Zhou Heng watched Shi Qingfeng with a faint, mocking smile, wondering whether he should beat the guy up first.
After all, he had the Frost Cold Sword. Getting into the Nine Spirits Sect wouldn't be difficult!
He walked over to Shi Qingfeng. Their eyes met, and sparks seemed to fly between them.
Bang!
Just then, Zhou Heng suddenly threw a punch. It was so fast that it slammed into Shi Qingfeng's lower abdomen before anyone could react.
At that moment, no words could describe the expression on Shi Qingfeng's face!
*That brat actually dared to attack me? Attack! Attack! Attack! You son of eighteen generations of ancestors!
"Ugh—" His mouth opened involuntarily as his body traced an arc through the air, then slammed heavily onto the ground with a thud, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Everyone was dumbfounded!
The first instruction they'd received after being brought to the inn was that fighting in the city was forbidden. Anyone who broke the rule would not only be disqualified from the examination, but would also receive a severe punishment!
That was why they'd only dared to trade verbal blows.
Yet Zhou Heng was brazen enough to strike without a word, hitting Shi Qingfeng so hard that his stomach acid churned!
He was so damn arrogant! So damn domineering!
"Isn't he afraid of being punished by the sect?"
"I don't think he's brave. He's just an idiot!"
"The one having the worst luck is Shi Qingfeng. He never imagined anyone would dare to fight in the city, so he was completely caught off guard! Even though he was ambushed, he's still lost all face!"
Once their shock had passed, the crowd began talking again.
But upstairs, a few people had noticed something more.
"Shi Qingfeng was certainly caught off guard, but as a martial artist, how could he have no instinctive sense of defense?" Chang Kang's lips tightened, his expression grave.
"That kid struck so fast that Shi Qingfeng couldn't react at all!" Zhang Zijun tapped his fingers against the windowsill, his eyes alight with a fierce desire to fight.
"Miss, what's so interesting about this? You're a Half-Step Blood Refining Realm expert. If you told them that, you'd scare them all to death!" At a window on the third floor to the west, a maid spoke with a look of disdain.
Beside her stood a stunning young beauty, as charming as a hundred flowers in bloom. She was Shen Xinqi, one of the Four Great Geniuses—and the only woman among them.
"This young man is no ordinary person." Shen Xinqi kept her beautiful eyes fixed on Zhou Heng.
"He doesn't look like he has three heads and six arms, Miss. What makes him so special?" The maid still wasn't convinced.
"Just a feeling," Shen Xinqi said calmly, though a confident smile curled her lips.
All these reactions had taken place in a very short time. Shi Qingfeng had landed hard, but with the sturdy physique of a Ninth Layer of Body Refining martial artist, he couldn't have been seriously hurt. He scrambled to his feet at once, wiped the saliva from the corner of his mouth, and glowered with terrifying fury.
He, the Shi Family's supreme genius, had been knocked flat on the ground!
That bastard had some nerve!
Only tearing him limb from limb could soothe this humiliation!
But he couldn't strike back. Someone from the Nine Spirits Sect would naturally step in to suppress Zhou Heng. If Shi Qingfeng attacked, he might be able to claim self-defense, but at best he'd receive a lighter punishment. He'd still be punished!
Endure!
That brat had dared to violate the Nine Spirits Sect's rules in front of everyone. He was sure to be disqualified from the examination. Once he was driven out of the city, Shi Qingfeng would be free to attack him!
A figure strode forward with his hands behind his back. His vigorous blood qi seemed almost tangible, blazing like a furnace. The young men around him instinctively stepped aside as he passed, as if getting too close would reduce them to ashes.
Blood Refining Realm!
The entire crowd fell silent.
The man was in his forties. He walked up to Zhou Heng and Shi Qingfeng, furrowed his thick brows, and said, "What do you take this place for? Some backwater town you're used to? Both of you, get back to your rooms!"
What?!
That was it?
What happened to the Nine Spirits Sect's rules? Hadn't they said that anyone who fought in the city would be disqualified and severely punished? Why was Zhou Heng getting off scot-free? And from the man's tone, he seemed to be blaming Shi Qingfeng as well.
Wasn't that unfair to Shi Qingfeng? He was the one who'd taken a heavy punch, and he'd even held back instead of retaliating. How could they treat both of them the same?
The young men were baffled by the verdict. Even the three geniuses upstairs—Chang Kang, Shen Xinqi, and the others—felt so dizzy they might tumble out of the windows.
Favoritism! This was blatant favoritism!
"I refuse to accept this!" Shi Qingfeng roared. Back in the Shi Family, he'd been a supreme genius, the center of everyone's attention. He was used to standing above the rest. He'd always assumed that his talent would earn him respect wherever he went. Yet not only had nobody praised him—he'd suffered a grave injustice!
"What gives you the right to refuse?" The middle-aged man stared coldly at Shi Qingfeng, then suddenly punched him.
"Ugh—" Shi Qingfeng's whole body curled up as the punch landed in his lower abdomen again. He was sent flying once more, tracing an arc through the air before crashing heavily onto the ground.
He got beaten up again?
Hiss!
That guy was just too unlucky!
Who was Zhou Heng, anyway? Why was he being treated so differently?
