Chapter 14

Ding Qi stood there, flipping through the Iron Sand Palm martial arts secret manual in his hand. At the same time, on the table in front of him, there were the nine martial arts manuals he had copied in Liangcheng.

As the first and only complete secret manual he had bought, although Ding Qi knew that the Iron Sand Palm technique was not suitable for him, he still took great care of the manual. Whenever he flipped through it, he was extremely careful, afraid of any damage.

However, his attention was clearly not on the book in his hand.

In fact, since the afternoon of the previous day, Ding Qi had been in a dazed state. This morning, after getting his meal at the Tongfu Inn and returning from Qixia Town, his condition had not improved.

Moving his gaze from the Iron Sand Palm manual to the nine manuals on the table, Ding Qi sighed in a daze, "A few days ago, although I pestered Old Bai and finally got the manual for the Mountain-Toppling Wave-Palm technique, it still didn't work, did it?"

The Old Bai Ding Qi mentioned was the waiter at the Tongfu Inn and an inner disciple of the Qingyun Sect. The sect had assigned him a year-long task to manage the inn in Qixia Town.

Three days ago, Ding Qi had finally finished testing the remaining four martial arts manuals. The results, though disappointing, were not unexpected.

None of the four techniques were suitable for him.

In his disappointment, Ding Qi turned to Old Bai.

Old Bai was an inner disciple of the Qingyun Sect and practiced unique martial arts of the sect. The Mountain-Toppling Wave-Palm was one of them.

Although this palm technique was not a high-level martial art, it was still much better than the common Iron Sand Palm.

Since none of the techniques he had were suitable for him, and Old Bai was the only person he knew who practiced martial arts, Ding Qi wanted to try Old Bai's technique.

He also harbored the hope that the poor results of his practice were due to the low quality of the common techniques.

A long time ago, Ding Qi had pestered Old Bai to teach him the Mountain-Toppling Wave-Palm technique. A few days ago, Old Bai finally gave in to his persistence and taught him the first level of the technique, warning him repeatedly not to pass it on to anyone else.

Ding Qi, of course, readily agreed.

Old Bai was willing to teach him the first level of the technique, probably because the Mountain-Toppling Wave-Palm was not a profound technique and was not considered a secret within the sect. If it were a profound technique, no matter how much Ding Qi pestered, Old Bai would not have revealed it.

After verifying that the remaining four techniques were not suitable for him, Ding Qi, with a heavy heart, began practicing the Mountain-Toppling Wave-Palm technique. The results of his practice plunged his heart into the depths of despair.

Comparing the practice standards he had obtained from Old Bai, Ding Qi dazedly realized that he was also unsuitable for this technique.

"It seems that with my poor aptitude, no matter what technique I practice, it will be in vain!" Ding Qi thought, feeling a headache.

He had already been aware of this deep down, but was unwilling to admit it. Now, after so much time and so many techniques, Ding Qi had to face this fact.

Just as Ding Shan had told him in Liangcheng, without good aptitude and the assistance of medicinal herbs, it was impossible to achieve success in martial arts.

What made Ding Qi both angry and amused was that after comparing all the techniques, he found that the Iron Sand Palm, the first technique he had obtained, was the one he could practice the fastest, which left him speechless.

Lowering his head, he looked at the Iron Sand Palm manual in his hand and shook his head with a bitter smile.

Even if the Iron Sand Palm was relatively easier to practice, it was almost impossible for him to achieve any significant success in his lifetime.

"Since my aptitude is poor, I can only...," he looked at the book in his hand again and made a decision.

Ding Qi was not the type to wallow in self-pity. Now that he understood that his aptitude made it impossible for him to find a suitable technique, he began to consider other methods.

Despite the series of setbacks, he was disappointed but not ready to give up.

The idea of practicing martial arts and wandering the world had long taken root in his heart. Ding Qi had no intention of giving up. He was not willing to live a mediocre life like an ordinary mountain dweller.

