Dragon Subduing Tiger Taming Art, Fifth Layer

Great Jing calendar.

Year 769, January 18th.

Taixi City, rain.

The rain was not heavy, falling in a hazy mist as gathering clouds and fog shrouded the entirety of Taixi City.

There were fewer pedestrians on the streets, yet the flow of people remained unceasing.

Nothing had changed from before Shen Xiu left.

Returning to streets like these, filled with human warmth and bustling crowds, he even felt a lingering dread in a daze, as though a lifetime had passed.

It was no wonder he felt this way. Whether it had been the Black Demon Bear before or the Yang Family afterward, there had been some danger, but neither had been impossible to resolve.

What had truly pressured him was the White Bone Demon lured over by the Crimson Fire Bandits. The pressure it had given him was simply immense.

At many moments, it had seemed that every attempt at escape was utterly futile.

Fortunately, it was only thanks to Golden Cicada's effect that he had managed to flee.

After returning to the courtyard, Shen Xiu rested for a while, then changed into a brand-new gray martial outfit and headed straight to the External Affairs Hall to submit his mission. He handed over the Face-Preserving Fruit and received a generous reward.

For the rest of the time, Shen Xiu remained in Taixi City.

Recently, rumors had constantly circulated in the city that a White Bone Demon had appeared in the mountains outside the city. Several merchant caravans had gone out and been slaughtered to the last.

Shen Xiu could not help linking this White Bone Demon with the one he had seen on Mount Da Wu.

Under such circumstances, the people of Taixi City were deeply unsettled. Most chose not to leave the city if they could help it.

Shen Xiu of Golden Rainbow Martial Arts School.

Each month, after completing several missions required by the martial arts school, he practiced martial arts on his own.

He drank all five portions of Qi Cultivation Soup for the month in one go.

Now that he had awakened his second talent and become an Innate Martial Body,

the most obvious change was that he could feel the effects of the Qi Cultivation Soup provided by the martial arts school on his body had greatly diminished.

As for the so-called Monster Beast Tonic Soup, the energy it increased was even more negligible, reduced to no more than an ordinary meal for him.

It was not just him. After Golden Cicada's second metamorphosis, the fullness the Black Demon Beast provided it had also decreased by a large margin.

After eating it all over these past days, it had only added less than three percent fullness.

Rather than saying the energy had decreased, it would be more accurate to say that the upper limit required for advancement had increased, and the energy from before was now far from enough.

At present, however, judging by this rate of increase, Golden Cicada's third transformation among the Nine Transformations Golden Cicada was still a distant prospect.

He was not in a hurry, and instead turned his mind to martial arts practice.

That terrifying White Bone Demon was still wandering somewhere outside the city. Shanglin City, the prefectural city, had reportedly already dispatched the lords of the Suspended Sword Division to handle it.

Yet none of that had anything to do with Shen Xiu. He simply stayed in Taixi City and practiced martial arts in peace.

At present, he had discovered a good place to practice martial arts: the banks of the Lishui River, which ran north to south through Taixi City.

As he walked, he assumed his boxing stance and circulated the Dragon Subduing Tiger Taming Thirteen Stances, striking all the way along the Lishui River behind the martial arts school to the more bustling Covered Bridge at the other end.

Pleasure boats and painted barges flowed endlessly beneath the Covered Bridge, creating a lively scene.

Along the way, he often caught sight of Big Yellow Ox on the opposite bank. Yet whenever it spotted him from afar, it would turn tail and run...

More than half a month passed, yet the temperature dropped again.

The scattered flakes at the beginning gradually turned into goose-feather snow. From above to below, it drifted down in great profusion, until heaven and earth truly became one expanse of white.

Shen Xiu's steps as he practiced his boxing never stopped. In the heavy snow, snow followed his fists and accompanied their arrival; he remained free and unrestrained, moving and stilling as he pleased.

After completing a round, his qi and blood boiled throughout his body, mist curling around him as the chill vanished without a trace.

