Yan Mo eyed the beginner training method and started to worry again.
It’d be so good if this beginner training method could directly be inputted into his brain. Unfortunately, the guide obviously wouldn’t do this just because he wanted it. As with the past rewards, the beginner training method this time was an object, if he lost it, then it’s gone.
The item was an ancient looking thread bound book, the title had these three words: Beginner Training Method.
Apart from the back and front cover pages, the book consists of thirteen pages. Aside from the last page, each page has one move or should be called, martial arts move. The movements were broken down in detail in the pictures and had a breathing guidance.
The thing that interested Yan Mo was, the figure demonstrating the moves didn’t have clothes but had a circulation of breath drawn on him.
Maybe because it’s the beginner training method, not only are the moves simple, the breathing lines are also very simple. Following the moves, the breath comes in through the nose, passes through the central Dantian in the middle of the chest, going down to the lower dantian in 3 cun of navel area. Then pass the central dantian and rise to the upper dantian in the middle of the eyebrows, and finally exit through the nose again.
It looked like a secret martial arts scroll from some wuxia novel, Yan Mo flapped through the pages roughly, thinking that it’s funny.
To work out and keep himself healthy, he had learned the five-animal exercises and traditional Chinese shadow boxing. Later he got too busy and had Dudu, so he stopped doing them. Right now he could still recall some of the moves.
To him, who had learned five-animal exercises and shadow boxing, the twelve moves didn’t look too difficult, they looked like movements people do to prep up before doing something else. They have a lot of movements to open up the body, move the muscles and joint exercises, and stretch the muscles. If someone completely mastered these twelve moves, their bodies might be trained to be very flexible.
When he opened the thirteenth page, it was completely blank. The side corner of the twelfth page has a line of small words, it said the practitioner has to train the twelve moves until they know it by heart, or the thirteenth move will not appear at all.
The first page also had a one sentence reminder, that it’s best if the practitioner can learn the next movement only after they finish learning the previous one.
What Yan Mo worried about was, he needed to first learn the movements and breathing route first if he wanted to test this on Yuan Zhan, or how would he give him directions?
He’s afraid there’d be some harm after learning it, but he’s unreconciled to just give the whole book to Yuan Zhan. Yan Mo thought back and forth before finally coming up with a dumb idea.
He used his scalpel to cut out the pages of the book and kept the rest of the pages, he’s only going to let Yuan Zhan see the first page.
“Daren.” A child’s call sounded outside of the tent.
Yan Mo tucked the page into his chest and lifted his head, “Enter.”
Straight-brows lifted the tent curtain and went inside. He suddenly kneeled down 2 chi from Yan Mo’s knees.
“What is it?” Yan Mo grabbed a dry firewood on the side and added it to the fire.
“Daren, I want to have a name.” Straight-brows said without stammering.
“Oh?” A’wu clan normally wouldn’t have an actual name before they’re twelve years old. Not everyone had a name that’s like a name even for the adults of A’wu clan. Many of them still call each other by their bodily traits, such as Large Beard, Big Nose, No Finger, or No Ear. Yan Mo had planned on giving these kids a name but there were always things to be done and in his mentality, to give someone a name is to be responsible for them, so he couldn’t decide whether to do it or not.
“Yesterday you said, name is very important.” Straight-brows still could only say simple single-morpheme words and some simple sentences, He was only able to smoothly say these two sentences because he had spent a lot of time memorising them last night.
“I want Daren to pick a name for me.”
Yan Mo didn’t say anything for a long time.
Straight-brows kneeled there and didn’t speak too.
Inside the tent, there was only the sound of occasional firewood cracking in the fire. Crick, crack.
“Alright, I’ll give you a name.” Yan Mo waved a hand to Straight-brows, Straight-brows scooted to his side still on his knees.
Yan Mo rubbed Straight-brows’s head and took the chance to also tidy up his dishevelled hair. The coarse and dry hair doesn’t feel nice to touch.
Straight-brows lowered his head, his eyes were filled with a child’s deep admiration. Their Priest-daren was clearly young and not that much older than they are, but no one who had come into contact with him would think of him as a boy who’s only fourteen years old. Clan Shaman said that the god had given Priest-daren wisdom and his soul had served beside god. His eyes had seen many things before they had even opened.
Straight-brows didn’t really understand what Clan Shaman meant, but he understood one thing, that Priest-daren was different from everyone else. He’s only young in appearance.
