Baishui Martial Hall berated your Qing He Gang for disregarding the rules and wantonly encroaching on others' territory. Your fiercely loyal Right Protector, Xu Ruohai, sneered and said it was merely a matter of order—whoever was stronger occupied more.
During the third simulation, you had joined a martial hall in Yangxue City. At the time, another martial hall had moved into Yangxue City, and your Tianhe Martial Hall had fought Radiant Light Martial Hall, which had relocated there, in a best-of-five battle.
The other side won enough matches and successfully established itself there.
In this life, though martial halls and gangs differed in some ways—for instance, martial halls were relatively independent, more detached semi-official organizations, with one half standing above the authorities—
Gangs were precisely the opposite. Though gangs might possess stronger experts, they themselves could not be considered orderly. They too were semi-official organizations, but their other half lay beneath the authorities.
When it came to contending for influence, what mattered was not the authorities, but the martial world—martial strength.
Baishui Martial Hall proposed a best-of-three match. If your side won two bouts, they would yield the fishing villages beside Green Lake outside Lihu City. Otherwise, you were to withdraw and refrain from encroaching again for ten years.
In the first match, a battle between Second-rate Martial Artists, Iron Thunderbolt, your third-in-command, was defeated!
In the second match, a battle between First-rate Martial Artists, Xu Ruohai, your Right Protector, was defeated!
Third... there was no third match. You had already lost two consecutive bouts in a best-of-three contest. You had not even made a single move, yet the entire Qing He Gang had suffered a crushing defeat.
Yun Shou: "A bunch of useless trash."
Your face darkened. You should have expected it. How could the caliber of gang martial artists compare to that of a martial hall? Even though Xu Ruohai was a martial arts prodigy picked up by sheer luck, First-Rate was the limit of his Talent Aptitude.
If Xu Ruohai had been a Second-rate Martial Artist and completed Blood Replacement and Muscle Condensation, you might still have had a chance of winning the first battle.
But he was only a First-rate Martial Artist. Not only was his Talent Aptitude mediocre even among First-Rate martial artists, he had not even completed Extreme Viscera Enhancement. Naturally, he could not defeat an elite First-Rate martial artist from a martial hall.
Unwilling to accept this, you demanded a separate battle against Baishui Martial Hall's master: Martial Master Bai Jianghe!
This was a private challenge, and its outcome had nothing to do with the territorial dispute.
The battle lasted a full three hundred exchanges. Under the support of his cultivation technique, Bai Jianghe's Foundation and Talent Aptitude had to be at least one hundred and eighty, if not two hundred, and he had likewise reached a fairly advanced stage of Muscles and Bones Ringing in Harmony.
If the you at the peak of the simulation had taken the field, you could have subdued him within twenty or thirty exchanges. But while your Foundation was higher than his, your body was still that of a youth; while your martial arts were Grandmaster-level, he had reached perfection... with one gain and one loss cancelling each other out, you were not much stronger than him.
In the end, you still relied on your slight advantage to gradually gain the upper hand, knocking Bai Jianghe back until he spat blood.
Bai Jianghe glanced at you, his gaze somewhat strange. At last, he remarked that heroes emerged from the young, then returned to the city with the many disciples of his martial hall.
You also returned with the Qing He Gang's many underlings.
You had thought the days ahead would consist of practicing martial arts every day, improving your Martial Cultivation, putting on a grand display at the Young Talents Grand Competition a year and a half later, and finally slipping out of the Three Kingdoms before the Alien Demons arrived.
But the unexpected came with such speed. You had not even endured a full year, and before the expenses of this simulation had been recouped, an uninvited guest came knocking.
He was a Martial Master, a Martial Master who had condensed Martial Will, with one foot already across the threshold of the Grandmaster realm!
With merely a casual palm strike, blazing light burst forth, and Xu Ruohai was sent flying, vomiting blood.
A Martial Master... from Yangyao Gate!
