Decaying World

Chapter 54 054 Exploration II

"Sir, just looking at the background, our family also has its own Inspirers. What's so special about that?" The young man in blue frowned and said unconvinced.

"There are different kinds of Summoners, from lower to middle to upper levels, with huge differences between each level. Even among the upper-level Summoners, You Ying is among the strongest. In addition, her father is an elder of the Sha Yue Sect, her mother comes from a powerful family in the inner city, and she herself is ruthless. She has also studied under the vice sect leader of the Fu Shan Sect among the Three Sects and Six Gangs, making her background and strength even more outrageous."

Huang Shangying sighed, "As for Lin Hui, he's only nineteen years old and has already reached the limit of body tempering. Although he still hasn't given up the Qingfeng Sword, he might be a bit lacking in actual combat, but his speed and agility are enough, and his survival skills are strong enough. For someone with his background, that's sufficient. The gap between someone like him and you..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but everyone understood what he meant.

The two young men looked rather grim, but they were still unconvinced and had formed a deep impression of Lin Hui.

the other side.

Mingde led Lin Hui slowly out of the restaurant and walked along the sidewalk.

"Tell me, what do you want from me?"

"Master, I would like to ask, how can I generate internal energy during the second body tempering?" Lin Hui asked in a low voice.

"You completed the body tempering in one go?" Mingde was taken aback.

"Yes."

"Have you taken your medication?"

"I used some," Lin Hui answered honestly.

“That won’t have much of an impact.” Mingde breathed a sigh of relief. “A second body tempering, are you really determined to use the Qingfeng Sword? With your current background, your father should be able to force you into the inner city’s three sects and six gangs. Once inside, you can learn stronger internal energy techniques. It’s even not impossible for you to enter the top three. You need to think it through before you decide.”

"Disciple confirms." Lin Hui recalled the soon-to-evolve Gale Sword Technique, his expression calm.

“That’s fine. Indeed, if you suddenly switch to practicing other secondary body-tempering martial arts, it will take a long time to switch. Anyway, your family has improved, and Old Lin is doing very well now. He can afford to hire experts at the Inner Strength Realm. You just need to make sure you can run fast enough when you’re escaping. The Qingfeng Sword does have a significant advantage when running away.” Mingde nodded.

He stopped and turned to look at his disciple.

"Actually, seeing how well you and Weiwei have managed the Sword Sect these past few days has made me feel ashamed. I am the sect leader, but the greatest pressure has fallen on you young people. I simply don't have the strength to start from scratch and rebuild the Sword Sect step by step."

He sighed.

"Qingfeng Sword has fallen far behind other martial arts. It might be able to continue its legacy by simply focusing on its running speed, but such a struggle is too difficult."

"Master." Lin Hui opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but was interrupted by Mingde raising his hand.

"Don't rush, let me finish." Mingde's eyes darted around, as if he were looking at something farther and higher, his pupils unfocused.

"Actually, turning the Sword Sect into a senior citizens' health retreat is a good idea. Although it may not be able to develop, at least it can survive. Therefore, I plan to hand over the Sword Sect to you completely."

"Master, what do you mean by this?!" Lin Hui was startled, realizing something was wrong.

“It means exactly what it says. From now on, I will step down from the spotlight, and you will be the leader of the Sword Sect. Weiwei will be an elder of the Sword Sect. I think you are also good at teaching disciples. From now on, the Qingfeng Sword Sect will depend on your development!” Mingde smiled easily and patted Lin Hui on the shoulder.

"Master, you're not thinking of running away, are you?" A bad feeling rose in Lin Hui's heart.

"How could that be? Do you think I'm that kind of irresponsible person?" Mingde frowned. "I still want to see you and Weiwei carry forward the Qingfeng Sword Sect through another path!"

“I understand.” Lin Hui breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t expected that his teacher would so decisively pass the position of sect leader to him after confirming that he didn’t intend to switch sides.

"Continuing from the previous question, how does internal energy arise?" Mingde regained his serious expression. "Do you still remember our sect's fundamental diagram, the Bright Moon Mountain Diagram?"

"remember."

"Do you think that the essence of body tempering is to master the point of exertion, and then make the body absorb more food faster, so as to achieve the effect of increasing strength?" Mingde asked.

"Is not it?"

“Of course not.” Mingde laughed. “In reality, mastering the point of force application is just to allow the body to naturally unleash its own invisible power, forming a special external network on the body’s surface.”

"External mesh weaving?" This was the first time Lin Hui had heard of such a term, and his face showed obvious curiosity.

“That’s right. This layer of netting is woven from the invisible power emanating from our own bodies. It is closely related to our bodies, and the body tempering effect is just something that happens incidentally during the weaving of this netting,” Mingde explained.

"Then why weave this net?" Lin Hui asked.

“Naturally, it’s for internal energy.” Mingde smiled. “Didn’t you think internal energy comes from the digestion and transformation of the food we eat? Actually, no. It’s what we filter and capture from the outside world by weaving a net.”

“Do you know spiders? They weave webs just like spider webs. As we practice swordsmanship, we constantly attract a large amount of various unknown energies into our bodies. Among these unknown energies, some are useful, some are useless, and some are even poisonous or harmful. That’s why we need to weave extra webs to filter and select them,” Mingde explained simply.

