Lost Ultimate Art, Make a Wish! (Please Read Daily)

Thirty li outside the city, on Wangjiang Mountain, a band of unknown routed soldiers had appeared, claiming the mountain as their own and calling themselves the Black Wind Stronghold.

In recent days, they had frequently plundered merchant ships and fishing boats on the river, spreading their fearsome reputation far and wide.

The authorities had originally chosen to ignore them, until two days ago, when an official vessel was also seized, finally alarming the County Magistrate.

The higher-ups were enraged, and the County Commandant personally led the County Soldiers into action—this bandit suppression campaign was no small affair.

"Brother Zhao, your elder brother is there too," Zhao Chunzi suddenly added.

Zhao An beside him had already spotted him.

Zhao Ke and some constables and yamen soldiers were mixed in among them.

He could even see that Zhao Ke's expression was grim, as if he was very reluctant to take part in such a bandit-suppression military operation.

No wonder Zhao Ke had vanished without a trace since that day—he had run into an even more troublesome matter.

In this campaign, whether his good elder brother could return alive was uncertain; he had no mind left to dwell on the humiliation he had suffered.

"Move out!" The County Commandant's voice was deep and resonant, full of vigor, like a great bell.

The next moment, the County Soldiers set out, leaving the city.

"Brother Zhao, do you think the County Soldiers can win? I heard the Black Wind Stronghold's leader, calling himself the Black Wind King, is terrifyingly powerful—many Martial Masters have already died at his hands," Zhao Chunzi said, scratching his head.

"If even the County Commandant loses, then our Lianjiang County might just be taken over by these mountain bandits," Zhao An replied casually, heading back toward the small courtyard.

When the sky falls, the tall ones hold it up; since the big shots in the inner city weren't worried, he didn't need to fret over these bandits either.

For now, continuing to consume Soul Slaves and fully exploit the Python Gang's windfall to boost his own strength as much as possible was what mattered most.

Even if chaos truly arrived, with strong power, he could fend for himself alone, advancing and retreating as he pleased.

Back in the inner room of the small courtyard.

On Zhao An's table, a pile of military texts he had collected was stacked together.

Some were loose pages, others rolled bamboo slips.

All these military texts came from poor scholars in the outer city.

They were destitute and had yet to pass the imperial exams; Zhao An lured them with silver, and most were willing to let him study their family's heirloom military texts.

Of course, Zhao An didn't actually read them himself.

After all, he still had a bunch of Soul Slaves at hand, which he could put to good use.

Even if a Soul Slave was illiterate in life, as long as Zhao An could understand and feed the characters he learned, along with all the military text content, into the Soul Pool's Soul Slaves, these Soul Slaves could comprehend the art of war, ponder its intricacies and essence, and draw inferences.

Even the dullest, through rote memorization year after year, could silently write down a complete military text to handle a mere county exam—that was more than enough.

"If I could kill some evildoers who were once chiliarchs, army commanders, or generals in life, they'd be the most suitable for this job..." Zhao An thought to himself.

After arranging for the Soul Slaves to study the military texts, Zhao An paid them no further mind; what concerned him more was his own martial arts training and improvement.

To ultimately transcend and become a sage, he had to focus on the present, accumulating results step by step.

The Fierce Tiger Blade Art was nearly perfected, with no room for further progress; the Silver Snake Hand's mastery was only a matter of time, requiring only the steady investment of Soul Slaves to grind away.

The mysterious technique from Golden Scale Mountain left him baffled and useless for now.

At the moment, he coveted a lost finger technique of unknown rank, glimpsed in a medical text, and wanted to obtain it.

So.

Zhao An opened his hands, and two Little White Fruits floated above them.

One was from before, the other just obtained from that young scholar.

Two Virtue Fruits meant he could make two wishes.

But even two Virtue Fruits couldn't exchange for a single copy of the Heavenly Profound Pulse-Severing Finger manual!

