Investigating the Golden Saber Academy, Entering the Desert

The eighteenth day, night.

You set several corpses ablaze.

This was the seventh wave of people sent to intercept and kill you.

You had already grown accustomed to it.

You continued north.

You traveled only at night and cultivated at the inn during the day.

Whenever you traveled at night, you wrapped your face up tight, leaving only your eyes exposed as you sneaked along.

Like a celebrity fresh off a plane.

Your Aura Concealment Art, at perfected proficiency, was running at full force at all times.

You disguised yourself as an ordinary person.

Nor did you march straight north while traveling.

The route you took twisted and turned.

You only knew which direction to go next one second before those pursuing you did.

You hid and evaded like this for three months.

Those tracking you were gradually shaken off.

You had not neglected your cultivation along the way.

Your Heavenly Desire Formless Skill improved greatly.

In less than two months, you had cultivated the Heavenly Desire Formless Skill to the Skin Refinement Late Stage.

There were two reasons your cultivation speed was so fast.

First, you had improved your Martial Path talent considerably.

Second, your state of mind truly suited the cultivation of the Heavenly Desire Formless Skill.

You felt that the true qi within your body had become even more responsive to your control.

The person who created this technique had reached an utterly terrifying level of understanding regarding true qi.

No one understood true qi better than him.

Moreover, cultivating the Heavenly Desire Formless Skill gave you no side effects.

Unlike Wan Qingluan, who suffered from the flaw of having seven different personalities over seven days.

You did not know why.

You had no time to dwell on it.

You continued onward.

That day, you unexpectedly wandered back to Xian'an City.

You had originally intended to leave directly.

After all, you did not know who stood behind the Golden Saber Martial Hall.

But in the end, you decided to investigate it briefly.

You put your traditional skill to use and infiltrated the county office.

Within the county office, you found the case files concerning the extermination of the Black Tiger Martial Hall all those years ago.

You read through them carefully several times.

You found that the records in the files were almost identical to what you knew.

The only slightly strange thing was this:

After the Black Tiger Martial Hall had been exterminated,

Before the case had been thoroughly investigated,

Xian'an County Magistrate Zhang Hongwen repeatedly urged that the case be closed as soon as possible.

In the end, the case was hastily closed.

You guessed that there was something wrong with Zhang Hongwen.

That night, you infiltrated Zhang Hongwen's home.

You searched every corner of Zhang Hongwen's residence.

In the end, you discovered a large number of letters exchanged with Danzhou Prefect Duan Qian in a secret chamber within his study.

Xian'an County fell under Danzhou's jurisdiction.

It was perfectly normal for Zhang Hongwen to report work matters to his immediate superior.

You did not understand why these letters had been kept in a secret chamber, made so mysterious and furtive.

You read through every letter.

In the end, you discovered that after the Golden Saber Martial Hall was destroyed,

Zhang Hongwen had taken the initiative to report the matter to Duan Qian.

Duan Qian's reply stated that he had sent down a team of experts.

The Black Tiger Martial Hall was exterminated the very next day.

"So it was Danzhou Prefect Duan Qian who sent people to destroy the Black Tiger Martial Hall!"

You understood.

"But if the Golden Saber Martial Hall could forge ties with Duan Qian, how could it have simply watched the Black Tiger Martial Hall destroy it?"

You thought for a moment.

"This can only mean Duan Qian did not usually give the Golden Saber Martial Hall any special care!"

"Could it be that the Golden Saber Martial Hall's relationship with Duan Qian was not actually close?"

"Then why did Duan Qian send people down to take revenge after the Golden Saber Martial Hall was destroyed?"

You rubbed your chin, deep in thought.

After thinking for a moment, your eyes suddenly lit up.

"Right! Duan Qian must not have wanted the Black Tiger Martial Hall to obtain something from the Golden Saber Martial Hall, so he destroyed the Black Tiger Martial Hall to take it back!"

You roughly understood the course of the entire affair.

You now had a clearer picture.

You calculated that after the simulation ended, you would plow through the Golden Saber Martial Hall several times over.

And find the thing Duan Qian was looking for.

