Grass, How Can Sword-Riding Be a Traffic Jam?

Ten Thousand Immortal City, western district, inside a temporary cave dwelling where the spiritual energy was thin.

Zhao Hao sat cross-legged on the cold stone bed and slowly breathed out a mouthful of scorching, turbid air.

He spread open a pair of hands that had grown a whole size larger and felt the explosive power within his body, along with that lingering sense of awkwardness he could not shake.

Ten days.

To thoroughly change his appearance from head to toe, he had spent a fortune buying more than a dozen bottles of Essence Blood Pills specially supplied for body cultivators. That stuff was never meant for normal people to eat; every pill was like detonating a volcano inside his body.

His bones stretched, his muscles reformed, and without any body cultivation method to guide him, there had been several times when he thought he would be blown apart alive by that berserk power.

The agony of his bones being forcibly stretched, the torture of his muscles tearing and then reforming—there had been several times when he thought that berserk power would make him burst apart alive.

But in the end, he endured it.

The result was that he had been forcibly raised from a thin, frail youth into his current height of over eight feet, with a body full of firm, corded muscle.

The price was that the last of the spirit stones in his storage pouch had already hit bottom.

And that still was not all.

To cut the weeds and pull out the roots, he had gone all in. The second-tier spiritual weapon short sword "Ghost Bone," bestowed on him by his master and having accompanied him through several life-and-death battles, along with the second-tier Soul Summoning Banner seized from Jia Ren, had all been used as enhancement materials and permanently destroyed by the system rules.

Now suspended above his knees was a brand-new second-tier spiritual weapon flying sword, crimson from end to end, with what looked like a phoenix totem flowing across its blade.

Even the brand-new Ten Thousand Soul Banner inside his storage pouch had been strengthened by the same method after he sacrificed his original Soul Summoning Banner, erasing every possible mark that might have existed on it.

[Ten Thousand Soul Banner: second-tier low-grade spiritual weapon]

From his physical appearance and mana aura to his magical equipment, the Zhao Hao of now had no connection whatsoever to the past.

Even if his master, True Person Corpse Heart, stood before him in person, he absolutely would not recognize that the vigorous, masculine, powerfully built body cultivator before him was the same thin, frail "Heavenly Spiritual Root" disciple from back then.

He had gained a sense of safety, but the distress of an empty purse made him dare not rest for even a moment.

"I have to get familiar with this body as soon as possible!"

Zhao Hao rose to his feet, failed to control his strength, and with a crack, the stone slab beneath him split apart at once.

He frowned, pushed open the stone door, and a streak of crimson light tore through the spiritual mist of the cave-dwelling district, shooting straight into the clouds.

A long-lost feeling of weightlessness came over him, and the newly refined Fire Phoenix Sword beneath his feet swayed slightly.

The fear-of-heights memories from his previous life were still causing trouble, making him subconsciously tense every muscle in his body.

Fortunately, his foundation in the minor success realm of the Sword Control Technique was solid enough, allowing him to quickly steady himself.

Wind howled past his ears, and the pavilions and towers below sped backward. The flight and schemes that had been suppressed for far too long seemed to vanish like smoke and clouds in this moment.

Zhao Hao's nerves, tense for more than ten days, finally loosened by a fraction, and he even began to enjoy this long-lost freedom.

However, at the very instant his mind relaxed the most—

A sudden change erupted!

From behind a magnificent pavilion suspended in midair on his right, a streak of azure sword light so fast it reached the extreme suddenly shot out without the slightest warning!

It was too fast!

If it had been a normal Foundation Establishment cultivator, the two sides could have passed each other normally in the blink of an eye.

But the sword light seemed to want to force its way past him from the side, and the route it chose was extremely tricky and vicious.

Zhao Hao's mind reacted, but this brand-new, burly body of his still had a hint of sluggishness after all!

He subconsciously tried to make a sharp turn to the left, but the force he exerted through his feet was too strong. The Fire Phoenix Sword hummed, and not only did it fail to turn immediately, it instead stalled for an instant.

It was this very instant!

Clang—!!!

A deafening clash of metal exploded through the air!

