Hard Bone Skill! (Seeking daily reads)

Zhao An saw clearly that ever since entering the city, the County Commandant's face had been ashen, veins bulging on his forehead, his expression cold to the extreme.

"Get out of the way!" the County Commandant barked at the people blocking the street, ignoring their wails and cries, almost wanting to whip them aside with the lash in his hand.

He did not linger in the Outer City for a moment, but hurried straight into the Inner City.

This time, with the County Magistrate dead and the county seat lost, he, as County Commandant, bore an inescapable share of the blame.

If the prefectural city pursued the matter, it might not only strip him of his official post but also land him in prison—how could this not drive him to fury?

After the cavalry led by the County Commandant entered the city, a long time passed before the county soldier force that had been suppressing the mountain bandits finally returned and retook control of the city gates.

Fortunately, after the County Magistrate's death, his key subordinate, the County Vice-Magistrate, had survived the Rebel Army's slaughter and temporarily assumed the County Magistrate's duties, allowing the magistrate's office to continue functioning.

In the following days, the County Vice-Magistrate rushed about busily, actively arranging reconstruction work.

This wave of looting had dealt a heavy blow to the entire city of Lianjiang, but life had to go on.

Meng Wanyi returned to her medical clinic on the second day.

At that time, the city was full of wounded, and though her clinic hadn't been burned down, its threshold was nearly worn out by the flood of patients.

She didn't rest but threw herself into treating them.

As for Zhao An's injuries, they were actually not serious—just some superficial flesh wounds.

Even without treatment, he could rely on his own strong physique to heal.

Time quietly passed through April into early May, and the weather grew increasingly scorching.

Fortunately, heaven had mercy, and there was still no sign of drought.

The Great Wu Dynasty was now in a state of turmoil, with wars breaking out frequently. If a drought swept through, turning a thousand miles barren, who knew how many would die.

In the small courtyard.

Zhao An was bare-chested, his hands forming snakes, his body moving with his intent as he continuously struck out with his palms.

As his Internal Breath circulated, the palm force shot out like a snake's tongue flickering, producing a series of sharp sounds in the air. His moves were sometimes fierce and powerful, sometimes soft and unpredictable, leaving Li Gou'er and Zhao Chunzi dazzled.

Even with their eyes wide open, they couldn't catch Zhao An's attack trajectory, only feeling that it was impressive beyond understanding.

And the most crucial thing was that his palm techniques carried an unusual sense of seamless perfection!

After a long while, Zhao An finally stopped and withdrew his palms, feeling thoroughly invigorated.

"Using three batches of Soul Slaves in succession, eight in total, with nearly thirty years of accumulated bitter cultivation, just to advance this Silver Snake Hand from the second realm to the third realm's perfection—truly not easy..."

But the result was good; he now had a second set of martial arts palm techniques at grand completion.

With both blade and palm skills advancing together, his strength had greatly improved compared to that night of chaos.

Besides that, his Internal Breath had also increased considerably.

The circulation in his body had reached four hundred strands, nearly catching up to the strength levels of those two formidable enemies from before.

And this was roughly the current limit of his Internal Breath's growth rate.

It wasn't that he could endlessly pile on Soul Slaves to gain a massive reserve of Internal Breath all at once; he also had to consider the carrying capacity of his current physical body.

It was like eating—one needed to divide meals into three portions a day, leaving time for the body to digest and absorb. You couldn't eat an entire month's worth of food in one sitting.

This was the experience Zhao An had summed up through his recent explorations.

In fact, this method of maximizing Internal Breath growth still involved waste.

When absorbing the cultivation results of multiple Soul Slaves at once, part of the Internal Breath couldn't be absorbed in time and was wasted.

It was better to use a single Soul Slave, absorbing its cultivation results every few days, to maximize gains—but that required enough patience and a longer time investment.

With a sufficient number of Soul Slaves, Zhao An allowed himself some waste in order to become stronger in a short time.

"Brother Zhao, your palm technique is really amazing—I've never seen anything so powerful!" Li Gou'er flattered from the side.

Though it was flattery, it came from his heart.

Zhao An's perfected Silver Snake Hand was hard to match in the Outer City.

With Li Gou'er's limited experience, he truly believed his big brother was the best.

"Enough, cut the useless crap. How's the thing I asked you to look into?" Zhao An asked.

"Brother Zhao, I've pretty much figured it out. I was just about to report to you," Li Gou'er said with a grin.

"Speak." Zhao An sat on a stone stool, drank two large bowls of tea, then wiped himself down.

"The most famous in the Outer City are three martial academies: Master Zheng's Martial Academy in the east, the Tang Family Martial Academy in the north, and the Huang Family Martial Academy in the south."

"These three have the most students, and the three masters are all extremely strong. It's said that even many noble families from the Inner City have sent people to visit these three masters, trying to recruit them."

"But none of the three masters are willing to work for those aristocratic clans..."

"Get to the point." Zhao An interrupted, seeing Li Gou'er straying further off topic.

Li Gou'er coughed lightly and pulled himself back.

Master Zheng of Master Zheng's Martial Academy uses a set of Mountain-Splitting Fist, an external, fierce, and rigid fist technique, specializing in using brute force to overcome skill, heavy and domineering.

When trained to a deep level, the fist can gather a crushing momentum—just one punch to the head, and even if the opponent is fully armed with a sturdy helmet, they won't escape their brains turning into paste!

The Huang Family Martial Academy's Gale Palm moves like a fierce wind, striking with lightning speed, using speed to overcome the enemy, combining both ferocity and power.

"Lastly, there's the Tang Family Martial Academy's Hard Bone Technique. Brother Zhao, I hear this is an eighth-grade martial art cultivation method!" Li Gou'er said with great seriousness.

He deliberately saved the Tang Family Martial Academy for last, because the martial art taught there was of a higher grade—not ninth-grade, but eighth-grade!

Eighth-grade martial arts were extremely rare in the Outer City area.

"Oh!" Zhao An perked up, indeed most interested in the Tang Family Martial Academy mentioned last.

The title of eighth-grade martial art sounded formidable just by hearing it!

But then, he sensed something off.

"If this person practices an eighth-grade martial art, unique among the three major academies, why does he still end up scraping by in the Outer City, and why are they grouped together with the other two academies as the three major ones?"

"As expected of Brother Zhao, you spotted the problem right away." Li Gou'er chuckled.

"I spent some silver and asked a few disciples from the academy. I heard this eighth-grade Hard Bone Technique is extremely difficult to train—not only time-consuming but also costly.

Unless one has an exceptional natural constitution, throwing in eighty or a hundred taels of silver is like tossing money into water. After ten years of training, you'd only grasp the surface skills—not worth it at all.

That's why this academy has the fewest disciples, and countless drop out halfway. It's all held together by Master Tang alone."

Zhao An listened, then suddenly stood up.

"Brother Zhao, what are you doing?" Li Gou'er was startled.

"Lead the way. I'm going to check out those academies."

He had been troubled that both of his ninth-grade martial arts were already perfected, with nothing new to train.

So he had long set his sights on the Outer City's martial academies, specifically sending Li Gou'er to scout them out over the past few days.

He wanted to see just how hard the Hard Bone Technique really was to train, how the Gale Palm compared to his Silver Snake Hand, and whether the Mountain Crushing Fist was even more domineering and ferocious than his Fierce Tiger Blade.