Yan Mo pondered for a bit, then said, “Though you are young, you are level-headed, nor brash nor fickle. Though ignorant, you can understand the principles after getting taught. You are determined and have a bearing like a big talent even as a kid. I wanted to give you the name Chen, but the tribe has just been established, that word is not good. You’re also the first kid to be named by me, so I will change the word to a similar Chen and take the Wu clan’s name as the family name. From now on, you are called Wu Chen.”
“Wu Chen?” Straight-brows didn’t understand most of it, but he sharply caught the last two words.
“Yes, Wu Chen, your name.” Yan Mo let Straight-brows get a sand plate for him and wrote Straight-brows’s name one stroke at a time, writing the name neatly on the sand plate.
Straight-brows stared at the two beautiful square characters. His face full of joy he can hardly restrain.
宸, under the polaris, where the Emperor lives. This kid he named Wu Chen, what will he become in the future? And what kind of changes will he bring to the tribe? At this time, Yan Mo unexpectedly looked forward to it.
Wu Chen learnt his name and left happily. Some time later, he quietly carried a pile of firewood and put it in front of Yan Mo’s tent.
When Yan Mo went out and saw it, he couldn’t help smiling. The firewood and wild grasses Da Ze’s team brought back were divided equally. Each tent had the same amount and these three kids would not be told to do any work aside from doing the homework he assigned. It’s because Wu Chen couldn’t sit still and not do anything, so he went and gathered firewood. These are his own firewoods.
Yan Mo walked around the tribe, after one round, he stepped on the snow toward the defence wall that’s starting to take shape. He balled up snow and threw it at the young man looking down at the soil mixture he’s mixing.
Yuan Zhan raised his head, grabbed a handful of the nearest snow and threw it back. “Don’t mess around! I’m working!”
“Didn’t you want a reward?” Yan Mo unhurriedly asked, squatting beside the pit for the foundation.
Yuan Zhan rubbed his face stiff from the cold, “You’re willing to let me do you?”
Yan Mo made another snowball and smashed it at him, “Stop thinking about that all day! I think your warrior training method can only train your body and the method is also not very scientific. Although there’ll be some effect for a time by following this method, after the warriors are past their prime, their bodies won’t be able to sustain the intensity of the training. When they’re old, they’ll also get various illnesses, it’s possible that it’ll use their lifeforce.”
Hearing the serious talk, Yuan Zhan no longer joked around. “Did you make a new training method?”
Yan Mo nodded, then shook his head again immediately after, “Not me, but Ancestor God.”
“En?”
“I have a beginner training method passed down by the Ancestor God. It looks unimpressive to me, but it seems to train the internal force and mental strength along with the body. It’s the so-called comprehensive training of inner and outer. But, I don’t know if this training method will have an effect for you or not and don’t know if there’ll be harm in training with it. I hesitated about whether I should give it to you for a long time. I told you all this, because I want you to think about it carefully, whether you want to study it or not.” What’s the highest level in lying? It’s that the other knows you’re lying but they still can’t stop themselves from falling to the trick.
Yuan Zhan chose to be tricked without hesitation. “I’ll do it!”
“Then I have to explain it to you, Ancestor God told me that this beginner training method is a double edged sword, it means that it has benefit and disadvantage, so the practitioners have to be careful. That’s why I have never dared to learn it, like this, you still want to learn it?”
“Yes!” What’s a ‘disadvantage’? Harm? But isn’t the warrior training method he’s using now also with harm? The training method from Ancestor God couldn’t be even more harmful than the one from the Three Cities right? Even if the harm is bigger, it’ll be stronger too, moreover this training method can also temper his mental strength.
“Alright. You’re the one who wanted it. If anything bad happened later, you can’t blame me.”
“I won’t.” I’ll just tie you up and plow you hard!
Yan Mo stretched a hand into his clothes and took the ripped out first page of the beginner training method for Yuan Zhan.
In the distance, Wu Chen was sitting in front of the tent. He was sitting near a fire pile and rubbing salt on a fish, he raised his head and glanced at the two leaders. His vision is very good and Priest-daren was coincidentally facing him, so he vaguely saw Priest-daren taking out a piece of very strange object that looks like a big leaf.
Big-eyes was working impatiently. Priest-daren told him to study how to weave the wild grasses into a thing called grass shoes, but he had weaved for so many days, and not even the base of the shoes was done.
“Hey, why did you look for Daren today?” Big-eyes pressed Wu Chen.
Wu Chen ignored him.
Big-eyes threw away the grasses, “Hey, did you secretly went to Daren to ask for food?”
You think I’m like you? Wu Chen still ignored him.
Big-eyes was angry now, he hurled harsh words as he stood up, “You are the baddest, I’m not going to play with you anymore! I’ll go to Sa!”
