[In this world, the concept of "energy dissipation" doesn't exist in martial arts. Even if you don't practice martial arts every day, your martial arts cultivation will hardly decline.]
However, the issue of foundational strength does indeed exist. Insufficient foundational potential won't cause you to drop a level, but it will significantly slow down your martial arts training speed!
[If you returned with a Grandmaster-level cultivation level when the previous simulation ended, then for the first sixty or seventy years of this simulation, you will have absolutely no room for improvement! You must wait until your foundation catches up over time.]
[It's alright now. You're making some progress, and it will gradually accelerate over time. You know you're a typical late bloomer in martial arts.]
In the 273rd year of the Daqing era, the depth of "Heavenly River Circulation" reached the Great Perfection realm. Aptitude affects your leveling speed, but it does not affect your martial arts progress; these two are completely separate.
[Your combat power has received an additional boost. Do you think you can improve your ranking by two places if you participate in that competition again?]
[Yes, defeat those two second-rate martial artists who are standing above you.]
In the 274th year of the Daqing era, the Red Leaf Gang in Donglin City wanted to recognize you as their leader and make you their protector. In return, they were willing to give you a monthly stipend and wouldn't have you do any work.
After you found out what they were doing, you broke the legs of several of them on the spot, then stormed into their newly established headquarters and broke dozens more legs.
They released seven or eight children who had been abducted from somewhere.
[In the 275th year of the Great Celebration, you excitedly discovered that your martial arts training speed had finally increased significantly, and your internal organ enhancement progress had reached 40%.]
[In the 276th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, another grand competition for young talents is held. You are 21 years old and will travel to the "Hundred Stone Forest" to participate in the competition.]
The organizer of this grand competition is the Yangyao Sect, a powerful sect with grandmasters, and it's rumored that they even have an unparalleled grandmaster, though that grandmaster hasn't appeared in public for over twenty years.
[Once martial artists reach the Grandmaster level, they rarely walk in the world, each living in seclusion. Grandmasters, however, are different; they usually make an appearance.]
You saw a few familiar faces in this competition, and many others still remember you; they are looking forward to your performance.
You came in thirteenth place!
[Because there were only thirteen top-tier players in this competition, and one of them was seriously injured in a previous battle, you defeated him...]
[There's another incredibly powerful second-rate martial artist. Aside from the seriously injured one and you, the slacker, he's actually surpassed a first-rate expert, ranking eleventh.]
[You have indeed improved since five years ago, but the extent of that improvement has left some people sighing: it's too little! They all believe that your breakthrough to a first-rate martial artist at the age of sixteen greatly diminished your potential.]
You don't care what they think; the next simulation will prove everything.
If that doesn't work, then let's prove it with another simulation!
[You received the reward, but what you're secretly complaining about is that the Yangyao Sect is stingier than the Meteor Sect. They only gave one high-level martial art to those ranked eleventh to twentieth, missing out on a martial skill.]
You've returned to Donglin City to continue your leisurely life of martial arts practice.
[In the 278th year of Daqing, you are 23 years old, with a foundation of 137% and your internal organs nearing completion.]
That same year, you heard that a new grandmaster had emerged from the Meteor Sect. You recalled that you seemed to have met him seven years ago; at that time, he appeared to be a powerful martial artist maintaining order during the Grand Competition.
In the 281st year of the Daqing era, all the gangs that had sprung up in Donglin City in recent years were wiped out one by one by a "mysterious master," resulting in a significant drop in the city's crime rate, but also a decrease in your pocket money.
Fortunately, ever since word spread about your participation in that year's Young Talents Competition ten years ago, the city lord has frequently invited you to banquets. Now, you're a big shot in Donglin City, someone who can talk to anyone.
In the 282nd year of the Daqing era, a band of robbers arrived outside Donglin City, settling in the mountains dozens of miles outside the city and robbing passing merchants.
The city lord of Donglin City dispatched several hundred soldiers into the mountains, but they were no match for the bandit gang. These were no ordinary bandits; they were Wang… a bandit skilled in martial arts!
On the vast plains, if troops are spread out and engaged in a head-on clash, disregarding morale, even five hundred second-rate martial artists might not be able to defeat an army of ten thousand.
However, in complex terrain, such as cities or mountains, a second-rate martial artist can slowly and methodically kill hundreds of soldiers, or even hundreds of third-rate soldiers!
[Those bandits were all third-rate martial artists, numbering nearly a hundred, including several second-rate martial artists. Their leader was very likely a first-rate martial artist!]
This force, still roaming the mountains and forests, has exceeded the city's ability to cope. Realizing he was powerless to subdue them, the city lord sought help from the city's martial arts masters.
[The first person they looked for was you, then the head of a martial arts academy in the city (a first-rate one), but he refused and only sent a second-rate disciple. They searched everywhere else.]
Ultimately, only two first-rate martial artists (including you) were willing to participate, along with fourteen second-rate and thirty third-rate martial artists. They were tasked with assisting the first and second-rate martial artists, relieving pressure during the siege, and searching the bandits' lair.
[Your current internal organs are at over 60% complete. While this doesn't directly impact your combat power, it subtly improves your overall attributes.]
[Furthermore, your internal energy has been steadily increasing. This is your most direct means of increasing combat power besides your foundation. Since the beginning of the simulation thirteen years ago, your total internal energy has increased by more than 30%, and the intensity of your internal energy has also slightly improved.]
(The reason why internal energy increases very slowly is that it does not increase during the "Extreme Visceral Strength" stage of martial arts; it is developed through arduous training.)
(Just like an ordinary person in real life can't practice martial arts and won't increase their strength, but they can go to the gym, only that gym training is much slower than martial arts training, and the potential is also lower.)
(However, if one reaches the final stage of a first-rate martial artist: when the power penetrates to the bones, the martial artist's internal energy will increase at a rate several times faster than when the internal organs were strengthened.)
[With your healthy adult physique, you're quite confident you can easily beat Xu Ruohai, the leader of the Qinghe Gang, to a pulp.]
[Further considering your 141% foundation and the bonus from the advanced martial art "Heavenly River Circulation," you are confident that unless you encounter a top-tier genius from the "Young Talents Competition," ordinary first-rate martial artists who only break through in their thirties or forties will not be your match at the same cultivation level.]
So you need to show your strength and take down those bandits (if you can't beat them, you can always run away)
Yun Shou sighed, "These additional conditions are so numerous and so humble."
In the simulation, he is desperately trying to prove that he is invincible in the same realm (not a genius).
But in reality, he's just somewhere in between; in the world of top-tier martial artists, he's only considered mid-range, or perhaps even below.
"It won't happen next time, but I can't guarantee it, because it all depends on you."
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