Rolling mountains stretched thousands of miles.
With the horse galloping, Lin Xun thought of the trip to the Green-sun Tribe, feeling eased and lost.
He had decided to let the past be past. When everything was on track, he would take Shia Zhi away.
For both Lin Xun and Shia Zhi, only in the cities of Ziyao Empire, could they embrace the broader world!
Besides, whether for the sake of self-cultivation in the future, or to find the one who took away his Spiritual Vein, he couldn't stay at Feiyun Village all his life.
"Early this morning, I heard that Young Sword King - Shie Yutang had killed the golden flame beast whose innate spiritual-crystal was also obtained by Shie."
"Wow, innate spiritual-crystal! That's priceless. It's said that it's the core treasure of refining the Armor of Spiritual Tattoos, pretty rare."
"Armor of Spiritual Tattoos? What is it?"
"A kind of powerful fighting outfit that only masters of spiritual tattoos are able to refine. But unfortunately, with harsh requirements for spiritual materials, refining such formidable battle-suit is complex and difficult, extremely easy to fail. Even the masters of spiritual tattoos may fail without enough opportunities and lucks."
"So, the armor must be awesome once made successfully, right?"
"Of course. It does boast earth-shaking and unfathomable power!"
These words reached Lin Xun and gave him a shock.
The conversation was between two guardians who were traveling with Lin to Feiyun Village. They were from the Keystone Business, one named Gao Guiyong and the other named Zhou Quan, both of whom already reached the fourth level of Martial Realm.
"Has the golden flame beast been killed by Young Sword King?" asked Lin Xun.
Lin Xun also heard about the golden flame beast when he was in the Green-sun Tribe, and now had concluded that the so-called golden flame beast was just the golden monster he had seen a few days ago.
"Yes, it has." Gao Guiyong hastened to say.
Knowing that Lin Xun was on friendly terms with Master Yan Zhen, he certainly dared not neglect Lin Xun.
Then Zhou Quan said, "The death of the golden flame won't bring Liu Yukun back to life anyway."
Squinting imperceptibly, Lin Xun was surprised, "Liu Yukun?"
"The eldest son of Liu Wujun, the governor of the southwest province in the empire. Reportedly, the death of Liu Yukun and his guys was on the golden flame beast; especially, that Liu Yukun, whose end was exceedingly miserable, was burned to a charred corpse."
Zhou Quan sighed, "This incident will be learned by Governor Liu Wujun within a few days, which is likely to cause numerous disturbances."
Only then did Lin Xun realize that Liu Yukun, who had died at his hands, had so strong a background that he couldn't help but feel weird about how he killed the son of a governor by accident…
But Lin Xun wasn't worried about it. At least, no one knew that Liu Yukun was killed by him now.
Soon night fell. The group led by Lin Xun found a cave to get rest.
After eating some rations, Gao Guiyong and Zhou Quan took on their tasks - alternately keeping guard, namely one was in charge of the first half of the night while the other took the lobster shift. In the wild mountains filled with many fierce beasts, it was definitely necessary to have someone stand sentry.
In the case, Lin Xun was relieved and began to cultivate with great concentration.
First, he cultivated the Spirit-concentrating Manual, guiding his spirit energy to finish 72 circuits in his body to reach the integrated state. Without delay, Lin began to meditate, practicing the Meditating Magic.
Till late night, Lin Xun opened his eyes and glanced around to make sure that there was no danger. Then he gathered his senses and entered the Heaven-accessing Place, trying to break through "Mille-Waterfalls" for the fourth time.
There was no doubt that Lin failed again in the end.
Lin Xun had foreseen the result, so he was more concerned about the improvement of physical strength.
As expected, by careful perception, he found that his skin and membranes, blood and flesh, muscles and bones were refined again, gaining stronger power.
Thanks to the "Spiritual Tattoo Battlefield—Mille-waterfalls", Lin got a stronger body in spite of several failures in breakthrough.
However, this time Lin found that his physical power had got stuck in a bottleneck. He wouldn't make more progress unless there was a total transformation of his physical strength.
"It seems that I have to start with cultivation."
Lin Xun pondered. He didn't know much about body refining, but could roughly concluded that physical power and cultivation should be complementary to each other.
Cultivation breakthrough was an internal transformation while physical breakthrough was an external transformation. Since his physical power had hit a plateau, breakthrough naturally needed to be done from inside to outside.
At present, Lin Xun had nearly reached the complete state of Orifices Connecting, the fourth level of Martial Realm. When he finally made it, he could go about breaking through Marrow Washing, the fifth level of Martial Realm.
According to his calculation, relying on the "blood marrow grits" and "Wine of Four Seasons" accumulated in his body last time, he could easily enter the fifth level of Martial Realm within a month, so Lin Xun didn't worry about it.
