Sixth-Rank Great Martial Master

"Master, that Blazing Qilin Ginseng has potent medicinal properties. You aren't planning to take it, are you?" Liu Qiaolian, seeing Xia Daoming's joyful expression after they had left Green Cypress City—as if he had stumbled upon a great bargain—felt a pang of worry.

"No rush, no rush. I'll save this medicine for later," Xia Daoming said with a smile.

Given its potent medicinal properties, Xia Daoming naturally intended to save it for when he reached the Sixth-Rank realm.

It was perfect timing, as strengthening meridians at the Sixth-Rank would definitely require better and more potent medicinal ingredients.

Finding a 300-year-old Blazing Qilin Ginseng wouldn't be easy.

"That's good. I was really worried!" Liu Qiaolian sighed in relief upon hearing his words.

"You worry about me that much?" Xia Daoming asked with a smile.

"Of course. Master, you are my sky. If anything were to happen to you, I wouldn't be able to go on living," Liu Qiaolian replied without hesitation.

Xia Daoming was stunned by her words. After a long pause, he said, "Silly Lian'er, everyone has their own life. From now on, whether I live or die, you must be strong..."

"No, without Master, there is no me!" Liu Qiaolian interrupted him with a determined look.

Xia Daoming looked at Liu Qiaolian, and after a long moment, he chuckled, "Then, for our Lian'er, I must do my best to live well, no matter what."

"Good fortune smiles upon you. Master will surely live a long life!" Liu Qiaolian said.

"Live a long life?" Xia Daoming chuckled noncommittally.

In this world, there were Grandmasters, who were said to live at least a hundred years.

Not only that, but there were also said to be Cultivators in this world, whose lifespans would surely be even longer.

Having been reborn, Xia Daoming's current short-term goal was to become a Grandmaster, and his long-term goal was to become a Cultivator, pursuing eternal life. Living only a hundred years wouldn't satisfy him.

Of course, he was only a Fifth-Rank Great Martial Master at the moment, so discussing these things with Liu Qiaolian was too far ahead of himself.

As evening approached.

The two arrived at a small city.

They stayed overnight in the small city.

Xia Daoming took the Thousand Treasures Pill to cultivate.

Although the medicinal efficacy of this pill was not as potent as the Three Yuan Blood Return Pill, it yielded surprisingly good results for Xia Daoming as it was his first time taking it.

That night, Xia Daoming consumed six Thousand Treasures Pills, but by the sixth pill, the medicinal effect had significantly diminished.

In the following days, Xia Daoming and Liu Qiaolian continued their journey, traveling by day and finding places to stay by night.

Sometimes, when the mountains were dense and undulating, and they couldn't find any towns or cities to stay in for two to three consecutive days, they had no choice but to camp in the wild.

For this, Liu Qiaolian would blame herself for not planning the route in advance, causing Xia Daoming to suffer in the wilderness with her. However, Xia Daoming found a unique joy in playing cards outdoors and didn't feel any hardship or fatigue.

As they traveled and stopped, they would visit pharmacies in every city they passed to purchase medicinal ingredients.

Inspired by the Blazing Qilin Ginseng from the Thousand Treasures Hall, Xia Daoming would also specifically inquire about rare, high-quality medicinal ingredients that pharmacies were reluctant to sell.

If it was a larger city, they would stay for a few more days.

Sometimes, they would also get lost in the mountains, wandering around for several days before finding their way out.

Occasionally, when they encountered scenically beautiful places, being young, they would deliberately stop to enjoy the sights.

After traveling like this for a month.

Xia Daoming discovered that in all the cities they had passed, regardless of their size, the pharmacies did not sell pills that could be effective for Martial Masters of Seventh-Rank Great Martial Master and above.

Those pills were likely very rare and required special channels; or they needed to be custom-ordered and not sold directly to the public. As an outsider, and merely a Fifth-Rank Great Martial Master, Xia Daoming had no connections to purchase them; or perhaps the cities they passed through were not of a high enough level.

However, potent medicinal ingredients like the Blazing Qilin Ginseng, which he actively sought out, he had managed to acquire another one.

