“I already told you, it happened centuries ago—what’s the point of asking me?” Master Clark made a good point: for many so-called “traditions,” the reasons they were passed down, their original forms, and the motives behind their spread may have long since become distorted or lost to time; if things that are just over a hundred years old can be like this, how much more so for those that are several centuries or even millennia old?

Seeing this, Henry Clark could only give up and asked again, “Then… why did our ancestors write the martial arts on stone tablets? Isn’t that really inconvenient?”

It was as if Master Clark had expected this question all along; without hesitation, he replied, “Bamboo slips, sheepskin, paper… all these things rot and mold over time; if they encounter fire or water, they could be destroyed in an instant. And if you rely on people to memorize them, it’s easy for mistakes to creep in…” He paused. “Our ancestors were farsighted, so they chose these forged diamond stone tablets to record the The Clark Family secret techniques. This way, even after a thousand years, they can still be well preserved.”

“Naruhodo~” Henry Clark nodded solemnly, unconsciously blurting out a Japanese phrase from who knows where.

It wasn’t the first time Master Clark had heard his son say this word; he more or less knew it meant “I see,” so he didn’t pay it much mind and continued, “Henry, there are still more than two months until the Mid-Autumn Festival. Counting the journey, you’ll be leaving in about fifty days… As the saying goes, ‘Sharpening your sword before battle, even if it’s rushed, it’ll still shine.’ For these fifty days, don’t worry about the fish market business anymore. Focus on practicing your martial arts. If there’s anything you don’t understand, ask Young Nephew Bennett for guidance. I think you two get along well… I hope he can help you more, so you won’t be bullied when you enter the martial world.”

“Ha!” Henry Clark laughed. “Don’t worry, Dad. I’ve always been the one bullying others—when has anyone ever bullied me? With these three treasures at my side, I’ll never bring shame to the The Clark Family in the martial world.”

“If that’s truly the case… then that’s for the best.” Master Clark was still a bit worried, but could only hope for the best.

===Chapter Six: Reverse High-Speed Rail===

The very night he learned about the family’s secret treasures, Henry Clark told Samuel Bennett everything about these “untransmittable secrets” he had just found out himself.

Samuel Bennett couldn’t help but marvel at Brother Clark’s good fortune, saying that when it comes to lucky encounters, he really gets them.

At the same time, the two old hands quickly realized… if that Ethan Brooks really had designs on the The Clark Family, then her target was undoubtedly these three secret treasures.

By this point, in their own imaginations, they had already pictured Ethan Brooks as a thoroughly evil person and were on high alert against her.

Looking across the entire martial world, among all the young people going to the Young Heroes’ Gathering, only the two of them had been wary of the organizers from the very start…

Even though their only basis was their own “judging everyone by the standards of a petty mind” kind of thinking, and even though they didn’t know that Ethan Brooks’s true ambitions went far beyond coveting the The Clark Family’s treasures alone… they had, in fact, guessed right.

…………

In the days that followed, Henry Clark and Samuel Bennett both shut themselves in and devoted themselves to martial arts practice, hoping to make the most of the less than two months left to prepare for the upcoming Young Heroes’ Gathering.

As for Samuel Bennett, there was no need to say much—he already had a solid martial arts foundation, and training was part of his daily routine.

But for Henry Clark to practice martial arts seriously was indeed quite rare.

For the first seven days, Henry Clark went to the secret chamber every day, as his father had instructed: he would open the stone coffin, take out the first stone tablet, meditate and regulate his breathing according to its contents (his father had already translated all the characters for him, and with his knowledge of simplified characters, he could recognize them all), and after practicing, he would put the tablet back and close the coffin.

This training procedure was also passed down from the ancestors, because moving the stone tablet in and out every day was itself a form of exercise; as one’s martial arts improved, the number of tablets to be moved each day would increase accordingly—this was all carefully calculated.

However, after seven days, Henry Clark found a way to slack off—he secretly copied the contents of the first stone tablet in simplified characters onto paper, and from the eighth day on, he stopped going to the secret chamber and just practiced in his own room.

Squire Clark thought his son had memorized the contents of the tablet after seven days, so he didn’t suspect anything.

And so, by the fifteenth day, Henry Clark felt it strange that after two weeks of practice he still wasn’t “invincible,” so he showed his handwritten simplified version of the family’s secret technique to Samuel Bennett, asking if he was practicing it wrong.

Samuel Bennett studied it and found that this “Reversing Heaven and Earth” was indeed a very advanced internal skill; the method of circulating energy recorded here was completely opposite in logic to most orthodox internal cultivation methods he knew.

In other words, someone like Samuel Bennett, who already had a foundation in internal energy, would be unable to practice this “Reversing Heaven and Earth” even if he obtained it—if he forced it, his meridians would be thrown into chaos and he’d suffer a backlash; only someone like Henry Clark, who had no martial arts background, could start from scratch.

Of course, the reason Brother Clark hadn’t made much progress after fifteen days wasn’t because he was doing anything wrong—it was simply that he hadn’t reached the necessary level yet.