Gong Caiyu

In his mind, countless lines of muscle and bone shifted and combined.

Jiang Ding practiced his sword, its light snow-bright and curved like an arc.

He was practicing the Young Eagle Takes Flight Sword Art, the foundation of martial arts. Bolstered by his high comprehension, he progressed rapidly, and his spine occasionally tingled faintly.

Those with poor aptitude or impoverished families did not lack a chance to turn their lives around.

Others could only become proficient in the Young Eagle Takes Flight Formula, but if you could reach minor accomplishment, major accomplishment, or even perfection, you could catch up to—and surpass—those with outstanding aptitude.

The nine sword forms swept past one by one before finally returning to the Hidden Sword Form.

"Not bad."

Zhang Dingjun watched from the side for a while and said with interest, "Kid, being born in the Immortal Sect has really wasted your talent. If you had been in another world, who could say you wouldn't have become a great wandering hero whose name shook the land?"

The Young Eagle Takes Flight Formula was one thing—so-so, about the same as his classmates.

But his practical swordsmanship was somewhat terrifying. Zhang Dingjun was almost too embarrassed to say that Jiang Ding's ability to seize opportunities was nearly catching up to his own, even with his ninth-layer Qi Refinement divine sense assisting him.

"You're joking."

Jiang Ding rolled his eyes at him. Unlike the other students, he held no fear toward this instructor. "With my Five Spiritual Roots aptitude, where besides the Immortal Sect would give me even the slightest opportunity?"

"You still haven't given up on ascending to immortality? This road is far too difficult..." Zhang Dingjun sighed softly.

Turning from mortal to immortal—even in the Immortal Sect, only the very best and most exceptional few heavenly prodigies qualified. Jiang Ding was not entirely mediocre either, but...

"Keep it up! Even if you miss the college entrance examination, there have still been people who successfully cultivated immortality."

Zhang Dingjun encouraged him.

Ding-a-ling...

Before long, it was noon. The bell for the fourth class rang. Zhang Dingjun left first, while the other students returned to school or went home if they lived nearby.

"Here."

Li Junhao handed Jiang Ding a campus card with a mournful face.

"What do you want? Do you need me to pick you up?"

Jiang Ding was not surprised. Starting now, teaching robots would strictly supervise this guy's forty-kilometer run. Unless he wanted to drop out, he had to complete the instructor's orders.

"One duck leg, shredded pork with green peppers, and a bowl of the cafeteria's complimentary seaweed egg-drop soup. I'll take the bus back myself."

"Mm."

After bidding Li Junhao farewell, Jiang Ding squeezed onto the bus back to school with his classmates.

Lunch, then a midday nap.

After two classes of ideology and moral character, it was time for the training room.

Jiang Ding stared at the pale-blue screen before him, a hint of delight appearing on his face.

[Name: Jiang Ding]

[Student Number:]

[Realm: Peak Bone-Refining Realm]

[Previous Training Subject: <Sixty-Eighth Set of Young Eagle Takes Flight Sword Art> (Proficiency 51%)]

Compared to two days ago, the Young Eagle Takes Flight Sword Art had surged by 19%. At this rate, he would reach minor accomplishment in two weeks at most. By then, his bone-refining progress would speed up considerably, and breaking through to the Inner Qi Realm would no longer be a fantasy.

One had to know that this was no ordinary martial art of the wandering world, but an Immortal Sect cultivation technique. It was even more difficult than most low-level immortal cultivation techniques and spells. Practicing it as a mortal raised the difficulty by another great step.

As far as Jiang Ding knew, not a single person in the class had cultivated the technique to minor accomplishment.

The reason they had advanced ahead of him was, first, that their aptitude was better than Jiang Ding's; second, that they took all kinds of supplements and even spirit pills. Their cultivation progress naturally differed.

"Another two vertebrae have finished tempering..." Jiang Ding looked again at the pale-blue outline of a human figure beneath the panel.

Just as expected, among the twenty-four vertebrae, five lumbar vertebrae, one sacrum, and one coccyx had already been tempered. Once he finished tempering the remaining twelve thoracic vertebrae and seven cervical vertebrae, he would complete Bone Refinement and naturally break through into Inner Qi.

