Volume 4 Chapter 59
Shameless
Now that we've discussed Daluo's Five Divine Styles Manual, let's learn about Mount Daluo's marvellous tradition.
According to Mount Daluo's tradition, the styles created by disciples of the sect would qualify to be recorded in Cloud Stair to Heaven once the reigning patriarch has a look over it. Cloud Stair to Heaven is the library for Mount Daluo's manuals. The patriarch of every generation has to create a secret martial arts manual of their own that needed to surpass at least ten self-invented styles.
The essence of styles from Grandmaster's era was recorded in Daluo's Five Divine Styles Manual. Daluo's Five Divine Styles Manual contains an enormous number of styles. There are thirty palm styles which fit the requirements, alone.
After teaching my Shifu, hidden weapons, fan styles, qinna and countless other deft styles were added to its repertoire. Shifu then separated them into more categories before he taught them to my fellow disciples.
Grandmaster's Daluo Mental Cultivation emphasises profoundness. My Shifu's style focuses on intricate and clever techniques. Shifu is a perverted and unfettered, cough, eccentric and unrestrained person. In spite of that, however, he's very meticulous, which is why he specialises in styles that focus more on details. His self-invented style was recorded in a book called Heavenly Net Treasure Records. I've seen the book, but I just couldn't understand the contents… My Shifu's style seems to be the complete opposite of mine.
'It's too darn complex for me to learn!'
If training Daluo's Five Divine Styles Manual is a fight against one's lifespan, learning Heavenly Net Treasure Records is a test of one's talent. Shifu's martial arts are all without strict and rigid concepts and twists and turns that one can't understand even if they rack their brains. For example, there's the Miracle Reversal Manual. I can learn the Force Reverse Meridian internal energy cultivation component, but with regards to the execution part, do I really need to walk upside down?
'The fuck am I, Ouyang Feng?! I still can't comprehend it for the life of me even today! Is it my Shifu's deliberate prank?'
Of all the disciples in the sect, there are only three disciples who have the talent required to learn Heavenly Net Treasure Records. One of the three is Shiyi. That's why it's not a fluke that Shiyi meets rarely meets anyone who can rival her prowess in the pugilistic world.
The reason for that is that because she is the only person who's well-versed in all three ultimate styles no matter if it's Daluo's Five Divine Styles, Heaven Net Treasure Records or Night Net Manual. Nobody would dare to stop her if she wanted to learn them. Grandmaster doted on this cousin of his most. He gave her anything she wanted. He dotes on her more than he'd dote on a granddaughter.
'As for when Shifu and I face off against Shiyi, let's not go there. It's embarrassing…'
Now, let's talk about my era. Us five martial siblings are still in the phase of learning our sect's skills, which is why the contents of Night Net Manual is bullshit I shoved in, because even if Grandmaster, Shifu and I were the ones to possess profound knowledge, I'm the only one who learnt martial arts that… Strictly speaking, I may have learnt lots of internal strength styles, but I never completely learnt the technical execution component of any style. Up until now, the styles I got closest to finishing were Taiji Fist, which I learnt over half of, Dragon Claw, which I learnt about half of and Grandmaster's Fist, which I learnt about one-third of.
Daluo wins in terms of profoundness; Heavenly Net is formidable for its intricacy, while my Night Nets, uhh, it doesn't seem to have anything unique about it. It's basically grab someone, and use him as a big bat…
'I honestly don't know any other way of fighting! All that matters in a fight is pummelling the opponent into the ground, isn't it?! Sword twirls and all that flashy whatever is beyond me!
As for Night Nets Manual's completion, that was my test from my Shifu before I descended the mountain at twenty two years of age. I had descended the mountain countless times before that, but I had to complete the exam to ascend the mountain as a graduate.
However, due to me knowing squat besides internal strength, I wrote Night Steps as my manoeuvre art. The truth is that Night Steps is also another internal strength cultivation method. I merely wrote it for the sake of passing the exam. I was hopeless with everything else. As a result, I resorted to copying skills from my seniors… It took me seven days of copying some of this and some of that to finish Night Nets Manual.
