Walking alone with a sword, slaying ghosts and gods

Chapter 50 Fighting in the air
The Fire Thunder Bead is a third-level disposable magic weapon, which contains a fire thunder sealed inside. Its power far exceeds that of an ordinary third-level thunder talisman.

This kind of magic weapon is usually made by Condensing Evil Monks who go deep into the earth veins to absorb evil spirits for cultivation, and encounter earth fire. It is one of the few effective means for low-level monks to threaten high-level monks, so it is hard to come by. Each one costs at least two thousand spirit stones, and it may not be possible to buy it.

The Xie and Yu families joined forces to find four for Lu Cheng. This was certainly not just to repay the face Lu Cheng gave to the two families, but also a kind of investment in reciprocity.

Lu Cheng nodded and accepted the gift. He would just give more instructions to Xie Yu and the other two in the future. This was also the duty of a master.

Helping Yu Liang advance to the foundation-building stage, and helping Xie Yan build the underground foundation-building stage, these are things that the two families cannot buy even with 100,000 spirit stones. Of course, Lu Cheng can only give it a push.

In the following three months, Lu Cheng's discipline and supervision of He Guo, Xie Yan, and Yu Liang became increasingly strict, almost harsh.

The reputation of the Forty-Nine Swords of Tianyan in Wenjianzhai gradually spread.

Lu Cheng named this set of sword techniques simply "Forty-nine Swords", but the senior masters in the City That Never Sleeps who had been defeated by him all praised this set of sword techniques and gave it the name "Tian Yan".

In response to this, Lu Cheng simply said: "It's not good to have a name that's too big."

Therefore, the disciples in the sword hall still call this sword technique the Forty-nine Swords, but people outside the Sword Questioning Hall call it the Forty-nine Swords of Heaven. It is praised as the most outstanding self-created sword technique in the Southern Xinjiang Tongxuan Realm in the past hundred years.

Such a big name has the potential to bring disaster and misfortune.

On this day, Lu Cheng sat on a high place in the sword hall, reading a Taoist book. Below him were many disciples who were practicing sword skills in the early morning.

He Guo, Xie Yan, and Yu Liang were walking back and forth in the sword hall. They monitored and watched the disciples practicing sword skills and corrected their mistakes.

They corrected the disciples, and Lu Cheng instructed them. Therefore, if the three of them made a mistake, it would not be over after a few scoldings.

Just then, a girl with disheveled hair ran in. It was raining outside and she didn't even wear shoes.

"Lin Qingxue!"

"What's up with her?"

Because they recognized who the person was, no one in the sword hall stopped her, so Lin Qingxue fell to her knees in front of Lu Cheng, kowtowed and said:
"Disciple Lin Qingxue, please, Master, save my sister. Please, Master, as long as you can save my sister, Qingxue is willing to be a slave for three lifetimes without any complaints."

When Lu Cheng heard this, he raised his head slightly and looked at him.

The girl in front of me was originally an extremely pretty and beautiful girl. Although she loved swordsmanship, every time she came to the sword hall, she dressed up elegantly and beautifully. She was the object of admiration of many young disciples in the sword hall.

But today, she was wearing casual home clothes, with her long hair untied, and she ran out barefoot. Her delicate jade-like feet were covered with bloody scars, which made people feel pity.

"Qingxue, is there an emergency at home?"

"..."

Lu Cheng's concern and doubts made the tears that had been accumulating in Lin Qingxue's eyes flow out all at once. The girl felt as if she was broken and could no longer control her emotions.

"Master, please save my sister. Master, please save my sister. That shameless old thief Chen Tianxiong from the Sword Art Hall actually offered a betrothal gift to marry my sister." When she said this, Lin Qingxue gnashed her teeth in hatred.

Chen Tianxiong is already over two hundred years old. Even with the lifespan of a Foundation Establishment cultivator, he doesn't have many years left to live. But now he asks to marry her beautiful sister. How can Lin Qingxue not hate him?

"Although the chief elder of the Sword Art Hall has some power, he is still nothing in front of the Lin family of Burning Wood Mountain. You are so flustered, does that mean the Lin family has agreed?"

Lin Qingxue had been studying in Wenjianzhai for half a year, and she did not deliberately hide her identity on weekdays. It was fine that other people didn't know about it. As the master of Wenjianzhai, Lu Cheng knew it well and thought it was normal.

"...Master, please save my sister." Lin Qingxue kowtowed and begged again.

