Cat Master had still been planning to doze a little longer when his nose suddenly twitched, as if he'd caught a scent.
He stood up, stretched, yawned, then slowly made his way over to the crowd.
He moved more nimbly than a tiger, yet felt even more imposing. His two enormous eyes especially swept over the onlookers with great majesty.
The crowd was startled too, and everyone hurriedly backed away. It looked as though Cat Master was about to eat someone!
Shi Feizhe also took several steps back. A cat this big could swallow an ordinary person's head in one bite. He had no idea whether this cat ate people.
Cat Master gave a light leap and landed beside Shi Feizhe. He circled him once, then sniffed him.
...What was going on?!
Cat Master's whiskers brushed Shi Feizhe's face, leaving him at a loss. Could this giant cat have taken a liking to the hundred-odd pounds of meat on his body?
"Little man, you smell so good!" A slightly aged voice suddenly appeared in Shi Feizhe's head.
Little man? Who was the little man?
"W-who are you?" Shi Feizhe couldn't help asking. He saw the Big Cat stop in front of him, and he'd heard a voice!
"I'm Cat Master, of course!"
"You can talk!" Shi Feizhe said in surprise.
"Your grandpa here is a Great Demon, after all. What's so strange about sending thoughts by voice?" Cat Master leaned close to Shi Feizhe's face, sniffed him, and transmitted the words.
The others watched Shi Feizhe talking to Cat Master and couldn't help marveling.
"There are demons in this world too?" Shi Feizhe asked again.
What the hell, wasn't this a wuxia world?
"Little man, you really are ignorant! The world is vast!" Cat Master mocked Shi Feizhe, then continued, "Little man, you smell so good! Sell me your two legs! Let me whet my appetite!"
"...Can I say no?" Facing the giant cat, who stood as tall as he did, Shi Feizhe felt sweat running down his forehead as he gritted his teeth and spoke.
"Then, little man, sell me an arm so I can satisfy my craving! I'll pay fifty taels!" Cat Master offered again.
"...I'm not selling that either!"
"Do you have any enemies, or anyone you want dead? I'll kill them for you, and then your life belongs to me?" Cat Master mused for a moment before asking.
This cat had quite a wide range of services!
"No! I'm kind to everyone. I don't have any enemies!" Shi Feizhe hurriedly shook his head.
"Then do you have any sons or daughters? Sell them to me. I'll teach you a martial arts secret manual in return. How about it?" Cat Master made another offer!
"I don't have any!" Shi Feizhe refused again.
Even if he did, he wouldn't trade them!
Trading a son for a secret manual? That was far too beastly!
"You little man, you're no fun at all!" Cat Master shook his enormous head, clearly displeased by Shi Feizhe's repeated refusals.
He leaped back to where he'd been lying before and tossed out a parting remark: "If you want to trade, you can come anytime!"
What do you mean, no fun? If I were fun, I'd be missing an arm or a leg by now!
And with all this sour stink on me, how could you possibly think I smell good?!
Shi Feizhe grumbled to himself.
But this giant cat hadn't tried to force a trade. Would he sneak up on me tonight and carry me off in his mouth?
Shi Feizhe stole a glance at the Big Cat and saw him dozing in the sun with his eyes half-closed, not looking at him at all.
Thank goodness! Thank goodness! Seeing that the Big Cat wasn't paying attention to him, Shi Feizhe let out a long breath and hurried to inspect the martial arts manuals on the stone steles.
He couldn't be blamed for being timid. Who would have thought a cat would want to buy an arm with silver?
The martial world really was beyond imagination.
Even more unimaginable was the sheer variety of martial arts manuals carved on the stone steles.
They ranged from Twelve Form Intent, a beginner's manual for the Qi and Blood Barrier, to the Immovable Wisdom King Contemplation Method for the Spirit Barrier.
From Boundless Sea Skill, for the "Qi Sea" of the Escaping Mundane Realm, to the Great Heavenly River Circulatory Secret, for its "Circulatory Heaven."
There was even Rotten Axe Stargazing, a technique for the True Person Realm!
After a quick count, Shi Feizhe realized there were dozens of secret manuals, all carved right onto the stone steles for people of the martial world to study!
The people of Three Talents Manor had shared dozens of books they couldn't make sense of. This had earned them both fame and profit, and turned Three Talents Manor into Three Talents Town.
They'd gained both name and fortune—a truly clever way to make one fish feed many mouths!
What boldness, and what a brilliant plan!
Each martial arts manual had its own stone stele, with an inscription stating where it came from and roughly what realm one could cultivate it in, or what realm it could take one to.
It was through these inscriptions that Shi Feizhe learned the Escaping Mundane Realm had only two stages.
One was the Qi Sea, and the other was the Circulatory Heaven.
He scratched his head, planning to skim through everything first. Then he would focus on finding a manual he could understand, copy it down, and study it carefully.
He wasn't short on manuals anymore. The only question was whether he could understand them!
That really was a huge problem. The writing on those steles often left people bewildered.
There were also local expressions that one had to puzzle out, like "power starts from the hook" and "when the two meet, it's like gnawing on a skull."
As for Spirit Barrier manuals with lines like "the day the spirit awakens is the day I am reborn" and "someone is watching you from the dark lake," they were downright cryptic, leaving people utterly confused.
After circling around, Shi Feizhe noticed that most people had gathered beside manuals related to the Spirit Barrier and Seeing Truth Barrier. They were all striving to break through the three barriers of the Escaping Mundane Realm and become masters of true qi!
As for the stone-steles bearing manuals for realms beyond the Escaping Mundane Realm, hardly anyone looked at them.
That made sense. Once you were already a master of true qi, you'd naturally have a way to join a faction or enter a sect. You wouldn't need these manuals of unknown origin.
Shi Feizhe, on the other hand, needed a manual for the Blood Qi Barrier so he could start cultivating martial arts from the beginning.
Although the True Origin Sword Finger Technique had let him cultivate true qi, reaching a realm many people couldn't achieve in their entire lives, it produced far too little true qi each day. By his estimate, it would take him about ten years just to barely master the basics, and about thirty to reach a minor accomplishment.
It would take about fifty or sixty years before his true qi flowed without end, his sword energy ranged freely, and he reached great accomplishment!
Great accomplishment was the True Person Realm!
That was far too slow!
If he followed Hua Xiaomei's advice and cultivated normally, it would take him about seven years to produce true qi. By then, the two sources of true qi might combine and help him achieve great accomplishment in the True Origin Sword Finger Technique sooner.
Otherwise, what was the point of coming out to show off when he was already in his seventies or eighties?
Thinking this over, Shi Feizhe began examining the martial arts manuals for the Blood Qi Barrier in the Stele Forest. They were all quite simple: tempering the bones and sinews, strengthening the muscles, and improving the body. Even when he didn't understand some words, he could still guess what they meant.
Shi Feizhe was engrossed in reading when he suddenly caught the smell of smoke.
The familiar smell of secondhand smoke made Shi Feizhe freeze.
Following the scent, he saw a monk in a yellow robe, around twenty or thirty years old, holding a golden-inlaid jade dry tobacco pipe. He walked along puffing smoke, making it easy for Shi Feizhe to see the several gem-studded gold rings on his fingers.
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