Consequently, the quality of Night Nets Manual isn't good. Shifu always referred to my Night Nets Manual as trash. He said that other than Night Steps, all of my other self-invented ultimate arts such as X Dragon Claw, Picking Dishes like Divine Fingers and The Shoulder Belongs to Me Grand Art were all retarded and unpresentable. I can't even remember the number of times he rolled his eyes at my Night Nets Manual. I'm still extremely discontent with that.
'All else aside, The Shoulder Belongs to Me Grand Art was a move I burnt the midnight oil and worked all day to copy from Cloud Stair to Heaven and a bunch of other manuals I stole from! Don't look down on it because of its name. It's hard to be a chef in an eatery that can ensure all the shoulders belong to you! I had to copy Empty Fists energy moulding style to create it! To troll people, I even named it Empty Palms Version Two Point 2.0!'
'What, you think that the name doesn't sound elegant? You think I should copy you with your bullshit Snow Flake Sword, Jujube Flower Palms and whatnot? Look, I'm not trying to criticise you, but naming your martial arts skills after brothels is what's truly embarrassing!'
'Don't go thinking I haven't been to Snowflake Brothel and Jujube Flower Brothel! The elder sister type of girl that plays the string instrument is fond of me. She even fed me jujube flowers when I was young!!'
"Oi!" Jin Wangsun aggressively roared, "What are you hiding in the tree and spacing out for? We fighting or not?!"
'Ah? I think I just went on a trip down memory lane and forgot about my fight with Jin Wangsun.'
'Cough, cough, I digressed there. Okay, I'm done talking. Next on the menu is what Gold and Silver Sect has been tinkering with for around a century.'
When I was the master of Night Fortress, I had lots of conversations with Old Patriarch Jin. At the time, he once mentioned that Gold and Silver Sect had been doing one thing for roughly a century, which was to collect all martial arts manuals in the world to create a god-tier martial arts style.
When I heard his idea, I nearly blurted, "Isn't that our fucking Daluo Five Divine Styles Manual?!"
Grandmaster's Daluo Five Divine Styles Manual is a style that he created by crossing seas and mountains to st(steal)-, excuse me, created by reading and memorising countless styles across the lands, in addition to his amazing knowledge and profound cultivation.
'Gold and Silver sect wants to plagiarise the skills that my Grandmaster plagiarised? How Shameless!'
In saying that, I can understand why they had the idea. My Grandmaster was invincible back then, and most of the credit can be attributed to Daluo's Five Divine Styles Manual. It wasn't one complete style yet back then, and some were yet to be invented by him, but he already had a prototype. He's the perfect example of the saying, the older one is, the wiser they are.
Shifu's Heavenly Net Treasure Record may be very formidable, but it's too hard to be compatible with it. If there's something to be handed down, Grandmaster's Daluo's Five Divine Styles Manual is the only option.
I think that's what the ancestors of Gold and Silver Sect thought when they attempted it. They wanted to invent a style that could be passed down similarly to Daluo's Five Divine Styles Manual.
I never expected old Patriarch Jin to tell me. The reason Jin family's ancestors collected secret manuals was to fight my Grandmaster, because Grandmaster schooled him. He didn't want to accept defeat, which is why he came up with the idea.
'My fucking god, it was all over a personal vendetta! Your descendants have been slaving away for over a century just because you couldn't swallow your grudge! Your grandson's are all obedient! If the Emperor's family had descendants that were as obedient, they wouldn't keep on trying to overthrow their father!'
'Also, is your idea of revenge plagiarising my Grandmaster's idea?! That's enough of your bullshit!!'
Glossary
*Ouyang Feng - A villainous character from Jin Yong's (Louis Cha) Condor Heroes trilogy. He learns 蛤蟆功（Toad Skill）. As the name suggests, the style has the user imitate the movement of a frog, so they leap around similarly to a frog. The style was very powerful, and being a martial arts fanatic, Ouyang Feng was willing to leap around as a human and looking like a retard to the rest of the world, which is why Ming Feizhen refers to him.
** The Shoulder Belongs to Me Grand Art - For the record, the 'shoulder' here refers to pork shoulders and what have you, not human shoulders