Severe Injuries

Several more days flew by. The entire Martial Arts Hall Street grew ever livelier; those with connections pulled strings.

Those buying pills bought pills.

Outside Benevolent Harmony Hall and Golden Jade Hall in the inner city, crowds packed the entrances, with lines stretching from one end of the street to the other.

Even after throwing in all their manpower and resources, they still could not meet the demand.

After all, taking legitimate medicinal pills was permitted in the martial examinations. Even a hidden-force martial artist needed three to four days to absorb the boost in vitality and blood from a whole pill.

Vitality and blood powder, meanwhile, was less effective and offered no advantage in the high-intensity martial examinations.

Duan Xuan therefore did not go burden Benevolent Harmony Hall. He continued coming to the martial arts hall to practice his Broken Mountain Fist.

"Good morning, Senior Brother Duan!"

"Junior Brother Duan, you're here so early again today?"

"Senior Brother Duan, Erniu and I have a few things we don't understand about the cultivation method. Could we ask you for guidance?"

Duan Xuan nodded in response to each of them. He rarely refused fellow disciples who came to seek his advice, and he never charged them.

For most people, simply surviving was already difficult enough. Those who came to learn martial arts were the poorest among the poor.

They were no different from who he had once been.

If he looked on coldly, or took the chance to profit from them—

Then he truly would not know how to write the character for human.

"Senior Brother Duan, I feel my vitality and blood have become incredibly full lately. I should be able to break through to manifest force by the end of the month!" Liu Tie excitedly handed Duan Xuan a meat bun, clearly having saved it especially for him. "Practicing martial arts beside you every day, Senior Brother, has taught me so much. I've benefited enormously from all sorts of techniques and methods for raising vitality and blood!"

Duan Xuan accepted the bun with a cheerful smile. "Don't sweet-talk me. Diligent practice is the proper path."

"Got it, got it." Liu Tie struck a Broken Mountain Fist stance and grinned. "Senior Brother Duan, Senior Brother Zhang Chen has been gone for quite some time. Do you know what he went off to do?"

Duan Xuan froze. He truly had not known about this. Zhang Chen had been gone for over half a month.

He had left the martial arts hall suddenly. Duan Xuan had thought his senior brother had found a good post and gone off to earn money.

But hearing Liu Tie say this, he realized that was not the case.

"Don't tell anyone else. I accidentally overheard it from two senior sisters yesterday. Senior Brother Zhang Chen actually went to Cloudfall County to deliver a letter for Master."

"Cloudfall County? The county town nearly a hundred li from here?"

Liu Tie nodded frantically, still shaken by the thought. "Never saw that coming, did you? Master has several friends there who run martial arts halls. They're supposedly all transformation-force experts too. He contacted them to prevent the competing disciples from our martial arts hall from being ambushed during the martial examinations. On the other hand, he also hopes to bring over a disciple who is unwilling to compete. You may not know this, but hidden-force martial artists have already begun challenging martial arts halls in the neighboring county town. Disciples from six or seven martial arts halls have suffered, and the top senior brothers of those sects had their innate bones crippled, reduced to useless cripples!"

Duan Xuan frowned. He truly had not known about this either, but what did it matter? What did challenging a martial arts hall mean?

One person challenging an entire martial arts hall!

Losing would be one thing, but winning was no different from slapping the martial arts hall master across the face in public.

And if they challenged enough halls, the local martial arts halls would surely not let them leave.

For all he knew, they had already had their arms and legs broken and been buried alive.

Master Chen Feng and Liu Tie were worrying for nothing.

Still, there was no issue with taking precautions against the Scale Python Martial Academy.

Previously, one of the assistant hall masters had been beaten into grievous injury. He was still recuperating in an excellent clinic in Yellow Snake County.

"Counting the days, Senior Brother Zhang Chen should be back today," Liu Tie said. For some reason, the boy grew excited as he spoke.

