Chapter 127: The Difference Between Immortals and Mortals, a Terrifying Thought
Imperial Palace, Sutra Library.
Gu Dan walked in and, as expected, saw Mr. Ji lying on a recliner with a calm look on his face.
Every time he came here, he could see Mr. Ji lying on the chair, his eyes half-closed and half-open, as if he was in a trance.
This old man, who is over a hundred years old and looks very frail, does not look like a master at all just from his appearance. He is no different from an ordinary person.
Even though he heard Gu Dan's footsteps, Ji Lao did not stand up. He just yawned and even said impatiently, "Why, do you have any more questions?"
"Not anymore. I just want to try and see how strong my martial arts are according to your standards." Gu Dan stood in front of him and spoke.
"How long has it been? It's only been two years since you became a Grandmaster. What's the point of trying? After all, you are still young. Even if you have reached the Grandmaster level, it is inevitable that you are a little impatient."
Master Ji showed his old age and said bluntly, "If you want to make progress after reaching the Grandmaster level, your progress will naturally slow down. This has little to do with whether you have talent or not, but depends on years of hard work! You have never been tortured by the blood barrier, so this unpolished mentality will not work!"
"It won't hurt to try, and a master should have enough knowledge of his own strength. Isn't that what you said?" Gu Dan raised his eyebrows and interrupted him.
Over the past year, he has practiced a lot of top-grade martial arts that he brought back from Master Ji. He wouldn't dare say that he has mastered them thoroughly, but it's not an exaggeration to say that he has mastered them.
After Mo Qiu left, he didn't even have anyone to practice with.
Besides him, the only remaining martial arts master in the imperial capital was Master Ji, and Master Ji's condition made it obvious that he would not be suitable to be his sparring partner.
If you keep practicing like a blind man groping in the dark, you will inevitably lack a sense of reality and it will discourage your desire to make progress!
Only genuine progress will make people happy. Simply growing one year older is just a waste of time.
You must see your own progress to affirm your life. This has nothing to do with how long you have lived, but it is about proving the meaning of your existence. This is Gu Dan's pursuit.
"Hey, you still don't give up. There is a saying that goes, if you don't listen to the advice of the elderly, you will suffer in the end. I am afraid that if you try it later, not only will you lose your confidence in yourself, but it will also dampen your desire to make progress and affect your future practice. It's not worth it!"
Ji Lao opened his eyes and looked at him with a smile, "Have you thought it through? Do you really want to try?"
"oh?"
Gu Dan stared at him curiously.
There is something else behind this! "I wonder what else is so strange about the test you are talking about?" Gu Dan asked.
"To say it's too bizarre, that's not it. It just makes people understand that there are always people better than you and there are always things better than you."
Elder Ji sat up straight from the recliner. "Remember I told you that there was another martial arts master in the royal family? That kid had great doubts about himself after the test. In the words of the novel, it is called a demon in the heart. In human terms, it means constantly questioning oneself and wasting one's energy.
That is why he was unwilling to wait until I was old and weak like me to try the legendary innate realm. He had to rush straight into the bottomless abyss while he had his last breath of energy, and finally died miserably! "
Anyone who can overcome the obstacles of Qi and Blood and become a martial arts master should be a person of strong mind. What kind of test can force a master to have "demons in his heart" and even to rush to the innate realm regardless of the consequences?
The curiosity in Gu Dan's eyes became more intense, and he said without hesitation: "Then I must try it even more!"
For him, he is not afraid of seeing peaks and obstacles. As long as the peak is there, no matter how many obstacles there are, he can always climb up if he has enough time. There is no need to question himself at all.
"Good! This momentum is worth encouraging. I hope you can still be so confident later."
Mr. Ji stood up and took something out of a room.
Is that a cracked iron ball?
Although it is called an iron ball, it is not actually round. The surface is full of potholes and there is a large piece missing. There is also a clear sword mark left on it. The whole iron ball is only about the size of a bowl.
"This is?"
Gu Dan was a little confused. After Master Ji had said so much, he only came up with this? !
"Hey, don't look down on this thing, kid!"
