Mistshadow Garment

Crack!

Wang Xuance noticed an unusual sound behind him and turned around. The cocoon enveloping Chen Linger was already covered in countless cracks, as though a light tap would shatter it apart.

The next instant, dazzling white light erupted from the cocoon. Wang Xuance involuntarily squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, Chen Linger's grateful voice was already ringing in his ears.

"Brother Wang, Ling'er was fortunate to be saved by you today, and I successfully broke through the Three-Knock Blood Pass. Great kindness needs no words of thanks. Should you ever have need of me, I will brave boiling water and tread through blazing fire, never shrinking from my duty!"

Wang Xuance glanced over, and another sight that made every channel in his body surge and his blood roil entered his eyes.

Chen Linger wore an oversized brocade robe. Beneath it, a pair of jade rabbits pressed down by the fabric seemed ready to burst forth. Her legs were snowy-white and straight, her bare feet tender and lovely, and from head to toe she exuded the blushing-cheeked, rosy allure of a young maiden.

Her severed arm had regrown as well. The vigor of the blood and qi radiating from her body was enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Three-Knock Blood Pass!

"Miss Chen, the Mystic Gate has been broken. Congratulations!"

Wang Xuance rose to his feet, cupped his hands, and smiled.

Several days later, two tall horses galloped madly onward. Along the road, several groups of displaced refugees were tangled together like gnarled roots, setting up crude shelters outside the city to ward off sand and flesh.

"These refugees most likely fled several cities struck by the plague some time ago. Blue Orchid Continent lies on Great Zhou's border. Even when human lives hang in the balance, such matters are merely a spark falling into the sea, without raising a single ripple!"

Chen Linger raised her long whip and lashed the horse beneath her.

Seeing the refugees all around them, short of water and food, each resembling fish stranded on shore, Wang Xuance could not help but sigh.

"Better to be a dog in peaceful times than a man in chaotic years!"

"This world is growing ever more chaotic. Only by making oneself strong can one gain a foothold in troubled times!"

The two urged their horses onward at full speed. In no more than a moment, the immense White Light City came into view.

After presenting their passage tokens, Wang Xuance and Chen Linger led their horses into the city.

"Brother Wang, I relied entirely on your rescue during this journey into the cave abode. Though Old Bai died, I escaped death, broke through in cultivation, and accomplished the purpose of this trip. Once again, thank you, Brother Wang, for saving my life!"

Chen Linger raised her lotus-root arm and slowly cupped her hands in salute.

"Brother Wang, once my realm has stabilized, I shall give you another grand gift. Please do not refuse!"

Before Wang Xuance could react, the girl had already ridden away...

Returning to his own two-courtyard residence, Wang Xuance felt as if waking from a dream. This trip had truly been a mingling of fortune and calamity, real yet unreal.

Sitting on the meditation cushion where he usually practiced martial arts, he closed his eyes and regulated his breathing, settling his mind upon the qi sea within his dantian. The Flood Dragon-Headed Elixir Pearl had already grown several times larger. Azure and white light flowed around one another, bearing the appearance of an immortal's Golden Core!

The flesh and blood of the Black-Horned Scorpionfish from that cold pool, combined with the martial progress of the Great Arm Scripture, had allowed its cold qi to temper both his arms. It had even altered the appearance of the elixir pearl resting within his dantian's qi sea.

"I wonder what enhancement it will bring to the Great Arm Scripture's first killing move."

With a turn of his hand, he took out the white cloak—the Mistshadow Garment, a magical artifact specially used to conceal the extent of one's blood and qi.

After pouring the gold powder inside into another container, Wang Xuance draped the Mistshadow Garment over himself and silently sensed its mysteries.

The instant the Mistshadow Garment covered him, the blood and qi throughout his body vanished without a trace. It seemed that all his vast power of blood and qi had been gathered and sealed away. Even if an ordinary martial man approached him, he might not be able to discern its secret.

"If this thing is used well, it can serve both as gear for collecting lives and as a way to hide one's edge and launch a crafty surprise attack!"

Pulling off the Mistshadow Garment, Wang Xuance's face lit up with delight. This item was practically tailor-made for him. With his current martial strength, anyone within one zhang who was below the rank of Martial Practitioner could be killed with a single punch.

Just imagine it: someone at your side suddenly erupting into a killing attack. Even if you dodged in time, once your vital momentum had been seized, one misstep would lead to misstep after misstep. If handled properly, it might even be possible to kill a Martial Practitioner in the shadows!

"After all, this thing's concealment effect is simply overbearing. Once I close in, even ghosts and gods will scatter!"

Knock, knock, knock!

Urgent knocking suddenly sounded outside the door, shattering his swirling thoughts in an instant.

When he opened the door, two young servants in blue stood outside, each holding an exquisite package.

"May we ask if Lord Wang is here?"

"These are gifts from our master. Please accept them, my lord!"

With that, the two placed the packages in Wang Xuance's hands, respectfully cupped their hands, and slowly departed.

Rustle!

Six gleaming silver ingots appeared before his eyes. Opening the other package in turn, he found three yellowish-brown ginseng roots wrapped together, emitting a distinctive medicinal fragrance.

"Chen Linger truly is generous. Six hundred taels of snowflake silver, and three fifty-year yellow ginseng roots!"

