Chapter 29: The Six Limit Forms
"It's all thanks to the Young Master. Yesterday he gave me over a hundred pills and told me to distribute them among the guards, saying these pills were the finest medicines available within the second grade. I didn't believe it at first, but after just one night, everyone had made a breakthrough — even I broke through my previous shackles and entered the second grade of the Yellow Realm." Mo Yanjun's voice was filled with excitement.
"Over a hundred pills that pushed everyone into the Yellow Realm!" Old Master Tang felt his whole body go numb.
To achieve such an effect, the pills would have to be at least mid-tier second-grade or above. At market price, a single pill like that would cost no less than forty or fifty thousand silver taels — over a hundred of them would be worth several million taels!
Even the Tang Clan would wince at spending that kind of money. And Tang Yan, whose pocket money had always been docked by his grandfather, absolutely could not have produced such a lavish sum on his own.
In an instant, Old Master Tang's thoughts turned again to Tang Yan's mysterious master.
"My lord, based on the Young Master's earlier calculations, the monthly salary for these one hundred and twenty men would amount to twenty-four thousand silver taels in expenditure." Mo Yanjun said with a worried look.
Old Master Tang naturally remembered the reward scheme Tang Yan had laid out when encouraging the guards that day.
At the time, he had assumed it would take these men years to advance in rank, so he hadn't been concerned. Now he realized just how wrong he had been.
An extra twenty thousand taels a month was something the Tang Clan could manage for now — but once these men's strength grew to the second, third, and fourth grade of the Yellow Realm… or even into the Profound Realm, wouldn't the clan's daily expenditures reach a truly terrifying level?
Still, Old Master Tang was hardly one to complain about having too many powerful fighters in the Tang Clan. He would have loved nothing more than for every single guard to be a Heavenly Realm expert right now. He waved his hand dismissively. "It doesn't matter. With these guards, our Tang Clan will stand undefeated and create even greater wealth. The reward scheme Xiao Yan set up — carry it out as planned."
After spending another half an hour at the Training Grounds, Old Master Tang clasped his hands behind his back and headed out.
He couldn't quite describe how he felt right now — only that his steps seemed to float as if he were walking on clouds.
A hundred Yellow Realm experts! How much had the Tang Clan's combat strength grown in a single night?
Still in a daze, Old Master Tang looked up and realized the path he had taken led straight toward his grandson's residence.
Realizing it had been some days since he'd had a proper conversation with the boy, he lifted his feet and headed toward the gate of Tang Yan's courtyard.
Tang Yan's small courtyard.
Little Cui and Ziyu sat in two rattan chairs, chatting as they watched Tang Yan train.
Ziyu was naturally beautiful, with an extraordinary bearing and an innate air of nobility — a commanding presence she had been born with. This made Little Cui extremely reserved at first, but Ziyu's gentle, easygoing way of conversation quickly closed the distance between them.
When two women start talking and one of them gets the ball rolling, the topics flow like an endless river. Before long, Ziyu had learned the full story of Tang Yan's past.
But with every new detail she learned about Tang Yan's history, Ziyu's brow furrowed a little deeper.
Though she had only met Tang Yan the day before, the decisiveness and precision with which he had commanded her in battle was not something anyone could fake without serious, diligent study.
Yet the Young Master Tang that Little Cui described was a petty, roguish scoundrel — and it was only in the past month or so that he had changed at all.
As the daughter of a prominent family in Zizhu City, Ziyu was no amateur when it came to reading people. Little Cui's guileless, artless expression made it clear she was telling nothing but the truth.
Thinking about it, Ziyu grew even more curious about this Tang Yan.
What kind of extraordinary person could deceive even a maidservant who had been at his side for over ten years?
Ziyu's gaze drifted involuntarily to Tang Yan. At the moment, he was in the courtyard practicing six very strange movements.
Each movement was of considerable amplitude and utterly inharmonious — Ziyu half-wondered whether, if Tang Yan pushed any harder, he might twist himself into a pretzel.
Not only were the six forms bizarre in posture, but they also connected head to tail: once the sixth form was completed, it looped back to the very beginning, cycling through all six movements in an endless sequence.
Ziyu considered herself a Heavenly Realm warrior, yet to execute these movements as fluidly as Tang Yan was doing… seemed… somehow… not easy at all? What on earth were these six forms?
Tang Yan paid no mind to Ziyu's thoughts. These six forms were something he had created in his previous life — the Six Limit Forms.
Every single movement pushed the human body to its absolute maximum capacity. Yet human potential is vast, and to hold a movement at the body's very limit without causing injury required the application of many underlying principles.
Each form, when executed, demanded every last ounce of strength.
In this way, within just thirty minutes, Tang Yan could completely exhaust all the True Qi in his body.
At that point, Tang Yan would take a pill to restore himself to peak condition.
The True Qi in his cultivation core would empty and fill, empty and fill — cycling over and over, which accelerated his cultivation progress at an extraordinary rate.
The technique was excellent, but very few people could persist with it, and even fewer could master it. More importantly, something this valuable was not something Tang Yan would share lightly.
"So exhausting!" After his True Qi had been emptied and refilled three full cycles, Tang Yan finally stopped training. His clothes were soaked through with sweat.
"Both of you, look away — this young master needs to bathe and change." Tang Yan pointed at the two women by the door and announced.
"Can't you go inside to change?" Ziyu shot Tang Yan a sideways glance.
"The cold water is right here, I'll just rinse off and change out here. Besides, this is my home — what I say goes." Tang Yan said lazily.
"I'll sit right here, then. Go ahead and change — let's see if you dare." Hearing Tang Yan boss her around like that, Ziyu's temper flared. She was a Heavenly Realm expert — when had she ever been ordered about by some Yellow Realm brat?
Besides, she genuinely didn't believe Tang Yan had the nerve to strip down right in front of her.
Clearly, she had underestimated Tang Yan's shamelessness. With a whoosh, Tang Yan was left wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.
"Ah!" Ziyu let out a startled cry and froze on the spot.
"Heh heh, I told you to look away and you wouldn't listen — now you have to run off like a good girl." Tang Yan laughed roguishly, hoisting up a wooden bucket to rinse the sweat from his body — when the gate was suddenly kicked open with a bang.
"Yan'er, huh?" Old Master Tang, who had come rushing over in high spirits, froze the instant he opened the gate.
His grandson was standing there in nothing but a pair of shorts, and there was a woman of extraordinary bearing in the courtyard. What on earth was going on here?