Chapter 42 I will Protect Huashan in this Life
"Senior Brother Yu, I have acquired internal arts." Lin Yi smiled and repeated his words.
"A...acquired?" Yu Zecheng's expression was extremely entertaining while stuttering, he was either shocked or having a delayed reaction.
"Acquired?!"
"Acquired internal arts?!"
Yu Zecheng muttered to himself, suddenly shouting out loud, his face revealing wild joy and a look of incredulity.
"How is it possible? It's only been less than half a month right?"
Yu Zecheng still couldn't believe it and asked once more.
"That's right, Senior Brother Yu, not half a month has passed. The 3 months given by Sect Master was too long. To acquire this internal art wasn't that difficult at all."
"I could sense the qi flow after secluding for 3 days. After that I just needed to polish the qi flow, control the qi flow and familiarize myself with it for some time. Then I managed to break open the dantian, clear the Hand's Major Yin Lung Meridian, and reach the first level of Huashan Sutra. That's why I started challenging the top 100 after a 3 day seclusion. After accomplishing that, I continued to familiarize myself with the qi flow and polish my internal energy.
"Just like that, challenging the top 100 was just something I did to relieve the boredom from training in seclusion. After greatly improving my mood from defeating the top 100, in the fervor, the dantian broke out, the first meridian was cleared, and the first level of Huashan Sutra was reached, thus acquiring internal arts."
"Sect Master is too good to me, he must have valued me greatly that he actually gave me 3 months' time!"
Lin Yi's face expressed an uncaring attitude towards internal arts, continuing to speak of the ease with which he acquired internal arts, and went on to mention Sect Master thinking highly of him, giving him ample time of 3 months to succeed. As he spoke, to prove that he wasn't lying, he directed his internal strength from his dantian to his arms.
The muscles on his arm bulged visibly and a white glow appeared on the surface in a streamlined fashion, brimming with explosive power.
When Yu Zecheng saw it, all doubts were instantly erased.
Only shock and resentment were left.
Was it that easy to acquire internal arts?
If it were, there wouldn't be less than 3 disciples out of 40,000 odd lower courtyard disciples who managed to acquired internal arts each year!
Most of them had barely managed to enter the upper courtyard after making it to the lower courtyard top 100.
Then using a great amount of time before finally acquiring internal arts in the upper courtyard.
In the lower courtyard, even an age of 15 or 16 was considered high. But in the upper courtyard, 18 or 19 was considered young, with most of them above 20, while 15 or 16 was extremely young.
3 months was ample time?
Even among those who had been accepted as core disciples from the start, most of them took more than 3 months to acquire internal arts!
Even the top figure of the younger generation Linghu Feng took more than 2 months.
While Yu Zecheng himself took a year.
And considering this was the situation in Huashan, a major sect in Jianghu.
For the disciples in minor sects, one would already thank the ancestors for their blessings if they managed to acquire internal arts within 3 years.
Facing Lin Yi, Yu Zecheng was speechless.
To succeed in less than half a month, he not only felt shock and joy, but even more was the feeling of a setback!
He was deeply demoralised.
Seeing Lin Yi's face devoid of joy, he muttered in his heart: monster!
Lin Yi was secretly happy about Yu Zecheng's reaction.
He was well aware of the difficulty of acquiring internal arts.
It was extremely difficult!
For a martial artist, it was like a moat.
If not, there wouldn't be such a saying in Jianghu.
Without internal arts, one was not considered mainstream.
Martial art techniques were easy to train.
Regardless of one's talent, with sufficient time and effort, the basic martial arts would eventually reach perfection stage.
But internal arts was different.
Internal arts was the best tool to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Whoever acquires internal arts in a short time was a genius.
Whoever spent a huge amount of time and effort to do the same was a mediocrity.
It was hard to find such a genius in every 100 people.
Otherwise, why would Huashan bother recruiting more than ten thousand people every year into the lower courtyard?
Wasn't it for the sake of discovering a true genius from the large numbers?
The reason why Lin Yi acted like he didn't give much of a thought to the difficulty of acquiring internal arts was because of a little scheme he had.
He definitely couldn't reveal the existence of the game system.
Therefore, to explain why he was able to acquire internal arts in a short time, he had to use the excuse of having superb talent, and thus was capable of achieving what others could not.
In Jianghu, there was no lack of eccentric geniuses who encountered no trouble at all when acquiring internal arts, succeeding effortlessly.
Though rare, but they existed.
Every single one of them were treated like treasures in major sects and hidden like a secret.
Only after they had achieved the apex of martial arts were they unleashed into Jianghu, garnering crazy amounts of reputation and fame for their sects.
That was the kind of figure Lin Yi wanted to package himself as.
If Huashan accepted that he was a true genius, he would no doubt be one step closer to the position of chief disciple.
To transform from an ordinary lower courtyard disciple into an incredibly talented peerless genius in an instant.
Which one of those was more valuable and received more support from Huashan, it was obvious in one look.
And Lin Yi packaged himself flawlessly, so that no one could see through his disguise.
