The City God of Ren Family Town

Three days later.

Ren Family Town, South Mountain.

" Ding! With your Human-Grade Ninth-Rank Spiritual Root's Ten Thousandfold Amplification, your Mountain-Overturning Curse cultivation progress has reached 100%!"

" Ding! With your Human-Grade Ninth-Rank Spiritual Root's Ten Thousandfold Amplification, your Earth-Shaking Curse cultivation progress has reached 100%!"

" Ding! With your Human-Grade Ninth-Rank Spiritual Root's Ten Thousandfold Amplification, your Star-Plucking Steps cultivation progress has reached 100%!"

"Whoo~" Hearing the system's voice, Fei Luo stood atop the mountain in black, gently exhaling a breath of stale air.

His fingers tingled slightly, but his heart couldn't help swelling with excitement.

For the past three days, Fei Luo had practiced the curses by following their incantations during the day, then trained in the Star-Plucking Steps beneath the stars at night. He hadn't rested for a single day, diligently practicing for three whole days.

Heaven rewards the diligent. Even with the system at his disposal, Fei Luo understood that cultivating the Dao was like rowing upstream: if you didn't advance, you fell back.

If the system could cultivate automatically, wouldn't it be even more effective if he put in some extra effort himself?

Based on his previous experience practicing the Void-Breaking Sword Technique, Fei Luo had already realized that this was the best way to cultivate.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

Fei Luo formed hand seals with one hand, moving so fast that the gestures blurred before the eye.

"Mountain-Overturning Curse!"

As Fei Luo pointed, a stone weighing over a hundred pounds rose into the air on its own and shot toward a spot a hundred meters away.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The boulder smashed into several other huge rocks in succession, only coming to a stop when it ran out of momentum.

"My magical power is still weak, so I can only move boulders. Once my magical power grows stronger and my cultivation reaches a higher realm, moving mountains and filling seas won't be impossible." Fei Luo watched the scene before him and murmured.

Whoosh~

The mountain wind swept past, sending several leaves spinning through the air. Fei Luo's gaze sharpened.

"Earth-Shaking Curse!"

Rumble!

A crack more than ten meters long tore open across the mountaintop. The rocks trembled, and countless clods of earth burst into the air.

"Good heavens, once this reaches great mastery, a single thought will shift the earth for hundreds or even thousands of miles, turning stars and changing the sky like an earthquake. It'd be a group attack skill in battle."

Fei Luo smiled. Then his figure became as indistinct as a shadow.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Fei Luo moved like a phantom, light as a swallow, his feet never touching the ground. Each time he appeared, he left a lingering afterimage behind.

"Combined with the Void-Breaking Sword Technique, the Star-Plucking Steps will let me attack and defend, putting both spear and shield in my hands."

A short while later, Fei Luo's figure solidified. The commotion had startled even a little squirrel cracking pine nuts in a distant pine tree, sending it tumbling down before it fled in fright.

"Still..." Fei Luo furrowed his brows, his voice full of confusion. "My cultivation techniques have reached great mastery. Why can't I break through to the Solid Core Realm?"

Fei Luo glanced at the blazing sun overhead. A strange light shone in his clear eyes.

By rights, his strength had already reached a bottleneck. He should have broken through by now.

"Young friend."

Just then, a faint voice came from behind Fei Luo.

"Who's there?" Fei Luo was startled. His magical power gathered rapidly around him, and blue light surged in his eyes as he turned to look behind him in an instant.

In broad daylight, someone had managed to approach him without his sensing them?

If it were a demon or ghost, wouldn't he be at a terrible disadvantage?

At the sight before him, Fei Luo's face filled with astonishment.

"Young friend, don't be alarmed." A kind-looking old man smiled at Fei Luo as he stroked his beard.

He wore an ancient yellow robe embroidered with mountains, rivers, and streams. His eyes seemed steeped in history, their gaze piercing the soul.

