The Beginning of the Upheaval

Year 300 of Daqing: With the Flowing River Technique at Minor Accomplishment, you challenged Wang Ye again. This time, bolstered further by your Martial Arts, your Force Qi's ability to change rose slightly.

You therefore gained the upper hand in this fight, though you did not achieve any obvious suppression. Since it was merely a sparring match, it ultimately ended in a draw.

Year 301 of Daqing: You escorted the martial hall master's last disciple, twenty-one-year-old Bai Liguang, to Qitian Peak for this year's Young Talents Grand Competition. Bai Liguang's Martial Cultivation had already reached the limits of a Second-rate Martial Artist. He was just one step away from Internal Force Projection and becoming a First-rate Expert like you.

The Young Talents Grand Competition was a stage for martial artists under twenty-five to make their names... Or perhaps, in this world, it ought to be renamed the Martial Stage.

You could not help recalling twenty-five years ago. Back then, you had actually been qualified to participate in that Young Talents Grand Competition. You might even have claimed a place among the top fifty. Unfortunately, you had been tied to the Qing He Gang at the time, while also focusing wholeheartedly on fawning over the mysterious expert Zhu Baowen.

Then came all those bouts of Cultivation Dissipation, which caused your Martial Cultivation to stagnate for a time. Otherwise, you might have entered the First-Rate before turning thirty-five.

Even so, you did not regret it.

On the way to Qitian Peak, you encountered a band of mountain bandits. There were more than sixty of them, and quite a few even possessed the strength of Third-rate Martial Artists. You watched as Bai Liguang, alone, killed more than ten of them in a short time. You could not help sighing that young people truly had boundless stamina.

Seeing that the bandits had already lost more than thirty men, you watched from the rear and judged that Bai Liguang's Internal Force and stamina were nearly spent. Just as you prepared to intervene, the bandits, afraid of death, fled.

You thought the matter was over, but only a few days later, while passing through a small city, you found three hundred soldiers closing in around you. They claimed that you two had been utterly depraved and had massacred an entire small village outside the city, leaving not a single survivor.

But by sheer coincidence, a passerby had witnessed everything. He had secretly hidden himself, then chosen to report you to the City Lord afterward, exposing your evil beneath the light of day!

You and Bai Liguang fell silent as you looked at that righteous informant. He was one of the bandits who had escaped from your hands a few days earlier. That sausage-like mouth of his was far too memorable.

Bai Liguang began arguing furiously, but before he could say much, the spear-wielding soldiers drew ever closer, gradually forming an encirclement... You immediately grabbed him and ran.

The situation was already crystal clear. The City Lord and the bandits were in league with one another. Their relationship went beyond that of mere white gloves; perhaps the bandit chief was even the City Lord's brother-in-law.

Otherwise, how could he mobilize the army time and again, even slaughtering a small village just to kill the two of you?

At the same time, you used the power of words to intimidate the soldiers: "There is a Martial Master behind us! Are you sure you want to offend a Martial Master who can take your lives at any moment for the sake of those bandits?!"

But the City Lord was not present, so he did not hear it.

Even a Second-rate Martial Artist and a First-rate Martial Artist could not possibly kill all three hundred soldiers, especially when those soldiers had received some training and could barely be considered Unranked Martial Artists.

There were many soldiers, but they could not match your speed on foot. That lasted until they sent out cavalry... You cut down several riders, then mounted up alongside Bai Liguang.

Upon reaching the neighboring city, the two of you visited the local martial hall and spread word of the matter far and wide. Then, as though nothing had happened, you went to Qitian Peak to participate in the competition.

Since you were not the main contestant, you were responsible for eating, drinking, and watching the fights below the stage.

Bai Liguang took twenty-fourth place in the competition, ranking seventy-first on the Wind and Cloud Youth Ranking.

On the journey back, you received several carriages loaded with silver and all kinds of commonly used martial cultivation tonics, along with a letter of apology from the City Lord.

It roughly stated that an acting deputy City Lord had accepted bribes from bandits and had actually been brazen enough to frame innocent young heroes. Fortunately, he had discovered it early...

"A world where martial artists stand above all others," Yun Shou remarked.

But that was only natural. An ordinary Second-rate Martial Artist could kill twenty or thirty well-trained soldiers. That meant that if he wished to leave, one or two hundred men simply could not stop him.

A formidable First-rate Martial Artist could fight one against a hundred, even two or three hundred. Even after exhausting his Force Qi, he still surpassed ordinary people. That meant he could effortlessly punch through an army of over a thousand ordinary men, take the commander's head, and then leave in grand fashion.

As for Martial Masters, they basically possessed the power to bore through ten thousand troops. A single person could rout an army of a thousand, and even horses could not catch up to such beings at their normal jogging speed.

And a Martial Grandmaster of a generation, unless he foolishly chose to fight head-on, would remain unscathed even before an army of a million, even with arrows falling like rain. One palm strike could blast down an entire house...

So—how could that City Lord be an enemy of martial artists? How would he dare become one?

When he had previously ordered the three hundred soldiers to encircle you, he had only known that the other side was one rather outstanding Second-rate Martial Artist, or perhaps two. Had he known Yun Shou was First-Rate, the two of you would not have faced the slightest obstruction when entering the city!

And if he had known that a Martial Master stood behind you both, the City Lord might even have proactively set out a small banquet to apologize.

Since you had received the compensation, you no longer cared about the truth. Perhaps the bandit chief was the City Lord's brother-in-law; perhaps the City Lord's own younger brother could not bear the provocation and became a common bandit, only for Bai Liguang to kill him in one sword strike... As long as the money was in hand, that was enough.

Year 302 of Daqing: You were forty-seven years old. Your Foundation was 161%, and your Extreme Viscera Enhancement progress had reached thirty percent. You felt that many of your body's internal functions had strengthened: your heart's ability to circulate blood, your lungs' breathing power, your stomach's digestive ability, and more.

This strengthening of your viscera did not grant you a direct increase in combat power, but it reinforced your hidden strengths in every aspect, such as making your martial training more effective.

Your Force Qi had increased by another thirty percent compared to when you had first reached the First-Rate four years ago. Now, when sparring with Wang Ye, you could always claim a "small victory."

Though you were already nearing fifty, you felt as healthy as someone in his thirties. Aside from increasing your combat strength, your steadily growing Foundation also seemed to possess some life-extending effect.

Martial artists did not possess the transcendent longevity of immortal cultivators. Even Martial Grandmasters lived only two and a half sixty-year cycles on average, around one hundred and fifty years. Yet you felt that if your Foundation kept increasing like this, living to two hundred might also be possible!

Year 303 of Daqing: One night, a Crimson Meteor streaked across the heavens (P.S.: this was merely a metaphor). No one knew that from this moment onward, heaven and earth would be overturned!

On April 7, overnight, Xingcheng became a domain of death. An entire city, with living beings numbering over a hundred thousand, died unnatural deaths. Blood Qi shot into the sky and dyed the clouds red, while shattered bones and mangled flesh filled the city.

Once traveling merchants spread the news, the whole world was shaken!