Chapter 2

Hao Qi has been in this world for nine years and five months.

Damn it, he was just playing a single-player game and made a slight modification. Although the modification was a bit exaggerated, it was just a single-player game, so why did it have to make him transmigrate?

When Hao Qi transmigrated, he was only nine years old, living in an orphanage with no parents or relatives to rely on. The orphanage was full of filth, from the staff embezzling funds to the children forming gangs and bullying the weak. All of this made his life extremely difficult.

Heaven! Where are the kind orphanage directors from novels? Where are the loyal orphanage brothers and sisters? Is it true that fairy tales are all lies!?

When he was young, Hao Qi once thought about death. After all, he could never return to his former world, where his parents, relatives, friends, and lover were. In this new world, he would never survive to adulthood. This transmigration was truly the worst luck he could have.

Then, in the second month after his transmigration, just as he was preparing to find a painless way to die, he suddenly discovered that he might still have a chance... a game system!

Yes, a golden finger that came with the transmigration, a game system! That super awesome, no, absolutely amazing thing...

But then he found out he was screwed again.

The system he brought was the single-player game he was playing before he transmigrated, called "Jin Yong Qunxia Zhuan: Title Reset Edition." It wasn't the original "Jin Yong Qunxia Zhuan," but a version reset by a group of game enthusiasts, with the same art style but completely different content. When he played this game, he was overly ambitious and directly entered the highest difficulty, the Legendary Mode, where he was repeatedly beaten by the NPCs. In a fit of anger, he found a hacker friend to parse the source code and modify a save file. This save file wasn't overly modified; it just put all the martial arts manuals in the inventory, such as the highest-level Dragon Subduing Palm, the Nine Swords of Dugu, the Nine Yin Manual, the Nine Yang Manual, and so on. He also increased the number of martial arts slots from ten to twenty. That was it... and when he loaded the save file and eagerly entered the game, he directly transmigrated into this world.

Heaven knows, at the age of thirty in that world, he had long outgrown his middle school fantasies of magic, martial arts, gods, and other races. He just wanted a stable, high-paying job, a house, a pretty and gentle wife, two children, and some free time to read novels and play games. But who knew this world would be so exciting, forcing him to transmigrate, and then giving him a "Jin Yong Qunxia" game system when he was desperate to die. How could he even think about dying now!

Even ants have a will to live. After obtaining the system, Hao Qi gave up the idea of suicide. He carefully examined the system and cautiously explored this world over the next few months, and he gradually developed a desire to live.

First, his character template in the system contained all the martial arts manuals he had modified, which were now in his inventory! Yes, all those legendary martial arts he drooled over as a child were now his! And he could choose to practice twenty of them! Twenty!

Practicing both the Nine Yin and Nine Yang Manuals, using both the Absorbing Star and Northern Darkness techniques, and combining the Dragon Subduing Palm and the Heaven Turning Earth Shaking techniques—this was simply too exhilarating!

Then there was this world, a mysterious world... Well, after gradually understanding this world, Hao Qi had no other thoughts except that it was a modern world with martial arts... Not the kind of world in martial arts urban novels, but a world where martial arts had become a subject like physics and chemistry, with a technological level similar to the 1930s and 1940s of his former world.

This world seemed vast. The Lan Ying Republic where he lived was said to have an area of 820,000 square kilometers, nearly twice the size of Sichuan Province in his former world, almost equivalent to two and a half times the size of Japan or one and a half times the size of France. This was not a small country, but it was still called a small country in this world. In the eastern region of the Blue Sea, there were over twenty countries of similar size...

The world is so vast, I want to see it!

Time is the best healer. Hao Qi was depressed for half a year, missing his parents, relatives, friends, and lover from his former world. Then he gradually began to recover. During this half year, he also gradually played the role of a weak orphan and a curious participant in this world.

This was a world where everyone practiced martial arts. Even ordinary civilians were martial artists, skilled in boxing, kicking, leg techniques, and the eighteen weapons. The government of this world strongly promoted martial arts in every household, and even elementary schools had specialized martial arts classes.

Similarly, this was a hierarchical world. Ordinary people who practiced martial arts were still ordinary people. They worked, paid taxes, and participated in labor. As long as they didn't develop internal energy, they were no different from ordinary people in Hao Qi's former world, except that they had a few more physical training techniques...

The biggest difference between the two worlds... internal energy!

Only one person in ten thousand could develop internal energy. According to the path of this world, whether it was external techniques, internal boxing, or internal energy manuals, their purpose was to guide a person to develop internal energy. This was the critical point that transcended the ordinary world. Once a person developed internal energy, they immediately became a match for a thousand, with great strength in every movement. As long as they didn't put themselves in a deadly situation, no ordinary person could defeat them by sheer numbers. This was also the core military strength of a country. Yes, even though this world's technology had reached the level of the 1930s and 1940s, with guns, cannons, and even early aircraft and missiles, the political direction of this world was still determined by those who possessed internal energy. This was a world where internal energy had flourished for countless years and was expected to continue flourishing in the foreseeable future!

After understanding all this, Hao Qi immediately selected the internal energy techniques from the system. Without hesitation, he placed the Nine Yang Manual on his character template. What a joke, the internal energy in this world seemed completely different from what he had read in martial arts novels on Earth. No technique could directly develop internal energy. The so-called internal energy manuals in this world were merely methods to vibrate the body through muscles, air in the lungs, and blood flow to strengthen the body and develop internal energy faster. They were more like the internal family boxing techniques on Earth, rather than the internal energy techniques in martial arts novels that guaranteed the development of internal energy once practiced.

In other words, he was in luck. His system contained the techniques from martial arts novels, which were absolutely... uh...

Hao Qi was prompted by the system that to practice the Nine Yang Manual, he needed to practice at least three yang external techniques... This was not a setting in the game. Well, the game system had been realistically adapted... For the Nine Yin Manual, he needed to practice at least three yin external techniques... For the Tai Xu Manual, he needed to practice one each of boxing, sword, and knife techniques, as well as a strange external technique... For the Yi Jin Jing, he needed to practice one Buddhist external technique, but it had to be at an extremely high level...

All the top internal energy techniques in the system had requirements, and all the internal energy techniques required at least one to several external techniques. This greatly disappointed Hao Qi, who had planned to develop internal energy before the age of ten, then live a comfortable life, or at least have the ability to support himself and leave the dirty orphanage. However, it also cooled his impatience.

This was a real world, not a game. There was no "SAVE" or "reload." Once he died, he was really dead. If he wanted to live and explore this world, he had to be extremely cautious...

With twenty slots for martial arts practice and the various special effects of combining different techniques, such as the "All-Encompassing" effect when practicing both the Nine Yin and Nine Yang Manuals, the "Tai Chi Supreme Defense" effect when practicing both Tai Chi Boxing and Tai Chi Sword to the extreme, and the "True Sword and Knife" effect when practicing both the Miao Family Sword and Hu Family Knife to the extreme, these were all matters he had to consider. After all, this was a real world where he couldn't start over once he began, and he couldn't make hasty decisions. He needed to start his life step by step, grounded in reality...

Hao Qi carefully selected various external techniques from the system, as well as the internal energy techniques that could be associated with them after practice. He also had to decide the future possibilities represented by these external and internal techniques. He chose this path: the first step was definitely internal energy...

The Luohan Fist, a Buddhist external technique, practiced to the extreme, and then...

The Yi Jin Jing!