Su Yu's cloth shoes stepped onto the gray-brick stairs, his footsteps carrying far down the dim corridor.
At the entrance to the pavilion, the creaking wicker chair still stood in its usual place.
The old man with thinning hair had his eyes half closed, idly waving a battered palm-leaf fan whose edges had already frayed.
Su Yu stopped, his right hand closing around the black-and-gold saber hilt at his waist while his left offered the squad leader's waist token that identified him.
Although he still held the rank of squad leader, Lin Xiao had already reported his latest achievements, and his promotion was being processed at the county office.
The old man opened his eyes a crack, pinched the token by its edge, and rubbed it twice against his rough palm.
The texture of this token was wrong.
The old man propped himself up, his gaze falling on the name "Su Yu" engraved on the front.
He remembered this face.
A few days ago, this young man had ignored his warnings and insisted on taking Suppressing Prisons and Subduing Demons, a technique known as a road to certain death.
The old man's fingers tightened around the token. Its warmth had yet to fade.
"You're actually still alive!"
The old man froze, and his fan stopped moving.
Not only was he alive, but his cultivation had reached the Mortal Realm Ninth Layer, and even his divine sense carried Spirit Realm fluctuations.
Su Yu stood below the stone steps. The air around him seemed slightly heavier than elsewhere.
"I want to exchange for the Spirit Realm section of Suppressing Prisons and Subduing Demons!"
The old man fell silent for a moment, then sat upright in his wicker chair. He tossed the token back to Su Yu, but his fingertips were trembling.
"The first layer of Suppressing Prisons and Subduing Demons, Foundation Establishment, is extremely dangerous. Very few people survive it."
As he spoke, the old man stared fixedly at Su Yu's cheeks, seemingly trying to find some trace of damaged meridians.
"How far have you cultivated it?"
Su Yu said nothing. He took half a step forward and planted his foot.
Hum!
A dark-red current of Qi instantly spread outward from Su Yu.
The accumulated dust on the ground was forcibly pushed aside, forming a perfect ring with a radius of three feet.
A light dead leaf fell into that area and, as though struck by a massive hammer, was instantly pinned to the ground and shattered into powder.
The old man's pupils contracted, and the palm-leaf fan dropped from his hand with a clatter.
"Prohibition Blood Formation?!"
"How is this possible?"
His voice became exceptionally dry and raspy, like two sheets of sandpaper grinding against each other.
This was an ultimate killing move that awakened only after Suppressing Prisons and Subduing Demons reached the subtle mastery stage.
This technique had been in Nanhe County for ten years and had passed through three owners in total.
On the third day of cultivation, the first owner's blood and Qi had reversed their flow, and he had exploded and died.
The second had forced himself to minor accomplishment, only to become completely paralyzed half a month later.
Su Yu was the third.
The old man looked at the circle of dark-red domain on the ground and leaned forward slightly.
"In ten years, you're the first to master it, and you've even comprehended the Prohibition Blood Formation!"
Su Yu withdrew his presence, and the domain instantly dissipated.
"Where's the Spirit Realm section?"
The old man let out a long breath of turbid air and leaned back in his chair, but his composure had vanished without a trace.
"It isn't here."
He pointed deeper into the pavilion, a helpless look appearing on his face.
"Most cultivation techniques held in Nanhe County's Demon Suppression Pavilion stop at the threshold of the Spirit Realm."
"Suppressing Prisons and Subduing Demons is a unique work throughout Great Qin. County-level armories only have the most basic Mortal Realm volume."
The old man picked up his fan and patted off the dust.
"To find the subsequent sections of this technique, you'd have to go at least as far as the Demon Suppression Bureau in Tiannan Commandery, or perhaps the main bureau in the prefectural capital."
Su Yu's brows knitted, his knuckles tapping lightly against his saber hilt.
"There's only the Mortal Realm section here?"
The old man nodded.
"Not only are the subsequent sections absent, but even the related records are sealed in the core archives."
"I've guarded this pavilion for thirty years, and I've only ever seen that one Mortal Realm volume."