There was no such thing as a bottleneck.

So-called bottlenecks only meant insufficient understanding, problems with the muscles or spine, hidden injuries, and the like—or inadequate training without realizing it, leaving one stuck at a certain realm.

With an Immortal Sect cultivation technique and the Array-Spirit Computer's assistance, such a situation naturally would not exist.

After calming himself, Jiang Ding drew his sword and cultivated with the Array-Spirit Computer's assistance, silver sword light dancing and flashing.

This was actually an enormous stroke of fortune, equivalent to a clone of a clone of a clone... of a Spirit Transformation great power personally guiding his cultivation. Otherwise, given the terrifying difficulty of the Young Eagle Takes Flight Sword Art, whose effects rivaled creation itself, ninety-nine percent of the world's youths could not even enter through the door.

Therefore, even though cultivation techniques occasionally leaked out, other immortal cultivation worlds simply could not replicate them.

After eating with Jiang Yuan, Jiang Ding locked himself in his room, put on his equipment, checked his medicine and drone battery, and picked up the panoramic helmet.

After hesitating, Jiang Ding set it down and switched to contact lenses.

"The helmet is too conspicuous..."

The light dimmed, then brightened. Before his eyes lay once more endless green mountains. It was early morning, birds chirping noisily.

After habitually collecting more than a dozen unknown plant specimens, Jiang Ding continued exploring outward.

He could accomplish nothing alone.

He needed resources to accelerate his cultivation, and he needed people to gather specimens. For that, he could take a little risk.

Through the drone's view, the terrifying sight from before—nearly a hundred people searching the mountains—did not reappear. The forest had returned to its original tranquility.

"Hmm?"

Jiang Ding's gaze sharpened. He paused at one corner of the image and tapped to enlarge it.

A white speck appeared in the image and rapidly expanded. A woman in a white dress lay unconscious by the riverbank, her face deathly pale. No one knew where she had drifted from. The bushes along the bank had caught her, preventing her from floating farther downstream.

A large patch of blood stained the clothing over her chest, while her dress was ragged and torn.

"Is she dead?"

Jiang Ding thought silently.

This world did not seem particularly safe.

The woman was three or four kilometers away. Perhaps she had held her breath underwater for a long time and thus evaded the black-clothed men's pursuit.

This woman may have information about the outside world that I need.

Also, she seems severely injured. That's good. It means she has no ability to resist and will be easy to control. If she is hostile, I can directly execute her... But that doesn't seem right, does it? Killing people is against the law.

Jiang Ding pondered.

No.

It was not against the law.

The Immortal Sect Law clearly stipulated that if an extraterritorial lifeform attacked an Immortal Sect Citizen, the punishment was death. This was one of the most basic legal provisions.

Jiang Ding gripped his sword hilt and stopped hesitating.

He traveled carefully, constantly watching for targets the drone might overlook. Fortunately, nothing unexpected happened.

Grabbing her dress, he lifted her without much effort and laid her on the ground.

He touched her forehead. It was icy cold. Her belly was slightly swollen, and there was a terrifying wound at her waist, deep enough to nearly reveal her internal organs. It was blackish and emitted the fishy, rotten stench of decay. She had clearly been poisoned.

But upon closer inspection, her chest still rose and fell faintly, moving only once every few seconds.

"She's alive!"

Jiang Ding no longer hesitated. He cleared the debris from her nose and mouth, found several stones to prop beneath her abdomen, and pressed repeatedly on her chest with battlefield first-aid techniques.

Every Immortal Sect Citizen was a potential soldier, and they had all received training in such battlefield emergency treatment methods.

Several minutes later,

"Blech!"

Gong Caiyu suddenly vomited a mass of things—water weeds, half-raw meat, and some sticky sludge running down her neck.

She barely opened her eyes and saw an unfamiliar youth continuously pressing on her chest.

"Lecher!"

Gong Caiyu's face instantly reddened. Drawing upon the last thread of her inner force, her left hand casually found a sharp stone.

"Oh?"

At that moment, the Azure Garment youth stared at her.

He uttered no threats, nor did he display any killing intent. It merely seemed that certain legal clauses had begun operating and were about to carry out something entirely lawful—a small matter an Immortal Sect Citizen ought to do.

