"Trial Project (Unrated): Hundred-Day Initiation completed. Experience Points +100."
Zhou You lay in bed recuperating, letting out a silent sigh of relief. He had finally passed.
After cultivating Martial Force and receiving the personal acknowledgment of the school master, Wang Jianxiong, he had officially become an Official Martial Arts School Apprentice.
From then on, the monthly tuition of twenty taels was waived, and Tiger Bone Paste would be issued once every three days.
However, he still had to pay for his own food and lodging.
The several apprentices who had carried him back told him all of this.
Yet whether intentionally or not, they had still brought him back to his original room—the room Fang Guiqi had once stayed in.
Weren't they afraid of the chills?
Now that they knew Fang Guiqi had been replaced by a Void Wraith and reduced to a monster neither human nor ghost, why had they thrown him into this room?
Zhou You gently rubbed his chest. This time, it could be considered a blessing in disguise.
The half pill Lu Qiang had fed him possessed incomparably potent medicinal power, far surpassing Tiger Bone Paste.
The icy aura the Void Wraith had driven into his body melted away inch by inch, like ice and snow beneath the blazing sun.
At the same time, the pill's power continued to consolidate and strengthen Zhou You's flesh and body.
On the System Panel, the numbers for strength, speed, and defense flickered between 20 and 21, not yet stabilized.
One could imagine that once the Void Wraith's evil power had been swept clean, his stats would rise by another one or two points under the pill's impetus.
"Mountain Lord Life-Replacing Pill. An exclusive benefit for Inner Court disciples."
Zhou You recalled what had happened during the day. All the apprentices had been kept in the dark.
Yet every Inner Court disciple, including Lu Qiang, seemed to have known Fang Guiqi's true identity long ago.
Even when "Fang Guiqi" tore open his human skin and went berserk, the Inner Court disciples had not panicked.
"Blood Qi is the key. Inner Court disciples who can wield Blood Qi have ways to restrain the Void Wraith's power."
Zhou You had experienced it firsthand. Martial Force alone was not enough to resist the Void Wraith's evil power.
Any apprentice who stood before the Void Wraith could not withstand even a single move before being torn into fragments by "Fang Guiqi."
But the moment Lu Qiang stepped in, he tore it in half as easily as tearing paper and killed it with effortless ease.
This world was far more complex and dangerous than he had imagined, concealing endless secrets.
Take the Void Wraiths, for instance. Ordinary commoners did not even know they existed, much less how to fight them.
Only martial artists who had mastered Blood Qi were qualified to come into contact with beings on this level.
"Get stronger. Only by becoming stronger can I protect myself and my family."
When Zhou You thought of the tragic fate of Fang Guiqi's brother-in-law's entire family, vigilance and urgency rose in his heart.
After Su City fell into chaos, who knew how many refugees had fled here? There were surely many like Fang Guiqi, long since replaced by Void Wraiths through Substitute Peach for Plum.
Those monsters wore human skin and slipped into the city, taking advantage of the chaos to eat people and commit evil. They might even be only a few streets away.
Zhou You had already made up his mind. His next goal was Tiger Subduing Fist lv20, to challenge its Blood Qi Gate.
Before that...
Zhou You took several deep breaths and moved his numb, aching arms. Even the slightest motion brought needle-pricking agony.
During the day, he had desperately held back "Fang Guiqi," erupting with unprecedented strength and leaving countless tiny tears in his muscles.
After carrying a load beyond its limits, his body had begun settling the score!
His movements were clumsier than usual as he stumbled over to "Fang Guiqi's" bed.
He began searching...
"Fang Guiqi" had disguised himself as a youth studying martial arts, so he was bound to have valuables on him.
This Void Wraith possessed both a beast's savagery and a human's cunning. After devouring Fang Guiqi's brother-in-law's family, it surely had not failed to loot their possessions.
After all, to mingle within the martial arts school, he had to disguise himself as a normal person to avoid being exposed.
"There really is something."
Zhou You sweated from exhaustion as he found a small bundle of gold, silver, and jewelry. After weighing it in his hand, he estimated it was worth a little over a hundred taels.