The heavy snow continued. Light snow took its shift for several days, only for heavy snow to return in swarms and resume its post.

It snowed like this for several days.

One day, amid the boundless white, Shen Xiu practiced boxing as usual. Running the Thirteen Stances, he struck his way along the Lishui River behind the martial arts school, all the way toward the painted barges and Covered Bridge.

After going back and forth, when he finally struck his way back to the riverbank behind the martial arts school, Shen Xiu understood in his heart and threw a punch into the sky.

Within that ordinary punch, fist force surged like rolling waves, its aura vast as rivers, lakes, and seas.

The heavy snow within several meters of the surrounding world suddenly halted in midair, then was blasted several zhang back by the force of that punch, forming a vacuum!

Within the wind and snow,

faint roars of dragons and tigers could be heard!

A stern aura emerged in one seamless burst!

The Dragon Subduing Tiger Taming Art had entered the fifth layer, perfected to the point of consummate mastery. Shen Xiu had reached great accomplishment by the Lishui River as naturally as water flowed into a channel.

After the Dragon Subduing Tiger Taming Art reached the fifth realm, he did not continue practicing it. Instead, he took up his broadsaber, left the martial arts school, and began slashing wildly through the wind and snow.

The river's surface had frozen into thick ice, so Shen Xiu practiced his saber atop it. He forcibly turned the Blood Battle Saber Technique into the Chaotic Cloak Saber Technique, yet he did not care in the slightest, wielding it however he pleased.

On the tenth day of February.

A carriage crossed the snowbound wilderness outside the city, traveling in silence.

Like the tip of a brush dipped in pale ink wash, it lightly traced a line across mountains and rivers blanketed in snow.

At the end of that line stood Taixi City.

After that carriage entered Taixi City,

all kinds of gazes in the city became uneasy.

And the most uneasy of all was Taixi City's city lord.

The last of winter passed. As spring began in February, the weather gradually grew warmer.

There were more people on the streets.

The ice on the Lishui River completely melted, and Shen Xiu began practicing his saber by the river again. As he practiced, his saber technique entered the third realm, already showing the beginnings of minor accomplishment.

The second talent bestowed by Golden Cicada Sheds Its Shell began to show its effects. As an Innate Martial Body, aside from the fundamental increase in his bodily speed,

he also received a considerable boost to his cultivation speed.

Several days later, Taixi City received its first spring rain.

The rain fell in great profusion, washing away every trace of muddy water left behind by the winter snow.

It fell from last night until dawn.

The rooftops within Golden Rainbow Martial Arts School, as well as the filthy training ground paved with bluestone slabs, were washed spotlessly clean and gleamed brightly.

At this moment.

The eyes of Xiang Shou, Deputy Pavilion Master of Golden Rainbow Martial Arts School, were also bright, like the sun washed by spring rain.

As the deputy pavilion master of one of Taixi City's foremost martial arts schools, his status made him the target of countless people seeking favor. Yet his attitude at this moment was exceedingly humble.

There was even an indescribable hint of fawning within that humility.

If those disciples outside saw their deputy pavilion master acting like this, their jaws would surely drop.

All because two people stood before him.

The two were a man and a woman.

The man was handsome and refined yet silent, carrying an ornately decorated longsword on his back. The woman was eighteen or nineteen years old, with pleasant features and a cold expression.

What the two had in common was that both wore black brocade robes, their cuffs trimmed with silver cloud patterns.

Perhaps it was the clothes lending them gravitas, but Xiang Shou felt that neither of them needed to show anger to inspire awe with every glance. Both exuded an imposing martial aura.

"What assistance do you two lords require? My Golden Rainbow Martial Arts School will spare no effort to help."

Xiang Shou lowered his voice as he asked for instructions, his gaze fixed unblinking on the silver sword-shaped patterns at the hems of their robes.

That was the emblem of Great Jing's Suspended Sword Division, representing the Great Jing Dynasty's most renowned and powerful institution.