By then, the internal cultivation breakthrough could certainly help crack the bottleneck of his physical cultivation, so that his physical power would enter a new level.
Physical power and cultivation power were not Lin’s concern yet. What really bothered him was the cultivation of spiritual tattoos, as well as his soul and mind.
For the cultivation of soul and mind, he got the help of Star Circulation. The only problem was that progress kept slow, and the second star in the sea of his consciousness had not been brightened so far.
The present level of Lin Xun could only be regarded as the threshold of Star Circulation, one of the three realms in Meditating Magic.
As for the cultivation of spiritual tattoos, there was no progress in several months due to the lack of a great deal of spiritual ink, on which Lin Xun felt quite helpless.
Fortunately, this time he bought plenty of made-up spiritual ink in the Green-sun Tribe, which solved this problem.
In addition to improving his physical power, cultivation, soul and mind, as well as spiritual tattoos, Lin Xun still needed to cultivate his martial arts which also ran into a stone wall.
For example, although Lin Xun’s practice of Marching Boxing reached the realm of Accuracy, which was only one step behind Mastery, no breakthrough was made for a long while.
In the terms of the Six-word Saberplay, he had only practiced it to the level of Nuance.
To fully grasp the power of each martial art, four realms, namely Initiation, Nuance, Accuracy and Mastery, must be achieved.
Currently, the martial arts he mastered for now were only Marching Boxing and the Six-word Saberplay, on neither of which he reached Mastery. That was a shame, in Lin's opinion.
Actually, Lin Xun didn't know that Marching Boxing might seem like a basic fighting skill, but there were very few practitioners who could reach Accuracy, let alone Mastery.
Lin didn't know the origin of the Six-word Saberplay, either. But if Master Lu learned that Lin Xun had practiced it to the level of Nuance, he would be shocked.
Lin Xun had such thought only because of his extreme lack of knowledge and experience in martial arts.
After all, he grew up in the dark mine prison, almost totally concentrating on spiritual tattoos; on the other hand, Master Lu had never taught Lin Xun the knowledge on martial arts, and Lu's purpose of teaching Lin Marching Boxing and the Six-word Saberplay was to refine Lin's body and flexibility of wrists to make him easily inscribe the spiritual tattoos rather than fight.
After coming to Feiyun Village, Lin Xun met a group of ordinary people, from whom he couldn't learn more about martial arts.
That was why Lin had a misunderstanding on his cultivation of martial arts.
After he entered Ziyao Empire, a vast world filled with innumerable practitioners and forces, naturally he wouldn't have such a misunderstanding.
There’s no way to teach or learn experience and horizon which could be gained only by one’s own adventure and perception.
Just like the old saying, “he who excels reads as many as ten thousand books and travels as far as ten thousand miles.”
……
Lin Xun opened his eyes at dawn. The mountain wind in the morning blew in through the mouth of the cave, bringing refreshing cool.
After a night of cultivation, Lin Xun was refreshed, full of strength. Walking out of the cave, he saw Gao Guiyong and Zhou Quan had been ready and sitting on their scaled-horses.
Without hesitation, Lin Xun got on his horse and started out.
On the way, Gao Guiyong and Zhou Quan looked at Lin with a hint of doubt, even awe, which confused Lin Xun.
Upon a proper opportunity, Lin asked, "Did anything happen last night?"
Gao Guiyong shook his head. "Childe, last night when you were cultivating, all of a sudden your Qi disappeared and we failed to feel your existence, which scared both of us. We thought it was a trick of our enemies, but it turned out to be a false alarm." Zhou Quan said, hesitantly.
"Yes," Gao Guiyong interposed: "It was indeed a false alarm. Now it seems to me that the manual which Childe Lin cultivated is so unique that it can conceal one's Qi."
There was surprise and envy in his voice. A manual which could conceal one's Qi! This wasn't something that ordinary people could have!
Lin Xun suddenly came to understand. He must be cultivating in the "Heaven-accessing Place" at that time, but he didn't explain.
Zhou’s words made Lin Xun realize that if later he encountered an enemy whom he couldn't defeat, he could just find a secret place to hide, Once he entered the Heaven-accessing Place, the opponent qouldn’t able to feel his Qi.
Nevertheless, there was a downside too. Lin Xun would also lose his perception of the outside world. Once being found, he probably wouldn’t even know how he died.
Thus, it was better not to use this method if not necessary.
As Lin Xun and his group were on their way, Shi Xuan, at a silence room deep in the Keystone Business of the Green-sun Tribe, put down his teacup and laughed, "As soon as I came back, I heard that Lin Xun had killed four subordinates of the Wu Business by himself. The whole tribe is buzzing with the news. Is that true?"