Chapter 126: The Third Layer of the Martial Marquis

Li Xingyuan's words hit Li Wenxin, Li Wenxuan, and the others like a thunderclap.

The Demon Evil King had appeared, and of the five Great Masters, one was dead and four were wounded. This was, without a doubt, a momentous event that would shake the entire six counties of Lingdong.

"The demons and monsters of Demon Ridge Mountain, led by the Demon Evil King, have launched a massive invasion. The Tu clan has retreated to the city of Lingwang to join forces with the Zhao clan to resist them."

"However, most of the territory in Dongshan County has already been lost, and countless commoners have been slaughtered," Li Xingyuan continued.

Li Wenxin, Li Wenxuan, and the others felt even more alarmed. A few years ago, the demons of Demon Ridge Mountain had emerged to invade Dongshan County; though some of those incursions were large-scale, they had always been successfully repelled by the various great clans of the county. But now, with even the Tu clan suffering defeat and losing their blood veins, the nature of this threat was entirely different from before.

Dongshan County was the gateway. Once it fell, the demons would drive straight through, and the entire six counties of Lingdong would be under attack, turning the region into a living hell.

Dongshan County had two Great Master-level clans: the Tu clan, which was one, and the Zhao clan of Lingwang City, which was the other.

"Not long ago, the Tu clan, the Zhao clan, and dozens of Marquis-level clans in Dongshan County issued a joint plea for aid to all clans in the six counties of Lingdong, calling for reinforcements to unite and fight the demons."

"You all understand that if Lingwang City falls, the demons will sweep through, and the six counties will know no peace. We must stop the demons outside of Dongshan County, or even crush them entirely."

"I have already discussed this with the heads of the Gao clan of Nanyi and the Tuoba clan of Baiyue, and we intend to send experts to support them together. The other counties are doing the same."

"Each Great Master-level clan will dispatch one Great Master and several Marquises. As for the Li clan, I will lead the team personally. Wenxin, Wenxuan, both of you shall select a few Marquis-level experts to accompany me to Lingwang City," Li Xingyuan declared.

Li Wenxin and Li Wenxuan thought of many things in an instant, but dared not hesitate. They bowed and said, "Understood."

"Prepare yourselves; we depart tomorrow," Li Xingyuan added.

Such a major event could naturally not be kept secret. At first, the news reached the great clans, but soon it spread among the common folk. Lu Yan, too, received the intelligence sent by Li Quan.

"A massive demonic invasion. To think such a thing would happen—it truly is a case of the mountain wind blowing before the rain arrives."

"Furthermore, the Li clan ancestor has taken both Li Wenxuan and Li Wenxin with him; that is also food for thought."

Lu Yan pondered, perhaps understanding the ancestor's intentions. With the competition between the two factions growing increasingly fierce, there was no telling when large-scale infighting might erupt. The ancestor was shifting the conflict. By taking the leaders and several experts of both factions to Lingwang City, he forced them to compete on the battlefield instead. Shifting internal competition to an external focus was undoubtedly a clever strategy.

"Baicao City will finally have a period of peace," Lu Yan thought to himself. This was exactly what he wanted. He only desired a quiet life to develop his strength gradually. As for the demons of Demon Ridge Mountain, he was not particularly worried. When the sky falls, the tall ones will hold it up. Besides, with over a dozen Great Master-level clans in the six counties of Lingdong, and so many powerful masters, it would not be easy for the demons to defeat them.

As expected, once the leaders of the two factions left, Baicao City became much more peaceful, devoid of the previous tense, hair-trigger atmosphere. Lu Yan loved this environment. He cooked martial food daily, consumed it, and increased his bone strength.

First, he needed to supplement his two newly formed strands of bone strength. Once they were as strong as the other six, he could advance them all together to break through to the third stage of the Marquis realm. Currently, he lacked martial arts manuals to practice, possessing only two archery-based techniques, so he used most of the energy from the martial food to boost his cultivation. As a result, the growth of his bone strength accelerated significantly.

Self-reliance brings abundance. He cooked the second-grade Yinuo lizard meat himself, consuming an average of twenty pounds daily. Those two strands of bone strength grew rapidly, and within three months, they were on par with the other six. Another three months later, Lu Yan's cultivation reached the peak of the second stage of the Marquis realm.

Inside the training room of the Sanjue Martial Hall, Lu Yan mobilized his eight strands of bone strength, causing them to vibrate. Soon, a node emerged. Without any suspense, with eight strands of bone strength, breaking through the node was effortless. He easily crossed into the third stage of the Marquis realm—the inner-layer Marquis.

