Chapter 20

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The life of a practicing cultivator was repet.i.tive and dull. Each day was akin to having to collect enough dewdrops to create a stream, those streams to form a lake, and then finally enough lakes to collect it all into a vast ocean.

The process was much easier said than done.

It was easy to understand that a person would not become plump overnight with only a single large meal and that weight could only be acc.u.mulated by continuously eating large amounts of food. Fang Xing had managed to gather enough Qi over time, but for some reason he had remained within reach of the second tier for the past month. There seemed to be a wall blocking him from entering the next tier; what he needed now was just to find the key to the door and open it.

There was a sense of helplessness. The door was right in front of him but—without the key—there was no way he"d be able to progress any further.

It was also within these few days that a major accident within the outer court caught everyone"s attention.

Apparently there was an outer court disciple with the name of Hou Qing. He"d been stopped by three third-tiered disciples in front of Danxia Valley when he wanted to visit a female disciple living in the valley, the girl also rumored to be an old friend of his. The three disciples saw that Hou Qing was not only a new face but also alone; with him wearing extravagant clothing and a jade pendant hanging from his belt, the three disciples had wanted to try their luck with such an easy-looking, affluent target.

Without sparing a word, Hou Qing defeated all three men with a wave of his sword. He left the scene behind with a smile and plenty of vigor to spare.

This feat left all of the outer court disciples astonished.

It was all the more impressive knowing that this man was one of the new recruits from six months ago. With only six months, how talented must Hou Qing be in order to be able to defeat three third-tiered disciples with such ease?

Within only a moment, the name Hou Qing had become akin to a symbol of "genius" among the outer court disciples. Rumor also had it that Hou Qing would likely break through into the fourth tier within a year and become the first inner court disciple from this batch of new recruits.

"Hou Qing? Wasn"t that the guy who caught me before?"

As Yu gossiped away, Fang Xing suddenly remembered who this man was and a sly smile formed. "I remember you guys were like peas and carrots back then. You even let him skip the line, didn"t you?"

"s.h.i.+di Fang, stop mocking me…. Someone like me, I would not even dare to make friends with someone as lofty as him!" Yu intensely replied, giving a bitter smile. "He was nice to me outside of the sect, very polite and all, but when he was accepted into the sect it all changed. A while ago, I was on a job from the Department and b.u.mped into him. I thought it would be a good idea to say hi, but he didn"t even bother noticing me…."

"So if he noticed you then, you"d go and lick his boots, huh?" Fang Xing wasted no time in mocking Yu further. Yu, on the other hand, did not answer him in his embarra.s.sment and only poured more wine into Fang Xing"s wine bowl instead.

Receiving no response, Fang Xing proceeded with a loud curse: "That son of a bi*ch kicked my Xiao Mahn! If I see him again, I"ll make sure he"s as good as dead!"

Startled by Fang Xing"s sudden change in mood, Yu began to panic but still tried to console him, "s.h.i.+di Fang, you need to calm down. I-if you"re still upset about that day… you can beat me to release your anger if it helps. But please don"t get yourself involved with him in any way…."

"How do you know I won"t?" Fang Xing angrily replied as he jumped to his feet.

Even though Fang Xing began kicking Yu to release his anger, Yu didn"t mind. Within these four months, Yu had learned a considerable amount about Fang Xing"s personality and—while Fang Xing may appear to be reckless and rude at times—he knew that Fang Xing was not a mad dog who would try to bite everyone on sight. Fang Xing was young, but he still fully understood the code of brotherhood; not everyone would be willing to give out two Spirit Stones without a second thought otherwise.

Fang Xing kicked Yu out of his cottage as soon as they had finished the meal. He wanted as much time as he could get to practice his Qi fluctuations.

For some reason, a smoldering anger lit up within Fang Xing when he heard of Hou Qing"s latest achievements.

"I"ve already used twelve Stones in the past four months but still couldn"t break into tier two… and that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Hou Qing is almost at tier four? Am I so stupid that there"s no comparison between us? No! I have to be better than that b.a.s.t.a.r.d! I MUST break into tier two today!"

Holding back his full temper, Fang Xing took out the thirteenth Stone.

Fang Xing breathed with the specific tempo for Qi fluctuation, soaking his meridians with an abundance of Qi from the Spirit Stone.

Soon, it happened again.

Every time Fang Xing attempted to spread Qi evenly across his entire body, his control would be hindered by an unknown force until the Qi had fully dissipated. He had failed to break through yet again, but this time he seemed to find a pattern with this dissipation. Without giving up, Fang Xing started again from the beginning, increasing the speed of his control.

Unfortunately, the result was the same as the previous attempts, even if the speed of control and amount of Qi flow had both significantly increased.

