Never Bully a Poor Youth

Qin Haoxuan wanted to step forward and interrupt, but the Spirit Technique clearly anticipated that the longer casting time would prevent anyone from getting close. So, at the moment the technique was unleashed, a protective shell-like force had already formed around Yuan Shanxiang's body.

"Thousand Cuts!" An old hand, recognizing the daggers floating in front of Yuan Shanxiang, exclaimed. Thousand Cuts was one of the more powerful Spirit Techniques available to Menial Disciples, requiring a high degree of skill from the caster. The technique depended on precise control of spiritual power, requiring minute control over every wisp of power to execute perfectly.

At its highest level, this Spirit Technique could manifest a thousand daggers, with stronger practitioners wielding daggers of greater destructive power! With Yuan Shanxiang's current strength, he could only manifest fifty daggers, but that was more than enough to deal with Qin Haoxuan!

In the flickering, dim firelight, the daggers condensed from spiritual power gleamed coldly. Even the old hands shivered, all believing Qin Haoxuan was doomed.

An unprecedented sense of crisis surged through Qin Haoxuan's heart, his pulse racing. The fifty daggers hovering motionless in the air were like fifty death warrants; one wrong move and he'd be riddled with them.

Yuan Shanxiang smirked playfully, raising his right hand. A single dagger shot out tentatively towards Qin Haoxuan.

The dagger moved incredibly fast, but under Qin Haoxuan's intense gaze, he could vaguely discern its trajectory. Just as it was about to pierce his chest, he suddenly leaned left, narrowly dodging the attack.

Yuan Shanxiang didn't give Qin Haoxuan a moment's rest. After he dodged the first dagger, three more, gleaming coldly, shot towards him from the left, center, and right. The left and right daggers, in particular, took a wide arc, aiming for Qin Haoxuan's ribs, while the middle one continued its direct assault on his chest.

"Rare control over the technique! To make spiritual daggers curve mid-flight at such speeds!"

Amidst the old hands' exclamations, Yuan Shanxiang's smile widened. It seemed there were indeed connoisseurs here. Revealing this trump card for the first time today had immediately earned him much admiration, making his three years of secluded practice worthwhile.

The three cold glints shot from different directions. Qin Haoxuan could barely discern their paths and had no better way to dodge, so he immediately dropped to the ground and performed a "lazy donkey roll." Though he got covered in dust, he narrowly evaded them again.

With a swish, the three daggers embedded themselves an inch deep into the rock wall, which was harder than iron.

"Dare you dodge again!" Yuan Shanxiang, frustrated by his two failed attempts, flicked his arms. The more than forty daggers hovering before him began to spin rapidly, emitting a buzzing sound. Centered on Qin Haoxuan, they shot out from every angle, leaving the onlookers stunned.

Simultaneously controlling forty-six daggers to attack an opponent along forty-six different trajectories – some direct, some curving, some diving from above – was akin to setting a net from which escape was impossible.

This level of control was monstrous. The onlookers looked at Yuan Shanxiang with newfound awe. For a burly, rough man to cultivate such delicate, hair-splitting control was truly difficult. For an average person to control twenty daggers simultaneously would already be remarkable.

Yuan Shanxiang's display not only stunned the old hands but even the two enforcement disciples peeking from behind the iron gate felt inferior. Both were at the Immortal Seedling Realm Fifth Leaf, and they reckoned they could control at most thirty daggers simultaneously. That was for straightforward, linear attacks without any fancy maneuvers. To do what Yuan Shanxiang did, with each dagger thrown from a different angle in a different arc, would double the difficulty and halve the controllable number to fifteen.

Amidst the cold glint of the daggers, Qin Haoxuan's focus was sharper than ever. His heart held but one belief: to evade this net-like barrage of daggers and survive. If not for himself, then for his parents! As long as he lived, even as the lowest Menial Disciple, his parents could still receive their annual offering of two hundred taels of silver and wouldn't have to worry about their livelihood!

Live! Live! I must live!

Fueled by an intense will to survive, Qin Haoxuan's mind cleared of all distractions. The Mud Palace Pill in his mind suddenly pulsed. The golden light that had appeared during his fight with Yuan Shanhu exploded again, invigorating him as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes. The unprecedented clarity returned, allowing him to see even a speck of dust on the distant ground.

To his eyes, the forty-six daggers hurtling towards him slowed to a crawl. He could clearly see their curving trajectories in the air. However, Qin Haoxuan knew that even if he could see them coming, he might not be able to dodge them; his body was still too weak.

So, his gaze returned to Yuan Shanxiang.

As Qin Haoxuan's focus intensified, a hidden glint flashed in his eyes. He sensed a tiny, seedling-like golden light in Yuan Shanxiang's mind—a golden light much thicker than Yuan Shanhu's, but still incomparable to his own vast, river-like golden light.

Concentrating intently on the golden light in his mind, after countless attempts, Qin Haoxuan suddenly split off a portion of it and sent it flying. It instantly pierced Yuan Shanxiang's mind, obliterating the wisp of golden light within.

