"Brother Tong, what King of Martial Arts?"
Before Zhao Ping'an could ask, Zhao Xiuyun asked curiously. It was clear she had never heard of such a powerful expert before either.
"King of Martial Arts? I don't know what a King of Martial Arts is, either. I only heard people mention such an expert a few years ago, when I was escorting a convoy to Prefecture City.
"It was something a storyteller I'd never seen before told. Above the Great Grandmaster is the Martial Venerable, and above the Martial Venerable is the Martial King.
"King of Martial Arts! A lifespan of five hundred years, and the ability to fly through the air!
"Unfortunately, that storyteller left Prefecture City after saying only those few words. No one knows where he went."
Zheng Hetong spoke in a low voice, his face full of reminiscence.
"Five hundred years?"
Hearing Zheng Hetong's story, Zhao Ping'an and Zhao Xiuyun were both utterly shocked.
Zhao Ping'an especially couldn't help thinking of a song from his previous life, Borrow Me Five Hundred Years from Heaven. But now, he didn't need to borrow them. Before long, he would surely reach the Martial King Realm, or even a realm higher and stronger still.
And then, his lifespan...
After the three of them marveled for a good while, Zheng Hetong told Zhao Ping'an that his Fourth Senior Disciple Brother, Liu Zhe, wasn't willing to leave the Blazing Blade Sect. The other three had agreed to leave with him.
Zhao Ping'an had nothing to say about that. After all, everyone had their own aspirations.
He had already decided how to arrange things for his Master and senior brothers and sisters: the Sun Family Alchemy Workshop in South Ridge City. He would take people to live on Medicine Mountain, while his Master and senior brothers and sisters would be responsible for managing the Alchemy Workshop.
As for Mistress, Zhao Ping'an had no arrangements for her. With a tenth of the Sun Family's wealth in her hands, she had already retired early.
After that, Mistress Zhao Xiuyun told Zhao Ping'an the Zhao Family's punishment for Zhao Huixin. First, the child she was carrying, Sun Shize's, had been forcibly aborted.
Second, Zhao Huixin and her mother had both been struck from the Zhao Family genealogy and sent to the Zhao Family's farmland outside the city. They were forbidden to return to the Zhao Family for the rest of their lives.
Zhao Ping'an merely nodded and said nothing.
Three days later, after making all the arrangements, Zhao Ping'an left South Ridge City in five horse-drawn carriages and headed for Medicine Mountain, forty li outside the city.
Besides two carriages filled with household supplies, the other three carried a wagonload of top-grade spiritual herbs and spiritual medicines, copies of all kinds of cultivation techniques seized by the Sun Family, and the things he needed for cultivation: long sabers of various weights, bundles of throwing darts, and the massive iron pillar brought down from Feather Mountain.
As for the Sun Family's two-tenths share of its gold, silver, antiques, and calligraphy and paintings, he had exchanged it all for banknotes—two hundred thousand taels of silver in total, equivalent to a full two hundred million in cash.
He left fifty thousand taels for his Master to use as operating capital for the Alchemy Workshop and took the rest with him.
The cargo was heavy, and the roads weren't exactly good. They had set out a little after eight in the morning to travel a mere forty li, but by the time Zhao Ping'an reached Medicine Mountain, it was already around three in the afternoon.
Medicine Mountain had no name before. It had belonged to the Sun Family, so people called it Sun Family Medicine Mountain. Now that it belonged to Zhao Ping'an, he planned to give it a new name.
"Hmm... Let's call it Wu'an Mountain. I'll protect my own peace with the martial way!"
(Wu'an Jun—Bai Qi: I think you're planning to bury the world's martial artists alive. Your thinking is dangerous!)
Once he had settled on the name, Zhao Ping'an flew to a boulder over three meters tall and swiftly drew the Treasure Saber that had belonged to the Sun Family Supreme Elder, now a Human Grade Low Rank weapon.
