This "Hunyuan One Qi Gong" has a total of ten levels. The first level allows you to sense a distance of one centimeter, and with each subsequent level, the sensing distance increases tenfold. After fusing "Hunyuan One Qi Gong," Franklin, relying on his previously deep foundation in internal martial arts, had already reached the seventh level within three years, while Little Samuel had now reached the second level.

In the mornings, it was basically all meditation and practicing forms, since these are the fundamentals; in the afternoons, it was mostly cultural studies. Franklin was determined to train an extraordinary disciple, so he gathered a lot of books, mainly in three categories: Buddhist scriptures—since he himself was a monk, he had read many and could get his hands on a lot, such as the "Diamond Sutra," "Heart Sutra," "Surangama Sutra," and hundreds of others; medical books—like "Chinese Materia Medica," "Secrets of Acupuncture," "Treatise on Cold Damage," "Meridians and Acupoints," "Huangdi Neijing," and "Compendium of Materia Medica," totaling dozens of volumes, which was what Little Samuel was most interested in; and classical literature—such as the Four Books and Five Classics, Tang poetry, Song lyrics, and various great works, all of which he brought together in one go.

The funniest part was that he even brought over a bunch of foreign language books—English, German, Italian, French, Russian, Japanese, and so on. Because Franklin had been traveling outside these past few years, he knew that China had opened up, and in the future, it wouldn't just be about staying in mainland China; his disciple would definitely have the chance to go abroad. But he hadn't considered that just buying books wasn't enough—knowing how to read them didn't mean knowing how to speak them. He didn't care, though; he just got them for the sake of it. As for money, he relied on practicing medicine in various places at the foot of the mountain. Before, when it was just him, he could get by anywhere, but now that he had a disciple, he couldn't do without a source of income.

Fortunately, Little Samuel was highly intelligent. As he continued to practice "Yijin One Qi Gong" day by day, his concentration and memory improved more and more, to the point where he basically had a photographic memory. This was because, especially when laying the foundation in internal martial arts, one had to be highly focused. After passing the third level, even if you didn't pay much attention, the true qi would still follow its own path. And good memory requires good concentration. Over more than three years, he had managed to read through most of these books. While he couldn't recite which character was in which line on which page of which book, he could still recite them fluently. He could only understand them, though—because of his age and lack of practical experience, he couldn't say much more.

After finishing the Luohan Fist, Little Samuel looked at the sky—it was about time for lunch—so he walked to his living quarters: a small cave that had been modified, with two small chambers inside, serving as his and Franklin's "rooms." There wasn't much in the "rooms"—a large, flat stone slab propped up by stones, with a straw mat and a thin quilt on top. Though simple, the quilt was folded neatly. On one wall inside the room, there were several hundred books, all sorts of books his master had brought back for him. Outside, there was also a stone table—though calling it a table was a stretch, as it was just a solid piece of stone with a flat surface, and two small stone stools on the side, serving as seats.

"Looks like Master won't be coming back for lunch today," Samuel Bennett muttered to himself.

As he spoke, he walked over to the place where they cooked, lit the fire, washed the rice, cooked, washed vegetables, chopped vegetables, stir-fried, and put everything in the pot. In no time, he had prepared his meal. Judging by his actions, he was very familiar with the process—this wasn't his first or second time doing it. The rice was bought by his master at the foot of the mountain, and the dishes were braised tofu and stir-fried wild rabbit meat.

After eating, it was time for his assignments: first, he had to use a brush to copy two Buddhist scriptures, and convert the traditional characters in the scriptures into simplified ones, since many of the characters in the scriptures were in traditional form. Franklin was worried he wouldn't get used to it when he went out in the future, so he gave him a Xinhua Dictionary to look up unfamiliar characters. Next came the medical books, which was Samuel's favorite. But traditional Chinese medicine is nothing more than acupuncture, prescribing formulas, and tui gong du qi (energy manipulation). The first two are things that anyone who studies Chinese medicine will basically know, but whether they're good at it is another matter. As for tui gong du qi, without internal energy, it's impossible—most people can't do it.

What Little Samuel needed to do now was mainly to familiarize himself with all the acupoints on the human body, as well as the depth of needle insertion during acupuncture. This was very important—sometimes, even if you hit the right acupoint, being off by just a little in needle depth could greatly affect the result. So now, his task was to draw out all the acupoints on the human body and, each day, have Franklin give him a few case studies, on which he would mark the needle depth for each acupoint.

After finishing this, he would memorize the "Compendium of Materia Medica." All the medicinal herbs in the world are basically included in this book, but even if you memorize it all, mistakes can still happen. There are many subtleties in Chinese medicine—one illness might require the herb to be dry, another might require it to be wet; the medicinal properties in spring and autumn are different, as are those in the morning and evening. So, although it's just one "Compendium of Materia Medica," in practice, you end up mastering more than what's in ten books. But this was also a book Little Samuel could put into practice—there were plenty of medicinal herbs on this mountain. While not all the herbs in the book could be found here, it was still pretty good.