Wu Chen only raised his head at this point, “Your grass shoes are not done yet.”
“I stop! If you dare tell Daren, I’ll never talk to you again!” Big-eyes threw those words and ran off to play with Sa.
Wu Chen lowered his head and left him be. He continued his own work. The surroundings of their tribe was very safe, there’s no large or very fierce beasts. Big-eyes and Sa were not idiots, they’d only play near the streams or the small lakes and wouldn’t run too far out.
But Wu Chen would never have thought that, because of Big-eyes bad mood today, Sa, who tended to underestimate dangers, felt that it’s safe around here and took Big-eyes to go further out.
Over here, Yuan Zhan didn’t doubt his Priest’s words to begin with, but now that he saw the exquisite sheet of paper with the words and pictures, he was even more sure that this was one of the treasures handed down from the Ancestor God.
“What’s this made from?” Yuan Zhan wanted to stretch out a hand and feel the paper, but seeing the mud and snow on his hand, his hand immediately retracted. He even wiped it on his fur clothes over and over.
“This is paper.”
“Paper?”
“Make paper pulp from bark, flax, bamboo, or rice straw. You need to treat the paper pulp with something in the process, then evenly spread the pulp and leave it in a shed. When it dries up, it will become paper. I’m not sure on the details of the method, I only have a general idea. After the tribe is established, we can look into this if there’s time.”
“Okay.” Yuan Zhan finally felt that his hands were clean enough, and carefully touched the paper sheet.
Yan Mo let go for him to take a closer look at it.
Yuan Zhan held the paper with both hands, carefully like he had received a treasure. He’s afraid that his rough fingers would slip and stab a hole in this exquisite and thin treasure.
“I can’t give you this, because papers are fragile, it’ll be ruined if it gets wet or gets close to fire. If it’s stored incorrectly, it can also be ruined. Each time you finish reading it, return it to me.”
“En. This sort of treasure, of course it has to be left to you.”
Yan Mo raised a brow, the boy’s still sensible.
Yuan Zhan stared at the paper. His body had already opened up, he began trying out the moves right away. For a warrior who had been doing intensive training since young, this move was really, extremely easy. The difficult part was how to combine it with the breathing route in the drawing.
“What is this?” Yuan Zhan pointed at the red line.
“This is the breathing route. Read it first, if there’s something you don’t know, I’ll explain it to you. It should be enough to train this once every morning then every night for one hour. After you have learnt this move, we’ll look at the second move.
“There’s a second one?” Yuan Zhan thought the so-called beginner training method was just this one page and one move.
“There’s twelve moves altogether. You can only learn the next move after you have learnt the previous one.” Yan Mo already decided, everyday he would examine his health condition, and see what the training method’s harm really is, and whether it could be avoided.
Yan Mo explained about the breathing guide. After hearing it, Yuan Zhan rushed to start using the method to train. He even put aside the ability training that he was dedicated to doing lately.
From Yan Mo’s explanations, this training method can train the body from the inside and even train the mental strength. Yuan Zhan felt with his animal-like intuition that it would be very beneficial for him.
Following this, Yan Mo would examine Yuan Zhan’s body every morning, especially before and after training. After several days, Yan Mo found that Yuan Zhan could suddenly eat a lot more, originally he could barely be full with two hares, but now, you could give the young man half of a goat and he could finish it all.
Yuan Zhan’s change was not only how much he could eat now. The next day after his stomach growth was noticed, the range he could control with his ability became bigger. And this change was very noticeable, Yuan Zhan was extremely surprised too. He excitedly ran over to share the news with his Priest-daren.
Yan Mo frowned. This ‘double-edged sword’, is it just about the user needing more food as they get stronger? If that’s the only disadvantage, does the guide need to specifically tell the user to be cautious?
Yan Mo waved away the thoughts to use the training method, and decided to continue observing Yuan Zhan for more time.
Black colored the sky, Wu Chen saw the adults coming back from hunting. He couldn’t sit still anymore. He ran out to look for his two companions playing wild outside.
“Sa! Big-eyes!” Wu Chen had just reached one of the small stream near the tribe when he saw the two hurrying over here while carrying something in their hands.
“Coming! Coming!”
Wu Chen’s eyes swept to the things they held in their hands, they were small yellow-purple fruits .
Sa moved close to Wu Chen, he lifted the fruits to let Wu Chen see them, as if trying to make Wu Chen happy or trying to suck up to him. “Look, it’s tasty, share with you.”
Wu Chen looked at him weirdly and then looked at Big-eyes who, like him, looked uneasy, “What did you two do? Why do you only come back now?”
“Didn’t do anything!” Two mouths answered at the same time.
