This is a sponsored chapter. A huge thanks to ROBERT GARZA from UNITED STATES for sponsoring the first two chapters of this series.
Translated by: toomuchnoob
A section of mountain forest was a mess. Red Cloth bandits had been executed. Not a single one of them was spared. The leader Guan Wei further died an exceedingly cruel death, being smashed into two halves by the Lord Master’s staff.
However, after settling his hatred, Cheng Zhu Sheng didn’t seem happy and didn’t even gave a smile. Instead, his face had a profound expression.
Who could have guessed that in order to obtain the thousand-year blood ginseng, Red Cloth bandits would unhesitatingly slaughter hundreds of innocents. Within a single night, hundreds of people died. Although this hatred was now settled, his heart held no excitement.
After quite a while, Cheng Zhusheng let out a long sigh before he said, “Disaster lies with good fortune, and good fortune lies with disaster.”
He family members exchanged glances, equally chilled in their hearts.
At the time of Cheng Zhusheng’s birthday banquet, Jadeting city’s Lin family came to congratulate the former and offered a thousand-year blood ginseng as the present. It was such a grand occasion. Cheng family’s prestige had attained its peak after that.
However, the subsequent events concerning Red Cloth bandits immediately pulled down Cheng family from the topmost ninth-layer clouds into the depths of hell.
This transformation of good fortune into a calamity truly couldn’t have been anticipated by anybody.
He family members once again recalled the matter of He family killing a spirit beast. If they slipped and this information leaked outside, perhaps their conclusion might not be better than what happened to Cheng family.
After a few moments, Cheng Zhusheng organized his thoughts as his vision was attracted by the gigantic long-handled broadsword in He Yiming’s hand.
A complex expression emerged on his face as he said, “If this old man has guessed correctly, this blade should be elder brother He Wude’s weapon in his younger days,”
He Yiming faintly bowed his body and said, “Your, old man’s, vision is truly sharp.This is indeed grandfather’s weapon.” (Tl: He used a more polite/respectful form of address. Something like respected you.)
Cheng Zhusheng had a reminiscing expression as he said, “Back then, senior, wielding this blade, swept through the entire Tai Cang county. It was reputed to be the number one blade in the entire county. Not many could have contended against this blade. How majestic it was. Even today, this blade still seems as fascinating.”
He Yiming involuntarily tightened his grip on the sword in his hand. Hearing an evaluation of this blade from outsiders was indeed much more thrilling than hearing it from his own family members.
Cheng Zhusheng’s vision eventually rested on He Yiming’s body, “Elder brother Wude has passed this blade to you, and you have not disgraced the brilliance of this blade. Just now, that strike, even Guan Wei was unable to hold out against it. Truly, an outstanding youngster.”
He Yiming embarrassedly laughed, then disassembled the blade into the three parts and collected them back into the sheath while saying, “Lord Master, you praise me too much. Just now, Guan Wei, after escaping from you and eldest uncle, was already an arrow at the end of its flight. That’s the reason Yiming could mount a sneak attack on him. Otherwise, if he’d been in his peak condition, how could Yiming have dealt with him.”
Cheng Zhusheng profoundly glanced at him. As if he’d accepted former’s explanation, he didn’t speak anymore.
This time, the combined assault of Cheng and He families achieved the perfect result.
Under the instructions of Cheng Zhusheng, the corpses were properly handled. According to his words, these corpses would be whipped and beheaded, then offered as sacrifices to their casualties.
Regarding these matters, He Yiming was naturally not interested.
However, after going through this battle, the relationship between the two families had evidently improved a lot. Moreover, He Quanxin also approved Cheng Shine’s proposal, and the grand day was set to be after the new year.
Regarding this affair, He Yitian’s attitude was neither servile nor overbearing, which elated the elders of both sides. However, He Yiming knew that for the interest of clan, whether it was Cheng family’s girl or Xu family’s girl, it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to his eldest brother.
After parting from Cheng family, He Quanming naturally stayed in the town. However, He Yiming went back to the main clan.
This time, the Cheng family’s birthday banquet gave rise to so many unforeseen incidents. It was truly out of everybody’s expectations.
After returning back to the clan, the treatment He Yiming received had already been completely transformed. Regardless of whether it was his elders or He Yitian and other siblings, all of them attached a lot of importance to him. Even the words he carelessly blurted out would give birth to a serious contemplation.
This transformation was extremely distinct. Even He Yitao, who was the closest to He Yiming, could feel these changes even though the latter was not completely clear on the reason.
