"You know the deal. Quick and silent, nothing too loud. I want to stretch before that fucker comes calling again."
Tasgall nodded in response to Hao Xuan's comment and got into the position right where he stood. He bent his knees halfway and moved the front foot forward. His open left hand hovered above his head while the right one made a fist that floated in front of his chest.
Standing across from him Hao Xuan could almost feel Tasgall's body humming like an engine that had been turned on. After spending so much time with them he had naturally learned a lot about their cultivation system, just as they had learned from him.
It turned out that in a bizarre turn of events, rarely anyone from their clans was born with the ability to cultivate. It is not that they do not know, but they simply can't.
Even amongst normal mortals, the chances of a child being born with meridians was almost 1 out of every 150 people. But for the barbarians, that chance dropped to 1 out of every 5000 people.
It was unnaturally low, almost as if it was done on purpose by some higher power.
But these depressingly low numbers did not hold them back and instead forced them to evolve beyond their mortal limits.
A few tens of generations ago when their tribes were nothing but rats and scavengers on that land where they could not stand against any force, a genius emerged from within their ranks.
A young boy that by all accounts was a genius. And Hao Xuan did not use that term lightly, even in the beast world he would be considered a great talent worthy of nurturing.
Why? Because he singlehandedly created the system that lifted their tribes to what they are now.
In the stories, he was only referred to as the "ancestor". This boy, at the ripe age of 11 standard years, realized that they would not live very long if their circumstances did not change.
But since he was born without the ability to cultivate, he set out to create another method, one that almost anyone could use. He transformed his physical body and took it to such heights where he did not have to depend on the external spiritual energy.
Instead, he trained his physical body and drew power from within the muscles and bones that housed everything. It truly was completely independent and did not require much outside help. So long as they did not give up, anyone could achieve it.
The only prerequisite was being born with a sturdy physique.
It took them much longer overall to cultivate and the time to reach each subsequent realm was very slow but the barrier to entry was almost nonexistent.
They might not be able to fly or use godly cultivation methods to control the elements but, their physical prowess was second to none. They could utilize their body's internal energy to boost their strength, speed, reflexes, and if it was high enough, even exert that energy outside using some special techniques.
It was not that their muscles gave them added strength, but they provided them with an internal source of energy that could, in turn, be USED to achieve such feats.
In Hao Xuan's eyes, Tasgall looked like a light bulb in the middle of the night, brimming with power.
Where Hao Xuan's energy was diffused throughout, some of it even leaking and affecting the nearby surroundings, Tasgall's was like a bubbling well, contained and controlled until such a time when that would no longer be necessary.
Hao Xuan could not help but repeat himself again, "Quick and Silent, remember?" he reminded with a raised eyebrow, getting an expressionless nod in response.
Chaos Qi weakly thrummed through Hao Xuan's body. Its overall quantity was much less but it turned out it was a lot denser than all the other energies he had cultivated before. Maybe it was because there was only one type of energy that was running his body but it was a fact that there was an increase in its cohesion and purity.
If put into numbers, his body could hold 100 units of Qi overall. Now let us assume that out of those 100 units, 30 used to belong to force Qi, 20 to sundering Qi, 25 to Emperor's Qi, and 25 to Chaos Qi.
And now it was all just Chaos Qi with a smidgen of Emperor's Qi hiding within one of the meridians but out of the 100 units that his body could hold, the Chaos Qi only used a little over 40 units.
In exchange, it was much more pure and a single unit of Chaos Qi could power any of his techniques for much longer than any of the other energies.
Hao Xuan took a regular mid-stance for barehanded combat that was neither too overpowering nor too weak. Both his hands hovered in front of his chest ready to strike or defend at a moment's notice.
And although the Chaos Qi moved through his body, he did not let it escape outside and only used it to strengthen himself.
Tasgall was the first to attack.
His left leg quickly shot forward, snaking through the air right towards Hao Xuan's face.