"Qingxue, you obviously don't know anything. You just rashly ran out and asked me to save your sister. On one side is the chief elder of the Sword Art Hall, Chen Tianxiong, and on the other side is the Ranmu Shanlin family. As the head of the Sword Art Hall, I have no room to intervene."

Although he wanted to intervene in the Lin family, it was not in this way.

Chen Tianxiong was an old man over 200 years old, and he suddenly proposed to marry the eldest daughter of the Lin family, a girl with great talent and qualifications. He was not qualified.

But now that the Lin family has agreed, there must be some kind of deal behind the scenes. If ordinary people rashly intervene, they will only be crushed.

If Lu Cheng intervenes now, he will not be qualified based on his cultivation alone unless he uses his status as a disciple of Huoyun Mansion to see if the Lin family will give him face.

Lin Qingxue left crying when she was picked up by a carriage from the Lin's Merchant House. Her tearful appearance when she left broke the hearts of many disciples in the sword hall.

However, no matter how hot-blooded one is, there must be a limit to losing one's mind. Only a mentally ill person would encourage the master to make things difficult for someone like Chen Tianxiong, the Grand Elder of the Sword Arts Hall and a cultivator in the late stage of foundation building who has been in the world for two hundred years.

Most of the disciples of Wenjianzhai are in their teens and twenties. Since their great-grandfather’s generation, Chen Tianxiong has been a foundation-building cultivator in charge of the sword-fighting headquarters, so some are indignant, but no one dares to take any action.

Even with Lu Cheng's original intention, he would never make an enemy or attack a foundation-building cultivator for the sake of an apprentice.

The main focus is on cultivation, and those disciples who bring trouble to their teachers will most likely be kicked out.

Inside the carriage of the Lin's Merchant House, the pale-faced Lin Qingyue was wiping away tears from her sister, and comforting her with gentle words:

"You are really desperate and are trying anything you can think of. No matter how powerful the Sword Master is, he is just a Qigong cultivator. Are you trying to kill him by involving him in the affairs of my Lin family?"

"But, sister, that Chen Tianxiong is already over 200 years old. He is absolutely shameless!"

"What if he is a Condensed Demon Monk, Qingxue, would you still think so?"

A cultivator’s life span does not increase at all during the innate stage through practice, but his bones become stronger.

However, once a cultivator reaches the late stage of Qi training and begins to refine spiritual energy to nourish the body, he will be able to avoid all diseases, strengthen his foundation and live a lifespan that is one hundred and twenty years longer than an ordinary person.

Once a Qi-cultivating monk has established his foundation, not only will his magic power increase greatly, his spiritual consciousness will be condensed, and his supernatural powers will be greatly increased, but his lifespan will also be increased by another two decades. The normal lifespan of a foundation-building monk is more than four decades, and he can live for about two hundred and forty years.

If one has mastered the profound skills and broken through the innate limits, one can absorb the breath of heaven and earth to form the Earthly Evils and Heavenly Gang. Combined with the longevity elixirs that are not difficult to obtain at this level, the cultivator who condenses the Evil and refines the Heavenly Gang can live to be more than 400 years old.

If Chen Tianxiong was a cultivator who had condensed his magic and refined his energy, and married her sister Lin Qingyue, it would be her sister marrying above her station, because if Chen Tianxiong did not want to lose his wife in middle age, he would have to use all means to increase Lin Qingyue's magic power and prolong her life.

"But he is not a cultivator in the Ningsha realm. He is so old." Lin Qingxue paused for a moment and retorted.

"The technique Chen Tianxiong practiced in his early years was too extreme and narrow, making it difficult for him to develop on his own. As a result, his cultivation level stagnated at the ninth level of foundation building and he was unable to break through. After years of studying the technique, practicing with a woman of pure yin constitution who had excellent qualifications was the simplest and most practical way for him to break through."

In southern Xinjiang, many cultivation methods are considered advanced if one can practice them step by step and in accordance with the rules to the ninth level of Qi training. There is no method to practice any further than that.

Chen Tianxiong practiced this superior Qi-training method in his early years. After he completed the foundation-building process with untold hardships, he had to save up a large amount of resources to exchange and practice a foundation-building method that suits him. Then he was stuck at the ninth level of foundation-building for decades without any progress, until today.

Even if it was Lu Cheng, he was worried that his predecessor Lu Cheng would lose face in front of his master, and he would not be able to obtain the subsequent foundation-building exercises of the "Chiji Heart Method", so he made preparations early.

The ability to practice step by step to reach the Golden Elixir Realm is called "Directly Pointing to the Golden Elixir" and is extremely rare and precious. Most cultivators cannot obtain such inheritance.

