The techniques of the Five Tigers Breaking Gate Saber are not complicated, even surprisingly simple.
"Not simple, it’s just that my hand-eye coordination and my tendons and bones have reached this level, making these techniques seem very easy to perform."
Xu Qing learned the Crane Form Skill, Eight Diagram Wandering Palm, Bull Demon Strong Fist, and Tiger Demon Bone Refining Fist, all of which emphasize the foundation of Martial Arts and movement technique. Any one of these arts could provide a solid foundation for a Martial Artist.
Moreover, Xu Qing cultivated all four techniques.
Ordinary fighters, when learning a weapon, will only focus on training the related muscles and bones.
Because a weapon can increase a person’s lethality by several times, if the main goal is to inflict damage, it feels masochistic to spend a lot of effort training other body parts.
For many, Martial Arts are not for strengthening the body and health, nor is it necessary to pursue the essence of Martial Arts, but for killing enemies and climbing the ranks, which is a life or death struggle.
Furthermore, even with so many advantages, without the bronze mirror, without the cheat of Absolute Focus, Xu Qing might not be able to achieve Great Success in the Crane Form Skill at this moment.
Compared to the progress of ordinary people in Martial Arts Training, it could be said that Xu Qing is devilishly talented.
In the state of "Absolute Focus," he memorized every move of Households Commander Zuo. And after Households Commander Zuo finished demonstrating the Five Tigers Breaking Gate Saber, Xu Qing truly discovered the subtleties of the technique.
"King Lin and Eunuch Zhao both learned Martial Arts from others, and even though they have practiced to their own limits in their respective arts, there’s always the shadow of others in them, resulting in flaws in the artistic conception of their techniques. Households Commander Zuo is different, he had the artistic conception first, and then combined what he learned at the Laoshan Shangqing Palace Martial Arts Academy to create the Five Tigers Breaking Gate Saber Technique. This Saber Technique not only has flesh and blood but also the soul he infused into it."
"But I am not him, so to practice the Five Tigers Breaking Gate Saber to the same Realm as Households Commander Zuo, I need to understand the Sword Intent of the technique by myself, something that no one can teach."
"After grasping the intent, I might even need to fine-tune the techniques to suit myself. After all, Households Commander Zuo’s techniques were created for himself, and when used by others, they naturally may not be a perfect fit."
He knew the artistic conception was just that, far from the real "Fist Intent," but this was the foundation for achieving "Fist Intent."
Here, "Fist Intent" is not specifically referring to the artistic conception of Fist Skill but is a general term.
Just as in ancient language, "禽" meant "捕获" (to capture), referring to capturing animals, so traditionally it was a general term for animals, not just birds.
For example, the Five Animals Qigong includes animals such as tigers and bears.
Similarly, the Fist is the basis of all weapon techniques; the use of all spears, swords, and halberds are derived from the variations of the Fist. Moreover, the human hand is capable of strength, speed, and endless variations, making it the most comprehensive of the body’s limbs and joints.
To understand the true "Fist Intent," when applied to Saber Technique, naturally becomes "Sword Intent," and by extension, Spear Intent, Halberd Intent... all follow this principle.
It can be said that Households Commander Zuo’s teaching of the Five Tigers Breaking Gate Saber has opened the door to the Combat Skill aspect of Martial Arts for Xu Qing. Because before this, he was focused on Training Methods, which, though not absent, was certainly a relative weakness in his Martial Arts.
Furthermore, the Five Tigers Breaking Gate Saber’s way of generating force and circulating internal energy contains the fist theories of the Laoshan Shangqing Palace Martial Arts Academy, which belong to the superior Martial Arts concepts of the Daoist school and are helpful for Xu Qing to grasp the upper echelons of Bright Strength.
Because Bright Strength itself has three layers: lower, middle, and upper.
The initial sounds he produced were known in Fist Skills as "thousand gold cannot buy a single sound," which is the lowest level of Bright Strength. It was only after practicing Bull Demon Strength Fist that he approached the middle level of Bright Strength.
Of course, this is not to say that Bull Demon Strength Fist can’t reach the upper level of Bright Strength. On the contrary, at its limit, Bull Demon Strong Fist even exceeds the Five Tigers Breaking Gate Saber.
But some esoteric foundations lacked in Xu Qing’s understanding, thus impeding his full grasp of the mysteries of the Bright Strength in the Bull Demon Strong Fist.
The Five Tigers Breaking Gate Saber, on the other hand, provides such foundations.
It’s like saying the Five Tigers Breaking Gate Saber is a middle school textbook, while Bull Demon Strong Fist is a high school textbook, naturally encompassing middle school knowledge, but not detailing them, assuming you already understand those concepts.
Or, this fundamental knowledge should have been taught by a master.
However, Xu Qing has no master.
On the other hand, the Bull Demon Strong Fist itself was designed for those with exceptional talents, assuming the higher the talent, the closer one could get to the limits of this Fist Skill.
In fact, this sentiment is common among various Martial Arts sects; they place great importance on Martial Arts talent, and hence recruit a wide array of disciples. The more people, the higher the probability of finding a disciple with high talent.
Some sects that claim to pass down their techniques from generation to generation typically do so because their skills are extremely difficult to master from the outset, and without influence, they must personally seek successors.
Doing it on their own is very inefficient, finding one already costs a lot of time, and there’s simply no energy to find another...
If luck is not on their side, then the technique risks being lost to time.
After watching the complete techniques of the Five Tigers Breaking Gate Saber, Xu Qing thought of many things.
At this moment, Households Commander Zuo said, "Mr. Xu, scholar, try it out. Let’s see how much of the techniques I just demonstrated you can remember."
Xu Qing picked up his waist saber and executed the moves from memory.
The more Households Commander Zuo watched, the more pleasantly surprised he became.
After a full fifteen minutes, Households Commander Zuo excitedly said, "You’ve actually remembered all of them."