Chapter 107 - 105: Another Power Boost
Speaking of the distant, but nearer at hand, there is the Captain from the Imperial Capital, as well as his direct superior, General Director Zhuang Ren.
Their Body Refining Cultivation is actually higher than his!
In the Jianghu, there are also famous masters, grandmasters of a generation, who are still figures he looks up to.
Therefore, he feels he has no real capital to be arrogant or complacent.
Staying in Donglai Prefecture and developing quietly seems fine as well.
The nickname given to him by people in the Jianghu, he indeed doesn’t like it, as it contradicts his idea of low-profile development.
Every now and then, young martial artists like Du Ling come to challenge him to make a name for themselves.
The more famous he gets, the more people want to step on his fame to gain their own renown.
The many conflicts in Jianghu arise precisely from this.
Fighting back and forth is essentially for the sake of a ’name’.
Song Changming just finds it troublesome, as this fame is of no practical use to him at present.
In the afternoon, Liang Zhao Long continues to patrol the streets with his Patrol Guard, while Song Changming stays at the General Department to practice his sword skills alone.
With his Bull Demon Skill reaching the Sixth Realm, his cultivation focus will shift from body refinement to sword training.
Because his top-level blade skill, Flying Swallow Technique, has increased its sword skill experience value by nearly four thousand points over the past year and a half!
Now, the ultimate perfection is so close at hand.
If all goes without a hitch, it will be achieved in over a month!
The Bull Demon Skill reaching the Sixth Realm has brought him great enhancement and improvement in his physical build.
He is eager to know how much progress this top-level martial art, once perfected, will bring to his sword skill attainment.
Imagining it, it must surely surpass the Soul-breaking Saber.
In fact, the Soul-breaking Saber at the Perfection Realm is enough to astonish people.
At least, a significant part of his current fame is due to this Perfection Realm Soul-breaking Saber.
Most of the battles he encounters can be solved with just the Soul-breaking Saber.
The Flying Swallow Technique, this top-level blade skill, has instead become his trump card technique.
It is usually only used as a surprise move when the Soul-breaking Saber cannot quickly behead an enemy, often catching the enemy off guard.
Once this top-level blade skill is practiced to perfection, there is no doubt that the killing power of this trump card technique will reach another level!
Moreover, his other top-level Light Body Skill had already been trained to the Great Success Realm several months ago.
The process of training this Light Body Skill was not easy, rather it was much more challenging than honing his blade skill.
Achieving Great Success is also because he invested the most time and energy into it.
Fortunately, this Light Body Skill at the Great Success Realm did not disappoint him.
In the past, when facing some thieves possessing superb Light Body Skills, he had times when he could do nothing.
Despite gnashing his teeth with hatred, he ultimately could not catch up to their elusive, unpredictable footwork.
But after he mastered the Light Body Skill, such a situation has never occurred again.
Now, any target he sets his eyes on has an extremely difficult time escaping from his grasp, thanks to the benefits of the Light Body Skill at Great Success.
Having such a Light Body Skill also gives him more security.
Even if he encounters an unbeatable opponent, he can use this Light Body Skill to escape.
Besides this, his strength improvement does not stop there.
The Spiritual Monkey Marrow Cleansing Skill has been cultivated to the Fourth Realm.
The Rhino Horn Skill for Skin Refining and the Barbarian Bear Skill for Muscle Training have both been cultivated to the Third Realm’s strength.
Now, his entire Body Refining Skill cultivation, skin membrane, muscles, tendons, and bones, everything has been honed and strengthened, increasingly appearing perfect!
He’s getting closer and closer to his goal of becoming a warrior!
A martial artist of the Sixth Realm would find it rather difficult to surpass him in physical strength.
Unless they also follow the same body refining route as he does, there’s simply no comparing with his multi-faceted body refining cultivation.
The gains in body refinement are the most satisfying results he has achieved over the past year.
Furthermore, last year he again chose to enhance his innate talent attributes with the annual reward, raising his Root Bone to eighteen points.
The reason he places so much importance on enhancing innate talent is because, as his Martial Arts Cultivation continues to improve, he finds that both in body refinement and advanced martial arts cultivation, the demands on these two innate talent attributes are increasing.
In fact, if it were not for the daily limited-time cultivation state boost, he doesn’t know how many years of experience value it would take to achieve Perfection Realm in his Martial Arts, especially those two top-level Martial Arts.