"Swish! Swish! Swish!..."
Bladelight streaked across the boulder like bolts of silk, slicing it into a rectangular stone stele three meters high, one meter and twenty centimeters wide, and half a meter thick. As for carving words into it, he decided against it.
His handwriting was merely legible, still a hundred and eight thousand li away from the level of calligraphy.
He lifted the stele and placed it at the fork leading into Wu'an Mountain. Then he ordered one of the Houtian Third-Stage Martial Artists traveling with him to ride into the city and find the best calligrapher to write the three characters for [Wu'an Mountain]. He was also to bring back the two best stonemasons to carve the characters into the stone.
Five Martial Artists and thirty Martial Warriors had accompanied him to Wu'an Mountain this time. They were all guards hired by the Zhao Family, now transferred under his command.
As for the guards who had been at Medicine Mountain before, some were dead and the rest had run off long ago. The farmhands, however, had all been kept on—more than a hundred of them in total.
Wu'an Mountain stood about five hundred meters tall and was over eight hundred meters in diameter. Its slopes formed angles of more than fifty degrees, making it extremely steep.
The slopes had been divided into terraces of various sizes, where all kinds of medicinal herbs were cultivated. Hundreds-of-meters-tall hills surrounded the area, a swathe of green, and a small river over two meters wide curved around the mountain.
At the summit of Wu'an Mountain were two springs, one hot and one cold. Their water could greatly improve the survival rate and growth speed of most spiritual herbs and spiritual medicines. The closer one got to the summit, the more suitable the soil became for growing medicinal plants.
After discovering the place, the Sun Family had immediately seized it and established this Medicine Mountain.
A three-meter-high fence completely surrounded Medicine Mountain, and guards patrolled the area at all times.
The first purpose was to keep wild beasts and Demonic Beasts from damaging the medicinal fields. The second was to keep outsiders from entering and stealing medicinal plants.
Zhao Ping'an's residence was at the foot of Wu'an Mountain. A small stockade had been built there to provide everyone on the mountain with food, drink, and a place to sleep.
After getting settled, Zhao Ping'an called together all the farmhands. There were one hundred and thirty-two of them, all experienced workers who had labored here for at least five years.
"Hello, everyone. From now on, this place belongs to me. You only need to follow my instructions. I don't care how you behaved before. Under my command, first, no shirking or slacking off; second, no stealing or petty theft; third, no stirring up trouble or deceiving your superiors!..."
Zhao Ping'an laid down a full eight rules, leaving the farmhands utterly bewildered.
"One last thing: everyone's wages will be increased by fifty percent from what they were before. Dismissed!"
"Thank you, Master!..."
At Zhao Ping'an's final words, the farmhands, who had been frowning just moments earlier, immediately beamed and thanked him.
At the very back of the stockade stood a three-story pavilion, Zhao Ping'an's residence on Wu'an Mountain.
He had now returned to his quarters and was opening a chest on the second floor.
Inside, boxes of various sizes had been arranged in neat rows. Each contained spiritual herbs or spiritual medicines that had been specially prepared.
In this world, spiritual herbs and spiritual medicines, like Demonic Beasts, were divided into ranks from one to nine, with Saint Medicine and Divine Medicine above the ninth rank.
First-grade medicines were mainly useful to Martial Warriors. Their effects on Houtian Martial Artists and Innate Martial Masters above them were greatly diminished, and they had no effect at all on Grandmasters.
The whole chest Zhao Ping'an had was filled with Third-grade spiritual herbs and spiritual medicines, mainly used by Innate Martial Masters for cultivation, though they had a tiny effect on Great Grandmasters as well.
Of course, he wasn't going to use these things to cultivate. He planned to absorb their medicinal power to increase the [Deduction Points] on his panel.
"Ding! External energy detected. Absorbing it can increase your current total Deduction Points by 3%. Absorb: Yes/No?"
Before you continue