Big-eyes pouted his mouth, “Give you fruits, you still ask so much!”
Wu Chen looked behind the two, but didn’t notice anything. After all he’s still young, he didn’t have that many thoughts. He randomly picked one of the fruits and put it in his mouth. He tasted it and it was pretty good, so he said, “Let’s give them to Priest, he will be very happy.”
The two little devils would usually present any good thing they find like treasures to Priest-daren, but now, they didn’t immediately jump up to it. Big-eyes’s elbows secretly poked Sa’s ribs.
Sa scratched his head and followed his meaning, quietly saying, “There’s not a lot, let’s eat it all.”
Big-eyes hurriedly added, “Give to Priest, he will also share it with us, but if he got to know we came back so late just to pick fruits, I’m afraid he’ll be angry.”
Wu Chen also didn’t want to make Priest-daren too worried, so he picked two fruits and left the rest to them.
Big-eyes and Sa saw Wu Chen didn’t ask more about it, when Wu Chen turned around, they looked at each other and secretly heaved a sigh of relief.
Soon, two days passed by. Yuan Zhan, who had quickly mastered the first move, started demanding to learn the second move.
After making sure that he really had mastered the move, Yan Mo explained the second move to him.
Ten days later, Yuan Zhan had continuously learnt four moves. He could also link the small moves together into one set of moves. If not because he’s not used to having to control his breathing along with the moves, these ten days were enough for him to learn all the twelve moves and link them up into a set.
“Breathe in when ending a move, breathe out when making a move. Then, can I also use this type of breathing…”
“Pattern.” Yan Mo taught him a new word.
Yuan Zhan continued, “Then, can I also breathe in and out following this breathing pattern when not training?”
Yan Mo looked at him silently.
Yuan Zhan felt uncertain, “Can’t I?”
“…Can.” Yan Mo couldn’t help asking again, “When you practice the moves, did you feel unwell anywhere?”
“There’s no bad feeling, it feels very good. Before, I’d feel some joints hurt after my training and there’d be some throbbing pain in places I don’t know, but that didn’t happen with this training method.”
“That’s because your ligaments are already broken in and you’re used to intensive training. This type of stretching and restoring moves naturally won’t hurt you, but if it’s a normal person who has never done any body training and has a stiff body, these moves will be very hard for them.”
“Did you practice it?”
Yan Mo had secretly practiced the moves until his waist ached, his back hurt and his leg muscle was pulled, but he just refused to admit it. “I didn’t.”
He just practiced one move, if there’s any issue later he can still stop in time. He said to himself.
Yuan Zhan hit his shoulder, “Actually I feel that this training method doesn’t do any harm, just makes me eat more. I’m going to the rock mountain to hunt today, are you going?”
“Not going!”
Yuan Zhan moved his wrist around. These days, his body felt really good. As if he had inexhaustible energy. Just mixing and building the earth wall already couldn’t satisfy his wild desire for blood. He needed to find a place to vent it out, and while at it, he’d also hunt some more prey to take home.
Huhu and Da Ze heard that Yuan Zhan wanted to go hunt and excitedly clamoured that they wanted to go too. They’d been eating fish day in and day out, they’d long been sick of eating it. Moreover, fish tastes so bad, it’ll always have that fishy taste no matter how you cook it.
Yan Mo had some medicinal herbs but he couldn’t bear to share them. Although there were some that mask the smell of the fish, he would only keep it for his own use and didn’t offer it up to the tribe. So he was also very looking forward to having more meat. Because of the hunt, they only had ten warriors guarding the tribe, everyone else followed Yuan Zhan to hunt in the rock mountain. This trip would take them at least three days before they would return.
It’s going to be dark soon, but Big-eyes and Sa hadn’t returned. Wu Chen was puzzled. Those two would usually run home faster than anyone once it was dinner time, why aren’t they home yet now? Moreover, this was not the first time it happened. In these ten days, they would often return very late.
Wu Chen put down the grass shoes he had weaved half-done, and started to boil a fish soup. Big-eyes couldn’t figure it out, but Wu Chen kept trying while looking at the picture and finally somewhat figured out the way. At first, he wanted to wait until he finished making it before teaching it to Big-eyes. But those two kept running out to play around and didn’t take Priest-daren’s homework seriously, so he decided not to tell them for now.
But, just where did they run off to? Each time they come back late, he’d smell the smell of that yellow-purple fruit from their mouths. If they found a lot of those fruits, why didn’t they tell Priest-daren?
Wu Chen didn’t think of an answer. He decided to follow the two of them tomorrow and find out what they’re actually doing.
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