"So, internal energy actually originates from unknown external energy?" Lin Hui understood. "Yes. Therefore, whether you can generate internal energy during your second body tempering is closely related to the net you wove before, as well as the tempering environment you were in. Let me tell you a secret," Mingde said with a smile, "When I first tempered my body to generate internal energy, it was in a stormy weather. Not only me, but your senior uncle Bao and the Daoist also completed their internal energy generation in a windy weather back then."

"And another thing," he continued, "different fundamental diagrams, mental techniques, and moves, when combined, weave different nets, filtering out different unknown energies. This is the key to the different properties and strengths of martial arts internal energy. Since you are about to embark on this path, I will tell you a common point of attention in the internal energy realm."

"Points to note?" Lin Hui keenly sensed the seriousness in the teacher's tone when he said this.

"Yes, actually, your choice not to enter the inner city and instead choose the Three Sects and Six Gangs was the right one. At least you have your father's protection, and you'll inherit the family business in the future. If all goes well, you'll live longer than many martial artists in the inner city. The competition in the inner city is extremely brutal. Some residents who can't make a living will even voluntarily donate blood to collect feather blood for sale. Even residents whose ancestors were wealthy in the inner city do this, so you can imagine how much pressure there is for martial artists."

A look of reminiscence crossed Mingde's face.

"You must remember that once you reach the level of internal energy in martial arts, it's a new beginning. Above this dividing line, all internal energy martial arts are generally recognized as being divided into two categories: extreme martial arts and ordinary martial arts."

"What do you mean?" Lin Hui asked in a deep voice.

"As the name suggests, extreme martial arts are those that pursue strength, progress, and cultivation by any means necessary, relentlessly pushing forward and constantly breaking limits. Almost all martial arts in the inner city are extreme martial arts. Their characteristic is that the practitioner's progress and strength far exceed those of ordinary martial arts, but the side effects are enormous. Almost all practitioners suffer from physical and mental problems of varying degrees," Mingde explained.

"Is such martial arts truly worth practicing?" Lin Hui asked, a chill running through him.

“Otherwise, the intensity won’t be enough, and the martial artists will be useless to the summoners in the inner city. So everyone has to fight. If you don’t fight, you will be eliminated and driven out to the outer city. Once you’re in the outer city, it will be extremely difficult to go back,” Mingde replied.

"Are all martial artists in the inner city serving the Summoners?" Lin Hui asked again.

“Not in essence. It’s just that the Summoners are closer to the true nobles. The major cities are still ruled by a very small number of original blood nobles. They are the direct bloodline of the Fog People and the fundamental source of maintaining the Fog-Free Zones in the major cities. The Summoners are merely servants who serve the original blood nobles. Compared to warriors, they are closer to the original bloodline,” Mingde replied.

Lin Hui had never heard of the original blood nobles, nor had he ever heard of the term "Mist People".

"Then why have we never heard of it or seen it?"

“Because the inner city is very, very big, your father doesn’t want to tell you these things. Guess how big our Tu Yue inner city is?” Mingde laughed.

“I’ve heard my father mention that the inner city’s population is over 19 million,” Lin Hui replied after a slight hesitation.

"Want to go in and take a look? I happen to have two temporary passes that I applied for earlier," Mingde tempted.

"Is that alright?" Lin Hui was filled with curiosity about the inner city. After all, with his experience from his previous life, he knew very well what it meant for a city to have a population of tens of millions.

“I know of more than eighty towns on the outskirts of Tu Yue, and there are large gaps between each of them. These towns surround the inner city in the center. Can you guess how big the inner city is?” Mingde laughed.

Without waiting for Lin Hui's reply, he led his apprentice straight toward the enormous white wall that seemed to stretch endlessly.

The two crossed the street, where there were fewer and fewer pedestrians and vehicles on both sides.

In the end, only a few oxcarts carrying supplies remained, slowly making their way towards the city wall.

Before long, the two arrived at the base of the white city wall, in front of a huge white arched gate.

The gate is ten meters high and eight meters wide, with markings on its surface that appear to be both words and patterns.

Its material appears to be some kind of stone, and at the very top of the gate, black crystal is inlaid to form three large characters: South Nine Gates.

At the bottom of the main gate, a small gate five meters wide was opened for vehicles to enter and exit.

To Lin Hui's surprise, the door was completely unguarded, with the doors wide open, allowing people to come and go as they pleased.

“No one would be foolish enough to voluntarily enter the inner city, especially without permission. They’d run into trouble in no time.” Mingde seemed to see his doubts.

“Feather Blood, Permission, these are all items issued by the inner city to protect the residents. Even this incredibly tall city wall has the effect of blocking certain internal radiation forces.”

Lin Hui seemed to understand. He followed his master without stopping, and quickly entered the city wall from the left side of the small gate along the gray pedestrian path that was only one meter wide.

Behind the door was a somewhat dark tunnel.

The tunnel is about thirty meters long. Before we had even reached the end, bright sunlight was streaming in from the front.

In that white light, there were the calls of birds, the clamor of crowds, the low growls of livestock, and the cries of vendors.

Mingde handed a piece of sky-blue jade to Lin Hui.

"Follow me."

He gave a word of advice, then took the lead and stepped into the white light.

(End of this chapter)