Appointment

After swinging Mountain Collapse, Lu Chuan stood still, saber in hand.

Jiang Hao, however, seemed unable to accept what had happened. He stared at his own empty hand, eyes vacant.

"How could this be? I already used..."

On the sidelines, the few Outer Disciples who had been watching gaped, unable to squeeze out a single word.

Su Tang's gaze settled on Lu Chuan.

In her usually indifferent eyes, undisguised surprise was now reflected.

No one had expected Lu Chuan to pull off such a move.

Zhou Ming Chuan stood a few steps away, staring blankly at Lu Chuan.

After a long moment, he forced out from his throat:

"Junior Brother... that move you just used—was it Mountain Collapse?"

Lu Chuan barely recovered a breath of true qi: "That's right. I had an epiphany in the past few days. I didn't think I could actually pull it off just now..."

Zhou Ming Chuan fell silent.

He was a practitioner of Mountain Splitting Saber; of course he knew what Mountain Collapse was, and even more so what this saber strike meant.

Among the hundreds of disciples who had come and gone at Mountain Splitting Saber Hall, those who could master this killing move could be counted on two hands.

And Lu Chuan had only been an Initiate for four months.

Equally stunned was the dazed Chen Mo Bai.

Watching Lu Chuan sheathe his saber, a wave of regret suddenly surged in his heart.

When Lu Chuan first joined the hall, he had no foundation or backing. If he had offered even a single word of guidance back then, today wouldn't have turned out like this.

But he had deliberately ignored the man, pushed him into Zhou Ming Chuan's arms, and now he had thoroughly offended him.

Not only had he missed the chance to befriend a genius, but he had also secretly made an enemy for himself.

"If only I'd known... but well, this guy's only just entered the Blood Pass, things aren't that serious yet..."

As he thought it over, Chen Mo Bai snapped back to reality, and the look in his eyes toward Lu Chuan grew colder.

Old Zheng watched the youth swinging his saber on the field, a flicker of delight in his eyes, followed quickly by regret.

To have trained Mountain Splitting Saber to Major Success in four months—in all his years, he had seen no more than three people with such saber talent.

But unfortunately, Lu Chuan's bone constitution was only mid-low; he had confirmed that himself.

Mid-low bone constitution meant the difficulty of breaking through to Second Qi and Blood was three, five, even ten times harder than for Jiang Hao.

It meant the faster he charged now, the harder the wall he would hit later.

What the Martial Arts Hall needed was someone who could carry on the legacy, not a genius who might get stuck at a bottleneck.

So, even with Lu Chuan's high saber talent, Old Zheng still had no intention of taking him on as a Formal Disciple.

With that thought, Old Zheng's gaze gradually hardened:

"Alright, Lu Chuan, you performed well."

"Today's sparring ends here."

"Jiang Hao, you stay."

Once they were out of the Backyard, Zhou Ming Chuan slapped Lu Chuan on the shoulder.

"Not bad, kid!" His face was full of smiles.

"Two months apart, not only did you break through in cultivation, but your saber technique gave your senior brother a real shock. Four months as an Initiate and you mastered Mountain Collapse? Do you know how long I took back then?"

Lu Chuan smiled too.

"It's alright," he said deliberately. "I have to thank Senior Brother Jiang. If he hadn't put on the pressure, I might not have figured out that move."

"Pressure?" Zhou Ming Chuan snorted. "You call that pressure? That kid Jiang Hao was the one under real pressure."

"Didn't you see? After the match, when Master told him to stay, his face was so dark—I've never seen him make that expression before."

Lu Chuan chuckled but didn't reply.

He knew he had definitely offended that guy this time, but there was no helping it—backing down wasn't his style.

As he thought, another face flashed through his mind.

"By the way, what about Senior Brother Chen?"

"Him?" The smile at the corner of Zhou Ming Chuan's mouth faded a little. "As soon as Master said it was over, he was gone."

Lu Chuan frowned.

Chen Mo Bai.

The one who had stirred up all this trouble and shifted the blame was him.

Comparing himself with Jiang Hao in front of so many people, a single light remark nearly made Jiang Hao trample him down on the spot.

If that Mountain Collapse slash hadn't been tough enough, what would have been lying on the ground today wouldn't have been Jiang Hao's blade, but his own face.

This kind of man—insidious and cunning—now that the two of them had a grudge, he definitely wouldn't let it go easily.

Lu Chuan mentally noted this.

Zhou Ming Chuan saw his expression and dropped the topic of Chen Mo Bai, instead saying:

"Oh right, Junior Brother, now that your strength is sufficient, there's something you should start thinking about."

"What is it?"

"An appointment."

Lu Chuan paused. "An appointment?"

"That's right." Zhou Ming Chuan said, "Find an escort agency, or a wealthy household, and put your name down. Escort shipments or move goods—you don't have to go every day, just a few days a month on rotation."

He counted on his fingers for Lu Chuan: "With your current strength—just entering Blood Pass, blade technique at Major Success—at that level in an escort agency, you'd earn at least Ten Taels of Silver a month."

"Ten taels! You go up the mountain to hunt. If you're lucky, you might bag that much. If you're not? The Mountain Lord isn't something you find everywhere. How much can ordinary prey sell for?"

Lu Chuan said nothing. He was someone who often went up the mountain himself, so he naturally understood the truth of those words.

Ten Taels of Silver was indeed a considerable sum, and more importantly, it was stable.

"I've actually been thinking about it," Lu Chuan said. "I just don't know how to find a way in."

Zhou Ming Chuan grinned slyly:

"Junior Brother, your defeat of Jiang Hao today will spread within two days. By then, you won't need to look—people will come to you."

He paused, lowering his voice:

"Maybe even the Five Great Families will come asking."

Lu Chuan's eyes flickered. "The Five Great Families?"

"Oh, I forgot you don't usually keep up with this stuff," Zhou Ming Chuan said, then carefully explained to Lu Chuan, "Our Qinghe County has five Martial Way families, each with a legacy going back at least two hundred years. They control most of the martial resources in Qinghe County."

He held up three fingers:

"And each family has an expert at Third Qi and Blood or above guarding them."

Lu Chuan raised an eyebrow. "Third Qi and Blood or above?"

"That's right," Zhou Ming Chuan said gravely.

Lu Chuan thought for a moment, then asked again.

"Besides the Five Great Families, are there any other experts at Third Qi and Blood or above in Qinghe County?"

Zhou Ming Chuan thought it over, then shook his head.

"Not sure, but even if there are, they're not in Martial Arts Halls like ours."

He sighed, his tone carrying a hint of resigned acceptance:

"Martial Arts Halls like ours—Third Qi and Blood is the ceiling. Anything beyond that can't be reached through hard training alone. You need a legacy, you need resources, you need someone to pave the way for you."

"I see..." Lu Chuan listened, growing intensely curious about the Five Great Families.

If only the Five Great Families had people above Third Qi and Blood, they clearly must possess some secret technique or resource.

"But thinking about that now is too far off. The most important thing really is the appointment."

Glancing at his empty money pouch, Lu Chuan smiled bitterly to himself:

"Without money to buy Qi and Blood Pills, progress is painfully slow..."