At foothold No.7A28, also known as Peaceful City.
Grade-A super-sized footholds usually had populations that ranged in the hundreds of millions.
Similarly, Peaceful City had a population of 280 million people and there were approximately 400 million of people if people who passed through the foothold was included.
Apparently, Peaceful City was able to accommodate a large number of people.
Before Lin Huang arrived at the A-grade foothold, he imagined how it would look like but when he arrived, he realized that it was vastly different from what he imagined.
He thought that there would be various skyscrapers and modern buildings but most of them were ancient buildings instead. On the contrary, there were only a small number of modern buildings there. There was an ancient tower, an ancient pagoda, and an ancient rampart. Most of the buildings retained their historical charm.
Even the houses of most ordinary residents had a historical feel to it. The houses sported red bricks and green tiles. It was a prosperous historic city.
Lin Huang had booked a hotel located in a high-rise building at the center of the foothold. He then checked into the hotel and went to his room on the 81st floor.
He went up the staircase to his room which was No.081029.
The room was spacious. The walls were completely made of transparent tiles. It was a special kind of artificial tiling with a crystal-like transparency which was both strong and ductile. Lin Huang could clearly see cities which were 10 kilometers away from him.
"It seems like it is good to stay on the upper floors, though." Looking down at the scenery, Lin Huang no longer thought of changing to another hotel.
There was also a big balcony facing south equipped with a set of balcony chairs and a table.
He sat for a while on the balcony, feeling the wind blow against him.
"The overall impression of the hotel is good." Lin Huang was satisfied with the hotel. He then went to the living room and began planning his schedule for the next few days.
The portal ticket he booked earlier could be used after 33 days. 12 days had passed and he planned to stay at Peaceful City for another 21 days.
Lin Huang was not going to stay idle during the 21 days. Ever since he found out that there were three transcendent levels ranked above gold-level, his resolve was more focused than ever.
After cleaning the living room, he began to practice Wildfire Sword skill from eight o'clock in the morning until 11 o'clock at night for several days. Putting aside time taken for his meals, he practiced for about 14.5 hours each day.
The number of sword skill pieces accumulated increased.
On the sixth day, he had accumulated 1000 Wildfire Sword pieces.
A notification from Xiao Hei finally came.
"You have accumulated Wildfire Sword sword skill pieces x1,000. It can be integrated into a Rare sword Skill Card. Would you like to integrate this card?"
"Integrate." Lin Huang immediately nodded his head.
Under normal circumstances, only 300 pieces were required to complete the integration of a Rare level sword Skill Card. However, for the Wildfire Sword skill, the notification to integrate was received only when 1,000 sword skill pieces were accumulated.
"Integrating Wildfire Sword skill pieces x1,000"
"Congratulations, you have gained a Rare skill - Wildfire Sword."
Lin Huang immediately tapped open the Skill Card.
"Skill Card"
"Skill Card Name: Wildfire Sword"
"Rarity: Rare"
"Skill Type: Sword"
"Skill Level: Unavailable"
"Status: Available"
"Card Remarks: Passable"
"What Xiao Hei meant by 'skill level is unavailable' was that this skills is beyond gold-rank sword skills and is usable even when one is at the level of a transcendent." Lin Huang had familiarized himself with Xiao Hei's ambiguous descriptions after a period of time.
"Xiao Hei, I remember you telling me that as long as sufficient skill pieces were collected, Wildfire Sword can be upgraded to Epic level without the need for an Advancement Card. Now that I have a complete set of Skill Cards, does it mean that I'll obtain one skill piece each time I practice this skill?" Lin Huang was not sure how it worked.
"You won't obtain a new skill piece by directly using the Wildfire Sword skill. You must create your own moves based on Wildfire Sword's moves. If the newly created moves can pass the evaluation, you will then be given a new skill piece.
"What is the evaluation criterion?" Lin Huang immediately asked.
"It depends on whether it meets the Dao of the Sword. If it does, it'll pass the evaluation. Otherwise, it'll fail the evaluation."
"Dao of the Sword…" That term sounded mysterious.
He opened the Heart Network and started looking for information on this term. There was no exact description of this term found on the network.
He stopped right before he called Yi Zheng because his second identity would be revealed. He changed his mind and started practicing with his sword again.
