Chapter 28: Strengthening “Vacuum Hand”

Xiao Yan lay in the wooden basin, his body submerged in the cool Foundation Elixir, absorbed in the feeling of firm strength that he had just acquired. Normal methods of getting to 7 Duan Qi required a period of rest and recovery. However, Xiao Yan did not need it since he had the Foundation Elixir. He was already in peak condition.

After lying in the basin for a while, until his excited emotions calmed, Xiao Yan finally lazily got up. The attached water droplets sparkled joyously under the bright sunshine.

Taking a lazy stretch, Xiao Yan’s bones gave crisp cracks as if they were brand new!

Carelessly turning his head, Xiao Yan’s right hand locked onto his bed and pulled his clothes into his hand.

“Nice. My Dou Qi increased by quite a bit. I should be able to influence someone’s actions now, right?” Xiao Yan muttered as he dressed himself.

“Unfortunately, this ‘Vacuum Hand’ doesn’t have any power when attacking. ‘Sucking Blood from One’s Enemy’ applies only to people with weaker Dou Qi than me. For anyone with greater Dou Qi than me, it’d be among the worst to use.”

Contemplating the negative effects of “Vacuum Hand”, Xiao Yan sighed in disappointment. However, even if the technique was terrible, it was the first Dou Technique that he had ever owned!

Just as he was about to step out of the basin, a thought came to him. He pursed his lips.

Eyes gleaming, Xiao Yan slowly curled his right hand into a fist and raised his arm so that his hand was about half a foot away from a flower vase. He stared intently at his hand, and deliberately avoided looking at his target.

Xiao Yan’s Dou Qi burst from his palm without the guidance of Qi.

Licking his lips, Xiao Yan’s Dou Qi burst out of his palm without any planned Qi Paths or pressure points….

To be able to externalize Dou Qi without the use of Qi Paths was something the Da Dou Shi could barely do. Xiao Yan’s attempt resulted in nothing more than a moderate gust of wind.

The air flowed from his palm and connected with the vase, almost knocking it off the table.

Even though he failed to externalize the Dou Qi, Xiao Yan’s face bore an expression of elation. He excitedly rubbed his hands together and quickly took a few steps back before raising his hand at the vase again.

“Vacuum Hand!” A small roar and a huge pulling force forced the flower vase to spiral towards Xiao Yan.

Right when the vase was about 3 feet away from Xiao Yan, the pulling force on Xiao Yan’s hand disappeared and was replaced by Dou Qi rapidly trying to externalize on his palm. Suddenly, a huge gust of wind blew against the approaching vase!

“Peng!”

The two counteracting forces met in mid air and the vase that was in the middle of the clash suddenly broke into countless ceramic pieces.

TL: Man, Xiao Yan hates vases.

Seeing the results of his experimentation, Xiao Yan’s small face was full of happy surprise. The combination of the pulling and pushing force caused a destruction far greater than he had imagined.

Even though Xiao Yan’s plentiful Dou Qi had almost been exhausted by that experiment, Xiao Yan was still extremely excited. The pushing force was caused through a low level method which had a great consumption of Dou Qi with barely mediocre results. If he had a Dou Technique that was the opposite of Vacuum Hand, then the two combined, he was sure, would have a great effect!

“Brat, pretty good...To have thought up this method to strengthen Vacuum Hand.” The black ring sparkling, Yao Lao ghostly floated out and praised Xiao Yan while inspecting the ceramic fragments.

Xiao Yan smiled and his eyes quickly circled around Yao Lao. On Xiao Yan’s face was an expression of sadness and fawning.

“If there was a Dou Technique that would create a pushing effect and if you could train that Dou Technique to a high level then this Low Xuan level Vacuum Hand could have the power of a Middle to High Xuan Technique….” As if he didn’t see Xiao Yan’s fawning face, Yao Lao muttered to himself.

“Teacher, you know that non-attack oriented Dou Techniques are super rare. Getting the Vacuum Hand was pure luck and now, where do you expect me to find a Dou Technique to compliment Vacuum Hand?” Xiao Yan tilted his head and said dejectedly.

“Stop making that innocent face. I know that you're trying to get it from me!” Giving Xiao Yan an evil eye, Yao Lao angrily said.

“It’s not like someone else didn’t think of what you just thought up but these two non-attack oriented Dou Techniques are extremely rare and therefore, no one has been able to actually combine their effects.”

“Even teacher doesn’t have something?” Hearing that, Xiao Yan’s small faced darkened. He knew that without a set technique to produce a pushing force, he would have to rely on his Dou Qi externalizing which was not a smart move.

Seeing Xiao Yan’s dispirited face, Yao Lao smiled while massaging his forehead. After a while, he said: “There was someone before that begged me for a pill. I think that I took a Dou Technique like Vacuum Hand as payment. If I didn’t have an already finished pill at that time, I would not have traded with that person! Hmm, this was pretty long ago, if you didn’t remind me today, then I probably would have really forgotten about it.”

“Alright...I found it!” Moving his finger from his forehead, Yao Lao placed his finger on Xiao Yan’s forehead.

With the finger, a huge influx of information overwhelmed Xiao Yan and only after a while did Xiao Yan finally understand the new glob of information.

“Fire Palm: Low Xuan Level, Able to create huge gusts!”

The simple explanation along with the uncreative name made this Low Xuan Level technique seem extremely shabby.

“The founder of this was a blacksmith who had been a blacksmith for his entire life. Because of the fire of the furnace, after a couple decades, he invented this technique…” Watching the tight faced Xiao Yan, Yao Lao taunted.

Rolling his eyes, Xiao Yan was quite impressed with the blacksmith. Creating a Dou Technique was no mean feat and definitely not something that an ordinary hammer wielding blacksmith could create.

Fire Palm wasn’t hard to learn and under Yao Lao’s help, Xiao Yan only took two hours before having an introductory grasp on the basics of it.

Standing in his room, Xiao Yan stared at the final flower vase in his room. Taking a deep breath and curling his hand, he said: “Vacuum Hand!”

With the strong pull, the flower vase quickly flew towards Xiao Yan.

Staring at the incoming vase, Xiao Yan quickly stopped using Vacuum Hand and forced his Dou Qi to follow the Qi Paths of Fire Palm.

“Fire Palm!”

Right when the vase was about to hit Xiao Yan’s forehead, a strong gust of wind emerged from Xiao Yan’s hand and suddenly the room was subjected to a wind on par with a hurricane!

“Peng!”

Another crisp sound of a vase breaking sounded but this time, the vase was ground into a fine dust from the two opposing forces.

“Great….”

With white dust covering his whole body, Xiao Yan quickly jumped out of the vase’s “explosion” ground zero. Watching the outcome of the vase, light shone in Xiao Yan’s eyes. If he was able to master both of the skills and change them without pause then he could make unprepared people take a huge loss.

Patting off the white dust, Xiao Yan knew that he had a new training task in the next three months.

Three months later will be his Coming of Age Ceremony…..

“Hehe, a lot of people are probably hoping that I make a fool of myself at the Coming of Age Ceremony right?” In the scattered room, a young and cold laugh sounded.