Ancient Strengthening Technique Chapter: 782

AST 782 - The depths of the Southern Sea, Heavy Wave Vigor
After seeing the sea for the first time, everyone became very emotional. Shocked by the limitless horizon in front of their eyes, sighing about the mystical and vastness of nature. Beautiful mountains and rivers, magnificent rivers and mountains, this view would make a strong martial expert feel how small one really was.
A few people walked to the edge of the sea. Waves continuously slapped the coast, one wave after another without stop. The fires and floods have no mercy. Looking at the gigantic waves that contained inestimable energy, this was the strength of the great nature.
Water flowed from a high to a lower point, relying on gravity. Qing Shui looked at the sea water and unknowingly his thought started to fly away. He seemed to sense and feel something, however he was unable to grab hold of it.
Heavy Wave Drive!
Qing Shui knew about his Nine Heavy Wave Giant Buddha’s Hand Print! The current Five Heavy Wave attack was able to increase the strength of the strike by quite a bit. However, more of the strength of the Five Heavy Wave was its amplification factor, which increased the strength of consecutive strikes.
In the past, when he had used a sword to execute the Five Layered Wave, he was able to unleash five Heavy Wave Drives. The last of the drives had an amplification of 50%. It was overbearing, however its limitation was a little too much. Due to its heavy consumption of strength, it required some preparatory time to unleash the Heavy Wave Drives. It was still applicable towards opponents in the past, however there was no time to prepare against those that he would meet in the future.
All along Qing Shui had been thinking of how to shrink the preparatory time to the absolute minimum. There was also another problem that surfaced while he was using this move. If his opponent was too strong it would be dangerous, as he was unable to stop this move while in the midst of the preparatory phase.
Qing Shui looked at the waves coming one after another. Under their surging momentum, he could sense a force that would break down the hardest defenses. This imposing aura within would cause people’s hearts to palpitate. He stood at the edge of the sea, not moving a single inch as he continued to stare at the never ending waves. He had a feeling of being unable to grasp the concept, making him feel anxious.
Cang Wuya, Fei Wuji and the rest looked at the absent minded Qing Shui and knew he was thinking about something. Although it wasn’t comprehension, one would easily comprehend anything in this state of mind. Even if he did not manage to comprehend his objective, he would still be able to learn a lot of things
Great Potential!
Great Strength!
He felt that the gigantic waves within the sea did not have a fast speed. However the key was might and imposing aura. When one’s strength reaches its absolute limit, if unleashed it would be sufficient to snatch the life of one’s opponent.
Normal arts and skills were similar to this, as they would never be absolutely perfect. Attacks with speed would generally be lacking in strength, while strong attacks were generally slow. In addition each one would have different limitations. Maybe, only the divine arts from the legends would be able to achieve relative perfection.
Qing Shui had many auxiliary martial arts and was now lacking a strong killing move. He felt that the Nine Heavy Wave Giant Golden Buddha’s Hand Print was absolutely not a garbage martial art. Not only did this martial art have a connection with the Buddha’s Thousand Hand Print, there were multiple appearances of the buddha’s image. This made Qing Shui feel that there would be some breakthrough transformation of the Nine Heavy Wave Giant Golden Buddha’s Hand Print in the future.
The preparatory time for the Four Heavy Wave was longer than the Three Heavy Wave, with the Five Heavy Wave having the same phenomena. This was the main reason why Qing Shui reduced the utilization of this move when meeting strong opponents, especially when there are large number of them.
His mastery of executing of the Five Heavy Wave using a sword had been resting at the peak for a very long time. Yet, Qing Shui was anticipating and worrying about its breakthrough. He was anticipating the might of the next level. However, he was also afraid that the dreadful period of delay would increase even further.
After thinking about it, other things don’t matter if its might increases. The instant he relaxed his state of mind he seemed to understand a lot of things. One can’t seek to be perfect in everything and there was no use to forcefully pursue it. Letting nature take its course, one would discover the best ending when time comes.
There were many tents by the seaside, some luxurious and some simple. Some were here to enjoy a vacation, while some were cultivators here to seek treasures in the Southern Sea. Of course there were fishermen present, riding their boats to catch fish. These people were generally merchants who relied on selling fish to survive. The area where they catch their fish did not exceed thirty kilometers from the coast line.
This area was considered a safe region within the Southern Sea. Out of this region there would appearances of ferocious wild marine beasts and demonic beasts. Naturally this was true for most people in general. As long as one was a XianTian expert, one would be able to freely retreat within hundred kilometres from the coastline. Of course, there isn't an absolute for everything.
Turning around, Qing Shui looked towards the three people standing at a place slightly far from him, endlessly preventing people from approaching him. Faintly smiling, he walked over. The three people saw Qing Shui walked over and knew that there was nothing wrong now and stopped what they were doing. During this period of time they had said many kind words. People could tell in one look that they were cultivators and thus many people would understand. Firstly due to not wanting to find trouble and secondly due to their extremely good attitude.
“How’s it?”asked Cang Wuyan with a smile.
“I think we should stay here for a few days. You guys can stroll around this area. As for me, I want see if I can get my hands on the things that would help me.” replied Qing Shui after thinking about it.
Qing Shui left the Ten Thousand Poisonous Violet Sable and the Diamond Gigantic Elephant behind behind as they should be able to settle any little problems that could arise. It was quite good to pitch a tent nearby, as there wasn’t a large number of demonic beasts at the coastline. The Diamond Gigantic Elephant wasn’t conspicuous, as for the Ten Thousand Poisonous Violet Sable, it was even less so.
