119 strikes with a dragon's roar, wielding the strength of a rampaging elephant!

After grasping the underlying philosophy of the Dragon’s Roar Iron Shirt, Chen Jue found that revisiting this Wudang Taihe Sect hard-body technique became significantly more intuitive. Coupled with the completion of the Tiger’s Roar Golden Bell Cover, he had already mastered the internal permeation technique of "Tiger-Leopard Thunder Sound," which greatly increased the efficiency of practicing the Dragon’s Roar Iron Shirt, a technique that leverages spinal thunder sounds to refine the bone marrow.

In addition, with the dual buffs from "Gestapo" and "Ancestor Lü’s Enlightenment," Chen Jue managed to grind the Dragon’s Roar Iron Shirt to Lv2 (120/500) after just three hours of practice that night. During this time, the thunderous sound produced by his spine coordinating with his entire skeletal structure evolved from faint to slowly swelling. The sound was peculiar—resembling the muffled rumbles of thunder during a storm, growing in intensity before gradually fading into the distance. It is said that the "dragon" is a creature that only reveals itself amidst clouds and mist, showing only a scale or a claw, remaining forever elusive. Now, the thunderous sounds emanating from Chen Jue, combined with the wailing mountain winds of the Gongshan region, created an atmosphere akin to the legendary "Dragon King’s procession, accompanied by wind and thunder."

The Iron Shirt technique, which complements the "Dragon’s Roar," exerted its effect entirely on Chen Jue’s skin and fascia. Whenever he channeled his power, his skin would take on a dark, bruised hue, while the fascia beneath grew thicker and more resilient. From a distance, he looked as if he were wearing a suit of iron-grey armor woven from metallic threads. Much like how the Tiger’s Roar Golden Bell Cover could be split into two separate disciplines, the same principle applied to the Dragon’s Roar Iron Shirt.

After three hours of practice, the temperature atop the small hill began to drop, and the mountain wind biting at his face turned piercingly cold. Chen Jue returned to the old house to wash up and rest, taking the opportunity to practice the macro- and micro-cosmic orbits before sleep to dissipate the excess energy generated by his internal hard-body training. After two hours of circulating his qi and blood, he calmed his mind, lay down, and read a Taoist classic on internal alchemy for a while before settling his spirit and falling into a state of "fetal breathing."

When he woke up the next morning, Chen Jue felt even more refreshed than he had the previous afternoon. It was likely that the marrow-refining practice from the night before had further bolstered his qi and blood, leaving him with abundant energy. As for the loose baby teeth in his gums, they were becoming increasingly mobile; Chen Jue surmised that once he brought the Dragon’s Roar Iron Shirt to perfection, he would be able to shed these old teeth entirely. However, he had to remain prepared for the "siphon effect" that follows the completion of marrow refinement. He hadn't felt much when the Dragon’s Roar Iron Shirt broke through to Lv2 last night—perhaps because he had practiced so much hard-body training that the return on his attributes had begun to diminish—but the breakthrough had simply accelerated the emptying of his digestive system, with both his strength and physique increasing by 0.03. Remembering the experience of his final breakthrough in the Tiger’s Roar Golden Bell Cover, he felt it was best to remain cautious, lest he capsize in the gutter just as he had with his cosmic orbit training.

After waking up and eating breakfast in town, Chen Jue packed his bag, added two boxes of Sanqi oral solution, and headed into the mountains. Before leaving, he specifically contacted Yun Xiaomei via WeChat. Her avatar—a cloud against a blue sky—flashed, indicating she had been up since five in the morning and had already entered the mountains. This made Chen Jue, who hadn't risen until seven, feel a touch ashamed.

As for the ten bottles of "Golden Dew" that Chen Jue had requested yesterday, Yun Xiaomei left a message saying her grandmother had agreed to the request, which was why she had finally accepted the 80,000-plus yuan Chen Jue had transferred. Crossing the small hill behind Wuzhai, Chen Jue sprinted along the grass-covered mountain paths he had tread before. With his current physique of 3.40, he could easily run for over a hundred kilometers without stopping. His stamina was several times greater than that of elite African marathon runners who completed the full course in just over two hours. Moreover, Chen Jue was traversing wild mountain terrain and riverbanks where the ground was uneven and slippery; had he not practiced several light-body techniques, he would never have dared to dash at such speeds.

