“Oh! Oh! Oh~”
The song of the rooster woke up the world.
The moment the rooster cried out, Qin Lang reflexively sprung up from the bed, and prepared to start his everyday mandatory course.
“Although the lights were on by midnight and a chicken crowed at five, that was still the time for a man to train and rise”. Those were the teachings of the Old Poison Guy. No matter if the wind was blowing and the rain was falling, or if the frost was forming and the snow was falling, the Old Poison Guy would still demand Qin Lang to rise at the first rooster’s crow to train. Or else, he would put poisonous snakes, scorpions and the like into Qin Lang’s blanket, to let them “sleep” with him.
Even though he was at Summer Sun City, Qin Lang didn’t want to be lazy. He quickly washed his face and rinsed his mouth, then started running towards the small hill behind Seven Mid.
This was the training location that Qin Lang picked for himself, and yesterday when he came to school he found and chose this spot.
Qin Lang concentrated completely, and started to train the Hidden Dragon Pillar.
The Old Poison Guy once said that a man’s martial realm was divided into nine sections. The first was strength training, and the second was to pillar. To pillar meant to squat . It was a foundation stage that real martial artists must experience.
The Hidden Dragon Pillar was pretty magical. Three years ago, when Qin Lang just started training, his body was sore all over because of standing, and he was always scolded by the Old Poison Guy. But today the more he stood the more relaxed he got, and the more he stood the more vigorous he got. After standing as a pillar for three years, Qin Lang’s understanding in the arts of pilling also increased significantly. Moreover, one time the Old Poison Guy said something accidentally, and only then did Qin Lang know that the Hidden Dragon Pillar wasn’t the Old Poison Guy’s skill, but rather a skill that he specially stole from the Buddhist school.
At this time Qin Lang was standing on the hill, and felt that he was like as stable as an old pine tree with roots deeply burrowed in the ground. No matter if the wind blows or the rain hits, it would not be able to move him.
Slowly, Qin Lang started to understand the real meaning of the two words “Hidden Dragon”:
Every person had 24 pieces of bones in their spinal column from their neck to their lower backbone, and it was just like a dragon hibernating in the body. Because of the existence of this “dragon”, people could walk on the ground, and look at the sky. But, the “hidden” in the Hidden Dragon Pillar did not have the meaning of “hibernation”, but rather “to subdue”. While training everyday, only when you subdue this “dragon” can you do magnificent things, and when you do things, it would be like “One is not crying, but when it cries it will shock the world. One is not flying, but when it flies it will soar through the heavens.”
Before winning over others, you must first win over yourself.
To train the martial art “pillaring” with Hidden Dragon Pillar, it was not only as simple as standing still. You needed to “subdue” the power of your body, and even needed to “subdue” your own thoughts in your mind to concentrate your power and thoughts on the “dragon” in your back. To do magnificent feats, you needed to use the power of the heavens and earth to sharpen your power and thoughts.
With ordinary squatting methods, they would certainly not be as profound and deep as this, and it would be impossible to balance the training of both power and thoughts.
“Indeed impressive!”
After suddenly being enlightened, Qin Lang gave the Hidden Dragon Pillar a two word evaluation. Although the Old Poison Guy was a mischievous person, the pillaring techniques from the martial foundations that he gave him were indeed top cla.s.s!
Three years of painful training was incomparable to a moment of enlightenment. But, without the three years of training in strength and squats, he would not have gotten this moment of enlightenment.
Qin Lang knew that he had reached the peak of the second martial realm foundation “pillaring”. After that, he should be stepping into the third realm, the “style” category, to learn and understand all sorts of martial art styles.
After Qin Lang understood the magic of the Hidden Dragon Pillar, he didn’t burst with excitement, because he was “subduing” his happiness in his heart, and continued standing in the Hidden Dragon Pillar posture. He was like the old pine tree at the cliff, showering in the afterlight of the stars, and welcoming the arrival of sunlight.
The first sign of sunlight appeared, and bird cries sounded everywhere.
Suddenly, Qin Lang felt a few pine needles fall on his head. On top, the pine branch violently trembled, and the little birds in the bird nest flew away, seemingly suffered from a huge scare.
He raised his head to look, and he only saw on the pine tree branches, there was a 2 meter long yellow-speckled pit viper wrapped around it. The snake had the yellow of cauliflower throughout its body, and its head was triangle shaped. With one glance you could tell that it was a poisonous snake!
The snake just finished robbing a bird nest, and swallowed a newly hatched bird live. The two grown birds could only chirp non-stop at the yellow-speckled pit viper, but it had no other method to scatter it away.
The strong consumed the weak. That was the rule of nature.
After the snake ate the newly born bird, it swaggeringly left and bird nest, and slid along the branches, seemingly planned to “rob” another bird nest.
