Chapter 7: Elephant Armor Skill

Han Li recalled this, a knowing smile appearing on his face.

Over the past six months, he and Zhang Tie had naturally become close friends, confiding everything in each other, thanks to their compatible personalities and similar backgrounds.

Han Li slowly uncrossed his legs and massaged his calves. Long periods of meditation and practice had left his legs numb and his circulation somewhat sluggish.

After a few more rubs, feeling had completely returned to his legs. Han Li then stood up from the mat, habitually brushed off the dust that had settled on him, and pushed open the stone chamber door, stepping out.

Turning back to look at his stone practice room, Han Li gave a slight, self-deprecating chuckle.

The room was entirely hollowed out from a solid granite mountain wall, and its door was crafted from a single large bluestone. An ordinary person attempting to force their way in from outside would find it impossible without hacking away with a giant axe for at least an hour or two.

Such a quiet practice room was not something even core disciples of the Seven Mysteries Sect's Seven Absolutes Hall could casually possess; only the sect leader, elders, and hall masters with significant status were granted access. These stone chambers were specifically built for those practicing advanced internal martial arts, preventing external interference during cultivation and avoiding qi deviation. It was unclear what method Doctor Mo had used to persuade several elders to approve the creation of such a stone chamber, typically inaccessible to ordinary disciples, within the mountain wall of Divine Hand Valley.

As soon as the stone chamber was completed, Doctor Mo designated it for Han Li's sole use. This decision left Han Li feeling quite overwhelmed and flattered.

Doctor Mo was truly exceptionally good to his disciple. From the day he officially became a disciple, Doctor Mo had given him several different medicines daily and prepared unknown herbal concoctions for him to soak in. Although Han Li didn't recognize the names or functions of these drugs, he observed the reluctant, almost pained expression on Doctor Mo's usually stoic face whenever he used them, which gave him some insight into their immense value.

Evidently, these external aids were very effective. Han Li's cultivation speed had significantly improved, and not long ago, he had successfully broken through to the first level of the nameless cultivation technique.

However, during the breakthrough, several of his meridians had nearly ruptured, causing a moderate internal injury. Thanks to Doctor Mo's superb medical skills, the not-too-severe damage to his meridians, and his willingness to use precious medicine, Han Li suffered no lasting repercussions.

After Han Li's injury, Doctor Mo appeared even more anxious than Han Li himself, pacing restlessly throughout the entire treatment process. Only after seeing his injuries finally improve did he visibly relax.

Doctor Mo's behavior far exceeded the typical relationship between a master and disciple, causing Han Li to feel an inexplicable sense of unease. If it weren't for the fact that no one else from the Han family, besides his third uncle, had ever left their impoverished mountain village, Han Li might have even suspected Doctor Mo was some distant relative.

After leaving the stone chamber, Han Li stretched leisurely before slowly making his way toward his dwelling. Upon becoming official disciples, both Han Li and Zhang Tie had moved out of their original room and now each had their own private cottage.

As he passed Zhang Tie's cottage, Han Li casually glanced inside.

As expected, Zhang Tie was not in his room; he had likely gone to practice under the waterfall at Scarlet Water Peak again.

Even after Han Li became Doctor Mo's official disciple, Doctor Mo still instructed him to practice only the nameless cultivation technique, showing no intention of teaching him other martial arts. Perhaps to console him, Doctor Mo, however, was completely open in teaching him medical skills, guiding him personally. He answered all of Han Li's medical questions to his satisfaction and even allowed him to freely consult all the medical texts in his room.

As for Zhang Tie, Doctor Mo taught him another very practical martial art, as he had promised earlier.

The martial art Zhang Tie was practicing was quite unusual. According to Doctor Mo, it was a rare technique called "Elephant Armor Technique." He claimed that few in the martial arts world had ever seen or even heard of it, let alone cultivated it.

Unlike common martial arts circulating in the jianghu, where cultivation generally progresses from easy to difficult, with higher levels becoming exponentially harder and requiring doubled effort, this technique was different. The Elephant Armor Technique comprised nine levels. The first three levels were easy to cultivate, similar in difficulty to ordinary martial arts. However, starting from the fourth level, it suddenly became immensely challenging, requiring one to endure unimaginable pain and torment. Many who practiced this technique could not bear such inhuman suffering and stopped there, their cultivation stagnating indefinitely. Cultivating the fifth and sixth levels involved pain several times greater than the previous levels.

Yet, once one broke through the sixth level and reached the seventh, the path thereafter became smooth and unhindered, though one still had to regularly endure agonizing pain for a few days each month.

All of this deterred many who might have wanted to cultivate the technique, which was the primary reason for its near-extinction.

Despite its peculiar nature, this martial art boasted astonishing power at higher levels. It was said that someone who cultivated it to the ninth level would be invulnerable to blades and spears, immune to water and fire, as if clad in precious armor. Not only would palm strikes and fist blows fail to harm them, even precious swords and sabers would struggle to inflict severe injury.

Even more covetable was the fact that cultivating this technique gradually endowed ordinary individuals with the strength of a giant elephant. At higher levels, one would possess immense power, capable of capturing ferocious wolves alive and tearing apart tigers and leopards, truly formidable.

This technique was both feared and coveted by those who knew of it. Besides the extraordinary master who created it, no one else had ever managed to cultivate it to the ninth level. Legend claimed that this master was born without the sensation of pain, which enabled him to create such a grueling martial art and push it to its absolute limits.

Although Doctor Mo had thoroughly explained the pros and cons of this technique to Zhang Tie, Zhang Tie had no personal experience of its detrimental effects and didn't take them seriously. Instead, he was merely envious of the "Elephant Armor Technique"'s formidable power and unhesitatingly agreed to cultivate it. Furthermore, this martial art seemed to suit him well; in just two months, Zhang Tie had already cultivated it to the peak of the first level.

Recently, to break through the first level of the Elephant Armor Technique, Zhang Tie had been practicing every afternoon under the waterfall at Scarlet Water Peak, enduring the tremendous impact of the water falling from dozens of meters high, as suggested by Doctor Mo.

According to Zhang Tie himself, this method was quite effective. He claimed to be only a thin sheet of paper away from the second level, needing just a bit more effort to break through the bottleneck.