AGM 0049 – Thousand Hand Imprint
Traces of laughter could be seen in Qin Wentian’s eyes as Mustang approached. He stood up and respectfully called out a greeting , ”Teacher Mustang.”
“Sit.” Mustang glanced at Qin Wentian as a smile too, broke out on his visage. Today, Qin Wentian had given him a great surprise.
“Qin Wentian, you do indeed have guts. To think that you dared to kill Orfon in front of so many people.” Mustang continued, “The Ou Clan; they belong to one of the aristocratic clans and wield both great power and authority. I’m afraid that your killing of Orfon today, was too high profile, and they already have you on their radar.”
“Didn’t Teacher Mustang tell me, be it whether I kill or don’t kill, that the authority and power of the Ou Clan would still remain unchanged?” Qin Wentian laughingly replied. Since Orfon had initiated this by trying to kill him in the Dark Forest, there could already be no compromises between the two of them. Naturally, Qin Wentian wouldn’t expect mercy from the Ou Clan even if he had spared Orfon.
“That may be so, but it was still exceedingly dangerous before you released your Astral Souls, and displayed your talent. But thank god, all these turbulent waves have temporarily passed. Given how things stand now, even if the Ou Clan or the Ye Clan want to deal with you, they’ll still have to consider the stance of our Emperor Star Academy.”
Mustang laughed, “Naturally, your personal strength is still the most important factor, in any case, a spear in the light of the day is easily dodged, but an arrow in the dark is hard to defend against. If they want to kill someone, there’ll be countless methods for them to do so without leaving any traces behind. So it would be best for you to raise your cultivation and be extremely cautious whenever you need to leave the academy grounds.
“Understood.” Qin Wentian nodded his head.
“Oh yeah, I’m here because I wanted to give you some information regarding the Emperor Star Academy. The history of our academy is even longer than that of the Chu Country. Our founder is known as the Viridian Emperor. It’s said that 3,000 years ago, there was only a handful of Stellar Martial Cultivators. Thus, the Viridian Emperor founded the Emperor Star Academy, heralding in a new age of Stellar Martial Cultivators.
Mustang continued, “Currently the Emperor Star Academy is fully helmed by Stellar Martial Cultivators. The upper management consists of the principal, 3 vice-principals, 9 supreme elders, 36 elders, as well as an unknown amount of guest elders. And as the rest of the school population, those are all students.”
“The students of the Emperor Star Academy are only considered to have graduated after they’ve stepped into the Yuanfu Realm. Although every new batch of applicants consists of a few hundred students, the majority require an extremely long amount of time before they can step into the Yuan Realm. Thus, once any of the students have graduated and stepped into the Yuanfu Realm, they will be able to become a guest elder of the academy should they wish for it.”
“Even the guest elders are all at the Yuanfu Realm?” Qin Wentian was startled, the power of the Emperor Star Academy was too terrifying.
“Right, these guest elders were originally students under the 36 elders. After they graduated, there were some who still wished to remain in the academy for cultivation purposes. If that was the case, they would take on the title of a guest elder, aiding their respective teachers in guiding the new students. After all, in every batch of the new students, only the top 30 in the ranking competition would have the right to choose one of the 36 elders as their teacher. As for the rest of the students, they’d be taught and guided by the guest elders under one of the 36 elders.”
“Of course, don’t underestimate the guest elders. Some of the guest elders have already far exceeded their original teachers in their cultivation.” Mustang smiled as he introduced facts of the Emperor Star Academy to Qin Wentian and Fan Le. Both of them understood. If in the future, Senior Sister Luo Huan or Senior Brother Mountain stepped into the Yuanfu Realm, they’d be able to choose to become a guest elder under Mustang.
“I haven’t accepted any students from this new batch of students yet. Both of you, would you be willing to study under me?” Mustang looked at both Qin Wentian and Fan Le, finally revealing the intentions of why he had come.
Qin Wentian nodded his head in agreement. The entire reason that he’d come to the Emperor Star Academy in the first place was because of Mustang. Naturally, he’d become a student under Mustang. However, Fan Le was fidgeting all about as his eyes flickered. He laughed, slightly deviously, before stating, “Boss, I think that the 36 elders of the Emperor Star Academy will be fighting each other to accept you as their students now. Why don’t we put this matter on hold first, considering it slowly, as we accept the “Apprentice Gifts” from the various elders to gauge their sincerity?”
