In this world, martial arts had no such concept as "Force Qi dissipation." Even if you did not practice every day, your Martial Cultivation would hardly decline at all.
But the issue of Foundation truly existed. Insufficient Foundation potential would not cause you to lose levels, but it would drastically slow your training speed!
If you had returned with Grandmaster-level cultivation when the previous simulation ended, then for the first sixty or seventy years at the start of this simulation, you would not have even the slightest room for improvement! You would have to wait until your Foundation caught up with time.
Things were better now. You had some progress speed at least, and it would gradually grow faster as time passed. You knew that you were the very embodiment of a late-blooming martial artist.
Da Qing 273: the depth of the Flowing River Technique reached Major Accomplishment. Talent Aptitude affected the speed at which you advanced, but it did not affect your progress in martial arts. The two were not even on the same track.
Your combat strength received an additional boost. You felt that if you participated in that competition again, you could improve your ranking by two places.
Yes, defeat those two Second-rate Martial Artists standing above your head.
Da Qing 274: the Red Leaf Gang in East Forest City wanted to acknowledge you as their boss and have you serve as their protective umbrella. In return, they were willing to offer you a monthly Attendant stipend without requiring you to do any work.
After asking what sort of business they were involved in, you broke the legs of several of the visitors on the spot. Then you stormed into their newly established headquarters and broke dozens more legs.
You released seven or eight children they had abducted from who knew where.
Da Qing 275: you excitedly discovered that your martial arts training speed had finally risen noticeably. Your Extreme Viscera Enhancement progress reached forty percent.
Da Qing 276: another Young Talents Grand Competition arrived. You were twenty-one years old and went to Hundred Stone Forest to take part.
This competition was hosted by the Yangyao Gate. Not only was it a powerful sect with Grandmasters among its ranks, it was said to even possess a Supreme Grandmaster. However, that Grandmaster had not appeared in the world for more than twenty years.
After martial artists reached the Grandmaster realm, they seemed to rarely walk the world. One after another, they entered seclusion. Grandmasters, on the other hand, still commonly appeared before the public.
At this competition, you saw a few familiar faces, and quite a few people still remembered you. They anticipated your performance.
You claimed thirteenth place!
There were only thirteen First-rate Martial Artists in this competition. One of them had suffered serious injuries in earlier battles, so you defeated him...
There was also a heaven-defying Second-rate Martial Artist. Aside from the seriously injured one and the sham of a First-rate Martial Artist that was you, he actually suppressed another First-rate Expert and ranked eleventh.
You had indeed improved since five years ago, but the extent of that improvement made some people sigh. It was far too little! They all believed that breaking through to First-rate Martial Artist at the age of sixteen had greatly damaged your potential.
You did not care what they thought. The next simulation would prove everything.
If that did not work, then the simulation after the next would prove it!
You collected your reward. What made you grumble inwardly was that the Yangyao Gate was stingier than the Meteor Sect. For those ranked eleventh through twentieth, they only allowed them to choose one Advanced Martial Art, one Combat Technique fewer.
You returned to East Forest City and continued living your leisurely life of martial arts practice.
Da Qing 278: you were twenty-three years old, your Foundation was 137%, and your Extreme Viscera Enhancement progress neared fifty percent.
That same year, you heard that the Meteor Sect had produced a new Grandmaster. You recalled seemingly having met him seven years ago. At the time, he appeared to have been a Martial Master expert maintaining order at the competition.
Da Qing 281: all the gangs that had sprung up in East Forest City over recent years were wiped out one by one by a "mysterious master," causing the citywide crime rate to plummet but also reducing your pocket-money income.
Fortunately, ever since word spread ten years ago that you had taken part in that Young Talents Grand Competition, the City Lord had invited you to banquets from time to time. You were now an important figure in East Forest City who could speak with anyone.
Da Qing 282: a group of bandits arrived outside East Forest City and settled in the mountains dozens of miles beyond the city, robbing passing merchants.
The City Lord of East Forest City dispatched several hundred soldiers into the mountains, yet they were utterly no match for the bandit group. They were not ordinary bandits, but king... but bandits who possessed Martial Arts!
On the great plains, with troops spread out for a head-on clash and morale disregarded, even five hundred Second-rate Martial Artists might not be able to defeat ten thousand soldiers.
But in complicated terrain, within cities, or amid mountains and forests, one Second-rate Martial Artist could slowly kill more than a hundred soldiers step by step—even more than a hundred soldiers at the Third-rate level!
Every one of those bandits was a Third-rate Martial Artist. Their total number was close to a hundred, including several Second-rate Martial Artists, while their leader was very likely a First-rate Martial Artist!
This force roamed the mountains and forests, already beyond East Forest City's ability to handle. After realizing he lacked the strength to take them down, the City Lord chose to seek aid from the martial arts experts within the city.
You were the first person he approached. Then he went to the headmaster of a martial arts hall in the city, a First-rate Martial Artist, but that man refused and only sent out a Second-rate disciple. He then sought help everywhere else.
In the end, only two First-rate Martial Artists were willing to act, including you, along with fourteen Second-rate Martial Artists and thirty Third-rate Martial Artists. The latter were responsible for assisting the First-rate and Second-rate Martial Artists, sharing the pressure of encirclement, searching for the bandits' lair, and so on.
Your Extreme Viscera Enhancement progress was now just over sixty percent. Though it had no direct effect on combat strength, it had imperceptibly improved every aspect of your physical qualities.
Your Force Qi had also been continuously growing. Aside from Foundation, this was your most direct means of increasing combat strength. Compared with when the simulation began thirteen years ago, your total Force Qi had increased by more than thirty percent, while its intensity had also risen slightly.
(Force Qi grew very slowly because it did not increase during the martial arts stage of Extreme Viscera Enhancement. It was trained up through sheer effort.)
(It was like how ordinary people in reality could not practice martial arts and would not grow stronger, yet they could work out. It was merely that such exercise was far slower than martial arts practice, and its upper limit was lower as well.)
(But upon reaching the final stage of a First-rate Martial Artist, Bone-Reinforcing Vital Energy, a martial artist's Force Qi would rise several times faster than it had while strengthening the viscera.)
Together with the healthy physique of an adult, you were very confident that you could effortlessly beat Xu Ruohai, the leader of the Qing He Gang, into a dog.
Adding your 141% Foundation and the boost from the Advanced Martial Art Flowing River Technique, you were confident that unless you encountered a genius First-rate Martial Artist from the Young Talents Grand Competition, ordinary First-rate Martial Artists who only broke through in their thirties or forties would be no match for you at the same realm.
So you had to put on a proper display of strength and crush that bandit group. If you could not beat them, you could always run again.
Yun Shou sighed. "So many additional conditions. How humble."
The simulated you was desperately trying to prove that he was invincible among those of the same realm—not counting geniuses.
But in truth, he was merely neither here nor there. Among First-rate Martial Artists, he could only be considered middle-tier, perhaps even somewhat below that.
"Next time, it won't be like this. But I can't guarantee it, because it all depends on you."
Before you continue