This was because ever since he joined Huashan, every move he made indicated that he was a true genius!
The records he had broken in the lower courtyard and acquiring internal arts in less than half a month.
Whichever feat it was, nobody would question that he wasn't a genius!
If someone did, without needing Lin Yi to explain himself, plenty of people would come forward to explain and put him in the ranks of a genius.
A most monstrous and peerless genius!
Otherwise, if Lin Yi wasn't considered a genius with what he achieved, what about those who spent months or even years to acquire internal arts?
Wouldn't they all be considered to be trash?
......
"Good, that's really good!"
"Junior Brother Lin, I didn't misjudge you, you are indeed a genius!"
After some time had passed, Yu Zecheng finally recovered from his shock. Once he did, he laughed heartily, the smile on his face resembling a flower in bloom.
Although he suffered a blow, but Yu Zecheng very quickly realised that in the entire upper courtyard and including the core disciples, he had the best relationship with Lin Yi!
A monstrous talent like Lin Yi, if he didn't ally with him now, when would he do it?
Anyone with brains would be able to tell that a peerless genius like Lin Yi was soon to rise up in the ranks of Huashan, becoming the pride of the new generation!
He could even vie with Linghu Feng.
Whether Yu Zecheng wanted the position of chief disciple, he had to ally with Lin Yi!
If he had such a great talent looking after his interests in the future, there was no need to worry about his prospects in Huashan.
Besides, Yu Zecheng was no slouch either.
His master was a powerful elder in Huashan, as well as the senior brother of Sect Master Ouyang Ming.
His family, the Yu family, also held great influence in Huashan.
The members of Yu family were holding positions all over the various departments in Huashan.
They had people in the middle level, upper level as well as the Huashan 36 major branch divisions.
This power was sufficient to allow him to compete with Linghu Feng.
Although the chances was losing was great, but it was capable of placing the Linghu family under duress for a certain amount of time, thereby preventing Linghu Feng from obtaining the position of chief disciple.
If Linghu Feng became the chief disciple, the Yu family's influence would surely receive a huge blow.
Many families and forces with deep foundations in Huashan had similar concerns.
Linghu family was already very powerful.
It was with great effort that the Linghu family waned and lost the reputation they once had 600 years ago.
But, if the Linghu family once again gain control of power in Huashan, they would surely become the number one force in Huashan.
Many people did not wish to see that happen.
A powerful Linghu family was feared by many because they knew that their interests would be severely threatened.
Quite a few families like the Yu family poured resources into one of their own, hoping to nurture a new rising star to compete with Linghu Feng.
Their only goal was to prevent Linghu Feng from becoming the chief disciple.
It mattered not to them who became the chief disciple, as long as it wasn't Linghu Feng.
Lin Yi took a deep look at Yu Zecheng.
From scolding him angrily to laughing heartily and treating him enthusiastically, it was as if he had become another person.
Besides Yu Zecheng being truly happy for him, there were other reasons as well.
Lin Yi was well aware of these reasons.
Being familiar with the progress of the game, he knew very well.
When Linghu Feng vied for the chief disciple's position in the game, he met with plenty of resistance.
Coupled with the flaws in his personality, many people were against it.
But in the end, there wasn't another similarly talented figure that appeared in Huashan.
In addition, Linghu Feng also had numerous supporters.
He grew up in Huashan and was on extremely good terms with many core disciples who grew up in Huashan like him.
These core disciples called him Great Senior Brother.
They all supported Linghu Feng.
With the the Linghu family sparing no efforts to support him as well, Linghu Feng finally became the chief disciple.
But, as the chief disciple, Linghu Feng...
It was better left unsaid.
He was indeed highly skilled in martial arts and even became a peak expert.
However, when the era of chaos arrived, the brutality of the great war surpassed everyone's expectations.
He was only able to protect a small minority of people around him, and failed to protect the vast majority of Huashan Sect members.
Thus, the destruction of Huashan was a foregone conclusion.
At the time just before Lin Yi crossed over, players had already rose in eminence, and Jianghu belonged to the players.
With unlimited lives and the ability to respawn, none of the major sects were a match for the players.
It was the start of a nightmare for the natives.
Back then, Huashan was destroyed, only leaving Linghu Feng and a bunch of sect brothers and sisters, struggling at death's door.
Lin Yi focused his sight, seemingly seeing countless youths in the lower courtyard diligently training their martial arts.
Although he had stayed in the lower courtyard for less than 2 months, he was full of emotion towards the lower courtyard.
He really liked this group of youngsters who were full of passion for martial arts.
"In the past life, Linghu Feng was unable to protect all of you, but in this life, let me Lin Yi protect all of you!" Lin Yi muttered in his heart.
"Alright, Junior Brother Lin, I will send the news that you have acquired internal arts to Sect Master right now, and you can enter the upper courtyard to learn superior Huashan sword arts!" Yu Zecheng smiled widely and patted Lin Yi's shoulders forcefully.
"I can't wait to see those people's faces getting ruthlessly hit by you! Hahaha!"