Yun Shou froze, then immediately realized what had happened.
Both the Yun Shou in the simulation and his current self seemed to have overlooked one thing: the inheritance of martial arts!
Every sect and martial hall regarded their exclusive martial arts as immensely, immensely important!
Once someone was discovered to have secretly learned them, they would reclaim the Martial Arts!
There were two ways to reclaim Martial Arts. The gentler method was to cripple your Martial Cultivation; the other was even simpler—if the person was gone, then the matter of the martial arts being leaked would naturally be gone as well.
Yun Shou's Sunday Art had legitimate authorization from Yangyao Gate, but that had been earned in the previous simulation by placing second in the competition.
But in reality... Yun Shou had actually been rather cautious. He had not used the exclusive Combat Techniques of the Flowing River Technique at the Young Talents Grand Competition before, so he had not been discovered then.
And the reason for this exposure...
Zhao Yuan, the Martial Master of Yangyao Gate, said that Hall Master Bai of Baishui Martial Hall had informed them that a teenager possessed the Sunday Art and appeared to be a core disciple of Yangyao Gate.
Yet this "core disciple" held the position of gang leader, which was far too unusual. Thus, Bai Jianghe had asked Yangyao Gate about the matter.
"Damn it, it really was you!" Yun Shou was in a terrible mood. "Baishui Martial Hall, was it? Bai Jianghe, was it?"
It seemed the blazing white Force Qi transformed from the Sunday Art was too distinctive, unlike the commonly seen blue Force Qi of the Flowing River Technique.
Or perhaps Bai Jianghe knew Yangyao Gate very well, and the two sides had dealings with each other, allowing him to directly identify Yun Shou's foundational martial art and notice at the time that he had no connection to Yangyao Gate.
They fought face-to-face, he praised you as some amazing young hero, then turned around and reported you to Yangyao Gate.
"I'll remember this, you old scheming bastard!"
After a moment of silence, you told Zhao Yuan of Yangyao Gate, "Half a year ago, I encountered a mysterious old martial artist. And then this happened, and that happened."
Zhao Yuan sneered. "Would I not know which martial uncle is traveling the martial world? The cultivation and whereabouts of every disciple and elder in the sect are recorded. The sole Supreme Elder has been in secluded cultivation for ten years. Save that little lie of yours for yourself."
He drew out a long staff made of Void Steel, its shaft shining with dazzling white light. "Tell me the truth. Where exactly did you obtain your Sunday Art?"
You fell silent for a long while. "What if I said I picked it up?"
Zhao Yuan laughed, then struck without hesitation. "Then I shall reclaim the Martial Arts from your body!"
You were no match for him.
Of course you were not. Zhao Yuan looked only thirty or forty, and his true age could not have exceeded forty-five, yet he had already condensed Martial Will. He only needed to unite his Essence, Qi, and Spirit to break through into the Grandmaster realm.
The talent he displayed was no longer merely that of a "Grandmaster seed." He was a peerless genius destined to become a Grandmaster, perhaps even with hopes of becoming a Supreme Grandmaster. His martial Talent Aptitude might even rival your current self!
His martial Talent Aptitude might only possibly rival yours, but his Martial Cultivation was genuinely far beyond yours! The gap between you was too vast. The moment you exchanged blows, you fell into an absolute disadvantage!
After barely a dozen moves, one blow of his staff sent you staggering back dozens of steps. Your Vital Energy Circulation was on the verge of being shattered. At the moment of life and death, you chose to follow your heart and shouted that you could join Yangyao Gate—you were a fourteen-year-old Martial Master, and in the future, you could become a Supreme Grandmaster.
Zhao Yuan: "A little thief who secretly learned my sect's martial arts, and you still dare to demand more?!"
You could not take it anymore. This Martial Master from Yangyao Gate was far too rigid and stubborn, completely incapable of adapting. Did he not know that rules were dead, while people were alive?
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