Rubbing his hands together, he said, "I wonder whether the other martial arts halls have any young ladies as beautiful as the two senior sisters? Once I break through to hidden force, I'll definitely marry one and bring her home to be a good daughter-in-law for my mother!"

Duan Xuan could not be bothered to listen to the boy boast further. What concerned him was where Senior Brothers Song Dayuan and Wu Hui had gone.

Today was the day they would make their final attempt to break through to hidden force, yet ever since their sparring match several days ago, Duan Xuan had not seen either of them.

Even by nightfall, Duan Xuan still had not caught sight of them.

"Junior Brother Liu Tie, do you know what those two senior brothers have been busy with lately? I haven't seen them making any preparations to break through to hidden force these past two days."

Liu Tie let out an ah and blinked. "I thought you knew. So you didn't know. The night after they sparred with you last time, Senior Brothers Song Dayuan and Wu Hui packed their bags and left the martial arts hall in the dead of night. Senior Sister Jingyun even tried to persuade them to wait five days and then break through to hidden force, but they were extremely determined. No one could keep them. The other manifest-force senior brothers looked so miserable too, as if they themselves were the ones leaving. Strange, isn't it?"

"I understand..." A wave of sorrow rose in Duan Xuan's heart.

No innate bones, no connections, no resources, and even less chance encounters—martial cultivation was so merciless toward ordinary people.

Thinking back over every little moment of the past few months, although neither man had become especially close to him, they had exchanged words from time to time and sparred from time to time.

And Duan Xuan knew that the grief and sadness shown by the other disciples was not an act.

Yet they were not lamenting the two men's misfortune. They were worrying about their own futures.

Days and months flew by. Broken Mountain Martial Arts Hall had stood in this county town for who knew how long, but every year newcomers entered, and every year old hands departed.

The martial arts hall narrowed the gap between classes, but once one stepped through those doors, class was still class. No matter how deep the bond between fellow disciples, it was difficult to cross in an entire lifetime.

"Ah..." In the end, it became only a sigh, as the figures of the two men drifted farther and farther away from Duan Xuan.

At dusk, Duan Xuan was drenched in sweat. He repeatedly drilled the moves of the Broken Mountain Fist, yet he still had no insight whatsoever into the final two moves. He had already gone numb.

"Perhaps I can only truly see through these two moves once I reach transformation force!" He packed his things and was about to leave.

Suddenly, cries and shouts came from outside the door.

"Master, Senior Sister, save us! They... they have no martial virtue!"

Hearing Zhou Ye's familiar voice, the disciples who had trained themselves to exhaustion surged outside in a dark flood.

They saw Zhou Ye covered in blood and in a wretched state. A tall, burly man lay across his back, barely clinging to life. His wounds reached down to the tendons and bones, exposing ghastly white bone.

"Junior Brother Zhou, Senior Brother Zhang Chen, what happened?!"

The disciples immediately assumed guarded stances while crowding around the two men and rushing them into the courtyard.

Disciples from the surrounding martial arts halls watched the commotion. Some ran into their own courtyards to report to their masters. Pedestrians on the street were startled and retreated far away.

Yet they could not suppress their curiosity about what had happened at the martial arts hall.

Bang!

The gates of Broken Mountain Martial Arts Hall slammed shut, cutting off the prying crowd outside.

"What happened? Were the martial arts hall disciples attacked by bandits?"

"Don't joke around. Would bandits dare?"

"They're injured so badly. Could it have been a demon beast?"

"Demon beast? You've read too many storybooks. Where would demon beasts come from? Go on, kid—sell your flatbreads!"

"Could the undead army have come?"

The crowd immediately fell silent, and the air turned cold.

Only after a long while did someone break the deadlock. "Impossible. The undead army is a hundred thousand li away from us. I heard the Scale Python Martial Academy did this. The two martial arts halls haven't been getting along lately, and they were already fighting tooth and nail a few days ago. I heard that Dragon-Elephant Academy even sent people over."