When the Blade is Forged and the Edge Breaks Through

The next day, just as the sky began to brighten.

Qin Meng was already moving nimbly around the courtyard, a ring-pommel saber whistling in his hands.

Every movement of the eight blade breaking techniques engaged his entire body's muscles, causing his blood and qi to surge. The low, continuous humming sound produced as the blade sliced through the air was exceptionally clear in the silent morning courtyard.

When Shen Qiu pushed open the door, she saw the man's figure darting about the yard. His movements were as fast as a gale, and the blade light wove into an impenetrable net.

She did not understand the martial path, yet she could feel the fierce aura rising with the momentum of his blade.

It felt as if she were not watching a man practicing with a blade, but rather a battle-hardened soldier about to charge into the fray.

Qin Meng was completely immersed in the blade techniques.

The memories of this body were awakening, and his muscle memory was becoming faster and faster.

The killing techniques honed in the mountains of corpses and seas of blood from his past life were gradually merging with this physical shell.

Every strike of the blade became more ruthless; every step he took became more steady.

"Slash!"

As the final strike descended, the blade tip came to an abrupt halt three inches above the ground. The sharp gust of wind kicked up dust, carving a shallow trench into the earth.

He sheathed the blade and stood still, his chest heaving as sweat rolled down his temples. On the panel, the proficiency of the eight blade breaking techniques had reached [Proficient (465/500)].

After eating breakfast, Qin Meng continued to practice.

The sun grew increasingly intense, soaking his coarse cloth shirt with sweat.

He was completely oblivious to it. When hungry, he would drink a bowl of snake meat soup kept warm on the stove. The scalding broth entered his belly, transforming into a heat flow that spread to his limbs and bones, rapidly restoring his stamina.

The blade light grew faster and faster.

At first, one could still see the changes in his moves, but later, all that could be seen was a ball of silver light rolling through the courtyard, the sound of the wind being broken merging into a continuous roar.

Shen Qiu was in the room mending clothes. She would occasionally look out the window, her eyes filled with both worry and pride.

The moment the [eight blade breaking techniques-Proficient (500/500)] proficiency reached its limit—

Qin Meng's entire body shuddered violently. Before his eyes, several lines of small text appeared:

[eight blade breaking techniques-Minor Mastery (1/1000)]

[Special Effect: physique enhancement (Large)]

physique enhancement: Significantly enhances physical fitness.

A massive surge of heat erupted from his dantian, rushing through his sinews and bones like a dam bursting. The muscles in his legs and arms burned and swelled, and his bones emitted faint popping sounds.

Abundant power roared within his body, and the speed of his flowing blood accelerated abruptly.

"Hoo—"

Qin Meng exhaled a long breath of stale air, the stream of which shot out three feet like an arrow.

He clenched his fist, his knuckles popping. Feeling the surge of power within his body after his physical attributes had been enhanced, he realized his strength had nearly doubled, while his speed and endurance had skyrocketed. With a single swing of his arm, he likely possessed two thousand jin of raw force.

This already surpassed a warrior of the boiling blood realm.

If he were to face a warrior of the blood changing realm, even if he couldn't defeat them, retreating would be no difficult task.

The motley crew under Qin Lai were at most in the blood changing stage.

Qin Meng felt the improvement in his strength and his sharpened senses. Thinking of the persistent tail following him, a cold light flickered in his eyes.

At noon, after eating and packing dry rations, he bid his wife farewell.

This time, when he headed up the mountain again, he only brought an oil-paper bag and no wicker basket.

West of the fort, inside an inconspicuous adobe house.

Five men sat around a broken wooden table, upon which sat inferior wine and half a roasted chicken. The room was permeated with the stench of sweat and malice.

"Damn it, what time is it?" The leader was a man as thin as a bamboo pole with deep-set eye sockets, nicknamed Skinny Monkey, Song Zhong.

He gulped down some wine and slammed the bowl onto the table. "Did that sick ghost Qin Meng die in his house today or what?"

A burly man with a face full of flab spat, "Brother Monkey, if you ask me, let's just charge into his house and finish him off. He's just a weakling; why do we have to follow him up the mountain?"

"You don't know a damn thing!" Song Zhong glared. "If we make a move inside the fort and happen to run into the militia, are you going to take the fall? Brother Lai said it must be an 'accidental death' on the mountain."

A man with triangular eyes nearby let out a lewd laugh. "Come to think of it, Qin Meng's woman is truly something. I was wandering near his house a couple of days ago and happened to see her washing clothes in the yard. That waist, that ass..."

The group burst into laughter, their eyes filled with lewd and vicious glints.

"Once we finish off Qin Meng, won't that little widow be ours to do with as we please?"

Song Zhong smiled sinisterly. "Brother Lai said that after it's done, the house goes to him, and as for the woman... we brothers can enjoy her for a few days first."

As they spoke, hurried footsteps came from outside the door.