These valuables had been the savings of the victim's family. The Void Wraith had taken them for itself, and now they had become his spoils of war.
"Altogether, I have a little over two hundred taels on me now."
"For my cultivation from here on, Tiger Bone Paste definitely won't be enough."
"If only I had Mountain Lord Life-Replacing Pills."
This kind of pill was exclusive to Inner Court disciples, supplied solely to the martial arts school's core members.
Tiger Bone Paste was already rarely circulated outside. Mountain Lord Life-Replacing Pills, which were of an even higher grade, were naturally out of the question.
Zhou You's target was Tiger Bone Wine, the secret medicine Li Hao had used to break through into Martial Force.
Tiger Bone Wine's medicinal effect suited the path of Tiger Subduing Fist, and its potency exceeded that of Tiger Bone Paste.
More importantly, this secret medicine was openly sold. It could be bought outside at clearly marked prices, with no threshold or restrictions.
"A jar of Tiger Bone Wine costs fifty taels. That means I can only buy four jars."
"If I knew how much Tiger Bone Wine increased attributes, I could form a more direct expectation."
After becoming an Official Martial Arts School Apprentice, the urgency of cultivation had only grown, driving him to work even harder.
The cultivation pattern of the past three months—accumulating Experience Points to raise skill levels and add attribute points—was no longer enough.
The requirement for improving Tiger Subduing Fist was proficiency, along with a comprehensive increase in physical attributes.
At his rate of twenty Experience Points a day, spreading them across all three attributes gave him only a single point of improvement.
Therefore, he had to obtain the boosts provided by secret medicine and save more Experience Points for upgrading skills.
"Imperial Strike Hand and Square Step are two levels away from completion. If I want to fleece more wool after that, there's only..."
Zhou You touched his chest. Inside his clothes was a booklet containing the essentials of Wild Goose Formation Fist that Lu Zhigang had left behind.
Practicing this Martial Arts Apprentice fist art alongside his current training might earn him more Experience Points and slightly ease his current straits.
Tiger Subduing Fist was simply too troublesome. It had a full one hundred and eight forms; running through them once took time and effort, yet gave too few Experience Points.
While recuperating, he read through the booklet and familiarized himself with the style of Wild Goose Formation Fist in advance.
Like Tiger Subduing Fist, Wild Goose Formation Fist was an imitative martial art. The difference was that one imitated birds, while the other imitated beasts.
Tiger Subduing Fist emphasized strength and defense, while Wild Goose Formation Fist leaned toward speed.
When Lu Zhigang had fought earlier, he had come and gone like the wind, often striking from overlooked blind spots and leaving opponents impossible to guard against.
Mixed among those attacks were strikes from midair, descending from above with the force of momentum behind them. Even Tiger Subduing Fist's defense had found them difficult to handle.
"If I can combine the advantages of Tiger Subduing Fist and Wild Goose Formation Fist, won't their power rise to another level?"
Zhou You pondered in secret. For an ordinary person, cultivating Tiger Subduing Fist alone was already the limit. They would never dare divide their attention to a second Martial Arts Apprentice fist art.
But he was different. He had the System Panel, Experience Points, and a method of strengthening himself through added points.
As the saying went, many skills did not weigh one down. Learning another craft was not a bad thing.
But there was one point: he had to do this in private and could not let anyone else know.
Right now, Zhong Shaoying from the Inner Court clearly disliked him and had repeatedly spoken ill of him before the school master.
Zhou You would have to be even more cautious from now on. He absolutely could not let Zhong Shaoying catch him exposing a flaw.
After recuperating for several more days, the Void Wraith's evil aura inside Zhou You had been completely swept away, and his attribute points had also increased.
Name: Zhou You. Strength: 22. Speed: 21. Defense: 22. Experience Points: 556. Profession: Martial Arts Apprentice. Level: Newly Entered Martial Force. Skills: Imperial Strike Hand lv8, Square Step lv8, Tiger Subduing Fist lv10, Wild Goose Formation Fist lv0.
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