"If I could merge them into one..." Zhao An murmured softly, slowly bringing his hands together.

This was a sudden whim of his, but the Virtue Fruits could indeed accumulate.

The two Virtue Fruits intertwined and merged in an instant.

Zhao An obtained a Virtue Fruit that glowed with white light.

The white light rose like smoke about half a foot above the fruit's surface, hazy and ethereal, carrying a sense of transcendence.

It was both the energy of merit and the essence and origin of all things in the world, capable of manifesting anything!

"With two Virtue Fruits merged into one, is there a chance?"

Zhao An made another wish with this Virtue Fruit; the smoke within manifested, and the finger technique manual was clearly visible, but still couldn't be retrieved.

"Still not enough," Zhao An thought to himself, but he wasn't in a hurry.

Now that he saw the method, it was just a matter of gathering a few more ordinary Virtue Fruits!

If two weren't enough, then four, eight, ten!

For the next two days, he kept searching for more Virtue Fruits, wandering through the markets.

And sure enough, he managed to gather three more.

One came from a Midwife who had ensured the safe delivery of hundreds of mothers and children over her lifetime. The accumulated merit was purer than ordinary Virtue Fruits, faintly glowing.

Zhao An obtained this Virtue Fruit in a straightforward manner—he killed a gang of bullies who had been oppressing a family day after day, then followed the trail to wipe out an entire medium-sized street gang.

Along with this Virtue Fruit, he also gained seven red-name Soul Slaves and over ten taels of silver.

The remaining two Virtue Fruits came from an Old Boatman and an elderly man who could barely walk.

In these chaotic times, both men had wives and children at home desperately in need of money to survive. So Zhao An easily bought the merit from these two poor households for fifty taels of silver.

At that price, it might have been a bit steep.

But to Zhao An, it was nothing, since he still had over two hundred taels of silver looted from the Python Gang.

Besides, there was no market price for someone else's merit to begin with. The terms of exchange were always vague—only by truly satisfying the other party could the trade be made.

Without hesitation, Zhao An merged these three Virtue Fruits into one.

Thus, he obtained a gleaming white Virtue Fruit, several times larger than before.

The smoke and light rising from this Virtue Fruit stretched over a foot high!

"I wish for the Heavenly Profound Pulse-Severing Finger technique!" Zhao An made his wish once more.

These past days, every time he got a Virtue Fruit, he fused it and made a wish.

Each time, he failed.

But today, after a thousand calls, he finally received a response.

As the smoke within the Virtue Fruit swirled, the secret manual materialized and fell into his hands!

The wish succeeded!

"Heavenly Profound Pulse-Severing Finger..."

Zhao An gently stroked the cover of the manual.

The manual was brand new, its characters neat and orderly, as if printed from a block.

"It wasn't easy..." Zhao An sighed inwardly.

Five ordinary Virtue Fruits merged into one, exchanged for this small manual.

He had brought a lost martial art back to the world!

But whether he could truly master it remained to be seen...

He opened the pages, reading word by word, sentence by sentence.

His efforts to study writing and characters over these days had finally paid off. Without needing anyone else's guidance, he could now read through the entire manual.

The manual was tens of thousands of characters long. Some passages were concise and obscure, requiring careful pondering, while others were lengthy, detailed annotations, straightforward and clear.

It also included many human anatomy diagrams, explaining acupoints, meridians, and the various ways a martial artist circulates qi through their cycles.

It was called a finger technique, but it read like half a medical book.

Fortunately, Zhao An had not only practiced writing but also consulted the Female Physician at the clinic for medical knowledge. So understanding the manual's content was built on some foundation.

After reading through it all, Zhao An's eyes gleamed with light. He had truly absorbed it.

In martial arts, he was no longer a complete novice. As he studied it repeatedly, every brilliant insight struck him with a sense of sudden enlightenment.

"A wondrous book! A wondrous author!" Zhao An exclaimed in admiration.