He had spent the whole afternoon practicing with his sword. He was puzzled that he had not gotten even a single skill piece yet.
"What the hell is the Dao of the Sword?" Lin Huang was in deep thought, stroking his chin. A thought suddenly flashed through Lin Huang's mind, "Dao of the Sword is required in order to upgrade a sword skill from Rare level to Epic level. The Epic level Great Sword Scripture that I possess should contain the Dao of the Sword…"
Lin Huang continued practicing the Great Sword Scripture instead of Wildfire Sword.
As he practiced the Great Sword Scripture, he felt a mysterious aura lingering around him. The feeling was unique, allowing him to feel every single detail when he practiced this skill. When he was practicing with this skill, even the dust in the air could be cut in half if he wanted to do so.
After practicing Great Sword Scripture three times, Lin Huang roughly knew what to do.
He then proceeded to practice Wildfire Sword repeatedly and carefully figured out every detail of the skill.
After practicing for a few hours, it was just over 12 a.m. before Lin Huang regained his senses.
Unexpectedly, he had accumulated about 10 Wildfire Sword skill pieces. He knew that he was on the right track.
He realized that it was already late at night and his stomach was growling. He only had one meal throughout the day, which was his breakfast at 7 a.m. - it had been 17 hours since his last meal.
"It's so late now. I'm so hungry… I wonder if there's anything to eat out there." Lin Huang lowered his head and looking down through the transparent tiles, he noticed that the street lights were turned off but he spotted a small area not far away from him with lights that were still lit. The place was crowded and it seemed like a night market.
He took a shower, changed his clothes and went down.
After leaving the hotel, he hurried to the night market.
"It seems like most people here like to hunt for food at midnight…" Lin Huang followed the smell of the food and found himself at a barbeque stall.
The owner of the stall was a short and fat 60-year-old man. His face was a smoky black and nobody could tell if he was born like that or if it was from being covered by the smoke from the coal.
On the barbeque rack, there were a few fist-sized steaks that were giving off a sizzling sound.
Lin Huang swallowed a mouthful of saliva as he caught a whiff of the steak.
"Boss, what type of meat is this?" One of the customers beside him asked.
The rest of them including Lin Huang immediately strained their ears to listen to the boss’s answer.
"This is called the fragrant swine. It's a new breed between a swine beast and the fragrant hog. It only became available in the market two years ago and is considered to be a new ingredient. That's why it costs relatively higher. Please bear with me…" The boss explained in details.
Peaceful City was an A-grade foothold that saw many hunters congregating there and many of them would look for food during midnight as they were probably busy the entire day and could only eat after nightfall. Of course, they would not care about how much credit points they were going to spend since credit points were merely a number to them.
At the barbeque rack, the smell of the steak grew stronger and the sizzling sound increased everyone's appetite.
The fat boss began to flip the meat with a pair of tongs.
All of a sudden, a black shadow flashed and the next moment, one of the steaks on the barbeque rack disappeared.
Lin Huang realized that the one who had stolen the steak was a child. He did not stop the child as he believed that the child would only do this from being too hungry.
However, one of the hunters beside him could not stand this and pulled on the child’s collar.
He fell down and looked at the hunter who pulled at his collar with fear. He was holding the steak tightly, not willing to let go as he was afraid that others would snatch his steak away.
"Little beggar, you stole the steak in front of us. Do you actually think we were blind?" The hunter was about to punish the child but Lin Huang stopped him.
"He must be hungry." Lin Huang shook his head and smiled, "Boss, I'll pay for the steak that he took."
After paying with his credit points, Lin Huang squat in front of the child and told him, "Stealing is wrong. Where are your parents? Are you lost?"
The child did not look like a beggar. Despite his face and clothing being dirty, they looked like they were stained recently.
Listening to Lin Huang's words, he hesitated for a moment before nodding his head.
"Alright. After you finish your food, I'll bring you to the exit of the night market and wait for them there. They will surely pass by there when they go home." Lin Huang pulled him up and said as he looked at the steak that was already dirty, "Don't eat the one you're holding. I'll ask the boss to cook you another piece of steak."
He then turned to the boss and said, "Boss, two steaks, takeaway please."