Late at night, the sky was clear, and a full moon hung high overhead.
Outside Fuzhou City.
Inside a slightly dilapidated Mountain God Temple.
Amid the crackling of splitting firewood, a campfire burned sluggishly.
Not far from the fire, Su Chen, dressed in a black fitted outfit, sat cross-legged in rest.
The Chi Dragon-patterned Ring-Pommel Saber laid across his knees was especially eye-catching.
A Marquis of Haihun ring-pommel saber hand-crafted by a big shot.
"Tap... tap... tap..."
Outside the Mountain God Temple, a hurried set of footsteps approached from afar.
Su Chen opened his eyes and looked outside.
The next moment, a finely dressed young master of eighteen or nineteen stumbled into the temple in a panic.
"I brought the silver." The young master held out the bundle in his hand.
Su Chen took it and weighed it in his hand a few times, as though checking whether the amount was short.
"Don't worry. Five hundred taels for the deposit, not a single coin less. This concerns the lives of everyone in my Fuwei Escort Agency. I won't play tricks."
As the young master spoke, his identity became obvious.
He was Lin Pingzhi, the young chief escort of Fuzhou City's largest escort agency—the Fuwei Escort Agency.
Su Chen nodded. "Tomorrow, I'll go to the escort agency and help you deal with Yu Canghai."
Hearing this, Lin Pingzhi breathed a sigh of relief, but worry and hesitation still lingered on his face. "Are you sure? Yu Canghai is a Minor Grandmaster..."
Before Lin Pingzhi could finish, the Ring-Pommel Saber across Su Chen's knees was already out of its sheath.
The saber rang sharply as a flash of silver light, like flowing mercury, appeared.
As the blade flashed, Lin Pingzhi felt a sharp pain across his cheek.
The campfire flickered, and the entire Mountain God Temple was split in two.
Dust and smoke rose. Lin Pingzhi stood there dumbfounded, completely at a loss.
"Click."
The mechanism of the Ring-Pommel Saber sliding back into its sheath sounded, and only then did Lin Pingzhi regain his senses.
"Could that strike kill Yu Canghai?" Su Chen asked calmly.
But Lin Pingzhi had already been shocked speechless. His face was filled with horror as he stared blankly at Su Chen, unable to look away.
He split an entire Mountain God Temple with one slash!
Just how high was this man's martial skill?
Lin Pingzhi's heart shook.
What horrified him even more was that, from beginning to end, the man before him had remained seated cross-legged on the ground without moving an inch.
This man's martial skill likely far exceeded anything Lin Pingzhi could imagine.
In a daze, Lin Pingzhi suddenly felt a sense of loss. Only over the past day or two had he truly seen what the martial world was like.
The viciousness of the Qingcheng Sect's Heart-Shattering Palm and the ferocity of this man's saber technique were both things he had never seen before.
Compared to these true martial arts masters, he was like a frog at the bottom of a well, and his family's escort agency seemed like a joke.
After standing there blankly for a moment, Lin Pingzhi's loss suddenly turned into wild delight.
The stronger this man was, the more beneficial it would be to him.
The Fuwei Escort Agency desperately needed a master like this to lend it support.
Yesterday during the day, he had accidentally killed Yu Canghai's son, Yu Renyan. That very night, the Qingcheng Sect's retaliation had arrived.
By this evening, thirty or forty people in the Fuwei Escort Agency had already died violent deaths, all at the hands of the Qingcheng Sect.
Even after killing those people, the Qingcheng Sect was not satisfied. They intended to keep killing, clearly aiming to wipe out the Fuwei Escort Agency.
With nowhere else to turn, Lin Pingzhi remembered Su Chen, the blade-for-hire he had met only once.
With the mindset of treating a dead horse as if it were alive, Lin Pingzhi brought the silver and came to ask Su Chen for help.
Now that he had witnessed Su Chen's fierce saber technique, Lin Pingzhi's heart was finally at ease.
With this master's help, the escort agency would surely survive this disaster safely.
With his thoughts racing, Lin Pingzhi did not dare disturb him further. Leaving behind only the words, "Tomorrow, I'll await your intervention,"
he hurriedly left the Mountain God Temple, preparing to return home and bring good news to his parents.
After Lin Pingzhi left, Su Chen looked up at the full moon in the sky and let out a long breath.
That bit of showing off seemed a little excessive.
Without this Mountain God Temple, I'm afraid I can only sleep out in the wilderness tonight.
After mocking himself, Su Chen did not dwell on it. Instead, he turned his attention to the bundle of silver.
"System, pay-to-win five hundred taels," Su Chen silently said in his heart.
After he did so, the silver before him abruptly vanished, as though it had been swallowed by some unknown force.
The next moment, a mechanical electronic voice sounded in Su Chen's mind.
