125 The Formidable Practice of Habit! (1/2)
Jun Wu Yi worked around the clock over the next few days to finish Jun Mo Xie's task, and managed to finish casting the metal to the desire shape. Even though the metal was only to be casted into a very small knife, but since Jun Mo Xie required the knife's balance to be very precise, since he intended to use for personal tasks, the task became quite arduous.
Jun Mo Xie participated in the task, same as his uncle, but didn't seem very exhausted at the end of it, while Jun Wu Yi was so exhausted that his thighs had swollen from the effort that he had put in, even though he was a very strong and burly man….
”Mo Xie, I wonder why I've never seen you practicing your skills?” Jun Wu Yi was quite surprised. This arduous task, which had been dauntingly difficult for the Sky Xuan expert, had seemingly been a child's play for his nephew. On top of that, Jun Wu Yi had never seen his nephew practice his Xuan Qi, which was only making him more curious.
”Practice?” Jun Mo Xie looked at him in surprise: ”Uncle, I practice all the time ah, how have you not noticed it yet?”
”Uh?” Jun Wu Yi couldn't help but stare at him with widened eyes in astonishment.
”Uncle, do you really believe that only controlling your breathing while sitting cross-legged motionlessly, and tempering your Xuan Qi is the only way of 'so-called' practicing?” Jun Mo Xie's tone was clearly expressing his amazement: ”I think that we can practice our skills at all times, while eating, while talking, while fighting, walking standing or running and even when we aren't doing anything at all! Even while we are sleeping, we can still practice in our dreams!”
”One day has twenty hours, and I don't even waste a single minute of it. Even though we are talking to each other at this moment, I'm still practicing. So instead of asking me when I practice, shouldn't you ask when I don't practice?!” Jun Mo Xie smiled.
”Even now?” Jun Wu Yi's eyes widened further.
”When walking we can practice our balance, and hone our senses of vigilance on our feet. We can also to exercise our hearing ability and our eyes, and our body's sensitivity to our surroundings. As long as you are determined, you can practice all the time.”
Jun Mo Xie seemed quite serious about it: ”While fighting, it is important for your mind to be active, and you can temper your mind to be calm while you're undertaking a frustrating task. It's important to practice such skills to the point where they start happening automatically; otherwise you might be unable to use your skills properly at a critical juncture, which is why I practice all the time. Do you understand my meaning?”
Even though Jun Mo Xie made perfect sense, but Jun Wu Yi's eyes were still gaping at him, and it seemed as if they would pop out of their sockets.
”If I interpreted your words correctly…. then you intend to say that when you're dodging an incoming attack, you're not trying to move aside wholeheartedly and your mind is not in a state of chaos?” Jun Wu Yi gasped: ”Isn't that impossible?”
”How's it impossible to tune your mind to that?” Jun Mo Xie sounded helpless: ”All you need to do is melt your skills into your instincts, and make such actions a habit of your nature; if you can do that, then you need not think, or even intend to carry out an action….. Won't it just happen by itself in this case?”
Jun Wu Yi was dumbstruck, but he was finally beginning to realize something: his own nephew was a freak of nature! When a normal man like Jun Wu Yi is confronted with a freak like his nephew, being uncomfortable and confused is only a natural human reaction.
Such kinds of bizarre practice methods could drive a person mad; in fact, for ordinary men, even mentioning such methods was an act of madness!
[How could practicing Xuan Qi be this easy?]
”There's no need to deliberate while carrying out an action if it's molded into your instincts. So to speak, while we are walking, we can look out for the things that lay ahead of us and what we might be stepping on, and while we talk, we can still use our nose to identify the smells in the air. This is why I was able to get through the forest with so much ease… my mind was constantly distinguishing my surroundings, and everything was happening instinctively!”
Jun Mo Xie smiled leisurely: ”If practice can be done in this manner also, then why shouldn't we do it? Just because you can't focus your entire attention on your practice doesn't mean that you can't practice at all. This might seem very difficult in the beginning, but you'll get used to it over time. And when that time comes, these actions will become your habit and as time will pass, they will be molded into your instincts and eventually you'll even stop noticing the difference between actions and instinctive reactions.”
”It's really that simple.” Jun Mo Xie smiled.
Jun Wu Yi was quite amused by his nephew's ideas.