Chapter 45: Enduring Hardships
Chapter 45: Enduring Hardships
“Gao Jing, wake up!”
A sudden voice jolted Gao Jing awake from his sleep.
He reached out instinctively to grab his phone.
But found nothing—only air.
Something was wrong!
Gao Jing felt confused—he had definitely paid this month’s rent!
The next moment, everything seemed to shake: “Hurry and get up!”
Ah ah ah!
At this point, Gao Jing was fully awake.
It wasn’t the landlord coming to collect rent; it was Shan Guoer calling him to get up.
Thinking about it, since he got his first business bonus at work, Gao Jing had never delayed his rent.
But the landlady’s angry shouts still often appeared in his dreams.
Like a bad student years after graduation dreaming of exams.
Truly a nightmare that wouldn’t go away.
Gao Jing took a deep breath, got up quickly, and clambered out of the nest.
He said with a smile: “Good morning, Shan Guoer.”
“It’s not early anymore!”
The little girl was perched on the wooden table, her two big dark eyes staring at him: “My grandpa told me that starting today, I have to supervise your training in the Great Wilderness Combat Manual. So you can’t be lazy!”
Gao Jing broke into a sweat.
He felt like this little girl was a small official who had been given special power.
Dare to slack off? Punish him right away!
“I need to brush my teeth first.”
Gao Jing said urgently: “Give me one ke.”
“Ke” was a time unit in the Great World.
It was set by the Shamans based on sunlight falling on a totem disk.
One ke equaled about ten minutes.
Besides “ke”, there was “xi”—one xi was about one second.
Gao Jing had used his hiking watch to measure it, and while there was a tiny error, it was mostly accurate.
After one ke.
Sitting in the Back Basket as the little girl ran toward the valley, he felt puzzled: “Where are we going?”
The big square inside the Village Fort was normally the Training Ground for the tribe’s warriors.
Gao Jing thought they would practice there.
But Shan Guoer went in the opposite direction.
The little girl replied: “You’ll find out soon!”
She even liked to tease him!
Gao Jing didn’t mind, since Shan Guoer wouldn’t sell him off for sure.
He saw the little girl spread her legs and run quickly over the small road paved with big green stones.
She dashed into the forest ahead.
This forest wasn’t very big, and it was the end of the mountain path for Shan Yue Village.
Shan Guoer nimbly wove between the large trees, passing through the woods in just minutes.
The view opened up suddenly!
“Wow!”
Gao Jing’s eyes lit up.
The deep valley held a special secret.
Three towering mountains circled a little world like paradise, with bright sunshine shining onto vast green grass and all kinds of pretty wild flowers growing freely.
Under the sun, dragonflies and butterflies fluttered about—the beautiful scene seemed almost unreal.
A huge waterfall dropped between two mountain peaks, falling at least two or three thousand meters down, clinging like a white dragon to the dark green mountain wall.
With every breath, it poured thousands of tons of water into the deep pool below!
The water crashed against the Shan Yan, making a loud rumbling sound.
The first time Gao Jing came to Shan Yue Village, he had seen that waterfall from far away.
But seeing it from a distance felt completely different.
As the water dropped straight down, making him think of falling stars!
Only then did he truly feel the majesty described in those famous lines, and it made him feel very small.
“This is the place.”
Shan Guoer hopped about and suddenly jumped up onto a giant rock.
This big rock crouched beside the Mountain Stream flowing from the deep pool, with gurgling water passing by its side.
The lower half was covered in thick moss.
The top of the giant rock stood about fourteen or fifteen meters above the ground—the little girl had climbed it by leaping from stones nearby.
The upper part was very flat, looking like it had been cut by tools.
Gao Jing guessed roughly that the area was over two thousand square meters!
Huge and intimidating.
Shan Guoer put down the Back Basket.
She reached in and picked up the Little Yellow Dog.
“Ah Huang.”
She patted the dog’s head and said: “Stay here and don’t run off, okay?”
Woof!
The Little Yellow Dog licked her hand, wagged its tail, and then lay down.
It opened its mouth lazily and let out a yawn.
Basking in the sun, it wanted to sleep.
“So good.”
Shan Guoer giggled, then said to Gao Jing, who had just climbed out: “Let’s start now!”
Although the little girl was very young, in the Primary World, she would be in preschool.
But she taught Gao Jing the Great Wilderness Combat Manual step by step, very seriously.
