CHAPTER 46: CHAPTER 46: TAI CHI ESSENCE

After finishing a big meal, Qu Jianlei enjoyed a beautiful sleep, the sweetest one since he arrived on the Wasteland.

Waking up, he turned on the exhaust fan to ventilate the room and unexpectedly felt, "Has it cooled down?"

The outdoor temperature had dropped to around minus forty degrees, considered extremely cold weather.

"Good thing I’m quick on my feet," Qu Jianlei murmured softly, "I need to add heat exchange to the ventilation system later."

Heat exchange can save a lot of energy. Although his supplies were abundant, he still couldn’t be wasteful.

Xiao Jing was sleeping soundly on the other side of the partition, breathing evenly.

Qu Jianlei brushed aside these thoughts, freshened up, and started to warm up.

Recently, he’d been busy preparing for winter, truly fatigued, sometimes meditating to regulate his breath, practicing the Nameless Qi Refining Technique.

The "Eight Pieces of Brocade," "Five Animals Qigong," and posture stances hadn’t been practiced, after all, he had a lot of daily activity.

Today, after practicing the two sets of exercises, he felt a bit warm, and then began his posture stance.

As his physical condition gradually improved, he could sustain the posture stance longer and longer.

However, today, after standing for half an hour, he couldn’t bear it anymore, so he finished up and couldn’t help but sigh.

"Indeed, if you don’t progress, you regress. One day without practice, you know it; two days without practice, your master knows it; three days without practice, everyone knows it."

Then he drank a cup of hot water, rested for a moment, and consumed two nutrient injections.

With his stockpile of supplies, he could eat and drink well every day and get through this winter without any problem.

Next, he was going to start meditating.

It’s not advisable to eat too much before meditating, but since it consumes physical strength, using nutrient injections is more appropriate.

No wonder, in those legends, cultivators always need to eat those Heavenly and Earthly Treasures; the calories from daily meals really aren’t enough.

With the calories inside him, he sat cross-legged and meditated for one cycle until he felt adapted, then took out a box.

Inside the box were six Mutated Beast Crystals, five about the size of quail eggs, and one the size of a ping-pong ball.

B-level Mutated Beast Crystals are all red, although there’s some difference in their shades.

He adjusted his breath, took out the palest B-level Crystal, and started circulating his qi through his meridians.

A familiar violent energy surged into his body again, followed by the familiar swelling pain.

This time, the qi circulation was exceptionally smooth, one cycle after another, until five cycles later, when he felt hungry.

Opening one eye, he saw Xiao Jing eating yesterday’s leftovers, surprisingly knowing to heat them on the electric stove.

Qu Jianlei helplessly glanced at him, lifted his hand to grab two nutrient injections, and squeezed them into his mouth.

Xiao Jing looked at him, then at his own bowl of rice, puzzled, are the nutrient injections that tasty?

This time, Qu Jianlei meditated for a whole day, consuming six nutrient injections.

Even so, he was still extremely hungry, and after finishing his practice, he gulped down yesterday’s leftovers.

His stomach feeling slightly better, he immediately started cooking again—though the taste wasn’t great, at least it was cooked.

He persisted like this for three days, during which the nutrient injections reduced rapidly.

The palest B-level Crystal had shrunk by almost a tenth.

Xiao Jing finally couldn’t hold back his curiosity, "Brother Black Heaven, what’s the name of the boxing you’re practicing?"

Qu Jianlei was preparing for his posture stance while answering, "Eight Pieces of Brocade and Five Animals Qigong."

Xiao Jing’s eyes lit up, "By practicing them, can you become as strong as you?"

You’re overthinking it, Qu Jianlei shook his head, "They’re just for health and well-being, good for the body."

Xiao Jing, however, asked again, "Can you teach me? I want to learn too."

Qu Jianlei didn’t really value these two sets of moves, absolutely not minding if others learned them.

But when it came to teaching someone else, he was a bit hesitant.

However, after a moment’s hesitation, he made up his mind, "I’ll finish my practice today, and start teaching you tomorrow."

Xiao Jing easily reminded him of Rogers, though the two were very different.

First of all, Xiao Jing understood respect, despite being young, he knew very well what could be done and what couldn’t.

Even if starving, he would hide the Mutated Beast Crystal, because he knew very well that trading those things for money would mean certain death.

Rogers didn’t understand this, he only knew to use every means to live better.

Secondly, Xiao Jing could be helpful to Qu Jianlei, not only had they cooperated in combat before, but importantly, he had knowledge inheritance.

There were many aspects of the Wasteland he had to rely on Xiao Jing to explain to him.

Just for these two reasons, he could consider teaching him these two techniques.

However, he had already scheduled today’s activities, so it had to wait until tomorrow; that’s the meticulousness of his compulsive nature.

The next day, teaching Xiao Jing was a bit of a struggle.

Despite the simplicity of the moves, this guy struggled to learn them, always slightly off.

Qu Jianlei didn’t intend to give special attention, just let him get familiar with each decomposed move first.