Ripples stirred in Su Yu's heart as sandbox simulations ran rapidly through his mind.
He currently had ample Slaughter Points, but without the subsequent cultivation technique, his Qi refinement progress would grind to a complete halt.
If he went to Tiannan Commandery, the Demon God Cult forces behind the Liu Family would certainly intercept and kill him along the way.
But with his current strength, if he stayed in Nanhe County, this resource-starved environment would sooner or later lock down his upper limit.
Going to Tiannan Commandery was an inevitable choice.
"Since Suppressing Prisons and Subduing Demons isn't available, I'll choose two Spirit Realm martial arts!"
Su Yu stopped dwelling on the missing cultivation technique and turned toward the pavilion doors.
The old man called out behind him.
"The third row on the left. That's where the Spirit Realm martial arts are kept."
"Don't spread yourself too thin. Martial arts are about mastery, not quantity."
Without looking back, Su Yu stepped straight onto the dimly lit second floor.
The second floor was furnished far more finely than the first. All the shelves were made of rot-resistant red sandalwood, and every manual was covered by a transparent glass case to prevent Spiritual Qi from escaping.
Su Yu walked between the shelves.
From his sea of consciousness, his Spirit Realm Second Level divine sense extended beyond his body like a fine tendril, sensing the fluctuations given off by each martial arts manual.
In spirit refinement, he currently knew only the most basic disruption methods and how to forcibly concentrate his divine sense to attack an enemy.
Against opponents at the Spirit Realm or above, such crude methods were far too easy to defend against.
Su Yu's gaze stopped before a glass box containing a roll of pitch-black beast hide with uneven edges.
[Spirit Sense Piercing: mid-grade Spirit Realm spirit-refining martial art. Compresses spirit sense to the size of a needlepoint and releases it in an instantaneous burst, capable of shattering the sea-of-consciousness defenses of opponents at the same level.]
Su Yu reached out and pressed his palm against the glass box.
This martial art could make up for his lack of divine sense attack methods.
In a true life-or-death struggle, a disturbance in the sea of consciousness lasting a fraction of a second was enough to decide who kept their head.
He memorized its location and continued farther back.
In body refinement, Vajra Demonic Baleful Intent had already given him extremely powerful defenses.
But heavy punches alone still lacked penetrating power against demons renowned for their speed or powerful bodies.
He stopped before a shelf bearing a vermilion label.
[Star-Shattering Finger: high-grade Spirit Realm body-refining martial art. Tempers the fingers to the hardness of metal and stone, concentrating the entire body's strength into two fingers. Ignores conventional armor and force, sending penetrating force directly into the internal organs.]
Su Yu brushed his fingertips over the label.
Combined with his current subtle-mastery gravity field, a Star-Shattering Finger delivered at close range would instantly crumble even defenses like Liu Tianjue's.
When he came downstairs carrying two copies, the old man was sitting in the wicker chair in a daze.
"Finished choosing?"
The old man accepted the copies Su Yu handed him and mechanically entered them into the register.
Star-Shattering Finger, Spirit Sense Piercing.
He stopped writing and looked up at Su Yu, hesitating to speak.
"Young man, you're the most talented person I've seen in all these years."
"But I still have to remind you: the waters of Nanhe County are too shallow. The Liu Family's destruction was only the beginning."
As he spoke, the old man pushed the two transcriptions to the edge of the table, his finger scoring a deep mark across the wood.
"A Demon God Cult emissary died here. They absolutely won't let the matter rest."
Su Yu put away the transcriptions and looked expressionlessly at the old man.
"If someone wants my life, we'll see whether their teeth are hard enough."
He turned and walked out the door, his black cloak snapping in the wind.
Watching Su Yu's retreating figure, the old man gave his palm-leaf fan a forceful wave and sighed.
In the quiet shadows of the back alley behind the Demon Suppression Bureau.
Disguised as an old farmer, Blood Wolf crouched at the foot of a wall, clutching a tobacco pipe caked with dirt.