Such injuries—he had no idea how many times he had experienced them in a single day and night. Time and again, he put himself in mortal danger, time and again, he exploded with life potential and made breakthroughs in his martial skills, and then, relying on the astonishing recovery from devouring the flesh and blood of demon beasts, he stood up once more.

The cruelty and brutality he experienced in a single day far exceeded everything he had gone through in the past two years. Even with his temperament, he was on the verge of collapse, but he still gritted his teeth and persevered. His cultivation aptitude was lacking, his martial comprehension was poor, but if he wanted to become strong, if he wanted to quickly find a way to save his father, if he didn’t want to embarrass Emily Foster at the competition in a few dozen days, he had no choice but to persist!

“In just one day, I’ve reached the proficiency level. If I keep going like this, wouldn’t I be able to master my martial skills at the master or grandmaster level? Maybe even the divine level?? Divine mastery is my hope for a breakthrough!”

Excited, David Clark clenched his fist again, the bones in his palm cracking with a bang. When a martial skill is at the beginner level, it can draw in thirty percent of the spiritual energy it can mobilize, erupting in an instant at a single thought, and then easily retracting after the burst.

At the ordinary and proficient levels, one must practice the martial skill until it becomes as instinctive as breathing or a heartbeat, and the amount of spiritual energy that can be mobilized increases as well.

As for the master level, it is a return to simplicity. Even if you only execute half of the martial skill, and your internal energy is surging according to the explosive method of that skill, you can instantly switch it to another move without any hindrance. Such control is far beyond what David Clark can currently achieve.

If he now performed Wind Rises to the Horizon and tried to forcibly switch it to Whistling Spirit Wind halfway through, he could do it, but the sudden change in the flow of energy would cause his blood and qi to churn, inflicting internal injuries. The difference between proficiency and mastery is a fine line, but worlds apart.

As for the grandmaster level, it means grasping a trace of the martial intent. Martial intent is the true essence of a set of martial skills. Once you comprehend even a sliver, you can attract double the spiritual energy. Divine mastery is the complete understanding of the true essence and spirit of Gale Fist, and at that point, the power of this first-grade martial skill would be immeasurable.

And the martial intent of a set of fist techniques, taken a step further, is the true will of heaven and earth.

For example, the martial intent of Gale Fist is related to wind. Once you comprehend martial intent, you are only a step away from the true will of wind. That “one step” means you can only sense and use the will of wind when performing Gale Fist. Only when you can perceive and control it even without using Gale Fist, have you truly grasped the will of wind.

Don’t underestimate this step—it is enough to trap countless people. For a wind-type spiritual body, the key to breaking through from the ninth level of spiritual communication to sainthood is comprehending the will of wind. Once you grasp it, you break through to Martial Saint, your body transforms into a perfect spiritual body, and you automatically generate domain power, able to suppress heaven and earth with a single thought.

But in the entire Jiang Country, there is only one Martial Saint!

Jiang Country is divided into seven major provinces—four in the south and three in the north. Lingya Province is just one of them. Lingya Province has more than a dozen counties, and Wangshan County is just an unremarkable one. Yet Wangshan County itself spans thousands of miles in both length and width, with over a hundred first-grade sects within its borders. Each sect has at least several thousand members, some tens of thousands. So how many martial artists are there in all of Jiang Country?

Among countless martial artists, only one Martial Saint presides, only one has mastered a certain will of heaven and earth and evolved it into domain power.

You can imagine how difficult this is!

So if David Clark can master Gale Fist at the grandmaster or divine level and comprehend its martial intent, even if he’s still a step away from the will of wind, with that insight, breaking through a major bottleneck would be a breeze!

The only problem is that David Clark is stuck. This morning, his martial skill control had already reached the proficiency level. In the following half day, he tortured himself to the brink of death dozens of times, but he still couldn’t break through from proficiency to mastery. It seemed like just a fine line, but he could never cross it.

“Mastery is just too hard. Looks like I can’t just keep blindly pushing myself through life-and-death trials. I need to seriously reflect and comprehend.” After a while, David Clark calmed his excitement, sat cross-legged in the courtyard, and carefully recalled the countless bloody scenes from the previous day.

He actually knew it wasn’t for lack of effort, but because mastery of martial skills is just too difficult. In the entire Jiang Country, only one Martial Saint has comprehended a will of heaven and earth. Although reaching divine mastery of a martial skill is easier than that, there are still very few in Jiang Country who can do it.

As for the Dayuan Sect? Forget divine mastery—even among the ten thousand martial artists of Dayuan Sect, including all the sect leaders and elders, at most someone has mastered a skill at the master level. There isn’t even a single grandmaster, since this is only a first-grade sect.

Take Ethan Wright for example. In over ten days, he managed to get started with Scarlet Fire Fist, but to reach the ordinary level would take at least ten times as long as before. Proficiency would take ten times longer again. As for mastery? That’s not just a matter of time—it’s something he might never achieve in his entire life.

There are countless such examples in Dayuan Sect. Every breakthrough in mastery is a world of difference.

For David Clark to master two martial skills to the proficiency level in a single day is already astonishingly extraordinary—enough to cause a sensation throughout the entire Dayuan Sect!

And besides his progress in martial skills that day, David Clark finally ate his fill—but because of this, he ended up driving himself to the brink of collapse countless times.