Mr. Ji patted the iron ball, placed it in front of Gu Dan, and motioned him to look carefully.
Gu Dan reached out to take it, and immediately realized something was wrong.
The weight of this small broken ball was far beyond his expectation. It was probably more than a thousand pounds! Ordinary iron objects could never be so heavy!
"Feel it, right? This thing was found in a blacksmith shop. Ordinary people can't lift it at all. It is not afraid of fire or water, and it won't be worn out at all even when hit by a hammer. It was reported to higher authorities and finally fell into the hands of the royal family, but they couldn't do anything about it." said Old Ji.
At first glance, the appearance of the small broken ball looks no different from ordinary iron tools, but when he took it in his hand and looked at it carefully, Gu Dan also found some differences.
There are extremely fine lines on the small broken ball, so fine that you have to look closely to see them. It's like some extremely complex patterns stacked together, but in the end they are so simple and unrefined that they become just an ordinary thing.
Compared with the sword mark on it, the iron ball is not really conspicuous, so it is no wonder that no clues could be discovered at the first time.
"It is indeed extraordinary, but is there anything else worthy of praise?" Gu Dan asked again after looking at it carefully.
If it was just relatively serious, it would not be enough to force a master to be overwhelmed with inner demons.
"Even a newly promoted martial arts master, with all his strength, would not be able to leave any mark on it. Only a martial arts master of the second level can barely make it dent a little, and it will recover immediately!"
Old Ji stared at the little broken ball, a hint of fear flashing in his eyes.
In terms of the material alone, it is indeed amazing, but the most frightening thing is the sword mark on it! What level of master must be able to beat something like this that even a master with all his strength can't do anything to it?
It's terrifying to think about it! Even if one has reached the pinnacle of martial power in the mortal world, after witnessing these puzzling things with one's own eyes, even a master would feel that there must be a higher level of power in this world.
For example, immortals, for example, the martial arts innateness that he has been pursuing tirelessly! If there is no such realm, how to explain the obvious damage caused by human power on this small broken ball?
That sword mark is the best evidence!
With their vision and strength reaching this level, they have already experienced all the temptations of the world. When they should have been wasting their lives, they saw another kind of beauty that they had never explored or even understood.
When doubts arise in your heart, they will turn into the greatest motivation to pursue.
This has become his obsession!
Although the iron ball is small, every martial arts master who has seen it since the founding of Dayue has always had some problems.
Either admit that he is a frog in a well, or turn into a madman to pursue the unknown other side of the world! As a martial arts master, he would definitely not choose the former! He wanted to wait until he broke through to the innate realm before showing it to Gu Dan, so that even if he was gone, as long as he thought of this thing, he would always push Gu Dan forward.
After all, human curiosity and questioning are the most abundant forces. No one needs to urge them. Once they discover something, they will be unable to resist trying all kinds of taboos! But since Gu Dan came to me and wanted to test his quality, don't blame him for being rude.
There is no one like him in his early thirties as a martial arts master, so it is inevitable that he is arrogant. It may not be a bad thing to suppress his arrogance while I am still able to do so.
"this"
Gu Dan's pupils also shrank when he heard this.
Although I had already prepared myself for the existence of immortals in this world, and even experienced the effects of spiritual stones myself, witnessing the power of immortals and imagining them in my mind were two different things after all! Ants cannot understand the height of a mountain, and only by climbing it can you feel it! There is a difference between immortals and mortals, but how?
This is something that is still unknown! Today, we can get a glimpse of its destructive power.
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"Think about it. You have spent countless hard work, gone through 40 to 50 years of practice, and endured countless pains. Finally, you have reached the realm of Grandmaster and the pinnacle of martial arts. You should have reached the pinnacle and enjoyed countless wealth and glory. But you suddenly found that the practice you spent half your life on couldn't even hurt a piece of iron ball whose function you didn't know."
Elder Ji's tone was particularly complicated, and his dry and decayed eyebrows drooped. "The boy in the palace before just couldn't stand this kind of stimulation. I tried my best to persuade him for several years, but I still couldn't stop him."
