The Blood Explosion Pill, Scar Breaks Through to Become a Martial Artist!
"Q-Qin Ming, when did you get in here?"
Scar's hands and feet went cold, and he completely panicked.
He had run several li through the snowy night, in pitch darkness. How had this kid managed to catch up with him?
It was impossible that Qin Ming had found out where he lived and followed him here, either. Only Scar knew about this house, and he hardly spent more than a few days here in an entire year.
Scar backed away and felt around beneath the table, pulling out a machete.
With the blade in hand, Scar relaxed slightly, finally regaining some confidence.
"I'm asking you, how did my father die?"
"How would I know how your father died?"
Scar retreated slowly until his back was against the wall.
Unfortunately, the house had only one door, and Qin Ming happened to be blocking the only way to it. With nowhere to run, Scar could only huddle at the far end of the room.
"You won't talk?"
A chill flashed in Qin Ming's eyes. He slowly stood, butcher's knife in hand, and an invisible killing intent spread out, stopping Scar's breath for several moments.
"I'll give you one last chance."
"Qin Ming, don't force me!"
Scar gripped the handle tightly with both hands and let out a low growl.
"What if I do?"
Qin Ming suddenly struck, and Scar instinctively raised his blade to block.
With a crack, the machete in Scar's hand split in two.
Scarface turned deathly pale and staggered backward.
"How exactly did my father die? Did you deliberately set him up?
"Talk!"
Qin Ming swung his knife and sliced Scar's right ear clean off.
"Ah!"
Scar instinctively clamped a hand over his ear and screamed.
"You little bastard, I'll fight you to the death!"
At some point, a red pill the size of a mung bean had appeared in Scar's hand.
The pill was bright red all over and gave off a faint, bloody smell.
Without hesitation, Scar tossed it into his mouth.
"Damn it!"
Although Qin Ming didn't know what it was, he instinctively sensed danger. He swiftly swung his knife, intending to chop off Scar's arms before continuing the interrogation.
To his surprise, Scar's speed skyrocketed, and he dodged with a donkey roll.
"Hahaha! Kid, you're dead!"
Scar threw back his head and laughed. His face was bright red, his eyes were bloodshot, and his features were horribly twisted.
He was utterly frenzied, and a thick, violent air poured from his entire body.
"So this is the power of the Blood Explosion Pill! His lordship really didn't lie to me. The Blood Explosion Pill can give me a martial artist's strength for a short time. In that case, my Fire Sand Palm will come in handy too."
Scar lowered his head to look at his palm.
As he deliberately channeled the technique, his formerly normal-looking palm took on a faint crimson hue, like a halo constantly flowing over it.
"A martial art!"
Qin Ming's heart jolted.
Scar had not only temporarily broken through to become a martial artist, but had also mastered a martial art!
No, that wasn't right.
Qin Ming quickly realized.
It was that Blood Explosion Pill!
"You little bastard, you can die with your eyes closed knowing you fell to my Fire Sand Palm!"
Scar cackled, his fear of Qin Ming gone completely and his confidence bursting through the roof.
He immediately closed in and attacked, striking at Qin Ming's face with his palm.
Before it reached him, Qin Ming caught a faint smell of burning.
"There's fire poison. I can't take that head-on!"
Qin Ming's heart tightened, and he immediately swung his butcher's knife to meet it.
With a scrape, Scar actually blocked Qin Ming's butcher's knife with his bare hand!
The blade left nothing but a white mark on his palm.
"The Skin Refining Realm! This Blood Explosion Pill really is good stuff. Just one made me a martial artist!"
Seeing that the butcher's knife couldn't hurt him, Scar grew even more pleased with himself and launched attack after attack at Qin Ming without restraint.
"The Skin Refining Realm. No wonder the butcher's knife can't cut through his skin!"
Qin Ming fought as he retreated, looking for an opening.
After Scar broke through to become a martial artist, his physical strength and reaction speed had increased severalfold. With the added benefit of the Skin Refining Realm, the butcher's knife couldn't cut through his flesh in a short time, much less injure him.