Wang Xuance picked up a large silver ingot and clicked his tongue in amazement.

"I won't lack silver for cultivation for some time to come. I have already broken through the Three-Knock Blood Pass. It is time to make a trip to the military camp selection!"

At the military camp of White Light Outer City, there were quite a few new faces after his absence of several days. Wang Xuance could even sense several martial men on the verge of breaking through the Three-Knock Blood Pass.

"Heh! Brother Wang, is that you? You haven't come to the camp for days. I thought Brother Wang had climbed another branch and found martial arts capable of cultivating a Martial Aperture!"

A sharp, mocking voice came from behind him. A young man, six chi tall, with a large head, round face, and ears that stuck out like wings, walked toward him.

Zhao Sanshi—one of Chen Feng's lackeys—was close friends with Song Damao, who had died violently in the outer city. He had surely witnessed Wang Xuance defying Chen Feng back then.

Wang Xuance narrowed his eyes but said nothing. He merely turned aside and left, leaving Zhao Sanshi standing there with a gloomy expression as he viciously spat out a wad of phlegm.

"Hmph, keep strutting while you can. Once Boss breaks through to become a Martial Practitioner, you, this outsider brat, will have bitter fruit to eat!"

After weaving east and west, Wang Xuance crossed the entire parade ground and stopped outside a grand hall whose entrance bustled like a marketplace.

Looking up, he saw the three bold, dragon-soaring characters—"Martial Force Hall"—engraved upon the plaque.

This was the place where military martial men were tested to see whether they had reached the Three-Knock Blood Pass. So long as one could lift a hundred-jin boulder in a single breath, it proved that the richness of one's blood and qi was no weaker than that of the Three-Knock Blood Pass, and one would be granted an identity waist token.

It also earned one the chance to leave the border pass and train in the lands of foreign races. Passing this test meant truly placing one foot through the gate leading to Martial Practitioners.

Sensing the surrounding martial men exhaling in whirling bursts, their blood and qi surging without end as they rubbed their hands together in anticipation, Wang Xuance felt the same tension he had experienced before the college entrance examinations in his previous life. Compared with now, that feeling had been no less intense...

"Your blood and qi may have reached the Three-Knock Blood Pass, but your foundation is shallow. You cannot yet unleash your full strength. Wait a few more days!"

"No... why... I have clearly become a martial man of the Three-Knock Blood Pass! Just because I failed to lift the stone pedestal, you are shutting me outside the door! I do not have many chances left!"

A hysterical roar suddenly erupted before the crowd. The sound echoed through the entire Martial Force Hall, instantly drawing everyone's attention.

"Isn't that Lin Erlang? How did he fail to meet the requirements too?!"

"I find it strange as well. I heard that, to break through to the Three-Knock Blood Pass, he spent five hundred taels of silver to buy a Nine-Flower Jade Yang Pill for the breakthrough!"

"Give it a rest. Just a few days ago, I saw him at Red Delight Courtyard, holding Chunxiang and begging for fragrant kisses!"

"Hmph!"

This man had a leopard's head and ringed eyes. His cold gaze swept over the crowd. He was broad and burly, with a wide waist and thick back, like an iron tower. Yet strangely, the blood and qi radiating from his body was all bark and no bite, lacking any lasting strength.

Even more shocking, his brows and hair were frosty white, and his face bore the look of old age. An abnormal flush stained both his cheeks as, in fury and desperation, he pointed at the elder before the stone pedestal and poured out a stream of curses.

"You old bastard, are you deliberately using your position to oppress us martial men?!"

"Hmph! What a joke!"

The elder gave a derisive laugh, lifting his white brows with a look of utter contempt.

"This old man has walked the martial path for one full cycle of sixty years. I became a Martial Practitioner at twenty-nine—not much of a genius—but a martial man like you, hmph..."

"This old man had intended to leave you some face, but since you insist..."

"Arrogant!"

The moment his words fell, the elder pressed out a finger. Vast blood and qi instantly spread through the hall. The martial men at the Three-Knock Blood Pass felt as if a ten-thousand-jin mountain had fallen upon them, making their entire bodies tremble and their legs shake.

Only that burly young man with frost-white brows and hair remained calm and composed, entirely unaffected.

"Hmph!"

The elder's five fingers hooked like claws. Five streams of white serpent true qi, swift as racing thunder, stabbed into the young man's chest. With a light flick, he drew a strand of medicinal qi carrying a fishy-sweet scent out of the youth's body.

"This man may have entered the Three-Knock Blood Pass, but wine and women have long hollowed out his body. He broke through the Two-Knock Blood Pass only by relying on the power of such pills to forcefully blast open the pass at the cost of his potential. Naturally, his blood and qi are flawed—strong on the outside, weak within!"

The elder then flicked his arm, throwing that ball of medicinal qi out of the hall. Under the sunlight, it gave off a puff, puff sizzle. Lin Erlang trembled from head to toe like a fish whose spine had been pulled out, collapsing limply onto the ground.

His eyes were dull, and his expression vacant.

"Someone, drag him away. He is truly wasting this old man's time!"

"Next... Kun Buyu. What kind of rotten name is that? Why did your mother give you such a name..."