To achieve immortality, I cultivate using Qi Luck

Chapter 296: 177: Hongdao l s Fifth Year_2

Although they were not clear about the secrets of the martial arts external body, the path of martial arts itself was a process of gradual progression.

With other external sects and foreign nations’ Inborn Grandmasters as examples for reference, some conjectures and secrets about the martial arts external body were roughly inferred by the Yuzhong Guo Family.

Thus, according to these inferred goals, the Yuzhong Guo Family began to slowly improve their own inherited Chi Yang Divine Skill three hundred years ago.

One of the results of these improvements was the increasingly closer resemblance of Inner Strength’s external manifestation to the martial arts external body.

Moreover, the fruits of these improvements, as well as various other improvement ideas, were naturally inherited by Lu Yuan at this time.

With the Yuzhong Guo Family’s hundreds of years of accumulation, coupled with some secret information that Lu Yuan had obtained from Yang Jing and Ziyun Dao master, as well as the fulfillment of his own conditions, summarizing a system of martial arts external body was no longer a problem.

Even following the Yuzhong Guo Family’s deductions, Lu Yuan could now construct a prototype of the martial arts external body and begin attempting to break through the Innate Realm.

However, this prototype was still somewhat crude and rough, and not yet fully refined.

Moreover, this external body prototype was adapted to the original pure Chi Yang Divine Skill.

At present, Lu Yuan’s Inner Strength had undergone three transformations and been tempered by Immortal Spirit Qi.

Using this Inner Strength, which had changed most of its properties, to adapt to the prototype deduced by the Yuzhong Guo Family’s inner strength, the compatibility was bound to be low.

Therefore, in order to make himself more closely integrated with the martial arts external body and better utilize the power of the external body, some necessary modifications and optimizations to make it more suitable for himself were also indispensable.

Thus, after determining the Chi Yang Divine Skill as the foundation of the martial arts external body, Lu Yuan began his path of external body transformation and optimization.

Every day, he would stay in his camp, following the Yuzhong Guo Family’s ideas, and using his own Inner Strength to slowly optimize and adapt, bit by bit improving his martial arts external body.

This process was bound to be lengthy.

According to Yang Jing, even with a suitable reference, it would take at least a year, or as long as three to five years, to condense an external body that matched their heart’s desires.

The saintess of the Five Poison Sect had also spent three years to condense the Ten Thousand Poison True Qi.

And the Emperor of Shu, Li Xiong, was a Heaven’s Gifted Talent but had also taken more than a year to break through the Innate Realm.

Although Lu Yuan was assisted by the accumulation of the Yuzhong Guo Family at this time, he estimated that it would take at least a year or two to perfect the martial arts external body and break through the Innate Realm.

This timeline also coincided with the imperial court’s plan.

The grand plan devised by the court officials, which aimed to create ten great Grandmasters, could not be achieved overnight. The original plan was to execute this matter over the course of three years.

Now, only a year had passed, and there were still two years left, with ample time.

“Moreover, in two years, the army under my command will also be almost trained. Once I break through the Innate Realm, I will transform like a fish becoming a dragon, no longer bound by constraints.”

At present, the only reliable soldiers and horses in Lu Yuan’s hands were the original 15,000 veterans.

Even among these 15,000 veterans, the 10,000 that Zhou Qing had taken to Shaoyang Prefecture had already lost thousands of members due to the continuous attrition caused by the Five Poisons Sect.

In other words, Lu Yuan had only just over 10,000 soldiers he could use.

With such limited strength, even if he became an Inborn Grandmaster, wanting to establish his own territory was impossible.

Individual martial arts power, although it can bring status and wealth, is not enough to establish a kingdom single-handedly.

Just like a mighty eagle, if it has no wings to help it, then no matter how strong it is, it cannot take flight.

At this moment, Lu Yuan was like an eagle about to grow into its full might, and the soldiers and horses under his command were his wings.

Now, not only did he need to grow and progress, but his wings must also become stronger in the process.

Using two years’ time to train a 50,000-strong army, forging them into wings. Once the time came to ride the wind, he would be able to soar high into the heavens.

While Lu Yuan was diligently perfecting his martial arts external body, the outside world was also slowly developing according to its own trajectory.

In Hongdao’s fifth year, on the sixth day of the tenth month, Zhou Qing, who had been fighting the Miao people in Shaoyang Prefecture for half a year under Lu Yuan’s command, sent back a military report.

The report stated that after attacking Shaoyang Prefecture for half a year, the Miao people were gradually exhausted, and the Miao soldiers surrounding the Fu City had retreated, thus lifting the siege of the city.

However, in the southern part of Shaoyang Prefecture, the two counties of Resources and Suining had fallen to the thieves, with tens of thousands of bandits occupying the counties, unable to leave the southern part of Shaoyang Prefecture for a long time.

At the same time, the three counties in the north of Shaoyang Prefecture were still under the control of the Miao people, with ten thousand soldiers stationed in the three cities, making it extremely difficult to recover.

Shaoyang Prefecture had lost five of its ten counties.

And the original 30,000 county soldiers and militias in the prefecture had been reduced to less than 20,000 after half a year of attrition. Zhou Qing’s 10,000 soldiers were left with only a little over 7,000.

All the soldiers combined amounted to only 25,000. This was more than enough to defend the city, but insufficient for conquest.

Although the Miao thieves within the prefecture had suffered heavy losses due to the constant siege battles, with two to three thousand dead or injured, the remaining forty thousand still posed a formidable threat.

In response, Lu Yuan ordered them to continue to defend.

There was no other way, as he only had 20,000 soldiers at his disposal, most of which were new soldiers who couldn’t be taken out for battle..