Fortunately, Qin Ming had reached Minor Mastery in the Pig-Slaying Saber Technique, giving him a 20% boost to attack speed. His body had also been strengthened by the technique, so when he used it with all his strength, Scar could only gain a slight upper hand even while fighting with everything he had.
That was because Scar's strength had come from a pill rather than painstaking training, leaving his combat power far below that of a true martial artist. And as Scar attacked without restraint, his physical strength began to decline rapidly.
"What's going on?"
Scar's limbs grew weak and sore, and an intense feeling of weakness spread from every part of his body.
"Pfft!"
Scar threw back his head and spat blood, crashing heavily to the ground. Blood streamed from all seven of his orifices, and the palm that had glowed red moments ago had turned into a pile of rotten flesh.
"How could this happen? Didn't he tell me I'd only be weak for three days before returning to normal?!"
Scar's eyes widened as he stared at his hands. It wasn't just his palms; the skin all over his body was cracking and oozing blood.
"Looks like you were tricked. Can you answer me now?"
Qin Ming withdrew his butcher's knife and sat back down in the chair.
Scar was bleeding all over. At this rate, he would soon die of blood loss, so there was no need for Qin Ming to do anything.
"Fine, I'll tell you!"
Filled with resentment and knowing he didn't have long to live, Scar chose to lay everything bare.
Soon, after learning the whole story, Qin Ming's eyes flickered wildly.
He hadn't expected the root of it all to lie with Embroiderer.
On the second day after his predecessor and Embroiderer's wedding, the two had gone to Qingyang County for their honeymoon. On the way, Yan Yue-Ren of the Wild Wolf Gang had happened to see them.
The Wild Wolf Gang was one of the gangs in Qingyang County, and Yan Yue-Ren was one of its incense masters.
He had a particular fondness for married women.
Especially young, beautiful newlyweds.
As it happened, Scar had been at Yan Yue-Ren's side at the time, and he knew Qin Ming. Seeing Yan Yue-Ren's eyes light up as he stared at Embroiderer, Scar immediately offered to help him get her.
Overjoyed, Yan Yue-Ren gave Scar a precious Blood Explosion Pill on the spot, then promised to reward him with a powerful martial art if he could get Embroiderer for him.
After returning to Qingshan Town, Scar quickly devised a plan.
Dynastic law stipulated that a married woman could only remarry after an agreed divorce or her husband's death.
Constrained by the law, Scar drew up a series of plans. First, he arranged for Qin Shou to gamble away the family's property, then intended to kill both Qin Shou and his son Qin Ming on a dark and windy night.
Something had gone wrong along the way, however. For some reason, Qin Ming had come back to life and fled with Embroiderer to hide in the shantytown.
After that, Qin Ming had become unusually cautious, leaving Scar unable to find an opportunity to strike.
Yan Yue-Ren had been pressing him hard these past two days. With no other choice, Scar had come to seize her in the heavy snow.
"Qin Ming, you can't fight Incense Master Yan. Even if I die, he still won't let Embroiderer go! No woman he sets his eyes on can escape, cough, cough..."
Scar kept coughing up blood, a vicious look on his face. "I'll be waiting for you down below!"
"Pfft!"
Qin Ming stabbed his butcher's knife into Scar's neck and gave it a sharp twist. Scar's eyes bulged, and he died on the spot.
"You talk too much."
Qin Ming dragged the corpse into the back courtyard and set to work with his butcher's knife, dismembering it. His proficiency points increased again.
[Life-Bound Martial Art: Pig-Slaying Saber Technique (61/500) Minor Mastery]
After burying the corpse, Qin Ming returned to the room and took the wooden box from the crack in the wall.
There were only about four taels of silver in the box. Subtracting the two taels Scar had just put inside, that meant there had originally been only two taels in it.
Given Scar's wealth, how could he have had a mere two taels of silver?
Qin Ming's gaze fell on a thin booklet beneath the box.
Its cover was yellowed and somewhat damaged, and it looked to be some years old.
Qin Ming felt a faint thrill. "Could this be...?"
He immediately picked up the booklet and opened it.
The martial art "Fire Sand Palm."
"It really is a martial art!"