Only after doing this did Qing Shui feel relieved. He had thought of heading to a slightly more remote location to train for a while. Although he had told them it was just a few days worth of time, he wasn’t able to give a definitive answer. Only by letting them relax in this place would he feel relief.
It was now midday and Qing Shui planned to find an uninhabited small island within the depths of the Southern Sea. He wanted to train the Nine Heavy Wave Giant Buddha’s Hand Print for a while to see if his idea could work.
The coast was littered with shells of all colours, which looked especially beautiful. There was no one picking them up, as there were too many of them. Regardless, Qing Shui bent down and picked up a few exceptionally pretty ones and tossed them into the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal.
The sand around the pond in the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal had all along been bare but was crawling with tortoises. Now, there were those multicoloured shells, which immediately caused the entire pond to seemingly light up.
The people along the coast were baffled by Qing Shui picking those shells. In general, these kinds of things were only done by children, as only children would be interested in such worthless things.
In reality, those shells are ingredients for medicine, as the powder formed from crushed shells could staunch bleeding. However there were good and bad shells within the entire lot. There were good ones within the innumerable ones on the coast, however they were still rather sparse and there were not many people who knew about this.
Looking at the boundless Southern Sea, Putuo Mountain, Sea King's Palace and the Violet Bamboo Forest these three sects were all within the Southern Sea. Qing Shui knew that they were definitely within the depths of the Southern Sea.
……
On the second day, after eating breakfast, Qing Shui said his goodbyes to the rest. Mounting the Firebird, he flew towards the depths of the Southern Sea. He wished to find a secluded and remote island as there were too many people around the coast. Furthermore, training at the coast was not very suitable.
What the sea was least lacking was islands and the island in the depths of the Southern Sea were basically all remote islands. Naturally, there were a few people staying on those bigger islands. These people were mostly cut of from the world and lived a fisherman’s life. As for why they chose to do that, there were very many reasons.
After all this was the depths of the Southern Sea. There were some people that lived for many generations. With their strength, they could never walk out of this boundless sea. Furthermore, these islands were not small, each of them having their own culture and hierarchy. These islands ranged in size from one city to multiple cities, with their population being at least in the millions. This was enough for them to have their own government, however they were generally lagging behind the World of the Nine Continents.
In addition, some of them were the gathering spots for pirates. People who were unable to establish their footing in the World of the Nine Continents would flee to these remote islands. Gradually, after the number of people reached a certain scale, the island would change into a gathering spot for pirates, before an organization spontaneously formed.
Other than those two situations there were experts who were living in seclusion. They were weary of everything within the secular world and yet they did not want to die. Therefore they could only find an uninhabited place to stay, as most uninhabited places were either deep within the mountains or remote islands.
Uninhabited islands was only a common term. Islands where there were no people were considered uninhabited islands, however the geography of the uninhabited islands was much better in general, with mountains with rivers and forests. When the people living in seclusion had nothing to do, they would eat wild game and observe the scenery. Associating with the birds and beasts was rather enjoyable, as people who had chosen to live in seclusion would not feel lonely.
Adding the Fire Bird’s speed with Qing Shui’s divine continental steps, he could instantly travel a hundred thousand kilometres. After flying for half a day, with the Firebird’s current speed, the distance travelled was already much further than the travel distance of the divine continental steps.
Within this half a day, Qing Shui had met with quite a few islands of all sizes. All of them were small fishing islands with some normal people living on them. People who were truly born on these islands might perhaps not know that there were humans living outside the islands.
From the sky, the island had an irregular shape. From north to south it was around a hundred kilometres while it was twice as large from east to west. However it was already considered a typical island. Looking towards to horizon from this island, one could simply not see any other islands.
Looking like this day was able to come to an end, Qing Shui decided to stop over at this island. After all, although this island wasn’t large, the people on it were some of the least, with only a few villages within the elevated regions within the centre.
Qing Shui did not wish to alarm the people on the island, however he did not know whether they had seen him. The eyesight of a normal person was very limited and would not be able to spot Qing Shui and Fire Bird unless they had cultivated.
He chose a place at the far west, as there was a hill there that was considered not very tall. In actual fact, the shape of the island was like a cross shaped sword, with the distance from north to south being more than double that from east to west.
The hill was three to four hundred metres tall and one could hear the clear sound of sea water splashing along the coast. This sound made Qing Shui feel emotional, with this being the reason that he chose this place after spotting it from midair.
This hill had basically spread from the north to south of the island, even continuing quite a distance into the water. Looking to the west, Qing Shui started walking towards the hill, which had a 45 degree inclination.
The summit of the hill was roughly a thousand metres tall and had some pine trees on it. There was also dense and lush vegetation, every single plant brimming with vitality. The ground was littered with great numbers of broken stones and rocks that were very hard to be shifted by ordinary people due to their sharpness and size, being a metre large at least. Any ordinary people would find it difficult even to walk to such a place, as one would get pierced and cut up if one was not careful.
Continuing to walk all the way to the other side, it also had the same degree of inclination, however it continued all the way to the bottom. It had even extended to a level that was quite lower than the other side, if not this island would already be submerged.
The surging waves from the sea unceasingly rushed against this sloped cliff edge, causing it to be eroded until it became glossy akin to a mirror.
If you would like to support our translations and unlock some [Portraits of Beauty], please consider pledging to our Patreon! – Two lucky patreons ($10 and more) will have a chance to be selected and granted access to over 100 chapters for 1 month. Results to be out on 1 June 2017.
Click on ‘Next Chapter’ for a preview of the next chapter!