In that instant, Yuan Shanxiang felt as if his brain were about to split. Heaven and earth seemed to stop, his thoughts, his consciousness, went blank. He stood there, dazed and listless.

At this critical juncture, the forty-six daggers, poised to turn Qin Haoxuan into a sieve, lost their control, halted in mid-air, and then fell straight down. Before they even hit the ground, they dissolved into ownerless spiritual power and vanished.

If he had been even a fraction of a second slower, Qin Haoxuan would truly have been riddled with holes.

In the eyes of others, influenced by the stunned Qin Haoxuan, Yuan Shanxiang suddenly froze. Then... then they couldn't understand what was happening.

The onlookers racked their brains, unable to fathom why Yuan Shanxiang had suddenly stopped.

Was he out of energy? Looking at Yuan Shanxiang's effortless and energetic demeanor, how could that be!

Was he afraid of being expelled from the sect for killing someone? Nonsense. Once the arrows were loosed, forcibly recalling them would inevitably lead to a backlash of spiritual power, resulting in severed meridians at best, or reversed qi and blood leading to death at worst.

These explanations seemed plausible yet none made sense.

While the two enforcement disciples behind the iron gate and the old hands were struggling to figure it out, a shocking scene unfolded.

Qin Haoxuan, who had nearly been shot to death, suddenly sprang up like an arrow loosed from a bow and charged at Yuan Shanxiang, landing a fierce punch on his nose.

The dazed Yuan Shanxiang's nose began to bleed profusely, and he fell to the ground with a thud, his massive body kicking up dust.

The situation reversed instantly. Qin Haoxuan didn't hesitate, pouncing on Yuan Shanxiang and raining blows down on him.

Without consciousness and unable to channel spiritual power for defense, Yuan Shanxiang was at best slightly stronger than an ordinary person. Under Qin Haoxuan's barrage, he was covered in bruises, his face swollen even worse than Old Ye's had been.

The enforcement disciples, having witnessed Qin Haoxuan's two fights, exchanged bewildered glances. If they hadn't seen it with their own eyes, they would have dismissed it as a joke.

A cultivator, a cultivator at the Immortal Seedling Realm Fifth Leaf, being beaten so brutally by Qin Haoxuan, who was still a mortal, and not because he was unable to resist, but because he had inexplicably frozen, losing all consciousness, like a target waiting to be struck.

After landing over a dozen punches on Yuan Shanxiang, Qin Haoxuan considered Yuan Shanxiang's ability to injure him, even at the Immortal Seedling Realm Fifth Leaf. He knew that once Yuan Shanxiang recovered, he would still pose a significant threat!

Might as well go all the way. Qin Haoxuan's blows grew heavier, focusing particularly on Yuan Shanxiang's wrists and ankles.

Then came the crackling sound of bones breaking. Yuan Shanxiang's leg bones were shattered!

You show no mercy, I show no righteousness! This was Qin Haoxuan's guiding principle in life. Showing mercy to an enemy was cruelty to oneself, especially to an enemy who sought to kill him!

Qin Haoxuan was thoroughly enjoying himself. After breaking Yuan Shanxiang's legs, he shattered his left wrist. Just as he was about to disable his right hand, he suddenly felt Yuan Shanxiang's consciousness fighting back. Spiritual power began to flow through his meridians, protecting his body. Qin Haoxuan's punches now felt like hitting stone slabs, his fists throbbing from the impact.

This was a sign of him waking up!

In the notes Xu Yu had sent him in recent days, there were some explanations about Spiritual Sense. Qin Haoxuan grew more certain that his previous attack had been a Spiritual Sense attack. However, due to his own weakness, being fundamentally a mortal just beginning his cultivation journey, he didn't understand the knack of Spiritual Sense attacks, so their power was naturally limited. Otherwise, how could Yuan Shanxiang have woken up so quickly? If he had understood some techniques for Spiritual Sense attacks, he could have directly erased Yuan Shanxiang's soul, leaving him a vegetable if not dead.

Just as Qin Haoxuan leaped away, Yuan Shanxiang awoke from his stupor. It had taken Yuan Shanhu nearly a hundred breaths to regain consciousness, but Yuan Shanxiang had recovered his senses in just twenty. It seemed that the stronger an enemy's soul, the faster they recovered. If he encountered an even stronger opponent, his current Spiritual Sense attack, lacking any finesse, would probably only cause a moment of daze or merely serve as a distraction.

Yuan Shanxiang, now awake, felt pain all over his body. He saw his bruises and his face, swollen like a pig's head. His left hand and both legs throbbed with intense pain, completely unresponsive! He had been beaten by this mortal, his limbs broken!

What had happened? His head had inexplicably ached violently, then he felt like he had fallen into an abyss, losing all consciousness and sensation. When he finally regained awareness, he found himself in this state.

As a cultivator at the Immortal Seedling Realm Fifth Leaf, he was considered upper-middle class among the vast number of Menial Disciples in the entire Taichu Sect. To be broken-limbed by a mere mortal who had just joined the sect, and to be beaten in front of so many people, was a complete loss of face. If this got out, he would become a laughingstock and would never be able to establish himself in the sect again!

ps: Where are the recommendation votes... Let me see you