This was the terrifying nature of an Innate Martial Body or an Acquired Martial Body. As long as they could pass the hurdle of Qi and blood entering the bones, the subsequent small barriers of the Marquis realm could not stop them. They would cut through like bamboo, facing no significant obstacles until they reached the peak of the fifth stage of the Marquis realm.

"I am at the third stage of the Marquis realm now. The fifth stage is not far off; I must start looking for ways to increase my chances of breaking through to the Great Master realm in advance," Lu Yan mused.

Currently, the only methods Lu Yan knew of to increase the success rate were rare martial foods, such as the Phoenix Blood Heart-Protecting Soup. However, while such food had miraculous effects on ordinary people, for someone like him, the effect was much weaker. For instance, to break through to the Marquis realm five times, an ordinary person might have a fifty percent success rate with Nine-Segment Heart Meat, but that wasn't enough for him; he would need to pair it with Beast King Bone-Protecting Soup.

Therefore, besides martial food, he had to find other methods to increase his success rate. He had to prepare in advance. Searching only when he was about to break through would be a waste of time. Although he had instructed Li Quan to keep an eye out months ago, there had been no progress. Li Quan's intelligence network had limited time and personnel strength; they could gather common information, but struggled with secret knowledge.

"I still have to rely on Li Cangqing. The Li clan has countless books, including various anecdotes and miscellaneous records; perhaps I can gain some insight from them," Lu Yan planned.

Two days later, when Lu Yan met Li Cangqing and asked to consult the archives, Li Cangqing agreed readily. Aside from the Li clan's core martial arts, recipes, or particularly precious ancient texts, gaining access to other books was not difficult. Given Li Cangqing's status, it was just a matter of saying the word.

The first floor of the Li clan’s library was filled with miscellaneous books: geographical descriptions, local customs, strange tales, and even many ghost and deity stories. Lu Yan began to read them one by one. The first day yielded nothing, but he was not discouraged. Every day, aside from practicing, he spent his time in the library.

Three months passed in the blink of an eye. On this day, when Lu Yan walked out of the library, his expression was complex. Over these three months, he had combed through a massive amount of material and finally gathered some useful clues.

Beyond the conventional reliance on martial food, there were indeed other ways to increase the success rate of breaking through to the Great Master realm. For instance, in the past, the great clans would send their Innate Martial Body disciples to a sect outside the six counties of Lingdong called the Shengxuan Sect to train, where there was a certain probability of breaking through to the Inner Strength Great Master realm. Several current Great Masters among the major clans had achieved their breakthroughs at the Shengxuan Sect.

A sect? At first, Lu Yan was curious, for he had been in this world for a long time and had never heard of any sects. The Great Chu Dynasty was a world of clans and noble families. After further research, he finally gained a general understanding of the Shengxuan Sect.

The Great Chu Dynasty did have sects, though they were extremely rare. The Nine Founding Sects had existed since the inception of the Great Chu Dynasty two thousand years ago. The Shengxuan Sect was one of them. The Great Chu Dynasty had exactly nine sects, and no more.

Historical records stated that the Great Gu Dynasty, which preceded the Great Chu, was entirely different. In the Great Gu Dynasty, the clans were weak, but sects were everywhere—there were over a thousand martial arts sects of various sizes. The strongest ones even had the power to interfere with imperial authority. During certain eras, when the Great Gu imperial family was weak, the throne was almost controlled by the sects. It was precisely because of this that the Great Chu Dynasty later banned most sects, leaving only nine.

In the heyday of the Great Chu, the power of these nine sects was suppressed, but after the chaos of the Great Chu, they relied on their deep foundations to expand rapidly. Xuan Province was one of the three provinces ruled by the Prince of Ming, but in Xuan Province, the power of the Shengxuan Sect was sufficient to challenge the Prince of Ming himself.

This method was temporarily unfeasible for Lu Yan because, due to the demonic riots at Demon Ridge Mountain, it was very difficult to travel through that area.

That left the other method: the "Heart Tempering Manual." One anecdote recorded that there was once a special martial art called the "Heart Tempering Manual," which used a specific primer formula to temper the heart, making it incredibly tough, like silk. If one could cultivate the Heart Tempering Manual to a certain level, it could greatly increase the success rate of breaking through to the Great Master realm.

However, the primers for the Heart Tempering Manual were too rare and precious. Each one was hard to come by. Even reaching the introductory stage was difficult, and as one progressed, the required primers became even more precious and rare. The key was that the introductory stage alone was useless; one had to reach a certain level of mastery to cause the heart to undergo a transformation. Therefore, this martial art had been popular for a time, but those who truly mastered it were extremely rare—if any existed at all—and it quickly faded into obscurity.