Qin Ming was thrilled.
Martial arts manuals were incredibly precious, and every one was worth a great deal. If his guess was right, Scar had spent most of his wealth buying this one.
He quickly read through the Fire Sand Palm, and the information on his panel changed.
[Ninth-Rank Martial Art: Fire Sand Palm (1/100) beginner]
"Ninth grade? That should be the lowest rank. In that case, first grade should be the highest."
Qin Ming thought to himself.
He still didn't understand the rankings of martial arts in this world. He would ask after he went to the martial arts academy and became a master's disciple tomorrow.
The thin manual had only nine pages and contained only the cultivation method for the Skin Refining Realm. The last page bore clear signs of having been violently torn.
"Ninth grade isn't bad. The internal arts taught at the town's two martial arts academies should be ninth grade too."
Qin Ming murmured.
Martial arts were divided into internal and external arts.
Both the Pig-Slaying Saber Technique and Fire Sand Palm were external arts. One could practice them until death without becoming a martial artist; only by cultivating an internal art could one become a martial artist.
For that very reason, internal arts were more than ten times as valuable as external arts.
On the black market, there were plenty of external arts to choose from if one had silver, but internal arts were almost never seen.
A family, sect, or the imperial court generally stood behind each internal art.
Every internal art had a name and an owner, and its origins could be traced.
Only by joining and serving them, or by being one of their own, could one obtain a method for cultivating an internal art.
If someone bought one through the black market, or seized one and secretly learned it, they would be hunted without end by the family behind the internal art if discovered. The pursuit would not stop until one side was dead.
That was also an important reason Qin Ming wanted to join a martial arts academy.
He tucked the silver and the manual into his robes and quickly left under cover of night.
That night, Qin Ming brought a doctor from town to treat Wang Shun and had him prescribe several doses of medicine. Once Wang Shun was taken care of, he hurried back without stopping to dispose of the seven corpses, gaining seven proficiency points, one tael and two qian of silver, and seven sets of padded jackets and trousers in all.
All the silver added up to exactly fourteen taels. After the two qian spent on Wang Shun's medicine, thirteen taels and eight qian remained.
"Tomorrow I can become a disciple."
Qin Ming breathed a small sigh of relief.
Although he had dealt with Scar, the matter wasn't over. The real mastermind behind the Qin family's destruction was Yan Yue-Ren, an incense master of the Wild Wolf Gang. And from what Scar had said, Yan Yue-Ren had recently been pressuring him, forcing him to come and seize Xiu Niang.
He didn't have much time left. He had to join a martial arts academy and become a martial artist as quickly as possible to have even a sliver of hope!
If all else failed, he could only take Embroiderer away from here and lie low for a while.
Early the next morning, Qin Ming set out for the Tiger Martial Arts Academy in town.
Qingshan Town had two martial arts academies in all. One was the Tiger Martial Arts Academy, which taught the Fierce Tiger Stance Art and Tiger Fist. The other was the Eight Trigrams Martial Arts Academy, which taught the Eight Trigrams Stake Skill and Eight Trigrams Palm.
In terms of power, Tiger Fist surpassed Eight Trigrams Palm. The master of the Tiger Martial Arts Academy was also younger and had reached Mid-stage Flesh Refining, while the master of the Eight Trigrams Martial Arts Academy was a lame old man at only Early-stage Flesh Refining. There was more than a small gap between their strengths.
Rumor had it that the master of the Tiger Martial Arts Academy had a chance of breaking through to the Bone Refining Realm and had boundless prospects. The master of the Eight Trigrams Martial Arts Academy, however, was advanced in years, and his vitality had declined. Even when it came to teaching disciples, his heart was willing but his strength fell short. As a result, more people chose the Tiger Martial Arts Academy, while almost no one showed interest in the Eight Trigrams Martial Arts Academy.
The Tiger Martial Arts Academy was precisely Qin Ming's destination.
The master of Tiger Martial Arts Academy was in the prime of his life. If Qin Ming could receive his instruction, he would surely progress faster.
With ten taels of silver tucked into his robes, Qin Ming hurried excitedly to the Tiger Martial Arts Academy.