In the third generation, He Yiming had become a special existence.
After a few days, not being too comfortable with this transformation, He Yiming started a closed-door cultivation. Since the day he announced his closed-door cultivation, not a single person dared to disturb him. Even He Yitao had been grabbed by his ears and warned a few times by He Quanyi.
He Yiming’s cultivation had become a matter of paramount importance in the clan. Nobody dared to treat it lightly.
Day by day, summer slowly passed and winter approached. Half a year had again passed.
Although day and night were not too different in the underground training room, the change in temperature allowed He Yiming to keep track of time.
Within these six months, He Yiming didn’t allow him the luxury of a single day and completely threw himself into cultivation.
Within half a year, his primary cultivation technique had changed from Primordial Energy to fire-type Blaze technique.
The more Internal Energy advanced, the more the further difficulty.
Before he’d reached the ninth layer, He Yiming had not felt this fact too clearly. However, once his Internal Energy attained the ninth layer, this feeling had been extremely clear to him.
Ninth layer was just one step apart from the tenth layer.
However, at this stage, the advancement turned extremely difficult. Although He Yiming’s body was special, as long as he tried, he would advance. However, at this stage, it was not as easy as before.
The advancement in Primordial Energy and Ripple technique didn’t have as good of an effect as Blaze technique on the advancement of Internal Energy.
However, after a month of insane cultivation, He Yiming discovered a surprising fact. Excessively putting effort into the cultivation of Blaze technique would actually cause a burning pain in his channels.
He immediately guessed that Xu family must have some method to remove this concealed danger. Otherwise, Xu Right wouldn’t have been able to cultivate this technique to the ninth layer.
That technique had not been copied along with the Blaze technique, that was all.
If other people suffered injuries in their channels while cultivating this technique, neutralizing it would certainly prove quite challenging. However, He Yiming’s body was different. At a critical moment, he could even operate three different attributed primary techniques inside his body simultaneously and even make a complete recovery in a single day afterward.
As such, tiny bit of injured meridians to him was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Nourishing his channels with water-type Ripple technique for half a day was already sufficient to make a complete recovery.
However, after learning this lesson, He Yiming trained three days in the Blaze technique followed by one day in Ripple technique. As he expected, with the combination of fire and water, his channels no longer ached.
However, he didn’t know that if Xu family members became aware of this fact, they would certainly be speechless and would not dare to believe.
A tyrannical fire-type primary cultivation technique such as the Blaze technique could be cultivated together with an ordinary water-type technique such as Ripple technique, resulting in a mutually supplementary effect, such a matter for them would be simply inconceivable.
However, since the effect was evident on his own body, He Yiming didn’t think much of it.
Due to the high cultivation speed of Blaze technique, He Yiming was eventually able to reach the peak of the ninth layer and also touch the corresponding bottleneck after half a year.
After attaining this level, he stealthily left the manor and arrived into the deeper parts of the mountain forest.
After finding a decent spot where no signs of humanity could be seen, he trained all his battle skills once.
He didn’t dislike his underground training room. It was just that it could no longer allow him to train freely.
This time’s training was much to his satisfaction. All of his battle skills, metal-type Rolling Boulder Fist, water-type Silk Palm, and signature [Splitting Mountain Thirty Six Forms], had huge improvements compared to past.
Furthermore, after attaining the peak of the ninth layer, their might was also a notch above.
The difference between attaining the ninth layer and the peak of the ninth layer was even somewhat bigger than between the eighth layer’s peak and ninth layer.
This, he’d personally experienced, and it caused him to sigh in wonder.
No wonder one could still find many ninth-layer cultivators, but peak ninth-layer cultivators were so rare. As for cultivators who could breakthrough the bottleneck, they were as rare as unicorn’s horn and phoenix’s feather.
While training for half a day in the mountains, his only regret was that no matter whatever means he tried, he was unable to obtain that day’s special state in which three distinct techniques were simultaneously operating inside his body and hence, also that frightening strike.
Even after his Internal Energy attained the ninth layer’s peak, it still seemed impossible.
Although ninth-layer peak Internal Energy’s might was quite formidable, it was nowhere near the might of that day’s strike.
Helpless, he could only return home. He went to the Book Pavilion, closed his eyes, and selected a scripture.
This time he’d intentionally gone to the wood-type techniques’ shelf.
As he looked at the scripture in his hand, he didn’t whether to laugh or to cry. He’d yet again selected a supplementary type Internal Energy technique.