I not sure about that since he was speaking with MRF in front of him. Was it stated explicitly in 3rd ed that he was talking about 20 years ago?
I do find it strange that MRF would not have enough inner energy too. After all, he was strong enough to do LDAs.
Yeeep agree with Yu it's seems 6 year old TSTL was "stronger" than 27+ MRF since she is 1st learn Xiaoyao advance martial art at age 6 without "fire deviation" if We consider Xiaoyao martial art/skill ~ 72 Shaolin skill 🤥🤥🤥🤥