Nei Jin Perfection
"Here's what we'll do," Lu Feng said suddenly.
"Tomorrow, I'll go to the villages outside the city and ask around, see if I can find anything."
Zhou Si followed immediately. "I'll investigate Zhu Ren. I've thought something was off about him since our first day at the Fire Saber Sect."
The other three exchanged glances.
Luo Fang was the first to nod. "Then Zhu Lin and I will keep asking around the sect and look into those disciples' backgrounds again."
Liu Yong's expression changed several times before he finally gave a grunt, signaling his assent.
With their tasks settled, they went their separate ways.
Lu Feng returned to his room, shut the door behind him, and sat cross-legged on the bed.
He opened the system panel.
[Demon Points: 32,800;]
Back in Lin'an City, a hundred Demon Points had been enough to send him into a frenzy of delight.
Now, with over thirty thousand in hand, he felt unusually calm.
He scanned the panel from top to bottom, his gaze finally settling on the field for his primary cultivation technique.
[Innate Primordial Qi (progress: 57%);]
"System, raise Innate Primordial Qi to perfection."
[Ding! Raising "Innate Primordial Qi" to perfection requires 43,000 Demon Points. Insufficient Demon Points. Unable to upgrade.]
Lu Feng frowned slightly.
He was still ten thousand short.
He hadn't expected a Nei Jin-stage technique to require far more Demon Points than a Ming Jin technique.
"Use all my Demon Points to upgrade 'Innate Primordial Qi.'"
[Ding! Consumed 32,800 Demon Points. "Innate Primordial Qi" progress increased to 89.8%;]
As soon as he finished speaking, a tremendous surge of Jin Qi erupted from deep within his dantian.
Like molten lava, the Jin Qi raced through his meridians and flooded into his limbs and bones.
Every inch of flesh burned, and every acupoint trembled.
The barrier at Late Nei Jin might as well not have existed before this torrent.
"Boom-"
A muffled boom sounded inside him, and the barrier shattered.
But the Jin Qi did not stop. It continued to scour through him, sweeping everything aside like rotten wood until he had firmly crossed the threshold into Nei Jin Perfection. Only then did it slowly subside.
Lu Feng opened his eyes and slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air.
Nei Jin Perfection.
He clenched his fists, and his knuckles cracked sharply.
The Jin Qi within him was more than twice as abundant and refined as it had been before the breakthrough.
Lu Feng reopened the panel.
[Host: Lu Feng] [Cultivation: Nei Jin Perfection] [Primary cultivation technique: Innate Primordial Qi (progress: 89.8%)] [Perfected martial arts: Gale Saber Art, Golden Bell Shield, Carefree Steps, Treading on Snow Without a Trace, Cold Plum Jin, Gale Slash...] [Demon Points: 0]
Over thirty thousand Demon Points, spent in a single night.
Progress: 89.8%. Only one final step remained to reach 100%.
Once Innate Primordial Qi reached complete perfection, it would be time to break through to Hua Jin.
Hua Jin.
In the entire household of Commandant Su, only Su Ying and Qin Shuang were above that realm.
Lu Feng closed the panel, a trace of satisfaction flashing in his eyes.
The Fire Saber Sect was strange at every turn, and his increased strength put him considerably more at ease.
The night passed without incident.
The next day, the five of them set out in different directions at the first hint of dawn.
Lu Feng did not go to the villages right away.
He chose an inconspicuous spot, hid behind an old banyan tree, and waited quietly.
About a quarter of an hour later, several Fire Saber Sect disciples dressed in coarse hemp clothes filed out through a side gate.
There were four of them in all: three men and one woman.
Their leader was a tall, thin young man with an iron saber at his waist and a composed expression.
Lu Feng recognized him. The day before, on the training ground, this man had been the most decisive in his saber practice.
He made no sound and followed them silently.
With Treading on Snow Without a Trace, he passed through the woods like a ghost, not stirring a single leaf underfoot.
Two hours later, the four disciples arrived at a village.
Lu Feng stopped in an old camphor tree and surveyed the surroundings from above.
The village was small, with only a few dozen households by his estimate. Its houses were low and crude, with earthen walls and thatched roofs.
At the village entrance, several elderly people were squatting in the sun by a wall. When they saw the four disciples enter the village, they all looked up with familiar smiles.
"Oh, Xiao Li, you're here!"
"You must be exhausted from the journey! Come into the village and rest!"
The elderly villagers greeted them warmly and naturally, as if welcoming their own younger relatives.
The disciples smiled back and greeted the villagers as they went. Clearly, this was not their first visit.
Lu Feng's gaze swept across the village.
On the paths between the fields, beneath the eaves, and beside the well, all he saw were elderly people.
There was not a single young person.
His gaze darkened slightly.
The four disciples crossed half the village and stopped in front of a low thatched hut.
Its walls were made of rammed yellow earth, its roof covered with blackened thatch. The doorframe was crooked, barely held together with a length of hemp rope.
"Auntie Zhang! We're here!" the tall, thin young man called into the house.
No one answered.
He looked around, and his gaze fell on a spot not far away.
A gaunt old woman was hunched over, dragging a large sack of grain heads with a hemp rope, trudging back with difficulty, one step at a time.
The sack was larger than she was, and it left a long, deep track in the ground.
The old woman's hair was completely white, and the wrinkles on her face looked as if they had been carved with a knife.
Her back was severely hunched, and she had to stop and catch her breath after every step.
"Auntie Zhang!"
The tall, thin young man hurried over, seized the hemp rope, and hoisted the sack of grain heads onto his shoulder. "I'll do it!"
"Oh, Xiao Li, you're here."
The old woman raised her sleeve to wipe the sweat from her forehead. Her eyes passed over their faces, then paused.
"Eh? Where's Zhang Huai? Didn't he come with you?"
The tall, thin young man's hand trembled slightly, but then he smiled. "Senior Brother Zhang Huai has a task this time. He asked us to come see you. Come on, let's go inside first."
He carried the grain heads into the hut, and the other three followed him in.
Lu Feng landed silently behind the hut and took in everything inside through a crack in the wall.
The inside was even more rudimentary than the outside. A bed, a stove, and a wooden table with a corner missing were all she owned.
The old woman ladled several bowls of water from the water jar and handed them to the visitors one by one, rubbing her hands together somewhat awkwardly.
"You must all be tired after coming all this way. I don't have much to offer you at home, so have some water first. I'll clean up these grain heads and make you some porridge right away."
As she spoke, she bent down and reached for the sack of grain heads.
The tall, thin young man caught her by the wrist.
"Auntie Zhang, there's no hurry with the grain." His voice was soft. "We're not leaving until tomorrow."
He took a piece of silver from his robes and pressed it into the old woman's hand.
"Please take these two taels of silver."
The old woman looked down at the silver in her palm.
Her hand began to shake.
From her fingertips to her wrist, then all the way up her arm. Then her legs gave way, and she crumpled toward the ground.
"Auntie Zhang!"
The disciples hurried to catch her and helped her sit down on the bed.
The old woman clutched the silver, her lips trembling as tears welled in her eyes and streamed down the furrows of her wrinkles.
She said nothing, only wept silently, her shoulders shaking.
That was because the village had an unwritten rule: whenever a Fire Saber Sect disciple died, someone would be sent to deliver two taels of silver to the family.
Under such living conditions, the villages had all sent their young people to the Fire Saber Sect.