The Martial Dao Has Nine Grades

What a pity about his three wives.

What a pity about those carefree days of fine clothes and rich food.

What a pity. He hadn't had enough of being Zhao Long yet.

All he could say was that plans couldn't keep up with change.

The bandits around him exchanged glances, utterly unable to understand what their chief was talking about.

What a pity?

He was a pampered young wastrel. They'd killed him, and that was that. What was there to pity?

"Chief, are you... all right?" a nearby bandit asked cautiously.

Chen Fan didn't answer.

He was adjusting to his new body.

A vast, chaotic jumble of memories, filled with bloodshed and violence, was pouring into his mind like a flood bursting through a dam.

[Black Wind Baleful Intent, a battle-hardened frontier soldier, broke military law through excessive slaughter while participating in a massacre of a city. He turned bandit and occupied Black Wind Mountain for over ten years...]

[Martial Dao cultivation: eighth grade.]

[Cultivation Method: "Gale Saber Technique"]

Countless scenes flashed through his mind.

Devouring meat and drinking wine by the bowlful.

Fighting through mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

On a dark, windy night, swinging his saber to chop off a caravan guard's head.

The memories were crude and savage, yet brimming with vigorous life.

More important was the power flowing through this body.

In his Dantian, a faint but real current of Qi slowly revolved at his will. That was internal force.

His meridians were rough, but unobstructed.

The muscles throughout his body were packed with explosive power.

This was a martial artist.

From Black Wind Baleful Intent's memories, Chen Fan finally gained a clear understanding of the Martial Dao in this world.

The Martial Dao had nine grades, with the first grade supreme.

Ninth-Grade Body Tempering, Eighth-Grade Inner Breath, and Seventh-Grade True Qi.

Martial artists from the ninth to the seventh grade were known as the lower three grades.

Starting at the sixth grade, they could project True Qi outside their bodies, shattering monuments and splitting stone.

Third-grade martial artists were called grandmasters, and even in the entire Great Shang Imperial Dynasty, they were as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.

They were great figures capable of founding schools and establishing sects.

Xuanyangzi, master of the Azure Yang Temple, was a genuine seventh-grade expert. His Green Yang Swordsmanship had no equal anywhere in Qinghe County.

No wonder Black Wind Baleful Intent and his gang dared to rob the county magistrate's son, yet didn't dare set foot in the Azure Yang Temple.

One was eighth grade, the other seventh.

A difference of one word, yet as vast as the gulf between heaven and earth.

Even so, for Chen Fan, this was an epic leap.

He had transformed from a wastrel too weak to truss a chicken into an eighth-grade martial artist capable of shattering monuments and splitting stone.

Though he was only a martial artist of the lowest grade, he was still somebody within a hundred li of here.

He hefted the ghost-headed greatsaber on his shoulder.

It was heavy.

At least eighty jin.

Yet in the hands of Black Wind Baleful Intent's body, it felt as light as nothing.

Chen Fan grinned.

This feels pretty good.

"Chief?"

The bandit beside him saw his boss standing there, frowning one moment and grinning foolishly the next, and felt a chill in his heart.

Could he have picked up something unclean while killing that young master?

Chen Fan came back to his senses and reined in his outward emotions.

He swept his gaze over the bandits around him, whose expressions varied, using Black Wind Baleful Intent's own fierce gaze.

"What are you looking at?!"

He bellowed in a booming voice.

"Hasn't anyone fucking died around you before?"

"Get rid of the bodies! Haul everything on the carriage back for me!"

His roar made the bandits jolt.

That's more like it!

That was the chief they knew!

The group immediately sprang into action, some dragging away the corpses while others rummaged through the carriage for valuables.

Just then, a rustling came from the woods not far away.

A figure wearing the Daoist robes of the Azure Yang Temple stepped out from behind a tree.

It was Wang Chong.

His face was alight with barely restrained excitement and delight. The moment he saw Zhao Long's corpse on the ground, he burst out laughing.

"Hahaha! He's dead! He's really dead!"

Wang Chong hurried over and, not knowing the meaning of death, even gave the corpse a few kicks.

"Useless trash! Go on, be arrogant! Go on, act high and mighty!"

He cursed as if venting, his face twisted with venomous hatred.

The surrounding bandits all stopped what they were doing and looked curiously at the Daoist who had suddenly appeared.

After cursing his fill, Wang Chong finally raised his head and looked at Chen Fan, who was carrying the ghost-headed greatsaber.

"Black Wind Baleful Intent, well done!"

He spoke like a superior praising a subordinate.