In the carriage, although Lin Qingyue tried her best to comfort her sister, Lin Qingxue looked up at her sister's pale face, but she knew that she was unwilling and continued to cry. "Don't cry, Qingxue, don't cry. Maybe this time, sister is lucky." Lin Qingyue gently stroked her sister's back, but recalled the words of the family elder who came here:
"Lin Qingyue, it's not that the family is unkind, but Chen Tianxiong presented a fifth-level demon pill to the family. You are also a cultivator, and you should know how precious this treasure is. If the family does not make fair rewards and punishments, how will the Southern Xinjiang cultivators view my Lin family?"

"Since you have served the family for many years, you can marry or Qingxue can marry. After this matter, regardless of whether Chen Tianxiong succeeds in breaking through, you can get the treatment of a family elder and become an elder of the Lin family in forty years."

To be fair, the family treated him so well that he shouldn't have any resentment. However, he had practiced hard for many years and tried his best to work for the family, but in the end, he still couldn't control his own destiny and couldn't change the outcome of being used by the family for marriage:

"Is this my only value as a woman?"

The core skills of the Lin family are passed down to males, not females. Skills like the Heaven-Snatching Spirit Skill can be taught to forces outside the family that need to be won over, but they will not be taught to females of the Lin family. Of course, other non-core high-level skills will also be provided for practice.

Lu Cheng knew that the two sisters Lin Qingyue and Lin Qingxue did not have the Five Palaces Tempering Yuan Jue, so he was not willing to interfere too much in the sisters' affairs. He taught his disciples every day to purify their magic power.

Because he had mastered a new sword skill, Lu Cheng's efficiency in purifying his own mana had increased. Purifying one's own mana was always beneficial.

Ever since the sword fairy ape Liu Baihong, no cultivator in the entire City That Never Sleeps has come to challenge Lu Cheng. It seems that even Chen Tengjiao, the head of the sword art hall, has disappeared. Lu Cheng is happy to have a leisurely time. After practicing every day, he goes to the wine and food teahouse to listen to storytelling.

"The inner elixir of this fifth-level monster is rare in a century, and it has infinite uses. It can be used to dissolve the medicinal power and ask the alchemy masters to refine the meridian-protecting elixir (10 elixir per furnace, upper limit 15 elixir) to help the foundation-building cultivators break through the bottleneck of the ninth level, thus increasing the foundation and luck of the sect. It can also be used to cultivate external elixir and enhance the cultivators' magical powers. It can even transform the vital energy through secret methods to fill the cultivators' sea of ​​qi, so that the cultivators can cultivate the lower-grade golden elixir and enjoy a thousand years of immortality!"

"Old Ren, you are talking nonsense again. Can a Jindan Zhenren be achieved by obtaining the inner elixir of a fifth-level monster? The monsters in southern Xinjiang would have been killed long ago."

"I copied down these uses word for word from the old Taoist books. If you don't believe me, I'll bring the book to you tomorrow."

Because of the audience's shouting and cursing, Old Man Ren retorted in dissatisfaction.

Seeing his solemn promise, many listeners gradually began to believe it.

"Is it really possible to take a shortcut like this and become a god?"

"If that's the case, if I come across a fifth-level inner elixir, I would go to great lengths to get it, even at the cost of killing people."

Seeing that the audience was gradually convinced, Old Man Ren slammed the gavel and began to talk about today's wonderful fairy tale:

"Our story today originated from this rare and precious treasure that is hard to come by... A boy chopping wood in the mountains accidentally got a chance to cultivate the inner elixir of a thousand-year-old white snake."

Lu Cheng was originally listening to storytelling to relax.

But suddenly, his calm state of mind began to ripple, and the Taoist woke up with a start and sensed murderous intent from behind.

Although it was recovered in an instant, Lu Cheng, whose mental cultivation had improved, would never think that there was a deviation in his perception.

Lu Cheng stroked his neck with his hand and controlled several acupuncture points on his face with slight sword energy, preventing his facial muscles from changing for a short period of time. Then he began to unintentionally glance in the direction where the murderous intent had just come from.

On the left rear side, there were not many people coming to listen to the storytelling today, so there were only an old woman in black and two boys, a boy and a girl, sitting there.

The old woman was skinny and with wrinkles all over her face, but she looked quite kind when she smiled. At this moment, she was feeding sweet cakes to her grandson and granddaughter.

But when Lu Cheng's eyes fell on the two boys, he immediately realized that the evil within these two people had already seeped into their bones.

"A foundation-building cultivator who practices the art of Yin Ghost. This is someone that Chen Tengjiao paid a huge price to hire to kill me."