Since his aptitude was poor, he planned to use medicinal herbs to assist his practice and speed up his progress.

Buying medicinal herbs to assist in practice was a pipe dream for the current Ding Qi. After all, the price of medicinal herbs was beyond the means of ordinary people.

However, Ding Qi knew from his second uncle that although he currently received a meager salary as an assistant to the outer sect, if he could become a full-fledged outer sect member and manage the sect's assets in a few years, he would receive a decent income.

He had already decided that even if he lived a frugal life in the future, he would save this income to buy medicinal herbs for practice.

"The deep mountains of Qixia produce many herbs useful for practice. In the future, I will have to find a way to go deep into the mountains to gather some," Ding Qi muttered to himself.

Thinking about this, he turned to look at Qixia Mountain outside the window.

Although going deep into the mountains to gather herbs was dangerous, it was the only method he could think of. Otherwise, even if he invested all his future income, it would not be enough for practice.

Subsequently, Ding Qi began to absentmindedly flip through the Iron Sand Palm manual in his hand.

Since this technique was the most suitable for him among all the martial arts he had encountered, Ding Qi had decided to practice it.

Although he had made a decision, a sense of silent frustration still lingered in his heart, unable to dissipate. This setback was clearly not something he could recover from in a short time.

As he absentmindedly flipped through the manual, a barely noticeable cracking sound came from the book.

Then, the book in his hand turned into scattered pages, falling to the ground.

Noticing the abnormality, Ding Qi saw the scattered pages on the ground and his face showed a pained expression. His already depressed mood became even more irritable.

Although he had taken great care of the book since he bought it, it was an old book with a fragile binding. The slightest force would cause the threads to break.

When he first got the book, Ding Qi had flipped through it countless times, even causing the corners to fray. Despite his repeated caution, the threads had broken several times, making the book loose and unstable.

In the past two days, due to the setbacks with the techniques, he had been absentminded while flipping through the book, not as careful as before, and inadvertently applied more force, causing the threads to break and the pages to scatter.

Realizing that his carelessness over the past two days had caused the book to be damaged, Ding Qi felt somewhat guilty.

He came from a poor family and had always been careful with things. It was not his style to damage things due to carelessness.

Ding Qi bent down and picked up the scattered pages one by one, planning to sew them back together with needle and thread later.

"In the future, I will need to refer to this book often for practice. The book is too old, so I need to be more careful when flipping through it and not damage it again," Ding Qi reminded himself as he picked up the pages.

Just as he had picked up most of the pages and reached out to pick up the last few, he suddenly noticed something that caught his attention, and his movements paused.

"Huh, that page?" Ding Qi's face showed a strange expression.

He did not pick up the remaining pages but instead held the one he had just picked up in front of him, examining it curiously.

The page looked no different from the others, yellowed and brittle due to its age. However, when he picked it up, he noticed a slight abnormality.

He focused on the corner of the page, specifically the upper right corner where the threads were sewn.

A thin, silvery-white line appeared there, standing out against the yellowed page.

It was this line that had caught his attention.

Previously, due to the pages being sewn together, this line had been hidden. Even though Ding Qi had flipped through the book many times, he had never noticed it.

However, this time, the pages had scattered, revealing the silvery-white line.

Looking at the line curiously and examining it closely, he quickly understood what was happening.

"A hidden layer!"

Ding Qi was quite surprised.

The page in his hand had a hidden layer, and the silvery-white line was the color of the object inside the layer.

"Using such a secretive method to hide it in the page. Could it be something valuable?" Ding Qi muttered to himself.

After a moment of hesitation, Ding Qi began to peel back the outer layer of the page to see what was inside.

The process of retrieving the object from the hidden layer was not easy. The layer was completely fused with the page, making it impossible to separate easily. Even tearing the outer layer was difficult. In the end, he had to soak the page in water to soften it and then retrieve the object.

Afterward, Ding Qi began to examine what he had found.