“Master, can I ask you a question?” Joseph said while trying to catch some fish with his hands.

I don’t know, can you?

Joseph felt an ethereal laughter from his soul and cringed at the stupid joke.

Tell me, my little disciple. I’m curious to know what’s on your mind since I see no fish on your hands.

The boy rolled his eyes and sighed dejectedly; he knew there was no getting rid of his master’s terrible jokes. Therefore, he just ignored that part.

“How did you and Jacob meet?”

That piece of crap came to me because he wanted to learn my Martial Style and Technique. He sought me out because he said that one day someone might be my heir and it would be a pity to lose my heritage.

“And you just gave him everything like that?”

What? No, it took him thirty years to convince me to give him anything. In the end, I was just so fed up that I gave him everything I came up for so that he could share it with future generations. I knew his goal was get humanity back on track and therefore I didn’t mind sharing my knowledge with him. Many others did. Jacob had always been a very knowledgeable person, but he also got many Cultivation Techniques and so on from the goodwill he had gathered. I swear, the number one reason I chose to give him everything was because he was teasing me to no end with the whole hermit thing.

“Is the ‘hermit thing’ the fact that you locked yourself up with a very powerful piece of parchment and you thought it was normal to fight Demonic Beast hordes just like that?”

Pretty much, yeah. Jacob is the Great Strategist or whatever. I enjoyed my life and helped whenever I could. No regrets, disciple. I did what I felt I had to do and I also did what I wanted.

“And how did you die?” Joseph didn’t know the story since Jacob had never told him.

Well, that’s a story you have to earn for yourself. Not going to tell you unless you deserve knowing.

Joseph sighed.

“It is what is, I guess?”

He had lost hopes of arguing with the First Martial Saint.

“So, what’s next now?”

Well, you still have to catch your dinner. So…

Joseph was really getting frustrated with the First Martial Saint, when he realized something.

Am I supposed to be using the first stance while fishing to practice the insight master said I got yesterday?

Joseph finally realized he had been going at it in the wrong way. He should have been using his Martial Style more in his daily life!

Suddenly, he saw a fish and started to circulate Qi through his Meridians. He wouldn’t let his master down this time. Even if the First Martial Saint could be a lunatic, Joseph had already gotten stronger in the span of a few days. He was still eons from becoming as proficient as Jacob or the Vermillion Tyrant, but at least he was finally making some progress.

So, he saw fishes move around him and started piecing together the necessary movements to execute the stance. The fact that the fishes moved so fast made it incredibly difficult for his mind to anticipate the movements, but he was slowly entering into a new dimension of focus, ignoring everything in his surroundings…

…

What’s this idiot doing?

The First Martial Saint looked while Joseph summoned the Qi in his body and circulated in a way that suggested he was on the verge of using the first stance of his Martial Style.

Why is he using that stance now? Has he gone insane already? I thought it would take a few weeks more before he started losing it. I didn’t have a person talking to me and I still made it for a long time on my own. I swear, I even tried to talk to him more to keep him company. Oh God, why did I have to pick an idiot disciple? Out of all the people that could have inherited my Martial Style and my soul fragment, this incredibly stupid—

WHAT IS THAT?!

…

Joseph felt into a trance-like state, with no distraction able to scratch his mind anymore. He observed the fishes patterns and movements and kept perfectly still. His mind was calculating the next moves the little creatures in the river would make.

And the most incredible thing was that he could finally start feeling his Meridians reacting to his efforts. It was as if his own Qi was guiding his limbs in the right place, with not just his mind doing all the work. In fact, he was finally getting to the next level in a matter of minutes.

It wasn’t just about calculating the next move anymore, but he could now feel an instinctual component of the first stance of the First Martial Saint Martial Style thanks to the complete immersion he was experiencing.

He was so happy he had figured out how the First Martial Saint Martial Style really worked. Maybe that was why the First Martial Saint had not given him any more pointers.

Joseph had figured out long ago that the First Martial Saint Martial Style was incredibly similar to a karate-kid style of training and he was now incorporating such an insight in his daily life. If he could really act the same way his master had intended for him, maybe he would have a shot to become really powerful!