In the end, youth won out, Xiao Jing made quick progress, by the fifth day, he had basically learned the two sets of moves.

The key was that this guy had nothing better to do, practicing over and over again.

And Qu Jianlei couldn’t help but correct him whenever he practiced incorrectly.

Ever since Xiao Jing started practicing martial arts, Qu Jianlei discovered something else: this guy... had quite an appetite!

Xiaojing used to have a large appetite, like "a growing boy, eating me out of house and home."

Now, he practices either the Eight Pieces of Brocade or the Five Animals Qigong every day, and his appetite has at least doubled.

One day, he decided he wanted to learn the Posture Stance.

This time, Qu Jianlei really couldn’t take it, "I can teach you Posture Stance, but under one condition..."

"Posture Stance consumes more calories than those two routines. You can’t practice them all day, or we might not make it through winter."

Not making it through winter was an exaggeration, but at this rate, we wouldn’t have much food left.

On Blue Star, martial artists are all big eaters.

Xiaojing was also aware of his soaring appetite recently, and after some hesitation, he said, "But I have nothing else to do."

"Over-exercising is not good for your health," Qu Jianlei stated seriously. "You can find some work to do or read some books."

Despite the small size of this room, there’s plenty of work if you really look.

Xiaojing accepted this arrangement, especially since he was wary of the consequences of over-exercising.

So he only trained for four or five hours each day and spent the rest of the time doing various tasks.

However, his appetite still slightly increased — there’s no helping it, Posture Stance really burns a lot of calories.

On the twentieth day in Fengmen, Qu Jianlei had already absorbed half of the faintest crystal.

Calculating this way, five B-level crystals would be enough for him to absorb for five months.

Realizing these numbers, Qu Jianlei was truly shocked: fifty kilograms of gold only for five months of cultivation?

He was able to acquire such a significant amount of resources purely by luck, picking up a Secret Silver Token from a corpse.

A hundred kilograms of gold, even on Blue Star, would be equivalent to the total assets of ten or so middle-class families.

Such a vast amount of wealth was to be consumed in such a short time?

He began to doubt whether his ability to earn money could keep up with the consumption.

But then he found that things weren’t as he thought, because he hit a bottleneck.

Now, the Nameless Qi Refining Technique was becoming more perfected. Qu Jianlei defined his current realm as Qi Refining Level Three.

Breaking through from Qi Refining Level Three to Level Four should be a minor progress, but he was stuck here.

For three consecutive days, he didn’t feel any improvement, and the key was that crystal consumption was also slow.

Instead, he occasionally felt some vague pain in his body and meridians, a sensation of being torn.

Having no guidance, entirely relying on exploration, Qu Jianlei judged for himself: maybe I’ve overdone my cultivation.

Thinking about it, it made sense. From when he started cultivating to now, it hadn’t even been four months.

During this period, he often wandered around or fought, with very little time dedicated to focused cultivation.

So this cultivation speed was truly astonishing, resulting even in a backlash.

Having made this judgment, he felt a sense of calm: Hmm, what else was there for me to do?

Seeing Xiaojing practicing the Eight Pieces of Brocade, he suddenly remembered, oh right, I regretted not learning Tai Chi back then.

At the moment this thought appeared, his head began to throb.

Qu Jianlei promptly closed his eyes: I’m familiar with this sort of thing.

As expected, the small lake appeared again in his mind, head large, body small, slowly spinning.

Lacking the hardware foundation? An inspiration flashed in Qu Jianlei’s mind as he reached for the Mutated Beast Crystal once more.

He wasn’t wrong at all; the headache began to intensify, growing increasingly painful.

And the rotation speed of the small lake seemed to have picked up a tiny bit?

It was unknown how long it lasted, but when he felt the headache was truly unbearable, he released his grip.

Then the throbbing stabilized at that point, gradually beginning to recede.

Soon after, a string of information inexplicably appeared in his mind: "Tai Chi Essence!"

I knew it was something like this! Qu Jianlei’s lips curled into a slight smile.

Small lake, is there the "Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor"?

The cartoon avatar quietly faded away, without a hint of hesitation, just as it had appeared.

Tai Chi Essence... Qu Jianlei skimmed through the information, it was indeed the Tai Chi I’m familiar with.

Though this essence remained vague, much like the initial Nameless Qi Refining Technique he acquired, with many unclear parts.

But it was already quite good; he hadn’t seriously studied Tai Chi on Blue Star.

Tai Chi’s reputation was significant, but... what did that have to do with me?

Thinking back now, regret came too late; fortunately, the small lake gathered some information.

Yes, indeed, it was the small lake that gathered it; much of the information in this vague Tai Chi Essence Qu Jianlei had never heard of.

It was definitely something he had never mastered, reaching into his knowledge blind spots.

He seemed to glimpse a new world.

This vagueness mattered little; gradual refinement would suffice, a task he was familiar with.

Qu Jianlei slowly opened his eyes, looking at the Mutated Beast Crystal in his hand; unsurprisingly, it had shrunk by one-third!

(Updated to now, during the new book period, seeking all types of support.)