?” Xia Ping very quickly took note of a martial skill called the Five Form Fist. Created by a martial arts master of ancient times, it mimicked the forms of several animals. Fierce tigers, venomous snakes, agile monkeys, white cranes, violent dragons, all of these beasts and the like were observed by that martial artist to create an extremely powerful martial skill that was filled with countless killing techniques.
At the same time, it was also a mandatory course at school that every student had to learn, pretty much a basic martial skill. Yet in the shop section of the System, it actually costed a hundred Hatred Points. This was way too exaggerated.
“The reason for this is that all martial skills sold by the System will be automatically ingrained as an inheritance. Ordinary martial skills require Master to learn it by yourself with diligent practice and steady improvement, but the martial skills provided by the System skips this process. They will automatically be ingrained as a memory into Master’s body with all techniques involved, allowing for Master to instantly learn these martial skills. The result is similar to that of a martial arts expert having practiced it for many years. Master has already experienced this before with the [Pure Yang Everlife Incantation],” the System answered.
What?!
Xia Ping was shocked. If it was like that, then it was definitely worth the price. By instantly learning a martial skill, it would save him decades of time in practice. There were no end to the benefits he would receive.
“I’ll buy it,” Xia Ping immediately said.
The System obeyed, “Yes, Master.”
After the System had finished replying, a large warm current instantly flowed into Xia Ping’s head. Very quickly, his soul seemed as if it was pulled into a white space with nothing in it.
His hands and feet started moving on their own, as if they were controlled by some mysterious force. Fierce tiger, venomous snake, agile monkey, white crane, and violent dragon. Stance after stance were performed one after the other, his body as nimble as the wind.
In that moment, it was as if he had become the fierce beasts that those stances mimicked, his aura that of a horrifying wild beast as his hands and feet moved.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The sound of explosions rang out from the air. Frighteningly powerful, each of his fists seemed to cause an explosion of air as they punched out.
Just like that, he continued to practice non-stop in this white space for at least ten years. All the way until his Five Form Fist was finally mastered and reached the realm of complete perfection.
CRACK! The space shattered. Soon after, his soul was pulled out and returned to his body.
“Five Form Fist!” Xia Ping clenched his fists as a loud grating sound rang out and his eyes flashed. He had absolute confidence unlike that of any before as an aura of a natural martial arts expert started to emanate from him.
Translator Notes:
Five Form Fist: This is NOT the Five Form Fist from Naruto, but at its root (pun intended), they have similar origins. The five form fist referred to here is the one from wushu. Search “five animals” or “xing yi quan” on Google to find out more. As one might guess, the leopard has been changed for a monkey here.