The Golden Saber Martial Hall very likely hid some peerless treasure.

You left Xian'an County.

You continued toward the Azure Mesa Desert.

However, another two or three waves of people sent to intercept and kill you appeared along the way.

You had killed too many people on the road before, already drawing even more hatred.

In the sixty-eighth year, you finally arrived at the Azure Mesa Desert.

The blazing sun hung overhead, and as far as the eye could see lay an endless expanse of yellow sand.

Even the air had been baked until it warped one's vision.

Ordinary people simply could not survive within it.

But you were not an ordinary person. Your Simulation Space was packed with water and food.

You could live in the desert for decades without any problem.

Over this year and more of traveling, you had directly cultivated the Heavenly Desire Formless Skill to the Bone Tempering Late Stage.

You were only one minor realm away from catching up to the Desolate Heaven Saber Technique's level.

"I really am a little genius!"

You were very pleased.

You took out the materials for building a house that you had purchased in advance from your space.

Like assembling building blocks,

You pieced together a huge villa for yourself in the desert.

Amid the barren desert, your luxurious three-story villa was exceptionally conspicuous.

But no one would come to the depths of the desert anyway.

Showing off your wealth did not matter.

You settled down in the Azure Mesa Desert.

During your leisure time away from cultivation, you also tended to flowers and plants.

Flowers and grass naturally could not grow from sand.

But you excavated several thousand tons of fertile soil from outside and filled the area around the villa with it.

You planted flowers, grass, and trees around it.

Your tree-planting and forest-building project was a great success.

Your living environment became filled with birdsong and fragrant blossoms.

You also dug out a pond and stocked it with fish and shrimp.

You were the first person to raise fish and shrimp in the desert.

This place became the only oasis deep within the desert.

It also became a beautiful sight to behold.

If others saw it, they would only think it was a mirage.

They would not dare imagine that such a place truly existed.

Three months later, your Heavenly Desire Formless Skill broke through to the Bone Tempering Peak Stage.

You also felt that your Desolate Heaven Saber Technique had reached its limit.

Next came the charge toward the Marrow Washing Realm.

But although your Bone Tempering Realm had already advanced as far as it could go,

You still could not touch the threshold of Marrow Washing.

You knew you had encountered a bottleneck.

But your mentality was excellent.

You still cultivated as usual.

Only, your cultivation time became somewhat shorter.

Your rest time increased considerably.

That day, the blazing sun scorched the earth.

After cultivating, you took a brief rest.

You ate chilled watermelon inside the villa.

Your true qi could shift into an icy-cold attribute, making it just right for chilling a watermelon.

You had also created many ice bricks in the rooms to lower the temperature.

Your villa was as cool and refreshing as if it had air conditioning.

Your life was very comfortable.

Suddenly, you heard a series of footsteps outside the villa.

At the same time, quiet voices spoke. "No wonder this vile thief hid in the desert and refused to come out. So he found such a treasure of a place!"

You knew trouble had fucking come knocking again.

You instantly appeared outside the villa.

The group of six was startled by your sudden appearance.

Once they saw your face clearly, all six of their expressions hardened.

"Sure enough, it is you, vile thief of the Extinction Sect! Give me back my younger brother's life!"

The person speaking was a female martial artist.

She was tall and fair-skinned, glaring at you with a face full of hatred.

Behind the female martial artist stood five others, men and women, young and old.

They looked like a family.

This female martial artist was quite strong and had the highest cultivation among them, at the middle stage of the Divine Organs Realm.

She was two major realms above you.

But were you afraid?

You were not.

Though you were only at the Bone Tempering Peak Stage,

Your actual combat strength could slaughter martial artists at the Divine Organs Peak Stage.

The usual labels of early, middle, and late stage were no longer enough to describe your Martial Path realm.

You generally called yourself Bone Tempering Late-Late Stage.

"He Yu, you vile thief! Our entire family has searched for you for months, enduring untold hardships. Today, we shall finally..."

"Enough, enough." You directly interrupted the female martial artist.

A mere extra had quite a lot of lines.

You crooked a finger. "Come at me together."