This is also preparing for a rainy day, for if he doesn’t first increase the upper limit of his innate talent attributes, when he acquires even higher-level profound martial arts, like the legendary Martial Technique.
He might need to accumulate several years even for the basic level amount of experience value, which would truly be a difficult hardship.
If he doesn’t want to be troubled by his mediocre innate talent in the future, he needs to pay attention now.
Before a better annual reward option appears, just blindly choose attribute points.
He estimates that the eighteen root bone attribute points accumulated over the years were a major reason his Bull Demon Skill improved so quickly to the Sixth Realm.
Lastly, his life span increased this year mainly because he spent more days training and fewer days resting, hence the increase in life span is not much compared to previous years.
In over a year, it increased by less than a thousand days.
Currently, his total life span is forty-one thousand five hundred and ten days.
He doesn’t have anxiety about a short life, so a slower increase in life span is acceptable as long as his strength improves more, which is the result he hopes to see.
In the courtyard, he repeats his sword skill over and over, gathering what little experience value is left from the Flying Swallow Technique.
In the afternoon, Liang Zhao Long returns with a post.
"It’s a challenge letter supposedly from a disciple of the Sword Star Sect for you..."
"Not accepting." Song Changming sheaths his saber and replies calmly.
"Alright." Liang Zhao Long crumples the challenge letter and throws it away.
Nowadays, many want to challenge Song Changming, especially those from the younger generation who think they have some ability.
Just the challenge letters sent by Liang Zhao Long to Song Changming amount to almost thirty.
Without exception, Song Changming has no intention of accepting any battle.
Every time Liang Zhao Long reports, the challenge letter ends up crumpled and thrown into the fire basin.
Even Liang Zhao Long himself is used to this scene.
Song Changming doesn’t have the competitive spirit like young people, appearing mostly calm and steady.
He won’t draw his sword unless it’s a necessary fight.
"I heard just now that the Patriarch of the Xu Family came to our General Department and seemed to cause quite a stir; don’t know if our General Director gave him an explanation." Liang Zhao Long said about what happened at noon.
"What explanation could be given? The Xu Family was originally a local middle-class family, limited in foundation, but all local elites close to the Xiao Family were either seized by the New Governor or suppressed.
The Xu Family was lucky enough to take the opportunity and became a first-tier family in the County City, although they have some prestige and influence locally, they’re not qualified to sway our General Department’s case handling.
Unless he can offer a ransom that interests our General Director, I think with our General Director’s personality, he will enforce the law impartially and will not release people."
Song Changming doesn’t care about the outcome of this matter, but can guess the likely developments.
It’s likely Zhuang Ren will exploit this to extort a hefty sum from the Xu Family in town.
As for the other side, those few young Jianghu folks will depend on their backing.
If they lack identity and support, they’ll have to pay for their youth and impulse, likely not escaping Xu’s revenge.
"I feel both the two women and the one daring to challenge you probably have some identity and background." Liang Zhao Long said based on his intuition.
Years of patrol guard experience gave him a stronger ability to identify people than ordinary folks.
"Either some offspring from a family outside the Prefecture, or disciples from Jianghu sects." Song Changming casually commented, glancing at the blade of his longsword.
High-quality weapons don’t need him to worry much about maintenance, just a simple wipe is enough.
No need to sharpen the blade, it remains in a sharp state, rarely becomes dull.
As the two were talking, someone knocked at the courtyard door.
Song Changming looked over, recognizing the person as one of Zhuang Ren’s personal guards.
The person’s appearance usually indicates a matter related to the General Director.
"Captain Song, the General Director requests your presence." As expected, the guard said directly upon seeing Song Changming.
"I understand." Song Changming heard this, sheathing his saber, quickly wiped himself, put on his armor, and followed the guard.
Soon, he went straight to a main hall of the General Department.
On usual days, when the General Director wants to summon Patrol Captains and other department officials for discussions, it’s usually here.
Upon entering, Song Changming sees not only Zhuang Ren but also a group of outsiders.
It’s easy to see the group is divided into two distinct factions, the atmosphere tense.
One side, Song Changming recognizes; the leading figure is the Patriarch of the Xu Family.
Wearing luxurious clothes, wide-waisted and corpulent, hands behind his back, holding a string of jade beads.
Face cold, eyes squinted into slits, staring at the arriving Song Changming.
The other side consists of several men and women wielding longswords, including young talents and mature middle-aged knights, presumably all Jianghu people.