"You handled this job cleanly and efficiently. My uncle will remember your contribution!"

Chen Fan looked at him expressionlessly.

From Black Wind Baleful Intent's memories, he already knew that this idiot had been behind the whole affair.

The letter that had lured him down the mountain had also been forged by this brat.

He really... doesn't know the meaning of death.

Wang Chong was utterly oblivious to the approaching danger.

He looked at Chen Fan and continued, "As agreed, now that the deed is done, my uncle will help you delay the county yamen's plans to wipe you out. Besides, those three concubines of the Zhao Household are all peerless beauties, especially that principal wife, Lin Wan'er, the number one beauty in Qinghe County..."

As he spoke, he revealed a lecherous grin that any man would understand.

"When the time comes, it wouldn't be too much to share one with a brother, would it?"

Chen Fan's expression still didn't change.

He simply took the ghost-headed greatsaber off his shoulder and dragged it along the ground.

The blade scraped across the earth with a piercing rasp.

Wang Chong's words came to an abrupt halt.

He looked at Chen Fan in some confusion.

"You... what do you mean by this?"

Chen Fan didn't answer.

He was thinking about a question.

As Zhao Long, he couldn't cultivate the Martial Dao, but he had enjoyed a carefree, comfortable life with three beauties by his side.

As Black Wind Baleful Intent, he had become a martial artist, but he had to fight and kill every day, licking blood from the edge of a blade, and had become a wanted criminal pursued by the imperial court.

Which of those two lives was better?

It seemed... an unsolvable question.

Forget it. No point thinking about it.

He raised his head and looked at the astonished Wang Chong.

This fellow was a thoroughgoing petty scoundrel.

I'd better deal with the trouble in front of me first.

"What do I mean?"

Chen Fan spoke, mimicking Black Wind Baleful Intent's tone as he spread his lips in a cruel grin.

"I was thinking..."

"Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"You think you're fit to make demands of me?"

Wang Chong's face instantly turned the color of pig's liver.

"Black Wind Baleful Intent! Don't forget! Who gave you the information? Who helped you-"

He never got to finish.

The ghost-headed greatsaber dragging along the ground had already turned into a bolt of black lightning, whistling upward at a speed utterly at odds with its heavy appearance!

Gale Saber Technique!

No form, no technique, only the purest, most extreme violence!

Wang Chong's pupils abruptly contracted.

He wanted to dodge, but the presence of an eighth-grade martial artist erupting with full force had him firmly locked in place, leaving him without the strength to move a single finger.

He could only watch helplessly as the door-sized greatsaber loomed infinitely larger before his eyes.

"Puchi!"

A muffled sound.

Like a watermelon being smashed open.

Wang Chong's head, still wearing an expression of shock and confusion, shot into the air.

The headless body stood in place for a moment, blood spurting three feet high from its neck.

Then, with a thud, it toppled to the ground.

The entire mountain forest fell deathly silent.

Every bandit turned to stone.

Their mouths hung open and their eyes bulged as they stared fixedly at the corpse still twitching on the ground.

Killed him?

Just like that... he killed him?

That was a Daoist from the Azure Yang Temple! Their inside man for this operation! The chief's partner!

How had he chopped the man down before he'd even finished speaking?

Chen Fan shook the blood from the blade and hoisted the heavy ghost-headed greatsaber back onto his shoulder.

He looked at the two corpses on the ground.

One was his past.

One was the man who had ended his past.

Now they lay together.

"Ch... Chief..."

A bandit leader spoke, his voice trembling.

"Th... that was one of our own..."

Chen Fan turned and gave him a cold glance with Black Wind Baleful Intent's bloodshot eyes.

"He isn't anymore."

His voice was completely devoid of inflection.

He pointed the tip of his saber at the two corpses on the ground.

"Burn them."

"Clean this place up. Don't leave a single trace."

The bandit leader shuddered all over, not daring to ask another word.

"Yes, Chief!"

Chen Fan paid the others no further attention. With his saber on his shoulder, he turned and headed toward Black Wind Mountain.

Sunlight filtered through gaps in the leaves, casting dappled shadows over his towering back.

A bandit watched him go and couldn't help muttering to a companion.

"Have you noticed... the chief's a little different today?"

The other bandit clapped a hand over his mouth and shook his head in terror.

"Don't fucking talk nonsense! Do you want your head to move house like that Daoist's?!"

Chen Fan's steps faltered.

He stopped and turned his head slightly, his face beneath its full beard perfectly calm.

"Back to the mountain!" he ordered.