Becoming a Saint From the Iron Armor Skill

Chapter 290: Chapter 160: Supreme Dragon’s Might

With bones like these, cultivating the Flawless Venerable Jade Bone is incredibly difficult; it’s a feat only one in ten thousand could achieve. freewebnoveℓ.com

For an ordinary Martial Artist, cultivating Iron Bone—making the bones as hard as metal—is considered reaching Bone Forging Realm Perfection.

In truth, for such a Martial Artist, the degree to which their bones are strengthened is far from sufficient. Many can’t even fully cultivate all their bones.

For example, during the Cultivation of a Bone Forging Technique, it is very easy to injure vital areas like the brain and spinal cord when working on the skull and spine.

Furthermore, these areas are difficult to stretch and exercise, so almost all Bone Forging Techniques provide very limited training for the skull and spine.

As a result, the bones in the skull and spine remain far from adequately strengthened.

The Dragon Elephant Bone Forging Technique is much like other Bone Forging Techniques in that its training for the skull and spine is relatively weak.

However, when combined with Horizontal Cultivation Techniques, this Bone Forging Technique can produce effects far superior to others.

Mr. Zheng’s lineage chose the Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt, a Superior External Martial Arts Skill.

If one were to cultivate both the Dragon Elephant Bone Forging Technique and the Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt to Perfection, the strengthening of their bones could become nearly perfect.

Of course, other Martial Dao legacies also have various methods, more or less, to achieve a similar effect. The only difference is that their complementary Cultivation Techniques cause them to focus on strengthening different parts of the skeleton during Bone Forging.

The Secret Manual mentions that a Martial Artist who has cultivated Sword Intent can even use it to assist in tempering their bones.

The Water Drop Bone Forging Method from Five Elements Peak, for example, uses torrents or waterfalls in conjunction with the Water Realm to temper the bones, and so on.

But this all has one prerequisite: one must first cultivate a Realm.

This, too, is a one-in-ten-thousand occurrence. After all, those who can cultivate a Realm while still in the Bone Forging Realm are as rare as a phoenix feather.

Only the True Disciples of Major Sects are capable of such a feat.

Even so, cultivating with a Realm to supplement a Bone Forging Technique, it is still incredibly difficult to achieve the Flawless Venerable Jade Bone.

After briefly studying the Dragon Elephant Bone Forging Technique, Chen Cheng picked up the Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt manual to examine it carefully.

The Cultivation method for the Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt involves beating oneself with wooden staffs, iron hammers, and giant stone rollers. It even includes being roasted by fierce fires and boiled in cauldrons of searing oil...

Over time, this makes the body as if it were covered in metal clothing, impervious to blades and spears, and immune to fire and water.

Such Horizontal Cultivation Techniques seem formidable, but in this world where various Body Tempering Methods are common, an ordinary Martial Artist who cultivates this technique to Perfection is only on par with a Perfect Martial Artist of the Skin Grinding Realm—making it practically useless.

With that much effort, it would be more practical to just cultivate a Skin Grinding Technique directly.

Moreover, cultivating the Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt in the Skin Grinding Realm often damages the Major Tendons and bones, leading to tendon injuries and skeletal deformities.

By the same logic, cultivating the Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt in the Muscle Strengthening Realm would also damage one’s fundamental constitution, making the gains not worth the losses.

Therefore, very few Martial Artists in the Skin Grinding and Muscle Strengthening Realms ever cultivate the Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt.

This was why Mr. Zheng had told him to wait until the Bone Forging Realm before cultivating the Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt.

Upon reaching the Bone Forging Realm, however, the Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt becomes extremely powerful. The most direct benefit is the ability to cultivate the Dragon Roar Realm.

This Realm combines the great power of the Great Power Realm with the formidable True Dragon Power.

This True Dragon Power is similar to other Realms like Killing Intent, the Heart Realm, and Blood Evil Intent, possessing immense might.

"The True Dragon’s Might stands proud between heaven and earth. When the dragon’s power is unleashed, it summons wind and rain, and commands the thunder!"

This was the description in the Secret Manual. To an ordinary person, such power was practically godlike!

The Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt Secret Manual also came with a Fundamental Diagram, but this one, like the one in the Powerful Eagle Claw Skill Secret Manual, was merely a third-generation copy.

The Fundamental Diagram was drawn in an extremely simplistic style. In an endless void, a massive, dragon-shaped Demon Beast baring its fangs and brandishing its claws coiled proudly. Its enormous mouth was slightly open, and what seemed like a mere low hum exuded an immense pressure.

Another benefit of the Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt was its few techniques—or rather, its training postures.

The Coiling Dragon Posture!