She was like a qualified, small teacher.
Because they always faced the huge threat of Monster Beasts, for ten thousand years, the Great Wilderness Humans had remained on guard like an army of the people.
No matter men or women, nobles or commoners, everyone started practicing martial arts to strengthen their bodies from childhood.
The Elder Shaman gave Gao Jing the book “Records of the Great Wilderness Combat,” which was like the basic training text for Giant Warriors.
Anyone could practice it!
Although it was the simplest method, over time, many strong people of the Great Wilderness Humans practiced and thought about this Combat Technique. They got rid of the bad parts and made it better step by step until it became perfect.
It became the foundation of the fighting strength for the Great Wilderness Humans!
The “Records of the Great Wilderness Combat” included two main parts: strengthening the body and breath control.
The first twelve, then the next twenty-four, making a total of Thirty-Six Combat Forms!
All the Combat Forms copied the moves of Wild Beasts, like tiger pounce, elephant stomp, wolf dash, leopard leap, snake coil…
They started easy and got harder, and were divided into three layers: Body Tempering, Bone Refining, and Ignite Bloodline.
Only after going through the training steps of toughening muscles and skin, refining bones and tendons, and igniting the bloodline could a Great Wilderness Giant become strong enough to draw out Totemic Power and become a powerful Totem Warrior!
Under normal conditions, this process took ten years.
Geniuses were an exception.
The Elder Shaman told Gao Jing that Shan Guoer had been practicing the “Records of the Great Wilderness Combat” for two years now.
She was now at the Bone Refining layer.
If nothing went wrong, then in another three years, Shan Guoer would finish Bone Refining and try to Ignite Bloodline.
By age ten, she had a good chance of gaining the fighting totem!
This was all because the little girl was still very young, so they carefully controlled her progress to care for her growing body.
Her talent was the best in the Shan Yue Tribe, so even Shan Tai had to admit defeat!
That was why teaching Gao Jing, this Little White newbie, was more than enough.
From this, Gao Jing also realized the real reason why Shan Guoer could act like the little boss in the Village Fort.
And why she could carry a Vine Basket weighing nearly a hundred tons and run fast and steady on mountain paths!
This also made Gao Jing even more excited about learning the “Records of the Great Wilderness Combat.”
He desired to become strong!
For the whole morning, Gao Jing worked hard to practice the first Combat Form of the “Records of the Great Wilderness Combat.”
Eagle Spread.
This Combat Form looked simple, but reaching the correct standard was very hard.
Because some of the moves were extremely tough, and during practice, twisting a muscle or tendon was considered minor.
It made him suffer quite a bit.
Also, the little girl teaching him did not care about their “deep” friendship at all. If she saw something wrong, she would shout immediately.
“You made a mistake!”
“Your hand needs to be lifted higher!”
“This won’t work, try again!”
Poor Gao Jing, under her “tyranny,” had to clench his teeth and force himself to persist.
He corrected his moves over and over and practiced repeatedly!
If a five-year-old little girl could do a move easily and he couldn’t, it would be better for him to buy some tofu and smash his head with it.
He couldn’t even dream of becoming the strongest Shaman!
During this time, Gao Jing’s strong body after his transformation played a huge role.
Twisted muscles recovered quickly, and sore joints stopped hurting in no time. Pushing himself to the limit over and over actually brought out his hidden strength.
By noon, Gao Jing could already match the breath control method and successfully perform the “Eagle Spread” Combat Form!
Once he finished, he sat hard on the hot rocky ground, covered in sweat.
He felt every part of his body aching and itching, as if something was leaking out of his pores, and he wished he could scrub himself from head to toe with a steel brush!
After gasping like a dead dog for a few minutes, Gao Jing slowly regained his strength.
That was when he noticed the little girl crouching nearby, staring blankly at him.
She had a sweet, clueless look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” Gao Jing felt nervous without thinking. “Did I do something wrong?”
Poor him, just a grown man, had been looked down on by the little girl countless times before.
It had given him mental scars!
Shan Guoer’s expression seemed odd.
She bit her lip and shook her head.
It looked like she wanted to say something but held back and swallowed the words.
As long as he hadn’t made a mistake!
Gao Jing, with no time to think deeper, breathed a huge sigh of relief and then leaped up suddenly like a fish.
He stood back up straight.
Hard work builds strength.
He kept going!