There was no change on Lu Cheng's face, but his mind was racing and he had already figured out most of what was going on.

If his mind had not been improved just a month ago, it would have been impossible for him to sense the change in murderous intent at this moment.

A cultivator in the Foundation Establishment Stage spread his spiritual sense to cover the surroundings, completely able to conceal the murderous intent of the two boys beside him.

"They would never dare to attack me in public. If they fail to kill me in a short period of time, it would be difficult for them to escape from the Never-Sleeping City while being hunted down by the Condensed Demon-level cultivators."

"The Yin Ghost's foundation building, the Southern Border's secret killing curse? When will they take action, and in what form?"

Lu Cheng's chest was filled with shock but his face was calm. Of course, the fact was that the acupuncture points on his face were controlled, so he couldn't change his expression even if he wanted to.

In the following time, Lu Cheng tried his best to act like he was listening to the storytelling normally, but in fact most of his attention was focused on the foundation-building cultivator on his left rear side.

This bastard Chen Tengjiao is really crazy. He asked a cultivator in the Foundation Establishment Realm to assassinate someone in the City That Never Sleeps. The price must not be low, because there is a Senate in the City That Never Sleeps, and there are cultivators in the Condensation Realm from the City Patrol Department. If the cultivator in the Foundation Establishment Realm fails, he will also die.

Chen Tianxiong is more than two hundred years old. According to common sense, Chen Tengjiao should be more restrained at this time to avoid making too many enemies and sowing hatred that could kill him in the future.

But he refused to do so. The more shaky his position and foundation became, the more ferocious, crazy and unquestionable he became.

"After this, I will kill you."

Lu Cheng was furious, but at this moment, the old man Ren at the front desk talked about the exciting part of the plot, which attracted applause from the whole audience.

There was a cold wind blowing behind Lu Cheng. Lu Cheng judged that the wind blade would never cut his neck, so he forced himself to have no defense.

In fact, the sharp cold wind only cut off a strand of Lu Cheng's long hair. People of this era grew their hair long, and Lu Cheng was no exception. He acted as if he didn't notice anything and let the strand of hair fall to the ground and then be blown back by the wind.

"The killing curse!"

In southern Xinjiang where evil magic is rampant, not only can one's birth date not be known to others, even one's hair and nails cannot fall into the hands of others, otherwise one may die at any time without knowing the reason.

Moreover, curses like these are the most difficult to track down. After most people are killed by curses, others don't understand how they died for a while. By the time they find out the method of the curse, the caster has already fled thousands of miles away. Ordinary people are dead, so who would track down a dead person thousands of miles away?
But after knowing the other party's method of casting spells, Lu Cheng breathed a sigh of relief, then stood up, tipped the storyteller, and walked out of the store.

Then his expression changed and he immediately returned to his room in Wenjianzhai, and at the same time ordered everyone to go out, saying that he would be in seclusion for three days and not see any outsiders.

As the young Taoist stretched out his hand, a small green tripod appeared in his hand. With the push of his magic power, the lid of the small green tripod opened and a ball of golden light flew out from it. After falling into his hand, it turned into a hideous and ferocious little insect, angrily biting Lu Cheng's palm.

However, no matter how the ferocious and brutal golden silkworm Gu bit, there was always a layer of golden light that bounced it back.

"Stop making trouble. How about I compensate you with the blood of a Foundation Establishment cultivator by asking you to come out this time?"

Lu Cheng had read a lot of books and knew that the golden silkworm Gu, which contained a hundred poisons, was vicious and brutal in nature. If it were not for the terrifying power of the Jiuli Cauldron, only a master of Gu would be able to drive and control this peerless vicious insect. If anyone forcibly cultivated it, he would surely be retaliated against in the future.

As Lu Cheng's thoughts were transmitted, the ferocious poisonous insect seemed to gradually understand. As Lu Cheng raised his hand and threw it out, the golden ball of light circled in the air and then flew away.

In the air, there was a falcon that seemed to be hungry. It saw the little insect, swooped down and grabbed it in its claws.

However, the falcon's strength, which was enough to tear cow bones, seemed to be of no use, and instead caused a dull pain under its claws.

The next moment, the entire body of the falcon melted into blood and spilled onto the ground. Even the black and red blood that fell to the ground made a rustling and corrosive sound, and bursts of white smoke.

After killing the living creatures, the poisonous golden silkworm Gu seemed to be even more excited and flapped its wings to fly to the store that Lu Cheng was thinking of.

(End of this chapter)