Ding. The host has paid five hundred taels of silver and obtained Martial Arts Points: 50. Current total Martial Arts Points: 300.
Immediately afterward, the system panel appeared.
Host: Su Chen Cultivation: First Rank Realm (Peak) Internal Energy: Hundun Treasure Mirror (Fourth Layer—Bixue Ice) Saber Technique: Unique Saber Technique (Minor Accomplishment) Movement Technique: Tread Snow Without Trace (Major Accomplishment) Weapon: Chi Dragon-patterned Ring-Pommel Saber Balance: 2.5 taels of silver
Although I have the high-quality true qi of the Hundun Treasure Mirror as my foundation, along with a powerful martial art like the Unique Saber Technique, the combat power I can unleash at the First Rank Realm far surpasses that of ordinary Martial Artists at the same realm.
But Yu Canghai is still a Minor Grandmaster, and his strength is not weak. To be safe, I should raise my cultivation first.
With that thought, Su Chen's mind stirred. "System. Use all three hundred Martial Arts Points to raise my cultivation."
The next moment, a burning sensation arose within his meridians, and his aura suddenly surged within seconds.
Ding. The host has consumed three hundred Martial Arts Points. Cultivation has risen to Minor Grandmaster (Early Stage).
"I've been in this world for nearly three years. I've finally reached the Minor Grandmaster Realm." Su Chen muttered, a trace of reminiscence flashing through his eyes.
That was right. Su Chen was a transmigrator. About three years ago, his entire body had crossed over into this world where many martial worlds converged.
It was an extremely chaotic world. Dynasties battled one another for supremacy, while martial sects fought and killed every day.
In short, this world was exceptionally dangerous.
Fortunately, at the beginning of his transmigration, Su Chen awakened the standard cheat of a transmigrator—the system.
His system was called the Pay-to-Win Power-Up System. As its name implied, as long as he paid, he could grow stronger.
At a ratio of ten to one, ten taels of silver could be converted into one Martial Arts Point.
With Martial Arts Points, he could exchange for all sorts of items from the system. The Hundun Treasure Mirror, Unique Saber Technique, and other martial arts he cultivated, as well as that Chi Dragon-patterned Ring-Pommel Saber, and even his Minor Grandmaster cultivation, had all been exchanged with Martial Arts Points.
However, the one flaw was that the money he paid had to be earned by his own hands.
That meant money obtained through robbery, bribery, receiving favors, or even begging on the streets could not be used for pay-to-win power-ups.
Left with no choice, Su Chen could only find a way to get rich through honest labor.
The first time, he had planned to become a literary plagiarist at a brothel. Copying down a few poems would earn him money—how nice was that?
Unfortunately, the plan died before it could even be carried out.
This was a mishmash world where every dynasty from the Pre-Qin era to the Great Ming existed. The few poems Su Chen could remember had already spread widely throughout the world, so getting rich by copying poems was simply impossible.
After the literary plagiarist plan failed, Su Chen thought of the money-making methods used by countless transmigrator protagonists he had read about—making soap, firing glass, mass-producing steel, and purifying salt.
But unfortunately, this attempt met the same fate: dying before it ever got off the ground.
Not to mention that this was an era where salt and iron were state-run industries, leaving individuals with no opportunity whatsoever to produce iron or salt.
Even for unrestricted goods like soap and glass, Su Chen could not make them.
As a brainless college student who only knew how to eat and lust, if you gave him a chemistry formula, he would tell you his English was bad and ask you not to throw foreign text at him.
After suffering repeated failures, Su Chen completely gave up and could only choose the simplest way of making money: becoming a blade-for-hire who took people's money and handled their disasters.
At the start of his transmigration, with no cultivation to speak of, Su Chen did small jobs such as carrying water for young widows and running errands for elderly women.
Now, after three years of building himself up, Su Chen could proudly say that he had become somewhat famous in the blade-for-hire business.
Several famous local battles had been led by him.
Even official organizations such as the Imperial Guards occasionally asked Su Chen to do some dirty work.
Not long ago, while Su Chen was wandering around Fuzhou, he happened to run into Lin Pingzhi and immediately thought of Yu Canghai and the Fuwei Escort Agency.
A family like Lin Pingzhi's—rich but weak—was undoubtedly one of Su Chen's finest types of clients.
So Su Chen left Lin Pingzhi a message: if he ran into trouble he could not handle, he could pay Su Chen to resolve it for him.
And that was how the scene just now had come about.
After thinking for a while, Su Chen hugged his saber and leaned against the Mountain God statue to continue resting.
He muttered to himself, "Once I deal with Yu Canghai tomorrow and collect the Fuwei Escort Agency's remaining payment, it'll be time to head to Liu Zhengfeng's Golden Basin Hand-Washing Ceremony and join the excitement..."
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