With the experience of his previous excursions and following a fixed route, it only took Chen Jue a little over two hours to reach the forest inhabited by the macaques. Yun Xiaomei had mentioned on WeChat that this was the area she visited most often, as it had the highest concentration of wildlife. In addition to the Indochinese tiger, macaques, serows, capped langurs, and black bears Chen Jue had encountered, the area was home to protected species like the white-browed gibbon, red panda, and the Nujiang golden monkey. Although the Gongshan Nature Reserve wasn't famous among the many tourist attractions in China and only held an "A" rating, it was known as a "Global Gene Bank of Species." It was far superior to those "copy-paste" tourist spots where stalls lined the entrance selling mass-produced trinkets and the air reeked of fried starch sausages.

Just as he passed through the forest near the black bear’s cave and approached the small river where he had met her the day before, Chen Jue heard the cries of wild elephants downstream. The calls were laced with pain and anxiety, and Chen Jue hurried along the riverbank. After rushing forward two hundred meters and rounding a Z-shaped bend, he saw a small gully with a drop of over three meters. Two large wild elephants were circling a calf that lay wailing in the grass, its foot pierced by a sharp wooden stake. Yun Xiaomei was currently employing her ape-like movement technique, nimbly dodging the attacks of the two enraged adult elephants; it seemed she was trying to rescue the fallen calf, whose foot was bleeding profusely. However, the elephant-like calls she emitted were being ignored by the adults. This was the wild, protective instinct of a mother, and even a "Mountain Ruler" born with the ability to communicate with creatures, like Yun Xiaomei, could not pacify them in the moment.

"Brother Chen Jue!" Yun Xiaomei’s sharp ears picked up the movement. Seeing Chen Jue sprinting from above the riverbank, her delicate, sweat-beaded face lit up with joy. From their conversation yesterday, she knew Chen Jue was a practitioner of a very special martial art. Although he wasn't a Taoist priest or a high monk like those seen in movies and television, the way he could effortlessly neutralize her strength with a single movement showed the caliber of his skill.

Chen Jue saw Yun Xiaomei’s anxiety and said nothing. While still sprinting, he tossed his backpack into the brush by the river. His entire body hummed with thunderous vibrations, each step covering five or six meters, and in a few seconds, he reached the lead tusker. His figure rose and fell like a butterfly among flowers, dodging the thick trunk swung at him. Then, extending both hands, he used a close-quarters grappling technique from the "Laughing Eight Immortals" style of Ship-Fist, gently wrapping his hands around the tusker’s front leg. With a sudden burst of his explosive, powerful energy—like an old bear shaking off lice or the resonance of a dragon’s roar—his muscles and bones rang in unison. Using the elephant's leg as a fulcrum, he lifted the three-ton bull over his head! Then, amidst the elephant’s terrified trumpeting, he flung it forcefully into the river behind him.

With a loud "splash," the bull elephant landed in the water. At that moment, the mother elephant, stirred by the chaos, charged over. Her massive body loomed like a juggernaut, inescapable, but to Chen Jue, it was nothing to fear. He took a deep breath, his chest swelling, and channeled his dantian qi, his skin instantly covered in a dark, iron-like sheen. With a dull thud, relying on the combined defensive strength of his several hard-body techniques, he took the impact of the mother elephant’s front-leg charge head-on! One must know that the strength of a crazed wild elephant is ten times that of a tiger. Being hit was like being struck by a high-speed steam locomotive. Yet, Chen Jue did not change his expression; his legs sank into the mud, and he used the "Laughing Eight Immortals" grappling technique once more to seize the charging leg, spinning the agitated mother elephant and hurling her into the river behind him with a burst of power.

Another "splash" followed. Both the male and female adults were now in the water. Fortunately, the river was deep, and neither elephant was harmed. Furthermore, Chen Jue’s throwing technique had incorporated the Taiji principle of "four ounces deflecting a thousand pounds," meaning he had no intention of hurting them.

Afterward, Chen Jue flashed to the fallen calf, scooped it up by its flank, and lifted the five-hundred-kilogram animal. With a push from his legs against the earthen gully, he leapt up the three-meter-high bank and ran dozens of meters away before setting it down safely in a patch of weeds, keeping it away from the two adult elephants as they climbed out of the river.

By then, Yun Xiaomei had followed him with nimble grace. She looked at Chen Jue with eyes full of admiration and exclaimed, "Brother Chen Jue! You are so amazing!" She knelt to observe the calf, using elephant-like sounds to soothe it. She carefully removed the sharp wooden stake from its foot, took some herbs she had gathered that morning from her basket, chewed them into a paste in her mouth, and gently applied the mixture to the two puncture wounds on the calf’s leg.