Once upon a time, people used to fight to the death for this manual. However, currently Shi Xiang found it familiar.

It was a physical art.

To a cultivator, the martial skill that they used are not that important, what is important is their cultivation and strength. However, in his continent, there was exactly one notable martial skill that cultivators are interested in, or at least, they don't look down on it.

Originating from the South of the continent, the martial art Kik-ite was taught to the soldiers. In his youth, it was the things Shi Xiang relies on the most. It has shaped his development even now.

The fighting forms are diverse, however generally there are two schools of thought. The martial art was taught to soldiers with intents to teach them how to kill and disarm. The first school of thoughts focus more on the physical strength aspect of a confrontation.

Tackle, straight and deflection are used interchangeably. The idea is to disarm someone and then grab them closer for a physical confrontation. Knowledge of how to disarm is important, but not as important as the knowledge of close quarter brawl. The head, the legs and the arms are dangerous weapon. A user of Sik-ite always has a low stance, ready for a kick, it is unknown when the explosion is going to happen, but kicks are an important aspect of Kik-ite. A kick to the jaws or the livers are dangerous enough to kill for a normal person. Straight is also an option for a martial artist.

The idea is well and good, however, to achieve maximum effectiveness, the soldier might as well be unarmored. The art focus on the flexibility of the body and readiness to unleash kick, punch and headbutt at anytime. The best fighters are unarmored or at least only use a light kind of armor.

The idea is that it is not used on the battlefield, but is used when ambushed.

The legend says that there was once a general sleeping in his tent. He has removed all his armor, his enemies, knowing this, chose to move in the middle of the night to assassinate the general. The general, discovering ambush in the middle of the night, using Kik-ite, he was able to kill all of his enemies.

It was an art for soldiers who was disarmed.

However, this has merits to many cultivator. While for a normal person, fighting in armor while using Kik-ite was cumbersome, with a cultivator's strength, it may as well be non-existent. More importantly, the focus on the physical aspect of Kik-ite rang true for many cultivators. To many cultivators, their bodies are their strongest asset, what are armor, what are weapon? They might as well be non-existent in the face of a well-cultivated body.

A fist hit harder than any weapon in this world could, the skin protect better than even a master blacksmith armor.

In a martial focus society like the Ninth Sanctum, many cultivators originate from a soldier house, allowing them to cultivate and make their family proud. They have at least a passing familiarity with Kik-ite, and many poorer cultivators with not much resources to buy more powerful manual have used Kik-ite as their physical art to great result.

The idea is to pit your body against the opponent, no tricks, everything relies on strength and awareness. It just works.

Shi Xiang was poor once, and Kik-ite being a widespread art has influenced how he developed his fighting form.

It was a very hard form, with claw hand and gouging attack. His master, Shao Jingyi has tried to soften it to work with her flavor of cultivation, but old habits are hard to shake off.

Shi Xiang follows the second school of thought with Kik-ite, the idea that in a world of cultivation, you are always going to be fighting someone stronger.

It was this second idea that made Kik-ite famous. It was very simple, it was the idea that-

A normal human could kill a cultivator.

This may seem hard to believe but it is true. On a wintery night, as cold as any other, a certain master from a young house has defiled the daughter of an old general. He was not a master by any mean, but he was a cultivator. At the same time, he was above the foundation forming state, so he is not that half mortal, half cultivator state, he is a cultivator, through and through. Even if he played around, he is stronger than anyone in the general's service at that moment, pissing off him just mean bad thing for the general's house.

But after his daughter was defiled in his own house, and came crying to him, the general ordered all his men to put out all the light and close off all the gate.

In the darkness of that cold night, what happened was unknown but the next morning, the cultivator was dead.

It was said that in the death of night, the general used Kik-ite and ambush the cultivator.

Now, whether the story is embellished or not, the fact remains that it has become very popular with the people world wide...

...who promptly get killed by cultivators who think that they are getting too big for their bridge, however the idea has merit.

If the first school of thought was for fighting ambush, the second school was for ambushing.

Its extremely low stance was not for an explosive powerful kick, it is to keep balance, as the user are going to fight from a very low place.

In that position, the fatal points are the groin, the throat and the eyes. The fingers and the wrists of a Kik-ite user are extremely flexible, yet hard. The idea was that, if you could not win in a physical confrontation, deflect.

The hand has to be that flexible to deflect the powerful blow of a cultivator, it has to be that hard to deliver a deadly blow.

The tip of the finger of a Kik-ite user was as hard as steel, and they are used to deliver debilitating attack.

The idea was that an attack to the fatal point of a human are impossible to get through or would not matter for a cultivator. The finger would be used to deliver attack to vein and other soft part of a body.

If train enough, it could rupture an important artery during what other call "a woman dance".

The practitioner of the second school of thoughts are not looked well upon by the general cultivation world. It is only popular with the mortals. It was because there was no pride at all in their skill.

It was like the dancing of a woman, yet extremely deadly. Small blows delivered to the blood vessels, the joints, and other fatal spots accumulate, finally killing a cultivator by waiting until their defense has dropped enough to hit their center, just above the groin, dissipating their strength and killing them.

For a long time, it was the only physical art Shi Xiang practices until he met his teacher, Shao Jingyi who forced him to remaster his footwork.

But old habits die hard, and his style still utilize many of the points of Kik-ite.

And yet, right now, the emergency manual that Yan Yu has sent him...

"Shi Xiang: Senior, why is this manual so familiar?"

"Devil Path Ancestor, Yan Yu: It is your fighting style is it not?"

However, even Yan Yu did not expect to find such a promising youth. After seeing a few of Shi Xiang's livestream, he has determined that the boy fight like him. And so the manual that he sent was what he has gathered from the video combined with his own thought

"Devil Path Ancestor, Yan Yu: It is not like that guy could send you any physical manual, he uses sword, you can only come to me about this part."

However, Shi Xiang has a strange look at the manual that was sent to him. Artificially, it looks the same, but the theme of Kik-ite has changed dramatically.

The second school of thought was "to fight against a superior opponent".

What Yan Yu sent was "To rip apart the heaven and earth".

To describe how it works is difficult, it looks the same but the meaning is different. The focus on claw and fingers are still there, but it is all different.

If a Kik-ite user used his finger to claw at another person throat, their intention was to disable the airflow and perhaps actually rip it out.

What Yan Yu want was, with the claw, tear apart the mountain ahead with strength and cruelty. It was extremely exaggerated and require a lot of strength even if it looks the same.

Kik-ite was extremely subtle with their power usage, every blow was just to weaken before delivering a coup-de-tat. If Shi Xiang fights like Yan Yu wants, those debilitating blow to the blood vessels won't just be debilitating anymore, they will actually tore a chunk out of the other.

The subtleness, it is not there. The second school of Kik-ite was turned from an extremely defensive and evasive art to something extremely domineering by Yan Yu.

However, now that Shi Xiang thinks about it,...

...it fits him. Ever since he was changed by the two great masters, the only things he was doing was killing violently.

His strength and body has changed, perhaps it was time that he changes his physical art too.

Instead of weakening someone before dealing a killing blow, this will literally tear them limbs from limbs.

It was like how just recently, Shi Xiang just accidentally tore someone limbs from limbs just by fighting.

Instead of a debilitating blow to the throat to cut the air flow, it will literally rip them apart, it could even rip mountains apart.

It was just like how Shi Xiang rip someone apart recently.

Now that he thinks about it, somehow, this domineering art fits the new him that has changed.