Volume 10 Chapter 57 The Eight Realms (Part 2)

There were innumerable martial arts disciplines out there, with the variations being difficult to generalise. Taking into account different methodologies and different learning methods of the same discipline would be impossible to encompass in one conversation. Yet, there was one common denominator between all them. Whether they meditated, performed plyometric exercises, read mountains of books or whatever else, they were all different means to the same end - harnessing qi and storing it.

The wise would be able to imitate the flow of nature inside their body, realising what would be considered only theory - this applied to internal energy training.

Internal energy was amplification of the “ordinary” man’s qi tens to hundreds of folds in order to perform superhuman feats, such as leaping from roof to roof or crushing boulders with one’s bare hands. How this “internal energy” came into existence and who first discovered it were topics that couldn’t be answered. At the end of the day, how power was used was more intriguing to man than its source.

In the current paradigm, martial arts chiefly taught practitioners how to refine their internal energy and how to deploy it in combat. The more potent one’s internal energy is, the faster they could learn. The sharper they would be. The more technical they could be, and the bigger their advantage in combat. These conclusions were drawn from the deaths of countless men, manuals and have stood the test of time.

In contrast to the practical side, the theory side developed slower. Describing internal energy as “an energy source for manifesting immense might” wasn’t wrong, but it failed to account for the different shapes and sources that it derived from. While they all fell under the umbrella term “internal energy”, the educated were privy that the energy sources didn’t share the same origin.

Some people gained incredible brute strength from their internal energy; some people gained the ability to produce heat with their internal energy; some people could part flowing water with their bare hands; some people would be able to split rocks in one slash despite their frail appearance.

After a passage of millennia, martial artists gradually created classifications for internal energy, splitting them into eight realms based on eight words: yin, yang, hard, soft, edge, heart, orthodox and unorthodox.

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