After Li Qing had dealt with the three little thugs who had tried to rob him, they went through untold hardship before finally hauling more than three hundred jin of iron ingots to the front of his courtyard.
Watching the three collapse onto the ground, too exhausted even to crawl, Li Qing gained a new understanding of his current martial strength.
Against people like these, who went hungry year-round, even if they held weapons, he could easily deal with five or six of them alone.
If they were strong, sturdy men instead, but had no martial arts skills, taking on two or three would not be difficult for him either.
Li Qing was already quite satisfied with this progress.
Once he tempered his body, cultivated Outer Strength, and officially became an Outer Strength expert, he could forge himself a suitable weapon and protective armor.
By then, his combat power could grow severalfold.
With such strength, even if he returned to the Border Army camp tent, he would have a considerable chance of secretly slipping away from the heavily guarded granary.
"Tell me, what are the three of you called, and why did you set your sights on me?" Li Qing asked coldly.
"This lord, my name is Qi Jin Xiong. This time, us three brothers failed to recognize greatness before our eyes. Please show mercy and spare us. From now on, whenever we see you, we promise to take a detour!"
The speaker was the tall, thin, gloomy man. He appeared to be the eldest brother and leader among the three.
After questioning them, Li Qing learned their backgrounds as well.
The more worldly and slick second brother was called Qi Jin Bao, while the hotheaded third brother was Qi Jin Niu.
Interestingly, the three were not blood brothers. They had merely met later on, sworn brotherhood, and even changed their surnames together.
In this world where people could not even fill their bellies, there was no saying that one should never change one's name or surname. No one placed much importance on their name either. Today they might be surnamed Qi; tomorrow, because of some encounter, they might be surnamed Yan.
Besides that, what surprised Li Qing was that all three belonged to an underground force called the Righteous Gang.
This was the first time Li Qing had learned that, aside from the Yan Family, Obsidian City had other forces.
Yet after asking around, he could not help rolling his eyes.
It turned out that the people in this organization were basically little thugs like the Qi Family's Three Brothers, spending their days doing petty theft and only bullying honest folk.
What was amusing was that the Righteous Gang, formed from these little thugs, actually had a creed: rob the rich and aid the poor, loyalty towering to the clouds.
"Rob the rich and aid the poor? The Yan Family is the richest force in the city. Why haven't I seen you rob the Yan Family?" Li Qing mocked disdainfully.
Qi Jin Niu, the third brother, immediately refused to accept that. Panting heavily, he said, "How have we not? That marketplace was opened by the Yan Family. Every day, we go there and rob the people passing through the marketplace. If nobody goes to the marketplace afterward, isn't that indirectly striking at the Yan Family?"
Upon Hearing these words, Li Qing's expression grew even colder.
This third Qi brother was clearly someone with a one-track mind. He did not know who had taught him such words, but he had truly treated them as doctrine and believed them completely.
Little did he know that the Yan Family was Obsidian City's largest landlord, a force squatting atop the entire city and sucking its people dry. So long as one lived in Obsidian City, one could not avoid being exploited by the Yan Family.
The Yan Family probably had never even spared a proper glance for this so-called Righteous Gang. The gap between them was far too vast; they were not forces on the same scale at all.
Li Qing spoke with disgust. "So after doing these filthy deeds for so long, has the Yan Family's marketplace business gotten worse? Has the Yan Family truly suffered any real blow?"
Upon Hearing these words, Qi Jin Niu suddenly froze. The brain he usually barely used began to turn.
That was right. Their Righteous Gang had existed for quite some time, yet the Yan Family's power seemed not to have been affected in the slightest. It still stood proud and imposing.
While he was thinking, Li Qing added another cold sentence:
"Cowards who only draw their blades at the weak—get lost. Do not dirty my courtyard gate!"
When he finished speaking, Li Qing turned and walked into the courtyard, then shut the gate with a bang!
bang!
After entering the courtyard, Li Qing sighed inwardly and shook his head.
Originally, he had wanted to keep the three under his control and use their strength to gather information around the city, finding out what happened each day.
But when he thought of what they had done, Li Qing felt nothing but disgust.
If he had not practiced martial arts, then after leaving the marketplace today, his end would likely have been truly ugly.
Losing an arm or a leg might have been the lighter outcome. If they discovered the pile of grain he had hidden in the cellar, that might have been a dead end.
"I still need strength."
The blood-red moon hanging high in the sky gradually stretched Li Qing's shadow long.
At this moment, he finally understood the importance of strength and found the true purpose of practicing martial arts.
That day, the Qi Family's Three Brothers, notorious around the marketplace streets, became famous once again.
All three had actually been defeated by an unarmed man. This news stirred up quite a commotion within a small circle of the city.
"Hahaha, satisfying! Those three bastards have finally been taught a lesson."
"A while back, the two jin of Black Rye Mushroom I traded away everything I owned for were snatched by them. I nearly starved to death. Why didn't that person just kill the three of them while he was at it?"
"They're all worthless trash. They never do anything proper, only steal, swindle, and cheat. Good beating!"
"It would be best if that damned Righteous Gang were wiped out along with them. What a malignant tumor."
"..."
Many of those complaining had suffered at the hands of the Righteous Gang before. They had long been dissatisfied with this force, and their resentment toward it even far exceeded their resentment toward the Yan Family.
Yet Li Qing, the instigator of this matter, knew nothing about it.
After bringing the iron ingots home, he lit the forge and prepared to make himself a new hammer for fighting and his everyday smithing.
After his strength had increased greatly, the blacksmith's hammer he normally used no longer fit comfortably in his hands.
"I'll set the weight at around two hundred jin. That should be the limit of what I can use right now."
Very quickly, the rough outline of a warhammer appeared in Li Qing's mind. He had thought for a long time about this hammer's design and weight.
A hammer weighing over two hundred jin was still somewhat of a burden for him now.
Being able to carry three hundred jin of iron ingots did not mean he could wield a three-hundred-jin weapon.
Arm strength and the body's capacity to bear weight were still quite different.
With the strength of his arms now, swinging a two-hundred-jin sledgehammer was even somewhat strenuous, leaving him feeling that his strength could not keep up with his ambitions.
But Li Qing had a feeling that it would not be long before he cultivated Outer Strength.
Once that time came, his strength would grow much more. A two-hundred-jin iron hammer would then surely be easy for him to wield!
But he still faced a difficult problem next: how was he supposed to smelt Ink Gold into the iron hammer?
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