"Everyone, back to your rooms! What are you all doing crowded in here?" the middle-aged man said coldly. "Anyone else who causes trouble will be thrown out of Fengyu City immediately!"
With one casual sentence, he brushed aside Zhou Heng's earlier actions.
Shi Qingfeng struggled to his feet. Zhou Heng was only at the Seventh Layer of Body Refining, so he hadn't hurt him much. But that middle-aged man was a genuine Twelfth Layer of Body Refining expert. If he'd put all his strength into that punch, he could have smashed right through Shi Qingfeng's abdomen!
He'd held back, but Shi Qingfeng was still seeing stars and retching off to the side, as if he were about to throw up everything in his stomach.
Feeling the crowd's gazes sweep over him—some sympathetic, some gleeful, others scornful—Shi Qingfeng clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He swore he would kill Zhou Heng!
And he'd do it in the most cruel way possible!
Zhou Heng smiled faintly, then stepped into the inn and returned to his room.
The reason he's treating me differently must be that Feng Tengyuan put in a word with the inn's manager. I just didn't expect the favoritism to go this far.
Never mind that. First, he'd refine the two Gathering Essence Pills and see how they worked.
Zhou Heng sat cross-legged, took out a Gathering Essence Pill, peeled away the wax paper, and tossed it into his mouth. The pill melted as soon as it touched his tongue, quickly reaching his stomach before spreading through his body in countless streams of heat.
These streams of heat immediately turned into wisps of free-floating energy, which he could directly draw in and refine.
But... Zhou Heng frowned to himself. This free-floating energy was extremely impure. He had to remove the impurities before refining it into True Essence Power. Compared to the free-floating energy released by the Black Broken Sword, it wasn't even on the same level!
It took Zhou Heng an hour to refine all the energy in the Gathering Essence Pill. By his rough estimate, it was equivalent to three days of sitting in meditation and cultivating.
It couldn't compare to the Black Broken Sword, but combined with his own hard work, it amounted to four days of cultivation for an ordinary person. If he could keep taking Gathering Essence Pills, his cultivation speed would still be astonishing!
However, Gathering Essence Pills contained too many impurities. After eating one, he had to expel them from his body first. Otherwise, the buildup would pose a serious danger to a martial artist.
The body would expel impurities on its own, but the process took about a day. So even if someone had a huge supply of Gathering Essence Pills, they could only take one a day at most.
Still, the energy in the Black Broken Sword would eventually run out. The Gathering Essence Pills were excellent for Zhou Heng, but unfortunately, they were too expensive. He was short on silver!
Zhou Heng's room suddenly became lively. Young men arrived in droves to pay him a visit. They wanted to find out what connection he had to the Nine Spirits Sect, and they also hoped to get on good terms with him.
At first, Zhou Heng managed to handle them, but before long he couldn't take it anymore. He simply left the inn and went sightseeing in the ancient city. After all, it was a big city, full of novelties that couldn't be found in Raw Stone Town.
The auction house, for example.
The auction house sold everything: demon beasts, pills, cultivation techniques, weapons—anything you could think of, they had it! Of course, the prices were beyond what ordinary people could afford. Zhou Heng weighed the less than ten taels of silver in his pocket, then retreated in defeat.
The next day, he ate the second Gathering Essence Pill. The boost from its meager six days of cultivation was less than one-tenth of the energy released by the Black Broken Sword in a single burst. It was a mere drop in the ocean!
Of course, if he could take one every day, the effect would be impossible to ignore!
But a single Gathering Essence Pill cost two hundred taels of silver. One a day would cost more than seventy thousand taels a year—more than the Zhou Family's annual income!
It was true: education was for the poor, martial arts for the rich. The Zhou Family could still be considered a wealthy household in Raw Stone Town, but in Fengyu City, they were hardly better off than beggars.
"Looks like the remaining seven days won't be enough to advance my cultivation to the Eighth Layer of Body Refining!" Zhou Heng sighed. He paused, then suddenly remembered that he still had no idea what the Nine Spirits Sect's examination actually involved.
He supposed it would test their strength. After all, the sect was selecting talented martial artists, not the top scholar.
He didn't dwell on the matter and focused on studying the Heaven-Soaring Nine Styles instead. Unfortunately, mastering the styles required a breakthrough in understanding. He remained stuck outside the Fourth Style, just one step short. It frustrated him so much he felt like tearing the house down.
Shi Qingfeng had rarely shown up at the inn over the past few days. A few people who'd come to visit and curry favor said that he'd gone to the Gravity Chamber at the Treasure Pavilion to train.
The Treasure Pavilion was owned by the city's only auction house. It had nothing to do with the Three Great Sects, yet somehow it had secured control over such a lucrative business. None of the Three Great Sects had even coveted it. It was a mystery.
The Gravity Chamber was quite remarkable. It looked like an ordinary room, but because of the formation operating inside, its gravity was several times greater than normal. Training in such an environment didn't help cultivation progress, but it could make a martial artist's True Essence Power more condensed.
And once martial artists adapted to the greater gravity, they could jump higher and run faster under normal conditions, giving them a tangible boost in combat strength!
However, the Gravity Chamber's fees were absurdly expensive!
Before you continue