118: Chapter 115 The Path to Mastery Part Two

As noon approached, Liu Dashan shouldered his hoe, preparing to head home. His household consisted only of his wife and grandson.

His son and daughter-in-law worked out of town, leaving the young grandson at home; the time he spent returning home each day was his happiest moment.

"Right, what exactly did that kid Li Changsheng buy that tree for today? Could he be planning to build a new house?"

Thinking of this, Liu Dashan immediately looked into the distance, but he froze after just one glance.

Where's the tree? Where did my massive tree go?

Liu Dashan rubbed his eyes and looked toward the irrigation canal about two hundred meters away. If he remembered correctly, his tree should have been right there.

There were no other trees nearby; it was a spot where the villagers rested and enjoyed the shade while doing farm work. Everyone would sit there together to chat and drink water when they were tired, but why was it gone now?

"That kid Li Changsheng didn't even bring a saw at the time, did he?"

Liu Dashan felt as if his memory was failing him. For a tree like that, never mind an electric saw, a regular saw would definitely be required.

Moreover, transporting such a large tree back would be a major hassle. Now, only a few scraps and branches remained at the site.

—

Thud!

As a large section of the tree trunk slammed onto the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust, Gao Qiang—who was busy working and chatting idly with his livestream audience—was completely dumbfounded.

Didn't you say you wanted me to drive over and tow it? I haven't even headed out yet, and you carried it back yourself?

Gao Qiang stared blankly at the massive tree. By his estimation, a tree like this that hadn't been seasoned for a long time had to weigh at least four hundred pounds!

Looking at Li Changsheng, who had shed his outer layers to reveal a physique with incredibly defined muscle lines, he swallowed hard.

Ever since his brother returned, he had become more and more incomprehensible.

"Qiang Zi, I'm giving this tree to you. Your progress looks pretty good! It's really starting to take shape now."

Looking at Gao Qiang's lake-view villa, Li Changsheng felt a bit of an itch in his heart.

With the mountains at its back and a lake in front, the area around the lake was paved with many deliberately leveled stones, and plenty of ornamental vegetation had been planted along the shore.

A corridor extended from the wooden house into the lake. Currently, only a small platform had been built in the water; the skeleton of the pavilion was finished, but some details were incomplete.

However, looking at the whole thing, one could see Gao Qiang's architectural vision.

"Qiang Zi, you could totally turn this into a farmhouse resort!"

"I could give it a try. My viewers also suggested I try opening a farmhouse resort; they want to come visit and check it out."

Gao Qiang scratched his head. In fact, he understood that the viewers weren't coming to play; they were coming to see Brother Changsheng.

Now, legends of Brother Changsheng were circulating everywhere online.

The main reason was that the footage of that punch blowing up the power testing machine had been turned into memes by dedicated netizens.

With captions, they generally went like: 'How are you going to block this punch with twenty years of power? .jpg'

Or: 'Simps, prepare to die! .jpg'

Or: 'I, Big G, ask you with this punch: are you dead yet? .jpg'

After greeting Qiang Zi and chatting for a while, Li Changsheng clapped his hands and headed home, bringing along Zhang Zhirong, who followed him like a little sidekick.

After lunch, Li Changsheng picked up a few books and prepared to start reading.

Now that he had achieved Hidden Power, Li Changsheng planned to study the other four moves of the Xingyi Five Elements.

Therefore, this book was specifically about Xingyi Fist; it actually included the Xingyi Twelve Animals as well, but Li Changsheng decided to thoroughly study the Five Elements Fist first.

The Xingyi Five Elements are the mother fists of Xingyi; he would master those first before moving on.

However, before he had been reading for long, a notification sound echoed in his mind.

[Congratulations to the Host for completing the first stage of the 'Path of a Grandmaster' mission. Rewards: Xingyi Fist (Complete), Attribute Point +1.]

[Issuing the second stage of the 'Path of a Grandmaster' mission: A hundred years ago there was Yang the Invincible, today there is Li the Invincible. Challenge at least four Hidden Power masters.]

Hearing this prompt, the hand Li Changsheng used to flip the pages suddenly trembled. Then, under Zhang Zhirong's bewildered gaze, he slammed the book shut.

Then, Zhang Zhirong watched as Li Changsheng tossed the book directly into the trash can and slumped powerlessly onto the sofa.

What happened?

Why does it look like all his dreams just vanished in an instant?

Zhang Zhirong didn't know what had happened, but he felt that Li Changsheng must have suffered a massive blow in that short span of time.

At this moment, Li Changsheng was cursing inwardly. Damn it, those dozens of yuan were spent for nothing.

"This broken System must be worried I'll exploit it; it's probably trying to spite me."

Li Changsheng was incredibly depressed. He had just wanted to teach himself Xingyi Fist, and then the reward just gave it to him.

This completely crushed Li Changsheng's attempt to exploit the System's mechanics.

However, as time passed and the memory transfer finished, Li Changsheng was still quite satisfied.

Self-study was possible, but the time required would definitely be immense. One would need to build muscle memory, which sometimes takes months or even years of practice.

The System's infusion was equivalent to directly giving Li Changsheng the Xingyi Twelve Animals plus the Five Elements Fist, allowing him to skip the muscle memory phase entirely.

Li Changsheng felt that as long as he familiarized himself a bit more, he could soon reach the Visible Power level in Xingyi Fist. As for Hidden Power, it currently only applied to Crushing Fist and Baji Quan.

This was because his initial mastery of Hidden Power was built upon the foundation of these two martial arts.

"No rush. Xingyi Fist itself incorporates too many techniques. A typical martial arts enthusiast is doing well if they learn two or three animal forms; those who master them all are veterans who have studied for many years.

I will start by mastering all types of the Five Elements Fist to the Hidden Power level, and then I can prioritize a few of the Twelve Animals for in-depth training."

Li Changsheng silently made his plans.

Then, his mind turned to the second stage of the Path of a Grandmaster mission: challenging five Hidden Power masters.

"This mission is even harder than mastering Hidden Power!"

Li Changsheng's brow furrowed instantly. Mastering Hidden Power was actually relatively easy; even without this sudden event, he could have slowly ground it out. He would have succeeded eventually after a few years.

But challenging four Hidden Power masters wasn't something you could just do because you wanted to.

One had to know that there were many rules in the martial arts world. Although things were different now than in the past, almost everyone who could reach the Hidden Power level had a certain social status or followed the old rules for Martial Artists.

If you tried to pay for a fight, others wouldn't give you the time of day.

In the past, people wouldn't easily agree to a duel because it could easily shatter their livelihood.

For example, during the Republican era, Martial Artists also held duels, but the nature of it was somewhat like holding a wedding.

First, someone would propose a duel, then send a formal challenge. On the day of the duel, there had to be people to receive the guests, a notary on the stage, and they even had to sign a life-and-death waiver.

The forms of dueling were divided into Southern and Northern styles.

Southern style duels generally ended in a few minutes or even less than a minute. Once the match started, both sides would fight relentlessly until one party was knocked down and unable to stand.

Northern style duels often went on for dozens of rounds without a winner. According to Northern rules, both sides would first circle each other on the stage, suddenly clash, retreat simultaneously after a few moves, then circle again and clash again. It was relatively more cautious.

Therefore, as long as the gap between the two sides wasn't extremely vast, the matches lasted quite a while.

And that was just the fight itself. Before the fight, there were many rules for arranging the match. Whether you could even get a match didn't depend on you; it depended on both parties and required consideration of many factors.

After all, in a duel back then, a light outcome was serious injury, while a heavy one was life or death.