Chapter 47 - 41: No Skill, Just Brute Force

The young man with the glasses wasn’t short, but his features were decidedly average.

He had a scholarly air about him with his glasses, a slightly pudgy build, and thinning hair. He didn’t look like a martial artist in the slightest—more like a run-of-the-mill IT programmer or a junior office worker you could find on any street corner.

The only remarkable thing about him was his eyes, which were bright and full of life—not at all like the eyes of other young people, who seemed to have their very essence drained by staring at their phones all day.

"Young man, I heard from Fangfang that you’re quite skilled with Darts, a type of Hidden Weapon. She said you killed that dog with a single Dart to the throat!"

"I wasn’t around that afternoon, so I unfortunately missed it. How about showing an old man like me a thing or two? Broaden my horizons a bit?" After giving Chen Jue a thorough once-over and recalling his granddaughter’s words, Elder Wu finally started the conversation.

"Show you a thing or two?"

"No problem! If you’re interested, sir, just point out any target nearby. As long as it’s within 20 meters, I can hit it." Chen Jue agreed without a second thought.

Besides, showing off a little for the old man wouldn’t cost him anything. He could think of it as making a friend through his skill with Darts.

"Twenty meters?"

"Those are your words, not mine!" Elder Wu’s interest was instantly piqued.

That distance was far beyond the effective range of his family’s traditional Rope Dart.

After looking around the small grove of trees to the side, Elder Wu raised his Red Tassel Spear and pointed to a white spot on the trunk of a large tree in the distance.

Chen Jue took a look and saw that the white spot was likely a mark left by a cold weapon, like a chain hammer coated in magnesium powder. It was about the size of a fist and slightly concave.

He estimated the distance to be about 15 meters.

He drew a Short Sword Dart from his pouch. With a flick of his right hand, his arm, wrist, and fingers moved as one. The gleaming, stainless steel Dart shot from his grasp, tracing a blurred arc through the air.

A moment later, with a solid THUD, the Short Sword Dart embedded itself dead center in the white spot, its tip buried deep in the wood.

Elder Wu’s eyes went wide. "A fine throw!" he exclaimed, before turning his gaze back to study Chen Jue.

He realized that this seemingly ordinary, mild-mannered young man became a completely different person the moment he held a Dart.

His already faint presence vanished entirely, and just for the instant he threw the Dart, an indescribable, murderous aura flared to life.

’So this is what they call a Hidden Weapon.’

’Harmless until thrown, but lethal once it is.’

’Truly fearsome!’

’No wonder Xiaofang said his Darts were incredible. Today, I’ve seen it for myself!’

’He’s so young. Could he have been practicing a Child’s Skill since he was a boy?’

Though Elder Wu was muttering to himself internally, his face showed great satisfaction as he nodded. "Young man, your skill with the Darts is already masterful. With a foundation like that, there’s no need to chase after ethereal things like Qi Gong or Inner Power, is there?"

"The purpose of Martial Arts is self-defense and staying healthy. With a skill like yours, as long as you stay out of trouble in this country, no one can touch you."

Hearing the old man’s words, Chen Jue grew suspicious. "Elder Wu, are you saying there’s really no one in the world who knows Qi Gong or Inner Power?"

Seeing his persistence, Elder Wu spun the Red Tassel Spear and planted it upright in the ground.

He then picked up a thermos from nearby, unscrewed the cap, and took a few sips. It was hard to tell if he was just wetting his throat or lost in thought.

After a few minutes of silence, during which he glanced a couple more times at the Dart in the white spot, Elder Wu finally spoke slowly. "I don’t know about Qi Gong. Most likely, no one practices it anymore. It’s probably a lost art."

"When I was young, I saw plenty of people just like you, searching everywhere for someone to teach them Qi Gong. There was a huge Qi Gong craze back then; you’d see ads for training classes all over the newspapers."

"But those ’masters’ were almost all frauds! They just used it as a gimmick to make money. Any of the real fighters from Wulin Square could have mopped the floor with one of those old Qi Gong teachers."

"As for Inner Power, though... I actually do know a little about it! It was part of my family’s traditional Martial Arts. But when I was young, my ambition was to become a professor and a scholar, so I never learned it from my father. Now, it’s a lost art in our family."

At these words, Chen Jue’s eyes lit up. "So Inner Power is real?"

"Oh, it definitely exists! I saw my father practice it with my own two eyes, so there’s no faking that."

"But Inner Power isn’t as amazing as you might think. In fact, it’s not even as deadly as your Darts," Elder Wu said, nodding as he held his thermos.

"Then, Elder Wu, your father... did he leave behind any videos or manuscripts?" Seeing that the true martial art he’d been searching for was within reach, Chen Jue couldn’t help but press on eagerly.

’As long as there’s an original tutorial, whether it’s text or video, I can replicate it using the Attribute panel!’

"He didn’t leave anything behind. Things weren’t as convenient back then. It’s not like now, with smartphones everywhere."

"Besides, my father always said that Inner Power is something that must be understood intuitively; it can’t be conveyed with words. If you don’t have someone to guide you, teaching you step-by-step, it’s nearly impossible to master."

Elder Wu’s words were like a splash of cold water on Chen Jue.

Seeing the look of disappointment on his face, the old man then pulled a phone out of a bag he’d set down nearby.

’Whoa!’

’A glance was enough to tell it was the latest Huawei Mate 60 Pro!’

’Not only was its tech and functionality top-of-the-line, but its price was also enough to make a struggling worker like me sigh in defeat.’

But then he remembered that the old man was a retired university professor with a high pension and several properties in Hang City from demolition compensation. Using a high-end phone was perfectly normal for him.

Watching the stylish old man open Douyin, scroll through his followed accounts, and finally tap on a video creator’s profile, Chen Jue was surprised when he spoke up again. "If you want to learn Inner Power, you can look for this person."

"This person should have the real deal. Because the things he records are basically the same as the Inner Power my father’s generation used to practice!"

As soon as the old man finished speaking, Chen Jue leaned in for a closer look.

On the screen, a middle-aged man in traditional-style training clothes was furiously smashing the back of his hand against a chunk of concrete reinforced with a steel bar.

After smashing the concrete, he started striking a steel wrench until he had bent it out of shape.

The sheer force of the impact left Chen Jue with his mouth slightly agape, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing.

With the rise of short-form videos in recent years, Chen Jue had seen his fair share of fake masters breaking bricks online.

And why did he call them fake?

Because back in his high school physics class, the teacher had personally demonstrated how it was done. If you propped a red brick up so half of it was suspended in the air, or set it at just the right angle, even an ordinary, untrained person could break it with a palm strike.

But looking at the video Elder Wu had found, the man wasn’t breaking a simple red brick. He was shattering a concrete slab he’d seemingly picked up at random from a construction ruin!

A concrete slab that had a goddamn steel rebar running through it!

And he’d shattered it with just a few strikes!

There were no tricks, no special angles—just pure, brute force!

And the wrench was a common hardware tool you could find in any roadside hardware or auto repair shop. To bend it with his bare hands... what kind of insane skill was that?

But most importantly, after breaking everything, the master with Inner Power in the video deliberately showed both of his hands to the camera.

His right hand, the one he’d used for striking, was swollen like a steamed bun—pale, tender, and reddish, with not a single callus in sight.

His left hand, however, looked completely normal.

The contrast between the left and the right was stark.

Then, dragging the progress bar back to before the demonstration, he could see that both hands had looked identical.

Comparing the before and after, Chen Jue finally understood why Elder Wu was convinced this man possessed real skill.

’Primordial Hand Old Playful?’

’IP address: Su Province?’

’Gotta follow him, now!’