Guests from Fujian

"Junior Disciple Brother, Junior Disciple Brother, there are guests outside. Master specifically asked for you."

It was only the hour of the dragon.

And it was the twelfth lunar month.

High atop Mount Hua, the sun had not yet risen very high.

A few patches of fine snow still lingered in the corners of Chaoyang Peak's summit.

Hearing Liang Fa shouting loudly from halfway down the mountain, Ji Boying stretched lazily and sat up from the icy ground.

"Got it."

He answered softly.

His voice was not loud, yet it drifted through the mountains. No matter how far it traveled, it still sounded clear.

Hearing him, Liang Fa tightened his thick cotton coat, rubbed his nose red from the cold, then turned and waddled down the mountain like a clumsy bear.

Mount Hua was quite frigid after the first snowfall.

Who would keep climbing up high into the mountains all day during the twelfth lunar month? Everyone stayed near their own courtyards, preparing for the New Year.

Every day, without fail, the only person climbing up Chaoyang Peak was Junior Disciple Brother.

On such a freezing mountain, Liang Fa was bundled in cotton clothes. Even with some internal martial arts skill, walking along Mount Hua's perilous mountain paths left him trembling with fear.

How could he compare to Ji Boying's ease?

Even with thick cotton shoes with layered soles, his feet often felt icy, cold sweat seeping out.

The stone steps of Mount Hua, formed entirely from rock, seemed like thousand-year-old frozen stones, constantly sending chills into the soles of his feet.

Ji Boying closed the book in his hands.

The two large characters, "Mencius," faced the sky as the book was casually tossed onto the ground.

Ji Boying patted his backside and rose from the freezing stone platform.

He tugged at his thin autumn robe, smoothing out the wrinkles from lying on the stone platform so Mistress would not scold him again when she saw them.

Looking up at the sun, Ji Boying could only sigh.

The hour of the dragon had already passed. There was not a trace of Purple Mist Qi left.

Today's training with the Purple Mist Manual could only end here.

Name: Ji Boying

Skills: Purple Mist Technique: Beginner (129/300), Nourishing Self Swordplay: Proficient (432/800), Primordial Chaos Technique: Proficient (506/900), Stone Splitting Jade Breaking Fist: Perfected, Rising Sun Vitality Sword: Perfected, Golden Wild Goose Technique: Proficient (879/1000), Mount Hua Breathing Technique: Perfected, Mount Hua Swordplay: Perfected

Talent: Skill Simplification. Spend Simplification Energy Points to simplify skills.

Energy Points: 0. The system automatically restored 1 Energy Point every month. It reset automatically at midnight on the first day of every month.

The past two months had not gone particularly smoothly. Ji Boying always felt that his luck had been bad.

Last month, since his Primordial Chaos Technique had not yet reached an advanced level, Ji Boying had not begun cultivating the Purple Mist Manual. Instead, he had randomly picked a sword technique to practice.

Since his Fist Technique was already perfected and the Rising Sun Sword was also perfected, he could conveniently pick another sword technique to train alongside the Primordial Chaos Technique.

Two-pronged progress, neither delayed.

He could make the most efficient use of his time.

But who could have expected his luck to be so terrible?

The previous two sword techniques had both continued simplifying after reaching perfection, allowing proficiency to increase simply by swinging a sword.

Yet this Nourishing Self Swordplay was special.

It had indeed been simplified, and he no longer needed to rigidly practice swordsmanship to master it. But who would have thought that its final simplified method would be reading books of sages?

Ji Boying found that deeply helpless.

He could no longer run while practicing the Golden Wild Goose Technique and swing his sword to practice swordsmanship at the same time as before.

And the power of this Nourishing Self Swordplay was nothing remarkable.

Though it was also an exquisite sword technique of the Mount Hua Sect, Ji Boying did not need the tiny bit of killing power it provided.

Ji Boying only needed to cultivate his internal energy to a profound level. With the perfected Rising Sun Sword in his hands, he would be able to roam the world unmatched.

Back when he had chosen to learn another sword technique, it had merely been something to do on the side before his Primordial Chaos Technique reached perfection.

But he had not expected to have to open up an entirely separate track for this sword technique.

Of course, he could simply leave the technique alone. But whenever Ji Boying looked at that barely beginner-level proficiency, it irritated him. He had to grind it up.

Besides, he had nothing else to do anyway. He gained one Energy Point each month, and there were only so many martial arts in the Mount Hua Sect, so it did not matter.

After all, what was the difference between practicing one thing and another?

As for the other remaining Mount Hua Sect martial arts, like the Gentleman and Gentlewoman Swordplay, one more made no difference and one less made no difference. Ji Boying did not care whether he practiced them or not.

He had originally been steadily grinding proficiency in the Primordial Chaos Technique, Golden Wild Goose Technique, and Nourishing Self Swordplay.

By the beginning of the twelfth lunar month, the Primordial Chaos Technique had already broken through to the seventh level.

The nine-level Primordial Chaos Technique was on the verge of perfection.

Ji Boying's internal energy could absolutely be considered exceptionally profound. Even Yue Buqun was probably no match for him.

Thinking it over carefully, only Shaolin, Wudang, and the Sun Moon Sect likely had people who could reliably surpass Ji Boying in internal energy.

Since the one Energy Point he had left would remain unused otherwise, he might as well simplify the Purple Mist Technique.

But once he simplified it, Ji Boying discovered that he was still unlucky.

An internal cultivation method that had to be actively circulated had actually been simplified into basking in the rising sun.

Not ordinary sunbathing, nor ordinary sunrise-watching, but basking in the rising sun.

Perhaps it was because purple qi spread faintly across the horizon around sunrise.

This simplification did not require much effort.

He could literally increase the proficiency of the Purple Mist Divine Skill while lying down.

But unlike before, it could not increase at full speed every moment of all twelve double-hours of the day.

He only had the two double-hours of the rabbit and dragon each day.

Even so, the Purple Mist Divine Skill progressed extremely quickly.

For one, the seventh level of the Primordial Chaos Technique, already touching upon the realm of the eighth level, greatly benefited the Purple Mist Technique.

The perfected Mount Hua Basic Mental Method had also given Ji Boying many insights into the circulation of internal energy.

On top of that, Ji Boying himself had high aptitude and excellent comprehension.

Ji Boying possessed everything needed to cultivate the Purple Mist Divine Skill, which required active circulation: profound internal energy and comprehension of internal cultivation methods. His progress was far faster than Yue Buqun's.

In just a few days, he had already broken through to the second level.

Back then, Yue Buqun had needed several years to reach that realm.

And even when he could not increase the proficiency of the Purple Mist Divine Skill through the simplified method, Ji Boying was still diligent. He was not a useless person who relied entirely on a Golden Finger.

So during the other hours, he would actively cultivate as well, progressing at a speed that still far surpassed Yue Buqun's.

Yue Buqun had completely given up.

Otherwise, he would not have allowed Ji Boying to neglect the Purple Mist Manual and practice the Nourishing Self Swordplay instead.

"Senior Brother, where are these guests from?"

In just a dozen breaths, Ji Boying had lightly drifted down from Chaoyang Peak.

He caught up with Liang Fa, who had only taken a few steps down from the halfway point.