That sword mark proved that the martial arts master was not the limit of this world, or it was still far away! When a hero who stood out from thousands of people achieved the greatest achievement and the most proud of his life, he suddenly found that everything he had worked hard for seemed to be nothing at all. This kind of blow could drive a martial arts master crazy! This iron ball was both Otsuki's luck and misfortune. Fortunately, they understood that there are always people better than you, and there are always things better than you. Unfortunately, this thing fully demonstrated that the martial arts master still had a long way to go.
And that path might not be the path of martial arts at all!
Of course, the martial arts master who has reached the pinnacle of the world will not agree, so... it must be, definitely, definitely, anyway, there must be a realm above the martial arts master to make sense! It can't be destroyed now, that's because the master is not enough!
"No matter how much I say, it won't be as useful as trying it yourself. Come on, there's no need to use your true Qi, it's useless against it. Use your physical body to test this iron ball, give it a palm, and feel the fear and unwillingness that once forced a martial arts master to death." Old Ji said again.
"good."
Gu Dan nodded slightly and his expression became serious.
However, this kind of experiment certainly cannot be carried out in the Sutra Repository. It is not enough to describe it as a master breaking a stele and splitting a stone with one palm. This place is used to store books, how can it be destroyed?
The two came to an open space in the palace. Gu Dan put the small broken ball on the ground and took a deep breath.
He mobilized his strength to the extreme, and the energy flowed through his whole body, and he chopped it down with one palm! The extremely violent force at the moment of contact was not the rebound of some indestructible hard object that Gu Dan thought.
On the contrary, this palm strike was more like he was hitting some special sponge, and he couldn't help but wonder if he had missed.
But, no.
The ground made a tearing sound as if it could not bear the weight. A large piece of the blue bricks on the ground shattered in an instant, and more spider-web-like cracks spread out into the distance.
The iron ball only sank a little into the ground, roughly estimated to be less than half a palm's worth!
Whether it was the scale of the damage to the ground or the power of the palm strike, this was absolutely unreasonable! Looking down at the place where the palm strike landed, there was only a tiny dent that was insignificant compared to the whole place, barely reflecting an incomplete palm print.
And the dent recovered extremely quickly at a speed visible to the naked eye!
Seeing is believing! Seeing such a strange thing with his own eyes, Gu Dan couldn't help but feel a little shocked.
How could this thing be so draining?
Why?!
Moreover, it would take a full-strength palm strike to cause such damage, which would heal on its own in the blink of an eye. If one were to make an armor out of such material and wear it, wouldn't he be able to face the siege of a master without even blinking an eye?
However, this thing is only the size of a bowl, but it weighs a thousand pounds. Not to mention where to find so much material, even if it is really made into armor, who can wear it and run around? I'm afraid it will just become an iron cage!
“It’s really good.”
Gu Dan said this with a serious look, looking quite emotional.
But he didn't hear Master Ji speak for a long time, so he looked up.
But he saw that Old Ji stared at him with eyes wide open, stunned, looking him up and down, as if he was looking at an inhuman being, as if he wanted to skin him alive.
"What are you doing?"
Gu felt a chill of worry coming over him. That strange look was really a little hard for him to bear.
Why are you looking at me? Watch the game!
"How can you be so powerful? This doesn't make sense!"
Ji Lao's eyes were full of confusion. He had lived for more than a hundred years and had experienced three dynasties. Oh no, if you count Kang Jing, he had experienced four dynasties. What kind of genius had he not seen? He had never seen such a monster! It was clear that he had only been a martial arts master for less than two years, but the power of the palm that fell was probably no less than that of a master who had practiced hard for more than ten years! Could it be that the elixir was so magical that it could not only help people to see the obstacles of qi and blood, but also increase the speed of physical practice?
Otherwise, he really couldn't understand how Gu Dan could make such rapid progress in such a place where there was no room for tricks! No, this couldn't be called rapid, this was called leaping!
If that's the case, then if he just waits a few more years, wouldn't the other party have achieved what he's been working hard for his entire life?! I can't understand it at all!
His original intention was to open Gu Dan's eyes, but he didn't expect that Gu Dan would bring him a huge surprise, so big that it could be called a shock!
Boy, what else don't I know?!
(End of this chapter)