He purchased a hundred-year-old Ice-Cold Purple Ganoderma for five thousand taels after some bargaining.

Xia Daoming paid three thousand taels in cash and the remaining two thousand taels were settled with pills from Evergreen Hall.

Along the way, Xia Daoming had already traded a considerable amount of the Evergreen Hall pills he had accumulated, at prices slightly higher than the local market rate in Li City.

This day marked the thirty-second day since they left Li City.

Through continuously taking different new pills and persistent, arduous cultivation, Xia Daoming finally completed the nine-level meridian strengthening and then broke through to open his sixth meridian, becoming a Sixth-Rank Great Martial Master.

After becoming a Sixth-Rank Great Martial Master, Xia Daoming did not rush to consume potent medicinal ingredients like the Blazing Qilin Ginseng. Instead, he continued to take the new pills he had purchased along the way to stabilize and gradually improve his cultivation.

Firstly, it was a conservative approach. After all, one couldn't blindly trust merchants, and the medicinal properties of the Blazing Qilin Ginseng might be even more potent than what the merchants claimed. It would be safer to consume it after strengthening his Sixth-Rank meridians by one or two levels.

Secondly, ingredients like the Blazing Qilin Ginseng were not only expensive but also difficult to find, so they should be saved for crucial moments. Since the newly acquired pills still had considerable efficacy in strengthening Sixth-Rank meridians, he naturally continued to purchase and consume them.

In the blink of an eye, another month passed.

Xia Daoming found two more potent medicinal ingredients.

One was a Blazing Qilin Ginseng of over 360 years, and the other was a Crimson Flame Ganoderma of 300 years.

These two medicinal ingredients were not cheap, costing Xia Daoming twenty thousand taels of silver.

Combined with the pills purchased along the way, in just two months, Xia Daoming had spent a total of fifty-five thousand taels of silver.

A portion of this was paid for by trading Evergreen Hall pills.

Even so, Xia Daoming spent forty-five thousand taels of silver over two months, leaving him with only about eight thousand taels of cash flow.

The Evergreen Hall elixirs he had in stock were also running low, estimated to be worth around four to five thousand taels.

Of course, with effort comes reward.

Xia Daoming had now completed two levels of Meridian strengthening, with the third level already at twenty percent completion.

Not only that, but he also had some new elixirs and four potent herbs that could be directly consumed.

However, the requirements for Meridian strengthening increased with each subsequent level.

With the new elixirs and four potent herbs he had, Xia Daoming believed they wouldn't be enough to support him through the nine levels of Meridian strengthening for the Sixth-Rank realm.

Therefore, Xia Daoming decided to press on, intending to travel all the way to the prefectural city to see the situation there.

As for the shortage of funds, Xia Daoming planned to find a suitable place to sell the Dark Cloud Art and the Mysterious Divine Rhyme Diagram from the Wu Family Fortress that he had in hand.

Now that Xia Daoming was far from Li City, he wasn't worried about being tracked by anyone from there.

The only concern was how to find a suitable buyer and sell them at a fair price.

However, this wasn't a problem for Xia Daoming.

The customers for high-grade medicinal ingredients and elixirs from medicinal ingredient merchants were generally the local affluent families or sect powers, and these were precisely the potential buyers for cultivation techniques and Mysterious Divine Rhyme Diagrams.

Xia Daoming just needed to go through the local medicinal ingredient merchants; he wouldn't have trouble finding suitable buyers or inquiring about the market price for the Hidden Strength Mysterious Divine Rhyme Diagram.

Moreover, over these two months, he had already gained extensive experience in dealing with medicinal ingredient merchants.

Cuiling City.

A moderately sized mountain city in the southeastern region of Mangzhou Prefecture.

Xia Daoming found the largest medicinal ingredient merchant in the area. After some transactions and getting acquainted, Xia Daoming began to inquire about the situation in Cuiling City.

Through his inquiries, Xia Daoming learned that this mountain city was controlled and divided among five major powers.

The most powerful figures among these five major powers were only Seventh-Rank Great Martial Masters, with no Eighth-Rank Great Martial Masters presiding over them.