It was similar to the Dragon Coiling Technique from the Dragon Elephant Bone Forging Technique, but even more comprehensive.

After all, the Coiling Dragon Posture included a move called Dragon Root Head Up, which provided a more thorough Cultivation for the bones of the lower limbs compared to the Dragon Coiling Technique.

However, this Dragon Root Head Up was extremely difficult. One had to hold the posture continuously, sometimes for several hours at a time.

Those who could do it were one in a million...

The Wandering Dragon Step!

This footwork was meant for combat. After all, the Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt was a practical combat method, not a technique designed solely for taking a beating.

The Iron Cloth Shirt ensured you could win a head-on clash, while the Wandering Dragon Step prevented opponents from avoiding one.

The Wandering Dragon Step Technique was very concise. It focused on reducing complexity to simplicity, striking straight for the heart of the matter.

To put it bluntly, it was about taking the shortest path between two points. This "straight line," however, wasn’t literal. It was a "straight line" determined by assessing different environments and taking into account both timing and geographical advantage.

This becomes most apparent during combat. For example, if an opponent sweeps with a Long Saber, the dynamic between you and them will shift due to the influence of their Blade Technique.

In that case, the "straight line" between the two of you would change.

Therefore, the Wandering Dragon Step, which follows the principle of the shortest path, often looks like one is meandering when executed.

But in reality, the Wandering Dragon Step is the swifter footwork.

On the bookshelf, alongside the Dragon Elephant Bone Forging Technique and Dragon’s Roar Iron Cloth Shirt, there was another Cultivation Technique Manual.

The Tendon-Separating Bone-Crushing Hand.

This was also one of the Superior Cultivation Techniques, a genuine Horizontal Training skill, but it had no Fundamental Diagram.

According to the annotations in the Secret Manual, the Tendon-Separating Bone-Crushing Hand did have a Fundamental Diagram, but its Realm was so overwhelmingly powerful that no one to this day had been able to cultivate it.

The reason for this contradiction was that the Martial Arts Ancestor who created this Cultivation Technique was so immensely powerful that he had long since transcended the level of a Realm and cultivated the legendary Domain.

During a chance battle, while using his Domain to suppress an opponent, he was struck by a sudden whim. The thought of separating his opponent’s tendons and crushing their bones came to him, and so he naturally executed the move.

After creating this Cultivation Technique, the Martial Arts Ancestor tried to draw a Fundamental Diagram, only to discover that he had used several different Realms when performing the technique, but none of them seemed to truly align with it.

Worse, if one were to cultivate using this technique and seek enlightenment on their own, they would comprehend entirely different Realms.

This annotation was rather absurd and baseless. Chen Cheng had a feeling, ’This was probably just some nonsense bullshitted by the manual’s creator, falsely using the name of a Martial Arts Ancestor.’

This kind of thing was all too common in the Martial Arts Realm. Never mind anyone else, just look at the Jianghu Martial Artists selling Cultivation Technique Manuals in the Black Market; who knows how many they could fabricate in a single day.

Recklessly cultivating a fabricated Cultivation Technique Manual... you’d be lucky just not to cripple yourself.

’Considering the Red Sun Root Technique I made up had a fifty percent success rate for Cultivation, I was a pretty conscientious fabricator,’ he thought.

The annotation in the Tendon-Separating Bone-Crushing Hand Secret Manual wasn’t very credible, but the techniques themselves were indeed profound, subtle, and meticulously detailed.

The Secret Manual’s research on the skeletal structure was even more detailed than that of the Dragon Elephant Bone Forging Technique manual. It explained in fine detail how bones connect and fuse, which bones have what weaknesses, how to break them, and so on.

In short, a Bone Forging Technique manual studies how to strengthen bones, while the Tendon-Separating Bone-Crushing Hand manual specializes in how to destroy them.

Chen Cheng’s Cultivation of the Deer Cutting Saber Technique was already on the verge of producing the Deer Cutting Saber Stance. If he wanted to, he could now easily slice a person down to a skeleton of white bones. freewebnovёl.ƈom

If he also cultivated the Tendon-Separating Bone-Crushing Hand to the point of producing its own Momentum and then fused it with the Deer Cutting Saber Stance, he could probably reduce a person to a pile of white bones in a matter of breaths.

’I wonder if Master, Mr. Zheng, has cultivated the Tendon-Separating Bone-Crushing Hand to the point of forming a Realm?’

According to rumors, during last year’s flood, the old master bare-handedly slew a Tier Four Demon Flood Dragon. It was likely done with the Tendon-Separating Bone-Crushing Hand.

At this thought, Chen Cheng couldn’t help but sigh inwardly. ’My master, that old man... he seems far more formidable than the legends say. He’s just too low-key!’