Yet, in the six counties of Lingdong today, perhaps only the Zhao clan of Lingwang City still possessed records of it. Unfortunately, the anecdote did not record the specific primers needed for the Heart Tempering Manual.

However, Lu Yan felt this martial art was perfectly suited for him. He possessed the Dao Book. As long as he could cultivate this martial art to the introductory level, he could condense a martial arts avatar, and thereafter, he could rely on the Dao Book to break through all the way without needing any primers. He only needed to find the way to get started.

"The Zhao clan of Lingwang City—it seems I must pay them a visit," Lu Yan thought, his gaze firm.

Lingwang City was currently in a standoff with the demons and had gathered a large number of experts, making it a dangerous place. But after breaking through to the third stage of the Marquis realm, Lu Yan's strength had surged. He did not fear the fifth stage of the Marquis realm; as long as no Great Masters emerged, who could compete with him? His confidence had grown significantly. What was a trip to Lingwang City?

Returning to the Sanjue Martial Hall, Lu Yan made his preparations. Three days later, he set off, leaving Baicao City and heading north. Approaching Changfeng City, Lu Yan did not stop and continued north. A few days later, a city appeared before him. On the city wall, the characters for "Zhuifeng City" were carved.

"The 'Wind-Chasing Life-Taking Sword' of the He clan of Zhuifeng City is quite good. I can study it," Lu Yan thought.

The purpose of his trip to Lingwang City was the special martial art, the Heart Tempering Manual, but he also intended to acquire a few first-rate martial arts to study along the way. Recently, he had no martial arts to practice; after his two second-rate archery arts reached the level of "Man and Martial Arts as One," he had no martial arts avatars left to improve. The best way to acquire first-rate martial arts was through the Marquis-level clans. With his current strength, he was fully capable of suppressing the weaker Marquis-level clans.

He was different from others. For others, one first-rate martial art was enough to consume all their energy; even then, many could not master a single one in a lifetime to the level of perfection, let alone to the level of "Divine Mastery" or "Man and Martial Arts as One." Even among the few genius-level martial artists with high comprehension, practicing two or three was the limit. Therefore, the first-rate martial arts collected by Great Master-level clans were not numerous, probably only a dozen or so. Any more would be useless to them.

But he was different. First-rate martial arts were the more, the better.

Information about the He clan of Zhuifeng City surfaced in his mind. When he was with the Red-Clothed Guard of the Liu clan, he had gained a general understanding of some clans in the Li'an County, including the number of their martial troops and Marquises. The He clan had three hundred martial troops and four Marquises. The strongest among them was at the fourth stage of the Marquis realm.

They were just right to be handled.

Zhuifeng City was located adjacent to a blood vein. Most cities were built this way, hugging the blood veins. Only a city like Changfeng, which had two blood veins nearby, was built between them, a certain distance from the veins themselves.

Lu Yan did not enter Zhuifeng City; he headed directly toward the blood vein.

"Stop! Who goes there?"

The area around the blood vein was naturally guarded by martial troops. As soon as Lu Yan approached, he was challenged by a squad.

"I am here to borrow your first-rate martial arts for a look," Lu Yan said, getting straight to the point.

The He clan soldiers were stunned. Then, one shouted, "Are you out of your mind? I’ll give you three breaths to get lost."

Lu Yan did not retreat but advanced, stepping forward.

"Take him down! If he resists, kill him," the squad leader roared.

Instantly, nine fast swords thrust toward Lu Yan. But these were warriors who had broken their limits once, twice, or at most four times; Lu Yan did not take them seriously at all. He didn't even move his hands. When the nine longswords touched his skin, a burst of bone strength erupted.

Clang! Clang!

The nine swords shattered, and the powerful force sent the nine soldiers flying, coughing up blood, all of them severely injured. Had Lu Yan not held back, they would have been killed instantly.

Lu Yan strode forward, heading toward the top of the blood vein.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...

Signal arrows shot into the sky, exploding into brilliant flowers.

"Enemy attack!"

"Form up!"

The roars echoed across the blood vein. Lu Yan’s expression was calm as he quickened his pace toward the summit. He chose to act during the day rather than at night for two reasons: one, to display overwhelming force and intimidate the opponent. To make them obediently hand over their first-rate martial arts and divine intent diagrams, he had to completely crush their confidence.

Second, he wanted to test his own strength to see if he could handle a large number of martial troops. Fighting one-on-one was entirely different from facing an army of martial artists.