After clarifying the situation, Xia Daoming decided to sell the Wu family's cultivation technique and Mysterious Divine Rhyme Diagram in Cuiling City.

With his current cultivation, as long as it wasn't an Eighth-Rank Great Martial Master or several Seventh-Rank Great Martial Masters acting in concert, no one could keep him.

Therefore, Xia Daoming wasn't afraid of anyone forcing him to buy or outright robbing him when selling the cultivation technique and Mysterious Divine Rhyme Diagram in Cuiling City.

Before this, he had already inquired about the general market price of the Hidden Strength Mysterious Divine Rhyme Diagram from medicinal ingredient merchants in several larger cities, so he wasn't worried about being ripped off.

To Xia Daoming's surprise, when the medicinal ingredient merchant heard he had a cultivation technique and the Hidden Strength Mysterious Divine Rhyme Diagram for sale, they immediately expressed their family's desire to purchase them, offering a price slightly higher than the market rate he had inquired about, reaching fifty-eight thousand taels.

As a result, by the time Xia Daoming left Cuiling City, his cash flow had reached sixty-three thousand taels, slightly more than when he had just left Li City.

Along the way, Liu Qiaolian kept stealing glances at Xia Daoming.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have flowers growing on my face?" Xia Daoming quickly noticed Liu Qiaolian's unusual behavior and teased her with a smile.

"No, no," Liu Qiaolian hastily denied, shaking her head.

But after a while, Liu Qiaolian started to peek at Xia Daoming curiously again, even parting her lips slightly several times, as if wanting to speak but hesitating.

"Are you wondering how I got the Wu Family Fortress's cultivation technique and Mysterious Divine Rhyme Diagram?" Xia Daoming, seeing Liu Qiaolian peeking at him again, knew she was curious, and asked with a smile.

"This servant dares not!" Liu Qiaolian said, flustered at having her thoughts exposed by Xia Daoming.

"Remember the masked old man who broke into our house that night? That was Jing Xuanying, the steward of the Wu Family Fortress. He was sent by the Fortress Lord Wu Yueli to kill me.

So, after I figured out the situation, I followed Jing Xuanying into the Wu Family Fortress, assassinated Wu Yueli, and incidentally raided his private treasury," Xia Daoming said casually.

When Xia Daoming and Liu Qiaolian left Li City, the news of Wu Yueli's death was still only circulating in small circles. Liu Qiaolian, living in seclusion at the Xia residence, was unaware of this matter.

So, when she heard that Xia Daoming had actually infiltrated the Wu Family Fortress and assassinated Wu Yueli, she was so shocked that she almost cried out, her eyes widening.

Her full, soft chest couldn't help but heave violently.

Wu Yueli was a Sixth-Rank Great Martial Master and the lord of a fortress, with numerous family members and retainers under him. To a commoner martial artist like Liu Qiaolian, he was an insurmountable figure of authority.

Yet, now Xia Daoming was telling her that he had infiltrated the Wu Family Fortress and assassinated Wu Yueli. How could Liu Qiaolian not be shocked?

"After this trip to the southeast concludes, you tell me properly about the destruction of the Liu Family Village. If the perpetrators aren't too formidable, I'll find some time to avenge you," Xia Daoming said after a moment's thought, looking at Liu Qiaolian's astonished expression.

Ever since that time he played cards with Liu Qiaolian and caused her to bleed, Xia Daoming had actually harbored the thought of helping her get revenge someday.

However, at that time, he was like a rootless duckweed, his future uncertain, and his strength very limited. Naturally, he didn't dare to make such a promise lightly.

Now, his strength and financial resources were far beyond what they used to be, and he was full of hope for his future. Since the assassination of Wu Yueli had been brought up, Xia Daoming thought it was time to talk to Liu Qiaolian about revenge, to give her a promise and something to look forward to.

A new month, continuing to ask for collections and follow-ups. Thanks to Jamesleex, Shuxiang Chuntian0501, Qiuzhishenguang, Youyou roaming in the sea of books, RPG defense, and other book friends for their rewards.