Mustang froze upon hearing the words of Fan Le and, looking at the wretched and shameless expressions on Fan Le’s face, Mustang truly wanted to violently beat this fatty up. This Fatty actually wanted to extort the elders in broad daylight — how audacious!
Turning his head, Mustang saw that Qin Wentian was also grinning at him, causing his hatred of the fatty to increase. He took out two secret manuals from within his robes, passing it to Qin Wentian, as he replied, “One of these is a cultivation method, while the other is an innate technique. The cultivation method can be considered a top-tier cultivation art of the Yuanfu Realm, and is sufficient to support your cultivation all the way until you’ve stepped into the Yuanfu Realm. The innate technique can be considered an Earth-Grade, Mid-tier technique, and only cultivators at the Yuanfu realm will be able to truly unleash the full strength of it. Thus, it should be considered quite difficult to cultivate. Take them, let them be considered as the ‘Apprentice Gifts’.”
Cultivation methods could be segregated by their cultivation realms. For a Yuanfu-level cultivation method, it would be sufficient enough to support the cultivator to the Yuanfu Realm. For Heavenly Dipper cultivation methods, it would then be able to support the cultivator enough to enable him to reach the Heavenly Dipper Realm.
Innate techniques could be classified into 3 different grades with a total of 9 tiers. The 3 different grades stood for Human, Earth, and Heaven Grade. While the 9 tiers referred to low, mid, and top tier for each of the three grades. Human Grade techniques referred to those that were used by Arterial Circulation Realm cultivators, while Earth Grade techniques were for those at the Yuanfu Realm.
“Teacher, many thanks.” Qin Wentian, with no traces of politeness, accepted the two gifts, as he shouted the words “Teacher” with affection and passion, causing Mustang to roll his eyes. But soon, even Mustang couldn’t maintain his stern expression for long as he broke out into laughter. This matter with Qin Wentian was finally at an end.
“Ahem, teacher, how about me?” Fan Le winked his eyes at Mustang.
Mustang glanced at Fan Le, as he laughed loudly, “As for you, if you want to be my student, I think I will need to reconsider.”
“Don’t do this teacher, I know I was wrong earlier.” Fan Le’s countenance immediately sank heavily, causing Qin Wentian and Mustang to laugh uproariously. This fatty, he was really too shameless.
“Fatty, I already have a suitable cultivation method for myself, so this cultivation method is for you.” Qin Wentian passed the Yuanfu Realm cultivation art to Fan Le, but kept the innate technique for himself.
“Thank you. What’s the innate technique?” Fan Le curiously asked, before Qin Wentian replied, “The ‘Thousand Hands Imprint’.”
“This innate technique set is extremely hard to cultivate in, and at the peak limit of this, the user will be able to unleash a thousand palm prints. It’s might can only be described as earth shaking. The Elder Thousand-Hands is famous because he cultivated this particular technique, and thus earned the nickname ‘Thousand-Hands’. Qin Wentian, you have to put in effort and study this.” Mustang earnestly reminded Qin Wentian.
“Right, I certainly will.” Qin Wentian inclined his head in agreement. He’d already achieved nearly complete mastery over the Dragon Subduing Fist, and as for cultivation arts, he had the Spiritual Refinement Method as well as the Dreamcast Art. Now that he had another innate technique, the Thousand Hands Imprint, it couldn’t be any better.
“These are Emperor Star Jade Medallions for both of you. You both should spend this month of imprisonment focussing on your cultivation. After both of you are released, I’ll get your seniors to fill you in with the current happenings of our Emperor Star Academy.”
Mustang departed soon after, while Fan Le went to study the Yuanfu-level cultivation art.
Qin Wentian flipped the pages of the Thousand Hands Imprints’ manual. From the surface, this particular innate technique looked extremely simple. There was only five martial imprint methods: Diamond Imprint, Revolving Sea Imprint, Emptiness Imprint, Loneliness Imprint, and Great Thousand Hands Imprint!