Yellow-speckled pit viper, also called oriental pit viper. Not only was the poison strong on this guy, its appet.i.te was fairly good as well, belonging to the snake species that ate a lot. It didn’t matter whether if it was frogs, toads, mouses, birds, bird eggs, etc., it could eat it. Under food lacking situations, they would even eat their own species. Because they had such a good appet.i.te, those snake species grew extremely fast in the mountains and forests where there were plenty of food, and their body size could be compared to pythons.
As the snake slid down from the tree branches, it obviously saw that Qin Lang was there, but since that thing was so huge, it didn’t seem to put Qin Lang in its eyes, and very leisurely slid along the tree.
Whoosh!
Just at that time, a red light flashed past Qin Lang’s eyes, and like lightning it “nailed” itself on the tree trunk, blocking the snake’s path.
What Qin Lang didn’t expect was, the thing that blocked the path of the snake was a blood-red mantis!
This red mantis was about 10 cm long, and looking at its body characteristics, it should belong to the Chinese Mantis species, but the colour of the Chinese Mantis were usually green or dark brown. Those were protective colours, and they reduced the chances of being attacked by predators. Qin Lang had never seen a mantis that was so blood-red. Although the red was very cool, but it was also very easy to attract the attention of birds or other predators, unless——
The red on this blood-coloured mantis was not a protective colour, but rather a warning colour!
For example, poisonous snakes or insects that had very strong poison would have very bright colours on their bodies. It was to warn predators: I have poison, don’t anger me! If a G.o.d comes then the G.o.d will get poisoned. If a Buddha comes then the Buddha will get poisoned!
Also, from the position of this mantis, it was quite arrogant! The blood-coloured mantis stood just 10 cm outside of the snake, with two sharp knives lightly raised in front of it. A cold look flickered in its eyes, and it had a bit of “If you want to cross then leave money down”!
The snake was, of course, angered by this blood-coloured mantis. Looking at its body and strength, this mantis was really like the mantis in “a mantis’s arm stops a car”. The snake’s tongue flickered in and out. It looked like today it was going to change its taste and try out some mantis.
Sss!
The snake took the initiative to attack, and its head sprung like a spring, opening its mouth towards this blood-coloured mantis.
Qin Lang couldn’t help but sign inwardly. The bravery that the mantis had to “cross worlds” to challenge the snake was praiseworthy, but sadly it could only end tragically.
Although there were records of videos that caught mantis preying on mice and snakes, but those were small-sized mice and snakes. In the insect world, mantises could be counted as a hunting master, but against the larger-sized snakes, it was just like giving up your life!
Buzz!
As the mantis was going to be killed by the snake, it suddenly strongly shook its wings, and the two front and back wings shone a gorgeous red light under the sun. It seemingly opened its wings to fly, but it didn’t fly away. Its legs were still firmly nailed on the tree trunk, and rather that snake retracted its head, and seemed to be surprised.
A drop of liquid fell on Qin Lang’s face. He used his hand to feel it, but that was not dew. It was a drop of blood!
Snake blood!
“The snake actually got injured?”
Qin Lang was shocked. The scene that just happened went by too fast, and he didn’t even get a chance to see clearly. But, looking at it more detailed right now, he found out that the two eyes of the snake got a 2 cm long cut, and it was obvious that the snake’s two eyes were destroyed!
“d.a.m.n! Is it real or fake?”
Qin Lang couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by shock. This blood-coloured mantis’ battle power was a bit too strong… With one move it instantly blinded its opponent’s eyes, and made that snake lose a large portion of its battle power. It was really too strong!
The snake became blind, and its fear overwhelmed its anger and hatred. It panicked and fell from the tree, into the gra.s.s, and escaped in panic.
But, this mantis didn’t just let it go. It flew out with lightning speed, and landed near the snake’s lethal point on the head. Pulling out its “two blades”, it fiercely chopped down, and used the front of the blade to stab in the snake’s head part, then the snake only struggled for a few more moments before dying.
“To kill a snake you hit the lethal point! Only, how was this mantis so clear of the opponent’s weak point?”
Qin Lang was shocked by how the mantis killed, and was even more shocked on how the mantis was able to accurately determine the location of the snake’s weak point. There were two weak points of the snake, “3 inch” and “7 inch”. Most knew the 7 inch of the snake, but a lot didn’t know the 3 inch of the snake. “3 inch”, it was the weakest point of the snake’s backbone, and it was very easy to break. From that it will severely damage the snake’s central nervous system, and lose control of movement.
After killing the snake, the mantis stood on the head of the snake, and gently displayed its wings while using a victory pose as it stood on the snake’s head. After cutting open the snake skin, it even started eating the snake’s brain tissue!
“There are indeed countless of strange things in this huge world!”
Qin Lang sighed in his heart. He read a “mantis catching snake” story on Just at that time, Qin Lang suddenly thought of something, and he exclaimed, “Is this the so-called ‘abnormal insects’ from the poison scripture?!”
