boyutpedia Chapter 20 Unorthodox Boxing Techniques
Chapter 20 Unorthodox Boxing Techniques
To be honest, the boxing style that Cai Xuan is currently practicing is not the traditional Crane Fist, but an unorthodox boxing style that he bought from a street stall.
Traditional Crane Fist, including Zonghe, Minghe, Feihe, and Shihe, are just routines of boxing techniques. There has never been any claim that Zonghe method trains the physical body, Minghe method trains sound skills, Feihe method trains body movements, or Shihe method trains qi and health.
However, it was precisely because of its unorthodox nature that Cai Xuan bought it.
He had already learned proper boxing techniques, so there was nothing new about them; on the contrary, it was this kind of writing, which was written like a novel and was mysterious and fantastical, that aroused his interest.
It has now been proven that this unorthodox martial art can be practiced, but the progress seems to be a bit too fast.
Is this a problem with the world, a problem with the martial art, or a problem with the flesh and blood of the small sword-backed crocodile?
Of course, this couldn't possibly be his own problem, because he was just an honest martial arts practitioner. Cai Xuan stood under the giant tree for a long time, but he still couldn't understand why his external martial arts training method was progressing so quickly. He simply stopped thinking about it, got dressed, and went back to the wooden house.
No one noticed that the fifth little golden gourd twisted its vine the whole time, quietly "watching" the direction where Cai Xuan was practicing, without turning back.
Back in the cabin, Cai Xuancai noticed that the ground that the small sword-backed crocodile had dug into the platform had not been filled in. He took a hoe and repaired it, then put the crocodile bones into an iron bucket and put it on the fire to simmer slowly with the woody Nine Oxen Divine Power Potatoes.
It was still early, so Cai Xuan went to the kitchen toolbox, took out an iron sledgehammer, and went downstairs.
A steel shovel is a piece of steel that is flat at one end and has a slightly concave groove in the middle at the other end. It is about the size of an adult's palm and about three fingers thick. It is specifically used to process irregular stones.
It's not very useful to leave it here now, so we might as well use it to strike a spearhead.
Cai Xuan wasn't a professional blacksmith, so he could only copy the design from his memory. Although the final product wasn't very aesthetically pleasing, it was perfectly usable. He then found a sturdy wooden pole, attached it to the workpiece, nailed on anti-loosening nails, twirled it a few times, and nodded in satisfaction.
It took him a whole week to get that spear; if it weren't for the food he had stored, he would have starved to death long ago.
In addition, he also made a rattan bow.
The bow material is made from old vines collected from the mountains and forests. It had been dried in a well-ventilated place before being boiled in salt water, then rubbed with oil several times, and finally carefully baked over a fire to obtain a very good rattan bow. This rattan bow, made from old mountain vines, has both hardness and flexibility. It does not break when bent and is very elastic when released, making it an excellent material.
Having a bow is not enough; you also need a string to use it, and that was exactly what Cai Xuan lacked.
The rainproof canvas he brought included plastic ropes for tying the canvas, but those ropes had little elasticity and couldn't be used as bowstrings at all.
Left with no other choice, Cai Xuan could only cut a section of skin from the red-maned jackal, separate it into threads, and then twist it together with the plastic threads and rattan threads from the plastic rope to make a composite string. After testing it on the bow, the elasticity was acceptable, and it was barely usable.
Once the bow is made, you still need arrows.
The arrow shaft is simple; there are arrow bamboos on the mountain. Just cut some down, dry them, boil them in salt water, rub them with oil, and roast them over a fire before using them.
Arrows are a troublesome thing.
Although Cai Xuan still had some iron, he needed to melt it first to make arrowheads. But he didn't have a crucible. What to do? After thinking for a while, he decided to fire one and also make some household pottery.
To fire pottery, you need clay, and the soil under your feet is red soil, which is the least lacking in clay.
However, this kind of red clay contains a lot of sand, which must be washed away before pottery can be made, which is very troublesome.
Fortunately, the red soil in this mountain forest is not entirely sandy. In some places, the red soil is pure and fine, almost without impurities, and can be used to make pottery. Cai Xuan was worried that the pottery made from pure red soil would not be ideal, so he went to the wetlands by the stream and dug up some gray clay that resembled field soil. Then he put the two together and stomped on them to fully blend them, making them more sticky and improving their heat resistance.
Once the clay is prepared, the next step is to pound and shape it into a blank.
Cai Xuan was undoubtedly a smart man.
He had watched videos of pottery making and even visited Jingdezhen. Making highly refined pottery was impossible, but creating a model was possible. He repeatedly pounded the clay on a wooden board to remove air bubbles, then rolled, coiled, patted, and shaped it…
Soon, crucibles and household pottery vessels were formed one by one.
He placed the clay in a well-ventilated area to dry slowly in the shade. Once it was completely dry, he carefully placed it into the kiln for firing.
The kiln was readily available; they simply used the same one they had previously used for burning charcoal, making only minor modifications. After placing the pottery pieces, they added firewood and lit it. It burned for a full day and night, and once the kiln had cooled naturally, Cai Xuan eagerly opened the kiln door.
A large kiln of pottery was broken, with about two-thirds of it remaining.
He immediately took the newly fired ceramic crucible and began smelting iron.
The iron used to make arrowheads contained screws, wires, nails... all sorts of odds and ends. They'd been lying around in the toolbox unused before, but now they came in handy. He didn't dare throw them all into the crucible at once; instead, he heated them red-hot in the charcoal fire before adding them.
Gradually, the iron in the crucible began to soften, turn red, and shine, eventually melting completely into molten iron that churned and bubbled within the crucible.
After removing the impurities, Cai Xuan wrapped his hands in a damp cloth, carefully picked up the crucible, and poured the molten iron into the prepared clay mold. With a hiss, white smoke rose as the molten iron cooled and solidified in the mold.
After cooling, they were taken out and carefully polished, resulting in twenty fairly decent arrowheads.
He made arrow shafts from bamboo, attached arrowheads and bird feathers from bird nests, and finally obtained twenty arrows of decent quality.
These arrowheads and pottery, along with the spears they had previously forged, took Cai Xuan almost a month to complete.
The food supplies at home are almost gone, so we have to start storing food again.
New recruits must be baptized with blood to test their mettle.
In addition, the neighbor on the left has been very unfriendly lately, always howling at night, making it impossible for people to sleep, so Cai Xuan thought of hunting a few red-maned jackals to eat.
But he did not act immediately; instead, he practiced archery and spear techniques first.
Only when his archery skills were good enough to hit the target, and his spear could be used accurately and forcefully, did he sling his bow over his shoulder, carry his arrows, and head towards the forest where the red-maned jackals were entrenched.
The stream swelled, and the turbid water churned and overflowed the previously exposed riverbed.
Seeing this, Cai Xuan stopped riding his tricycle and instead walked along the stream.
Beyond the cleared hillside, the path ended. Cai Xuan had to clear a path as he went, felling weeds and shrubs wherever his axe swept across, carving out a barely passable trail from the dense forest.
The grass by the stream was taller than a person, and the trees were densely packed together, their branches and leaves intertwined, blocking out the sun.
If you're not careful, you might slip and fall, or get caught in the vines.
Walking through this dense forest, it's easy to lose your sense of direction; a moment's carelessness and you'll be lost. Fortunately, there are streams and rocky hills for reference, otherwise Cai Xuanzhen would have really gotten lost.