A chill abruptly ran through Gong Caiyu's heart.

"Lecher... where?"

Her little hand unconsciously moved away from the sharp stone. Revealing a very sweet smile, she looked around and said in surprise, "Young master, I just saw a lecher, but now I can't find him. Did you see him?"

Jiang Ding looked at her blandly without speaking.

"Since you didn't see him, then forget it."

"Young master, thank you."

Gong Caiyu pressed her hands together and said, "Thank you for saving me again."

"Mm."

Jiang Ding sheathed his sword.

He seized the hand she had lowered and sensed it for a moment.

"Ah..."

Gong Caiyu cried out but did not resist, turning her head away.

"Your heart and pulse are both very weak... Your physical condition is terrible." Jiang Ding released her hand. "Can your inner force expel the poison from your body and stop the bleeding?"

He regarded her as he would an injured female classmate. He had no messy thoughts.

"No... I have no strength..." Gong Caiyu circulated the little inner force she had, despair appearing in her eyes. Calmly, she said, "My meridians are badly damaged, my inner force is nearly gone, and I have been poisoned by the Golden Saber Sect's Corpse-Rotting Poison. I am going to die. Thank you, young master, for saving my life."

"My Seven Profound Sect has a thousand-year inheritance. I never thought that now it would..."

"Eat this."

Jiang Ding interrupted her self-pity and tossed her an oral dose of Yunnan Baiyao. "Try it. You're going to die anyway."

It truly was only a trial.

Yunnan Baiyao was a widely used medicine. It could treat external wounds, detoxify, sterilize, and more. It had all kinds of effects, but each was merely average, and its efficacy was difficult to predict.

Unless it was a spirit pill.

But Jiang Ding had only one such pill—the Heavenly King Life-Saving Pill that his mother had bought with half a year's salary. He could not give it to a stranger.

If Yunnan Baiyao had no effect, then that was simply her fate.

"Thank you for your kindness, young master."

Gong Caiyu revealed a sweet smile and said softly, "It is only a pity that the poison has already entered my bones and blood. There is no way to pull me back from the brink... Urgh..."

For someone on the verge of death, every second was a lifeline. Seeing her still babbling, Jiang Ding said nothing. One hand pinched her cheeks while the other opened the oral Yunnan Baiyao and poured it in.

Gong Caiyu only felt a warm current melt into her abdomen and spread through her limbs and bones. Her numb meridians and the wound at her waist actually began to sting faintly.

"What divine medicine is this?"

Gong Caiyu widened her eyes. She had never heard of it.

Jiang Ding shook his head, put away the medicine bottle bearing its trademark and instructions, and slipped it into his pocket.

He guessed that perhaps, for this world, it was an entirely new antidote. The germs had no resistance to it, so its effects were exceptionally good.

After all, the Immortal Sect cultivated immortality.

"Rest and heal."

Seeing that she still wanted to say something, Jiang Ding raised a hand to stop her.

This person had intelligence value. He was extending kindness to ensure that the information she gave in the future would be more accurate.

Gong Caiyu gave him a grateful look, sat cross-legged, and closed her eyes to restore her inner breath.

Jiang Ding stood, took out a small shovel, and walked toward a blade of grass he had never seen before. Carefully parting the soil, he dug out every thread of root bit by bit.

After digging up one plant, he went to seek the next.

The sun gradually rose. Sunlight shone on his face, and beads of sweat reflected the light.

After digging continuously for more than three hours, Jiang Ding saw that the woman sitting cross-legged on the ground had still not awakened. He walked to the shallow water by the river and silently stood still.

Like a statue, he did not move for more than ten minutes.

Clang!

Suddenly, a streak of sword light flashed out, piercing straight through a carp as large as an arm. No matter how it struggled, it could not escape.

"Resources are so abundant."

Jiang Ding sighed. With a light flick of his sword, the carp flew into the air. Three more flashes of sword light passed by, sending its scales, gills, and internal organs flying. In passing, he scraped off a handful of black membrane.

He skewered the carp with his sword, then found a dead tree as thick as a bowl's mouth and dragged it back.