A scrawny youth rushed in. "Brother Monkey, he's here! That kid has left the house, carrying his bow and blade, heading toward Luming Mountain!"

Song Zhong stood up abruptly, his eyes revealing a fierce light. "Let's go, send this short-lived ghost on his way!"

Inside Luming Fort, farmers who had risen early to till the fields and women heading to the market hurried to and fro.

As Qin Meng walked by carrying his bow and blade, several familiar neighbors cast surprised glances at him—the sick man who had been bedridden just a few days ago now walked with steady, heavy steps, his eyes gleaming with a sharp light.

As he turned the street corner, that familiar sensation of being watched surfaced once again.

Qin Meng's expression remained unchanged, but he sneered inwardly. With his blade technique refined and his body strengthened today, his perception was several times sharper than yesterday. He could even vaguely determine that the gazes from the shadows were coming from five directions, tracking him in a semi-encirclement.

Five people... Qin Lai is certainly willing to pay the price.

He deliberately slowed his pace, circled halfway around the fortress, and chatted with a few people. The trackers were clearly losing patience, their prying gazes becoming increasingly restless.

Dilly-dallying, Qin Meng finally walked out of the fortress gate at a leisurely pace and headed toward Luming Mountain.

However, when he reached the fork at the foot of the mountain, he changed direction and stepped onto a more rugged path to the west.

"Huh? This kid isn't going to Luming Mountain; why is he heading into Dawang Mountain?" A man with triangular eyes whispered from behind a tree in the distance.

Song Zhong narrowed his eyes, staring at Qin Meng's receding back, and sneered, "Even better if he's seeking death. In a place like Dawang Mountain, you might not even find a corpse if you die there. Follow closely. Once we're deep in the mountains, we strike!"

The five men followed silently, like a pack of wolves eyeing a lone prey.

Dawang Mountain was steep, with dense forests and thick grass. It connected to Luming Mountain and stretched thousands of miles to the north. It was said that bandits occupied the area, and ordinary hunters dared not approach.

When Qin Meng stepped into the territory of Dawang Mountain, it was past noon.

This place was completely different from Luming Mountain. The trees were ancient giants that required several people to embrace, their crowns blocking out the sun and leaving the forest dim. Vines coiled around the trunks like giant pythons, and the ground was covered in thick, rotting leaves that made no sound when stepped upon.

He deliberately feigned clumsiness in hunting, drawing his bow several times to shoot at pheasants and hares in the grass, but his arrows "happily" missed by a few inches each time.

A hundred paces behind, the trackers observed from behind jagged rocks.

"This is his archery? He must have had dumb luck the last two days," the burly man with fleshy cheeks scoffed.

"Enough talk, keep following," Song Zhong lowered his voice. "Three more miles in, to that cliff section called Ghost-fear Cliff, and we strike."

Qin Meng appeared completely oblivious, but in reality, his five senses were fully engaged.

The crawling of insects thirty paces away, the falling of leaves fifty paces away, and the suppressed breathing of those five men over a hundred paces away—it was all within his hearing.

The physique brought about by his breakthrough in blade technique provided an all-around enhancement. At this moment, his arms contained thousands of catties of force, enough to tear tigers and leopards apart. His speed, stamina, endurance, and reflexes were far beyond what they had been before.

Almost there...

He calculated silently in his heart, his pace suddenly quickening as he chose the most treacherous and difficult paths.

The trackers behind him were forced to speed up, inevitably making noise as they wove through the dense forest.

Qin Meng heard them clearly, a cruel arc forming at the corner of his mouth.

After another two quarters of an hour, they were in the primeval wilderness. Ancient trees towered into the sky, requiring one to look up to see their tops. The ground was a tangle of roots and jagged rocks, with several bottomless crevices between the stones.

A fine graveyard, indeed. Qin Meng surveyed his surroundings, then quietly slipped into a patch of ferns to activate his talent for concealment, intending to take care of the tails first—

He exerted his environmental integration talent to its full extent.

The blood within Qin Meng circulated at a peculiar frequency; his heartbeat gradually slowed, his breathing dropped until it was barely audible, and his skin slowly turned green, matching the surroundings as if he were merging into the mountain forest.

Song Zhong led his men in pursuit of Qin Meng, but just after turning past the valley, the figure that had been hunting prey ahead vanished into thin air like a ghost.

"Where is he?" Skinny Monkey Song Zhong stopped in his tracks, looking around vigilantly.

Apart from the rustling of the wind through the treetops and the occasional bird call, the forest was eerily silent.

Dense ancient trees, tangled vines, waist-high ferns, and jagged rocks formed complex terrain that severely obstructed their line of sight.

"Split up and search!"

Song Zhong's expression was grim, and a sense of unease rose in his heart, but thinking of how Qin Meng was nothing more than a sickly ghost who had only just been able to get out of bed, he steadied himself.

"That brat must be hiding nearby. Don't go too far, and shout if you find him!"