"Solving this case and capturing the murderer earned you one Ninth-Rank Merit. There's also a reward of two Low-Grade Essence Stones, three packets of Blood Qi Powder, and ten taels of silver. Here, take them."
Old Zhan kept nothing for himself.
He gave every last reward to Fu Shaoping.
Whenever a Martial Suppression Guard under his command completed a mission, he received a ten-percent commission as their Commandant. Of course, the Martial Suppression Bureau provided this separately; it did not come out of his subordinates' earnings.
So from the very beginning,
Old Zhan had made his position clear.
If he contributed nothing to a mission, he would only take the commission provided by his superiors. Whatever rewards Fu Shaoping earned, he would not touch a penny.
Fu Shaoping had not expected the Hundred Households Office to be so generous. He had thought the case would be worth half a Ninth-Rank Merit at most.
By that reckoning, he only needed to complete ninety-two more similar missions to accumulate a hundred Ninth-Rank Merits. Then, once he broke through to the sixth level of the Body Tempering Realm, he could become a Commandant!
After putting away his rewards,
Fu Shaoping brought up the matter that concerned him most.
"Sir, when will Yang Shan from Yellow Creek Village be executed?"
"He'll be beheaded at the Meridian Gate in ten days. Why? Do you want to wield the blade yourself?"
"Sir, my Martial Suppression Saber hasn't tasted blood yet. I was thinking I could give it its first taste with Yang Shan. Could you arrange that for me?"
"Certainly. That's hardly difficult."
Because Old Zhan had trouble with his legs, the higher-ups at the Hundred Households Office did not require him to complete an eighth-grade mission every month. They had simply left him in charge of the prison.
Fu Shaoping thanked him, then left the Hundred Households Office and went home.
He had already fulfilled his minimum mission requirement for the month.
After discussing it with Zhou Pan'er, he decided to visit Seven-Mile Mountain again and cut down a batch of Clearwood to refine his seventeen batches of Blood Qi Powder.
Unless more ordinary criminal cases arose, he would still have to fight martial artists in the future.
Before that happened, he needed to mend his roof before the rain and improve his strength in advance.
Their rented carriage stopped at the foot of Seven-Mile Mountain.
Fu Shaoping pulled a sheet of rice paper from inside his robe. The terrain map drawn on it depicted Seven-Mile Mountain.
He pointed to a sheer slope on the map.
"Pan'er, once we leave the Granary Wood Grove, we'll head straight for Flying Cloud Slope. It's steep enough that we can toss the Clearwood logs down it and save ourselves a lot of effort."
It was on their last descent from the mountain that
Fu Shaoping had caught a fleeting glimpse of Flying Cloud Slope.
Zhou Pan'er naturally had no objections.
The two followed their previous strategy.
An hour later,
"Roar! Roar! Roar!"
Furious roars from the Granary Bears echoed through the mountain.
The last time Fu Shaoping and his companions had come to fell Clearwood, they had enraged the Granary Bears in the grove. Barely a month of peace had passed, and now these intruders were up to their old tricks again.
The Granary Bears normally lived apart.
This time, with their common interests threatened, they united as never before.
They attacked as a pack.
Fu Shaoping had never expected this.
However,
the Granary Bears were heavy and cumbersome, their speed no match for Fu Shaoping and Zhou Pan'er using Ethereal Steps. With Flying Cloud Slope transporting the timber this time, the two were as light as swallows. In the blink of an eye, they left the ferociously pursuing bears far behind.
At first,
Fu Shaoping and Zhou Pan'er ran at much the same speed.
But
Zhou Pan'er soon noticed something amiss.
Fu Shaoping was noticeably faster than he had been when running at full speed before.
By the time they reached the foot of the mountain,
both had worked up a light sweat.
Looking at the Clearwood logs that had tumbled down the slope, Fu Shaoping smiled in satisfaction. Although he had known the pursuing Granary Bears could not keep up, the deadly pressure at his back had driven him to wring out every last ounce of strength and push Ethereal Steps to its limit.
Now that he had stopped,
he vaguely sensed something as well.
Could it be...?
Fu Shaoping immediately directed his mental energy toward the Treasure Mirror in his sea of consciousness.
The Treasure Mirror flickered.
A line of text appeared:
Ethereal Steps: novice (10/100)
This...
Scarcely believing his eyes, Fu Shaoping checked several more times. Once he confirmed that the number had indeed increased by eight points, astonishment and delight filled him.
"What a coincidence-enough to make a story!"
He had been fretting over how slowly he was progressing with this second-grade martial art.
Yet he had stumbled upon a shortcut to improving it.
Fu Shaoping and Zhou Pan'er exchanged a glance. As though their hearts were linked, they spoke almost in unison.
"Let's rest a little, then head up again!"
Clearly,
both had discovered this trick to speeding up their Ethereal Steps training.
For a time,
from dawn to dusk on Seven-Mile Mountain,
the Granary Bears' furious roars never ceased.
Each lull lasted less than the time it took an incense stick to burn before the roaring began anew.
This continued for several days,
until, from deep within the mountain,
a powerful roar thundered out.
It sounded just like a Granary Bear, yet the moment it rang out, every bear in the grove trembled.
"Retreat!"
Fu Shaoping knew when to quit while he was ahead.
Without the slightest hesitation, the two raced down the mountain as fast as they could.
Within
the grove,
only gusts of breeze could be felt. Even long after the two had left a spot, their afterimages lingered before the wind scattered them.
Only once they were far enough from Seven-Mile Mountain
did Fu Shaoping stop.
The text on the Treasure Mirror in his sea of consciousness flickered:
Ethereal Steps: minor mastery (5/100)
Five days.
Each time, on the brink of life and death, he had squeezed out the last of his potential.
By keeping at it day and night,
he had finally advanced Ethereal Steps from novice to minor mastery. Now, even against an expert at the fourth level of the Body Tempering Realm, he felt fully confident he could escape. This was a means of saving his life.
What surprised him, however,
was that Zhou Pan'er, who had originally lagged behind him, had now just barely reached minor mastery as well.
He could not help marveling.
Without a Mystic Treasured Mirror,
Zhou Pan'er's aptitude for martial arts was clearly greater than his.
In just a few days,
not only had their martial arts improved greatly, but they had also felled several full cartloads of Clearwood, enough to keep him refining medicine for months. Until then, Fu Shaoping decided he would stay away from Seven-Mile Mountain rather than provoke that enormous creature deep within it again.
After returning from Seven-Mile Mountain,
Fu Shaoping rested at home for half a day, then took a cart piled high with Clearwood to the Earthfire Hall.
Junior Banner Liu, who guarded the Earthfire Hall, remembered Fu Shaoping well.
Seeing that Fu Shaoping had not abandoned alchemy despite failing to enter the Alchemy Hall, he felt somewhat gratified. He pushed back the Origin Shells Fu Shaoping offered him and said,
"There aren't many martial artists with a talent for alchemy in the Hundred Households Office. I reported your circumstances to our superiors, and they said you can use the Earthfire Chamber whenever you like from now on. There'll be no more limits, and you won't have to pay the mission fee anymore."
Fu Shaoping froze for a moment.
Then he hurriedly thanked him.
He truly had not expected such good fortune.
Still,
to a behemoth like the Martial Suppression Bureau, a few Low-Grade Essence Stones were hardly worth mentioning, yet they could foster a little more loyalty among its personnel.
At least out in the martial world, there was no organization this good, with benefits like these.
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