A tremendous force came through the sword body. His protective spiritual shield instantly activated, then flickered wildly under the violent impact.

His whole body staggered in midair, nearly being thrown straight off the Fire Phoenix Sword!

Fortunately, Zhao Hao's foundation in the Sword Control Technique was still there. His feet nailed themselves to the sword body like iron pincers, and in a fluster he traced a crooked arc through the air before barely managing to steady himself.

His heart pounded wildly, thump, thump.

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Damn it, I got rear-ended.

Zhao Hao stiffly raised his head. His anger had just been about to surge up, but after he clearly saw the other party, he forcibly held it back.

Not far ahead, a flying sword of lustrous emerald-green throughout, exquisitely shaped, hovered in the air.

Just the blue gemstone embedded in the sword hilt, as large as a pigeon egg and flowing with spiritual light, made the corner of Zhao Hao's eye twitch hard.

How many damn spirit stones must that be worth?

His gaze followed the flying sword upward.

Standing on the sword was a woman dressed in a sky-blue palace gown.

Her black hair fell like a waterfall, and her peerlessly beautiful face was now covered in a layer of frost. A pair of phoenix eyes held Baleful Intent as they glared fixedly at him.

What made Zhao Hao's heart sink even further was that when he swept the other party with the Qi Gazing Art, her spiritual energy fluctuations were far thicker and more condensed than his, someone who had only just broken through to Foundation Establishment Early Stage.

Foundation Establishment Middle Stage!

And her foundation was solid—absolutely no watered-down fraud!

He couldn't beat her.

He couldn't afford to compensate her.

These six words flashed through Zhao Hao's mind in an instant.

Just as he was wondering whether he should be a little more shameless and play dead, the woman's icy voice had already smashed over.

"Do you fly a sword with no eyes?!"

"The way you fly a sword with eyes really does fly better than mine." Zhao Hao's face darkened as he squeezed the words out through his teeth.

Although he couldn't beat her, making him bow his head and admit fault? Not a chance.

With his current body cultivator getup, paired with those strange, sarcastic words, he seemed especially intimidating.

"You!"

The woman had clearly not expected that this fellow, who looked like a reckless brute, would actually have such a sharp tongue.

The frost on her pretty face grew even heavier. Killing Intent flashed through her phoenix eyes, and her hand had already moved unconsciously toward the storage pouch at her waist.

But then she glanced again in the direction she was headed, and the anger in her eyes was ultimately replaced by a trace of urgency.

"Hmph! Count yourself lucky. This young lady has urgent business today and can't be bothered to argue with you!"

The woman gave a cold snort, threw down a face-saving line, and with a flash of light from the azure flying sword beneath her feet, she circled around Zhao Hao, about to turn into a streak of light and leave once more.

Her hurried manner was exactly as if a Golden Core cultivator were chasing her down from behind.

Zhao Hao let out a breath of relief inwardly, wishing nothing more than for this grandaunt to hurry up and leave.

But the instant the woman turned and accelerated, a palm-sized white jade token, warm and lustrous all over, slipped from the silk cord at her waist and silently fell downward.

"Hey, your thing..."

Zhao Hao instinctively wanted to remind her.

But when the words reached his lips, he forcibly swallowed them back down.

He watched helplessly as that streak of azure sword light turned into a distant speck and vanished into the horizon.

Zhao Hao silently stretched out his hand.

A gentle suction force emerged, and the jade token, just about to fall into the cluster of buildings below, spun as it flew back and landed steadily in his palm.

The jade token felt warm and smooth in his hand, carrying a faint medicinal fragrance.

On the front, three characters were carved in ancient seal script—Spirit Medicine Pavilion.

On the back was the pattern of a pill furnace, and beneath the pattern was a tiny character: "Xuan."

Zhao Hao rubbed the jade token, his mind spinning rapidly.

Spirit Medicine Pavilion?

That rich woman had been in such a hurry, and she had come out from a place like this...

He pinched the jade token in his hand, feeling its warm, smooth texture, then weighed it lightly.

Perhaps the first bit of startup capital for him in Ten Thousand Immortal City now had a direction.