Most importantly, Fei Luo sensed that the old man wasn't human.

He seemed like a spirit, like a ghost, yet he wasn't a ghost. A faint, unusual fragrance also emanated from him.

"Sandalwood." Fei Luo kept his guard up, wondering what the strange scent might be.

"Who are you? Are you human or ghost?" Fei Luo asked warily, watching the old man in the yellow robe.

"Excellent, excellent. You truly are one of the outstanding talents of Ren Family Town. I haven't seen such a remarkable young man in hundreds of years." The old man stroked his beard and praised Fei Luo again and again.

Then he gave Fei Luo a slight nod. "I am the City God of Ren Family Town. I startled you, young friend. I hope you'll forgive me."

At that, Fei Luo raised an eyebrow. "The City God?"

In an instant, he recalled the dilapidated City God Temple east of town and was startled.

In looks and attire, the old man before him really did resemble the City God statue in the temple.

But the statue had been worn down by the passage of time. And with the world in chaos back then, the temple had received little incense, so it had fallen into disrepair.

"That's right. I was appointed City God of Ren County by Emperor Taizu of Ming, Zhu Yuanzhang, in the eighth year of Hongwu. It's just that my incense has been meager for hundreds of years, and my magical power is weak. Then the Age of Declining Dharma arrived, so I'm afraid I've made a poor impression on you, young friend."

The old man spoke with a smile. His expression put people at ease, and there wasn't the slightest trace of wickedness about him.

"You..." Fei Luo looked at the old man, already eighty percent convinced.

The eighth year of Hongwu was indeed during Emperor Taizu's reign.

And the office of City God had only come into existence during the Ming Dynasty.

Throughout the dynasties, emperors had appointed a group of deities to demonstrate that imperial authority came from Heaven, and that the Son of Heaven ruled the mortal world on Heaven's behalf.

But when Zhu Yuanzhang came to power in the Ming Dynasty, he hadn't appointed any great gods. He had only appointed City Gods, tasking them with overseeing the geomancy of their territories and protecting the people there.

These details could also be found in Maoshan records, so Fei Luo naturally recalled them.

But...

Why did this old man only have the aura of Foundation Establishment Peak Stage?

He hadn't even reached the False Core Realm?

Were City Gods really this weak?

As if he had seen the confusion in Fei Luo's eyes, the old man conjured two little stools with a flash of spiritual light.

The old man gestured for Fei Luo to sit.

"Young friend, you may not know this, but though we are Yang Spirits, we live in the Age of Declining Dharma, when the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth is scarce. We can only absorb incense and merit to cultivate the Merit Golden Body. It's just..."

A bitter look crossed the old man's face.

Listening to his explanation, Fei Luo immediately understood the twists and turns of the situation.

During the Ming Dynasty, the land was in the grip of the Little Ice Age. In the middle and later years, the court fell into corruption, natural disasters struck without end, epidemics ravaged the country, and wars dragged on year after year. The people lived in utter misery.

The Qing army's entry into the pass had brought the age of chaos to an end.

But people's lives remained wretched.

Then time passed, and by the Republic of China, the whole land had once again descended into chaos. Warlords carved up the country, and demons and monsters ran rampant.

Over the past few hundred years, Ren County had grown into Ren Family Town, but the City God's incense had remained scarce.

Even his City God Temple had been struck by the fires of war several times. Its statue had been smashed, and it took decades before the people of Ren Family Town repaired it.

Without incense or merit, this down-on-his-luck City God could only deal with minor ghosts.

But in this day and age, the strength of ghosts and monsters seemed to have soared. He could only seethe in silence.

"I see. I never imagined Dong Xiaoyu would bully even you, the City God." After hearing the old man's account, Fei Luo couldn't help chuckling.

"Alas..." The old man sighed quietly. "Much credit is due to your righteousness, young hero, for slaying the Ghost King, Dong Xiaoyu. Otherwise..."