One"s capacity for food was limited, and if one tried to stuff too much food into their mouth at once it was possible to choke. This was exactly the case with Fang Xing, and he began to feel sharp pains all across his meridians.

Fang Xing resisted the pain with great difficulty and sent both himself and the entire force violently towards the door to tier two.

"BOOM!"

Something suddenly seemed to have broken inside his mind, and a refres.h.i.+ng feeling filled his entire body. It was a strange sensation: if the body was feverish, this feeling would be delightfully refres.h.i.+ng; if the body was s.h.i.+vering in cold, this would be filled with warmth. It was a clever usage of Qi.

"Finally!" Fang Xing screamed excitedly within his mind, knowing that he had finally forced himself through the door into the second tier.

Qi could now reach every corner of his flesh with only a single thought. While the concentration of Qi might not be enough to fend off all harm, it would still increase how quickly he recovered from injuries by allocating a larger amount of Qi at the wound"s location. When necessary, Qi could also be used as a barrier to prevent either the loss of blood or the overconsumption of physical strength.

s.h.i.+xiong Liu had intended to do exactly that after the first stab, but Fang Xing had prevented the Qi barrier by landing his punch at the same location, making it considerably more difficult for Liu to reform his Qi network throughout his body.

Fang Xing had gambled with his luck once again in order to break into tier two. If luck hadn"t been on his side, his meridians may have ended up bloated by the excess Qi and he would have required at least ten days before fully recovering from the damage.

Then again, this was Fang Xing. He was relentless not only towards anyone who tried to take advantage of him, but also towards himself.

"Let me try one more time with the sword!"

Despite the excitement of finally breaking through a bottleneck, Fang Xing decided he would take a break from the Qi fluctuations. Instead, he took out the [Nine Snakes" Sword] to see if the increase in his tier would increase the time he could control the Flying Sword.

Unfortunately, though he could perform one full attack in his new tier, there was hardly any Qi left for a second one and Fang Xing had even felt some dizziness afterwards; he concluded that only a single full-force attack was possible at his current stage.

Fang Xing put away the sword, deciding that the issue was due to his low cultivation level in comparison to the high level of the spirit weapon. The amount of Qi consumed by this sword well surpa.s.sed any ordinary Spirit Swords; for the time being, the best way to go about this was to find a regular, low-tiered weapon instead.

"But the sect has strict rules about robbing someone else"s spirit weapon chosen from the Pavilion. Hmm...." Fang Xing thought to himself before suddenly remembering something. "Didn"t the fatty say that they"ve resumed the Black Markets again? There were quite a lot of Flying Swords last time. Ah, how I"ve sinned by leaving all those regular Flying Swords behind…."

Soon, Fang Xing had decided that he would make a trip to the next Black Market. He then found out the time and place of the next Black Market from Yu before getting himself prepared.

After Yu advised Fang Xing on the next market, however, he began to look at Fang Xing with suspicions: "The last time he asked about the market, a rich disciple was robbed into a poor wretch. Now he"s asking about the next market? Could he be the culpr—"

"What are you looking at? I"ll dig out your eyeb.a.l.l.s if you don"t stop," Fang Xing halfheartedly threatened after noticing Yu"s glance.

Grinning, Yu said nothing but soon overrode his original thoughts. "This kid is daring, but no, he can"t be the one; he can"t be daring enough to do that! Plus, there were eyewitnesses! They said it was a slender man…."

Coincidentally, the Black Market was actually scheduled to take place this exact night. Fang Xing made sure that Yu was well-intoxicated from the wines before kicking him back to his own cottage.

The plump Taoist Yu had always admired Fang Xing for how much he could drink, and at just eleven years old! However, Fang Xing would only scoff at Yu for thinking this way; Fang Xing had pretty much grown up soaked in wine jars, after all! There could be no comparison between himself and Yu.

Though Fang Xing might be the kind who liked to boast about his various abilities at times, his tolerance for alcohol did not even require it; not even ten of Yu would measure up.

Once Yu was safely back at his cottage, Fang Xing took out his [Mask of Wanluo] and—with a change to his appearance once more—he headed towards the market.

Still some miles away from the sect, within a hidden valley stood the chosen location for this time"s Black Market. All of these events were chosen at specific locations that were neither too far nor too close to the sect; if it was too far, the beasts and demons would pose a threat to the lower tiered disciples, but it could not be too close as it was against the sect rules.

Fang Xing quickly found the location of the market since it was blatantly obvious: this time, there was a total of eight guards at attention in front of the valley"s entrance and all of them looked cautious and extremely capable.

"Ah, looks like they"ve learned their lesson from last time."

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