379 Explaining the Martial Arts (1/2)
Chapter 379: Explaining the Martial Arts
Translator: TransnEditor: Transn
The High Priest of Flower Soul went on and narrated an absurd story about the Stone Castle. It was a story very different from the history that Shangguan Ru and Maid Lotus knew of. In order to convince them, the High Priest made his disciples bring along stacks of books and pointed the text out line by line.
There was no concept of time in ancient books so they could only judge by the wear and tear of the book itself to know that the books were recorded many years ago.
At that time, Jade City had just been established and its population was no more than a few thousand. Even the North and South cities were not completely segregated as well.
The mountaintop was named Xuandu Peak and the Stone Castle was named Reborn Fort. The owner's surname was Feng and people addressed him as ”Holy King”.
Holy King possessed excellent Kung Fu and accepted all kinds of disciples. According to the characteristics of each person, he established three inner halls, namely Blazing Sun Hall, New Moon Hall and Lone Star Hall.
The disciples of Blazing Sun Hall were good at cooperating with one another in collective warfare. New Moon Hall specialized in pill-making and occult sciences, while Lone Star Hall had the most outstanding disciples. They never cooperated with others and kept to themselves, performing the most arduous and secretive tasks.
At Reborn Fort's heyday, a revolt emerged from within.
The three inner halls believed that they had learned all the Kung Fu from their master and began to act arrogantly. Unwilling to submit, they joined forces to revolt against the Holy King.
But they overestimated their own strength. Once Holy King retaliated, the renegades were defeated immediately and lay down to beg for mercy.
The Holy King forgave his disciples for their momentary rebellion and did not kill them all, but his kindness only resulted in an even greater betrayal. New Moon Hall used occult sciences to entrap the loyalty of the servants who served Holy King and discovered the date of Holy King's self-destruction. Blazing Sun Hall banked on their advantage in numbers and besieged the guards loyal to the Holy King. Lone Star Hall took the opportunity to enter the secret chamber and was about to commit the crime of killing their master.
However, the Holy King's Kung Fu was unfathomable. Even in the midst of self-destruction, he was also able to easily destroy the insurgents.
He killed many people and the survivors were terrified. However, he grew tired all of a sudden. He looked at the trembling disciples on their knees on the floor and said, ”You all are merely ants, and ants can never bring down the elephant. But the elephant can easily trample and kill all of you in a step. However, it won't have any meaning to the elephant. His strength will not increase because of your loyalty, nor will it lessen because of your betrayal. As punishment, all of you will forever lose the chance to become the strong one.”
Therefore, the Holy King left Xuandu Peak and voluntarily gave up the castle to the cowardly and incompetent renegades. He knew that once these useless disciples were no longer under his protection, they would not be able to keep the Stone Castle and would soon become slaves to their former enemies.
Then, the Holy King came to the Land of Fragrance. Generation after generation, his prophecy came true. The three inner halls perished one after another, and the traitors, filled with regret, would always call out the title of Holy King at the end of their lives.
”The end.” The high priest closed his books and continued, ”My surname is Feng, and I am the Holy King of the 11th generation. He is my successor, the 12th generation Holy King, the sixth generation of High Priest of Flower Soul.”
”He” referred to a boy aged somewhere between 11 to 12 years old, propping his chin up and listening with fascination as the high priest told the story. In truth, he could not understand Central Plains Chinese but he was more than familiar with the contents of the books. He already knew which paragraph the high priest was talking about the moment he moved his fingers across the pages.
Shangguan Ru and Maid Lotus looked at each other. This story might be fabricated, but there were a lot of true contents about the Stone Castle that outsiders were unaware of and uninterested in. But there were also many illogical areas in the story, even if it were true, those who were not from Stone Castle could easily find many loopholes in the story.
Blazing Sun Hall was obviously known as Golden Roc Fort later on and although New Moon Hall was in exile, it had not perished. But neither of them had heard of Lone Star Hall before, and they guessed the black-masked assassins were most likely what remained of them.
Maid Lotus did not bother to argue, and even though Shangguan Ru did not have the heart to do so, she still asked, ”High Priest, are you training disciples here to recapture the Stone Castle one day?”
The high priest did not seem to understand what she meant, then he looked surprised and said, ”Did you not heard what I said? Holy King relinquished Reborn Fort willingly to let the betrayers know their tragic fate without the protection of the Holy King. We will never go back. I am training my disciples here to protect the Land of Fragrance. They were honored to receive guidance from the successors of the Holy King, and each of them will be able to fight against a hundred people once they complete their studies.”
Shangguan Ru and Maid Lotus exchanged a look with each other and were very sympathetic toward the high priest. He obviously knew nothing about the real situation in the Western Region and believed every word in these ancient books. He continued to live in a partly true and partly fictional fantasy world, contented with everything he had.
There was nothing crueler than destroying someone's fantasy. Shangguan Ru decided to never bring up Golden Roc Fort again, while Maid Lotus did not care for it. She was more worried about Old Man Mu, his Kung Fu was recovering day by day and in a few days' time, no one would rival him.
Although the high priest was pedantic and simple, Maid Lotus was more interested in the fact that he had pinpointed the secret of the Five Hole Punch.
The high priest did not hoard information and eagerly asked his disciples to bring in more books and read out information about the Five Hole Punch word for word.
But Maid Lotus was slightly disappointed. As it turned out, this was not the real manual, but just an analysis of the Five Hole Punch made by a certain Holy King, based on what he saw and heard. Among them, it specifically mentioned the Earth punch as the highest level of the Five Hole Punch and there would be no more loopholes once you mastered it.
The high priest also wanted to explain the Dajue Book of Swordcraft to Maid Lotus but she politely refused and merely glanced through the related books. Again, no specific content from the scriptures was stated, it was only discussions made in general terms and divided the practitioner to several realms of skill levels. Rather than insight, it seemed more like exaggerations written by a disgruntled scholar who had never seen the true scriptures before.
Among the piles of books, only a few contained atlases of real Kung Fu, but Maid Lotus took no interest in any of them.