Greatly Increased Cultivation

Aoo! The wild boar immediately let out a miserable cry. Its momentum did not diminish as it slammed headfirst into a tree as thick as a man's waist, making the trunk shudder and shaking leaves all over the ground.

A long trail of blood lay on the ground, a horrifying sight. In that brief instant, the wild boar had already suffered grave wounds, its intestines spilling across the earth.

Yet it did not die at once. Instead, its ferocity surged, and it turned around to launch another attack at Liang Bo.

Liang Bo remained utterly calm. Following the same strategy as before, he delivered another heavy blow to the wild boar as they passed each other.

This blow grievously wounded the boar, sending it crashing to the ground, unable to rise for the moment.

Whew! Only then did Liang Bo let out a breath of relief, a faint smile appearing on his face.

It might have looked easy for him to deal with the wild boar just now, but in truth, if his movement technique had not reached the perfected basic level and his saber technique had not attained the realm of man and saber as one, how could it have been so easy to handle this beast? The boar's thick hide alone was enough to give ordinary martial artists a headache.

After dealing with the wild boar, Liang Bo hurriedly searched for the Cleansing Spirit Fruit.

Fortunately, the Cleansing Spirit Fruit was still there and had not been discovered by anyone. Compared to the last time he had seen it, it was now even riper, its entire fruit giving off a faint fragrance.

Liang Bo did not dare delay. He quickly plucked the Cleansing Spirit Fruit, placed it in a specially prepared jade box, and hurried away.

After returning to his room, Liang Bo did not immediately consume the Cleansing Spirit Fruit. Instead, he rested for another day. Only after returning to his peak condition did he take out the fruit and swallow it in one bite.

At once, Liang Bo felt a surging heat wave rise from his dantian, as though a furnace had suddenly appeared within it. Blazing flames erupted from the furnace and swept through his entire body in an instant.

What powerful medicinal strength!

Liang Bo let out a muffled grunt and frantically circulated the Baoyuan Energy technique. The immense medicinal power immediately transformed into surging inner energy, rampaging through his meridians. In the blink of an eye, it broke through several bottlenecks, causing his inner energy cultivation to soar dramatically.

Early sixth rank, middle sixth rank, late sixth rank...

In the blink of an eye, his cultivation rose to the peak of martial sixth rank, then swiftly broke through the bottleneck and reached martial fifth rank, continuing to climb higher.

An hour later, his inner energy cultivation had risen to late martial fifth rank. However, after reaching this point, the rate at which his inner energy increased clearly began to slow.

Another hour passed before he completely absorbed the Cleansing Spirit Fruit's medicinal power. His inner energy cultivation had also leaped to the peak of martial fifth rank, a vast improvement over before.

Hahahaha... Liang Bo lightly swung his arm, feeling that his body's strength had increased by at least a thousand jin. He was beside himself with excitement.

With his current inner energy cultivation, even without relying on saber techniques at the realm of man and saber as one, he could achieve excellent results in this year's martial academy competition and join a renowned major sect on the level of Floating Cloud Pavilion. With his saber and movement techniques added in, his strength would undoubtedly be even greater. This made him raise his goal for the martial academy competition to those most elite sects.

According to the information Liang Bo had obtained, the Great Jin Dynasty's surroundings were far from peaceful. All around it lay territories of demonic beasts, which launched invasions from time to time and placed enormous pressure on the Great Jin Dynasty.

For the sake of survival, the human forces of the entire Great Jin Dynasty had united, concentrating their strength on nurturing the younger generation of martial artists.

The martial academy competition was an important means by which the major powers recruited disciples. It was chiefly organized by the Great Jin Dynasty's authorities and thirty-six other top sect forces.

These thirty-six sect forces were also the strongest powers within the Great Jin Dynasty. Of them, three could be called the very best: the Limitless Sword Sect, Purple Sun Temple, and True Martial Sect.

As for forces like Floating Cloud Pavilion, although they too were among the thirty-six powers, their overall strength was far inferior to those three. They ranked relatively low among the thirty-six.

With Liang Bo's former strength, even entering Floating Cloud Pavilion through the martial academy competition would have been difficult. But with his current strength, he was already highly confident that he could enter one of the three strongest powers: the Limitless Sword Sect, Purple Sun Temple, or True Martial Sect!

Just then, Xiao Qing hurried in and said, "Young Master, the results of the family competition are out. Second Young Master took first place, while Sixth Young Master and Seventh Young Master took second and third place respectively."

"Is that so?" Liang Bo smiled, not particularly concerned.

If this had happened before, he would have felt regretful. After all, missing the family competition meant that he would have to compete against the young geniuses of all Nanyang Prefecture through the martial academy competition in order to enter a major power like Floating Cloud Pavilion.

But now, Floating Cloud Pavilion no longer caught his eye at all. So even if he had missed the family competition, it was no great loss.

However, he would never lightly let off his Ninth Uncle, Liang Cheng, who had plotted against him, nor the person behind him.

He was not the sort to demand repayment for every trifling grievance, but neither was he so merciful that he could forget a grudge of attempted murder. What was more, Ninth Uncle had deliberately come over these past few days to ask after his well-being, putting on an act of being incomparably concerned for him. It was practically mocking Liang Bo's intelligence, treating him like a child to be fooled.

Still, Ninth Uncle was no weakling. He had already reached martial second rank, had trained for many years, and possessed extremely abundant combat experience. Even Liang Bo did not yet have absolute confidence that he could defeat him.

Fortunately, Liang Bo was in no hurry to take revenge. He was still young, at the very time when his strength could rise rapidly, while Liang Cheng's strength had essentially reached its bottleneck and could no longer advance further.

Thus, what Liang Bo needed to do most was join a major sect and raise his strength as quickly as possible. Once he possessed absolute power, he could return to investigate this matter thoroughly, and it would surely be much easier.

Seeing his indifferent expression, Xiao Qing was visibly stunned for a moment. Then she asked, "Young Master, why do you look so unconcerned? This competition concerns the chance to be selected by Floating Cloud Pavilion! If one can enter a top sect, both one's status and future prospects will become completely different from before. It is such a pity that you missed this opportunity."

Liang Bo smiled. "Missed it, then missed it. There is nothing to regret."

Xiao Qing could not understand. She remembered that before the family competition, her young master had thought about nothing but achieving good results so he could receive a recommendation to enter Floating Cloud Pavilion. Why had he become so indifferent now? Could it be that after suffering such severe injuries this time, even his temperament had changed?

After thinking for a moment, she said, "Oh, right. I heard someone say just now that this year's martial academy competition has been moved up."

"Moved up? To when? Why was it suddenly moved up?" Liang Bo was taken aback and quickly asked.

"I do not know either. I only heard that registration will begin in a few days."

The Great Jin Dynasty's martial academy competition was held once every year, usually scheduled for the end of the year. Occasionally, it was moved up, but such cases were rare.

Liang Bo had originally thought he had several months to prepare. He had not expected it to be moved up by so much.

Still, although the competition being moved up was bad news for him, it was much the same for everyone else. Everyone would be affected, so there was no need to worry.