The first martial imprint, Diamond Imprint, emphasized herculean strength and boundless might, the epitome of hardness. The 2nd martial imprint, Revolving Sea Imprint, referred to the endless waves of the revolving ocean tides — gushing forth with strength ever greater than the last, softness intermixing with hardness…all the way up until the Great Thousand Hands Imprint, where every time you struck out, the pressure and might unleashed by the thousand palm prints would be akin to the thousand-hands bodhisattva, overwhelming both heaven and earth.
“This Thousand Hands Imprint technique, although it possesses abnormal strength, consumes too large of an amount of energy. Using the Yuan Energy in your body to materialize a terrifying palm print and striking your enemies with it…” Qin Wentian murmured. This innate technique was powerful, but it expended too much energy.
“The Spiritual Refinement Method, Divine Imprints.” Qin Wentian suddenly thought of a remote possibility. The first level of the Spiritual Refinement Method required a first-level divine imprint to convert the Astral Energy in one’s body into Divine Energy. If that was the case, if he used a first-level palm-shaped divine imprint to aid in the conversion of his energy, in addition to this Thousand Hands Imprint innate technique, wouldn’t the strength unleashed be even more monstrous?
As he thought of this, Qin Wentian’s heart started to pound with excitement. In his memories, there were indeed palm-shaped divine imprints. These type of divine imprints were primary used for crafting of glove-type divine weapons to increase attack power.
With this thought in his mind, Qin Wentian started to carry out his plans, and cultivated using the Spiritual Refinement Method.
This Spiritual Refinement Method was extremely tough to cultivate in, and depleted Astral Energy massively. It was only sufficient to inscribe a divine imprint using large amounts of Astral Energy, and after that, using some special methods, one had to compact, compress, and refine the Astral Energy into a single granule of Divine Energy, storing it within their acupuncture points. The duration of this entire process was extremely slow, and soon after, Qin Wentian gradually fell into the Shallow Dream State, as he condensed and refined the Astral Energy in his sleep.
In the Shallow Dream State, the rate by which one absorbed the Astral Energy from the 9 Heavenly Layers would increase by several folds. The rate of absorption would increase exponentially if one were to enter the Immersed or Forgotten Dream State. This could compensate for the long duration process cultivating using the Spiritual Refinement Method. Naturally, he would need more Yuan Meteor Stones to supplement it. After this one month of imprisonment, Qin Wentian would have to think of more methods to get the Yuan Meteor Stones to aid him in his cultivation.
As time passed, Qin Wentian slowly began to understand the essence of the Spiritual Refinement Method, and his speed increased. Sometimes, he would stay in that sleeping state for three to four days before he woke up, cultivating in his dream state. This, of course, caused Fatty to be immensely bored, almost to the point of being driven crazy by boredom. He wanted to end the imprisonment fast, so that he could go out and mingle with the pretty students of the academy!
The time period of one month was nearing its end, and Qin Wentian had chose to sleep in the pavilion. The Astral Light cascaded downwards, falling upon his body, as he absorbed the boundless Astral Energy. In his Stellar Meridians, there were pulsating lumps of Astral Energy that were gathered together, and he continuously condensed the energy into a palm-shaped imprint, before compacting and refining it. In the end, he allowed it to flow through the completed circular pathways of the Stellar Meridians, and stored the Divine Energy within his acupoints.
During this month of cultivation, Qin Wentian had relentlessly cultivated using the Spiritual Refinement Method, perfecting the first level of it, and had mastered the concepts behind the Diamond Imprint. At the same time, he’d expanded his acupoints, enabling them to be able to store even greater amounts of Astral Energy. Once the expansion was at it’s peak limit, would be the day where he broke through to the 2nd level of the Arterial Circulation Realm.
Obviously, it was much harder to breakthrough to the next level in the Arterial Circulation Realm, compared to the Body Refinement Realm. He would need time to consolidate and gather Astral Energy. In just one month, the capacity of his storage ability had already risen by 6-7 times, compared to the time when he’d first broke through. But despite doing so, he was still unable to connect the 2nd circular arterial pathway.
From this, one could see that the gulf between each level of the Arterial Circulation Realm was extremely vast. Qin Wentian could defeat Orfon because the explosive strength that he possessed was too great. But if they’d fought a protracted battle, he definitely would’ve lost, because the amount of Astral Energy that could be stored within his body was far too little in comparison.