To avoid looking too shabby at the upcoming exchange meeting, Bai Mo decided to learn some fundamental martial arts and power generation techniques from Hua Taishan and the others.
"Elder Hua, Elder Mo, could you gentlemen instruct me on the basic techniques of power generation?" Bai Mo inquired, addressing them in the reception hall.
"You kid, you've finally come to your senses! We were actually planning to give you some pointers after a while. Have you found yourself with immense strength but unable to unleash more than a fraction of it? Did you think that when we discuss 'killing methods' all day, we're only talking about combat moves?"
"Aren't killing methods all for combat?"
"Killing methods indeed contain a vast array of combat techniques, but they also encompass numerous power generation techniques. Your current issue is actually that your physical attributes have increased too rapidly, yet you're still employing your old power generation methods. Naturally, you feel like you have strength but can't fully unleash it."
"Let's take running as an example. When a normal person runs, their hands and feet cooperate; as one foot pushes off, the hand swings. No one's hands and feet move at an inconsistent frequency—that's human instinct."
"But in your current state, if your legs exert force, one stride can propel you over ten meters. Your upper limbs simply can't adapt to such a change in an instant, because your physical attributes aren't improving gradually; that's why this problem arises."
"What we've actually been discussing recently are new power generation techniques for drastically enhanced physical attributes, to re-adapt to our surging speed and strength. What we martial artists detest most is our body's power being beyond our control, so every day now we're contemplating new ways to exert force, to fully master and unleash our own strength."
"The power generation methods we've devised are generally tailored to ourselves, achieving the highest compatibility with our individual physical conditions. However, you can certainly take them as a reference."
For the following period, Bai Mo was continuously absorbing lessons. The several martial artists took turns explaining the power generation techniques they had discovered through their own exploration, occasionally demonstrating them. During this time, he also gained a new understanding of his own body.
Although he didn't learn any specific combat techniques, he memorized many useful methods of power generation. However, he still needed to use them for an extended period to form habits before he could truly assimilate them as his own.
After bidding farewell, Bai Mo walked back to his dorm, simultaneously refining his power generation posture based on what he had just learned. He walked in a wobbly, swaying manner.
However, ever since the emergence of spirit qi, all sorts of strange occurrences had become increasingly common. Someone like Bai Mo, with just a slightly odd walking posture, wouldn't attract anyone's notice at all.
When walking down the street, if you sometimes encountered people walking beside you whose heads were on fire, or where the ground suddenly froze, who would still pay attention to someone who merely had a slightly odd walking posture?
Just as Bai Mo reached the entrance of a small alley, he idly swept his divine sense through it. Activating his divine sense to observe his surroundings whenever he was bored had already become one form of entertainment for him.
With a single sweep, he discovered three ability users deep within the alley, about twenty to thirty meters from his position. One woman and two men, the latter having cornered the woman against the wall, seemingly about to commit robbery and sexual assault.
However, Bai Mo had no inclination to play the hero rescuing the damsel in distress, for he had already perceived with his divine sense that the woman's spirit energy conversion level was higher than that of both men combined. If she truly engaged in a two-on-one fight, even if she couldn't win outright, she would face no pressure at all in defending herself.
So, he decided to stand at the alley entrance and watch the show. After all, the three of them wouldn't perceive that someone could be monitoring them through the dense cluster of houses from twenty to thirty meters away.
"Too bad my divine sense still can't discern what they're saying. This doesn't seem like a typical robbery; a normal robbery wouldn't involve two sides negotiating for this long. There must be something amiss."
"Hmm, it seems the two sides have finally failed to reach an agreement and are preparing to fight," Bai Mo guessed from their expressions.
The scene shifts to the alley.
"Miss, please don't make this difficult for us. You took the hard drive containing our family's latest research findings and records; please hand it over."
"No! I will expose your inhumane human experimentation to the public and bring this crazy family to utter ruin!" The red-clothed woman's emotions began to flare.
"Miss, please don't force us to use force." The two men's attitudes grew increasingly rigid.
"That insane family, they don't even spare their own kin! They even tricked us, who are collateral family members, into becoming test subjects!"
"It seems there's no talking to her. Let's move!" The two black-clothed men were unmoved by the woman's words and began to attack the red-clothed woman with practiced coordination.
Unexpectedly, the two men had initially thought that two against one woman would make for an easy resolution. Their negotiation with her was merely out of fear that she might, in desperation, destroy the hard drive. However, the two sides ended up fighting to a standstill.
The red-clothed woman's hands were covered in silver flames, putting the two men quite on the defensive. They dodged left and right, attempting to avoid her hands and attack other parts of her body. However, they found that no matter where they struck, silver flames would erupt there, leaving them hesitant and restricted in their movements.
If it had been ordinary flames, the two wouldn't have fought so awkwardly. But these silver flames seemed to possess immense lethality only against biological entities that weren't her. Even a light graze could open a large gash. And as fate would have it, both men possessed body-strengthening abilities and no ranged attacks, so they could only bite the bullet and keep fighting.
The woman seized the opportunity to press her attack, but her opponents were clearly well-trained. They began to exchange blows with her; one man was responsible for tanking damage, simultaneously striking the woman hard when he got injured, while the other provided support, ensuring the woman couldn't escape. They were willing to sacrifice one person's severe injury to incapacitate the woman and then snatch back the hard drive.
On his end, Bai Mo also saw the hard drive in the red-clothed woman's bag with his divine sense, and noticed that no matter how the two men attacked, they always tried to avoid that particular spot. Thinking that this hard drive was crucial, he decided to play the oriole, slowly approaching the three.
As the fight grew increasingly frantic, the red-clothed woman forcefully absorbed several punches, then fiercely embraced the tanking man, burning him to death with the silver flames covering her body. However, she herself was almost completely out of combat power, slumping onto the ground.
The other black-clothed man, although enraged by his teammate's sacrifice, still strongly resisted the urge to charge directly, as he also feared the woman might make a final, mutually destructive attack.
Bai Mo, who had been watching the entire spectacle, was also surprised by the lethality of those silver flames against biological entities. However, he also knew that there were simply too many ways to counter such flames that only targeted living beings; it was just that the two black-clothed men hadn't prepared beforehand, and coincidentally, they themselves were body-strengthening types, thus completely countered.
The red-clothed woman, utterly exhausted, finally fainted. It was only then, after confirming the state of her opponent, that the surviving black-clothed man stepped forward to retrieve the hard drive.
But just as the black-clothed man obtained the hard drive and felt a wave of relief, he suddenly felt every part of his body being pressed down by an immense force. He couldn't even turn his head to see what was happening in front of him, only managing to utter "Who!" before being knocked unconscious by a palm strike.
The one capable of pulling this off was naturally Bai Mo, who had been watching the show from the side. While the others were fighting, he had quietly walked to a spot about ten meters away from them, and then he just kept waiting. As soon as the surviving black-clothed man took out the hard drive, he immediately made his move.
First, he used his psychic power to control him, to prevent his attack from missing, and then knocked him out with a hand chop.