016 A Practice Method Close to Actual Combat

Early the next morning, as usual, Du Ruo rose at six o’clock. He had gone to bed a bit later than usual the previous night; when he was at home in recent days, he would fall asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow at half past nine. But here, the small plaza outside was still lively at nine-thirty, and it wasn’t until the crowds dispersed around ten that Du Ruo could finally settle into restful sleep.

Perhaps this was the price of economic development.

Of course, it was no great inconvenience to him. At the very least, it didn’t affect Du Ruo much—he slept soundly, and missing half an hour of rest mattered little.

Yet today, rather than beginning his morning with martial arts practice in the courtyard as he usually did, Du Ruo applied medicinal wine to his limbs, dressed, and made his way toward the rear of the village.

Training is important, but martial prowess is even more so. This is not something one can achieve by closing the doors and practicing alone at home. No matter how many tools and aids are arranged for training, none compare to the progress gained from a real match.

Du Ruo had mastered the fundamentals well. The skills he extracted appeared in his mind as memories, granting him exceptional understanding. But knowing in the head did not mean the body would obey; after several rounds of practice, Du Ruo decided to adopt a more practical approach to gain experience.

Unfortunately, times had changed. In this era of peace and prosperity, he could no longer seek real combat in the ways of old, so Du Ruo had to find another path.

He had already devised a method to gain practical experience.

At first, as Du Ruo walked through the village, he saw tourists preparing to ride up to Mount Huangshan for a climb. Six o’clock was not early; if they did not set out soon, it would be difficult to descend by nightfall.

Du Ruo, too, was heading for Huangshan, though he would not follow the tourist route. Instead, he began his ascent from a narrow path behind the village.

These villages at the foot of Huangshan had always relied on the mountain. Before Huangshan became a scenic area in 1982, besides farming, villagers gathered medicinal herbs and hunted in the mountains, so naturally there were mountain paths.

But after 1982, with Huangshan’s designation as a tourist destination, villagers found new livelihoods and life improved. Except for a few elders who still ventured into the mountains for herbs, most people no longer risked the climb.

Mount Huangshan covers 1,200 square kilometers, yet the scenic area encompasses only about 160 square kilometers. The rest is well protected, home to countless wild creatures thriving in the forests.

Du Ruo’s purpose today was not to seek out wild animals for combat; they were protected now, and with all his needs met, Du Ruo had no wish to harm them.

Gradually, fewer people appeared, and the surroundings grew more desolate.

He walked along the mountain trail—the only path leading upward nearby, though rarely trodden and now overgrown with weeds.

Gazing at the narrow road winding through dense forest, Du Ruo smiled, stretched to loosen his joints, scanned the area to ensure he was alone, and with the sunrise at his back, darted swiftly into the thicket.

He had already confirmed that in recent years, there were no tigers in the mountains, and rarely did anyone speak of bears in the vicinity. Without these two beasts, Du Ruo could safely pursue his new training method.

He ran swiftly along the path. The trail, unused for years, was choked with brambles and occasionally blocked by branches.

But Du Ruo did not slow. He treated the thorns and branches as imaginary foes.

His feet moved quickly, his silhouette rising and falling. Sometimes he struck branches with Xingyi’s cannon fist, sometimes brushed aside thorns with his palm, leapt over fallen limbs with tiger form, darted through thick branches with monkey form, sprang with the sparrow step of the Natural School, and shot from low ground with a crouched stride.

As he advanced, the thorns and branches grew ever denser. Du Ruo treated each as a false adversary, responding with attacks and defenses, dodging, blocking, and countering as he moved.

His body changed rapidly—sometimes like a nimble monkey, sometimes fierce as a tiger, sometimes light as a sparrow.

This kind of training was only close to real combat; after all, thorns and branches were lifeless, unlike human opponents who might respond unpredictably. The branches could only pose a single challenge, never a sequence of changing attacks.

Moreover, branches could never match the speed of human strikes, no matter how quickly Du Ruo moved.

Still, this was the most effective method Du Ruo could conceive—especially when descending the mountain, the results would be even better.

In Du Ruo’s view, even this level of training was already excellent. Unlike ordinary people, he could enhance his physical attributes by adding points to his essence, energy, and spirit; once his body became formidable, any future opponent would only have one chance to strike.

The twelve animal forms of Xingyi are inherently practical, but if practiced without application, they are no different from the tai chi routines seniors perform in the park. Du Ruo’s forest sprint was meant to hone his attack techniques, to simplify and refine the routines, so that when familiar, they could be truly used in combat.

Of course, this method was not without its price. After only twenty minutes, Du Ruo had to pause and rest. The climb was a severe test of his leg strength and stamina, and the mental exertion was considerable—he could not afford the slightest carelessness and had to remain completely focused.

Even so, after twenty minutes on the mountain path, Du Ruo’s face was well protected, but his clothing was slashed in strips, and his arms and thighs bore red welts, some even oozing blood.

It was the wild forest; no matter how agile he was, no matter how his body twisted like a dragon, the lashes of thorns and hooks of branches could not be entirely evaded. He could only minimize most injuries and protect his face, accepting wounds elsewhere as inevitable.

Yet the effort was richly rewarded. Du Ruo found that in this brief twenty minutes, his Xingyi and Natural School skills gained two points of experience, and his physical attributes increased by 0.02 points.

Such efficiency was twice what he achieved practicing in the courtyard.

Seeing the rise in experience and attributes, Du Ruo rested and adjusted himself before running further up the mountain.

He was still only in the outskirts of Huangshan, sprinting on a low hill at the edge where wild animals were scarce. Though his movements made much noise, only the occasional wild fowl or bird was startled; tourists were nowhere to be seen, and even scenic spots were far removed from where Du Ruo trained.

As he delved deeper, the run grew more arduous—not only was the climb steeper, but the path, neglected for years, was nearly engulfed. Sometimes Du Ruo had to pause and carefully search for the way forward.