May I seek good fortune and avoid misfortune, and live a long and prosperous life.

Chen Tianwang's camp retreated quickly, and it wasn't until dawn that Yuncheng's scouts reported that the enemy had completely withdrawn.

Therefore, the Third Prince's side finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Upon hearing that the enemy had retreated, the people of Yuncheng took to the streets and cheered.

The third prince ordered the entire city to celebrate for three days to commemorate the defeat of the bandits.

Li Heng, on the other hand, continued to cultivate the Nine Tribulations Nirvana Technique.

He has now completed the first stage and is about to thoroughly study the techniques for the second stage.

If the Grandmaster realm is an insurmountable barrier for a first-grade martial artist, then the Great Grandmaster realm is a realm that a Grandmaster martial artist can never reach in their lifetime.

Grandmaster martial artists who can break through to the Grandmaster realm are all geniuses among geniuses, one in a million, and an unparalleled powerhouse who only appears once every hundred years on average!

Therefore, it is conceivable that breaking through to the Grandmaster realm is as difficult as ascending to heaven.

However, Li Heng was not worried. He had eternal time. As long as he made a little progress every day, he would eventually achieve a breakthrough.

Time flies, things change, and a year has passed quickly.

In this year, the Third Prince accomplished many great things.

First, while outside, he took advantage of Chen Tianwang's retreat to quickly send 10,000 elite troops to help the four nearby prefectures quell the bandit uprising and bring the four prefectures into his alliance.

Firstly, it can prevent the possibility of trouble in one's own backyard; secondly, it can obtain a continuous supply of resources from the four states, including ample troops and a large number of martial artists.

Inside Yuncheng, the Third Prince was constantly busy training troops and preparing for war, as well as collecting provisions.

Moreover, with the invincible Grandmaster-level martial artist Ye Tianzi in charge, the Grandmaster-level martial artists in Chen Tianwang's camp no longer dared to sneak into Yuncheng to cause trouble.

Throughout the year, Yuncheng enjoyed excellent public security, with people readily accepting lost items and the city thriving.

As a result, the Night Emperor became the guardian deity of Cloud City.

His ancestral hall was completed half a year ago, and now it is bustling with worshippers and has become the largest tourist attraction in Yuncheng.

The monument to merit and the monument to heroes have also been built.

On the monument of merit, the Night Emperor rightfully ranks first.

Second place goes to Zheng Yuheng, with the former abbot of Changuang Temple and the former head of Xuanxiao Temple tied for third. Fifteenth place goes to Zhou Zhengqing, the head of the Zhou family…

The monument to martyrs lists Zheng Yuheng first, followed by the former abbot of Changuang Temple and the former abbot of Xuanxiao Temple.

These two scenic spots are also popular with tourists, and many people from Yuncheng come here to visit and pay homage to the sages of the past.

Li Heng also reached the peak of the Grandmaster realm in this year.

Moreover, over the past year, Li Heng has been studying various martial arts manuals, including core techniques that require battle merits to exchange for, all of which he can freely access.

Because the Third Prince had previously decreed that all Yuncheng warriors except the Night Emperor were forbidden from wearing black clothes and masks, black clothes and masks became the Night Emperor's iconic symbol.

The soldiers guarding Yuncheng knew that the figure dressed in black and masked was Ye Tianzi as soon as they saw him, and they all knelt down to pay their respects to him.

Li Heng absorbed the essence and discarded the dross from the martial arts manuals he had read, learning many practical moves and secret techniques.

He focused his attention on and practiced those life-threatening, heaven-defying cultivation techniques (not the ordinary life-threatening techniques).

Now, if he wants to use the Life-Saving Technique, he doesn't necessarily have to use the Blood Lotus Sect's secret method; he has other options.

Especially the life-saving and heaven-defying secret techniques that enhance abilities; now he not only has the Overlord Force, but also the Life-Burning Body Protection Shield, the Life-Burning Strength-Boosting Technique, and the Life-Saving Body-Benefiting Force.

The Overlord Force is a terrifying buff technique that sacrifices one's own lifespan to gain the Overlord's possession, comprehensively improving internal strength (only improving the quality of internal strength), defense, and speed, with a maximum increase of 80%!

The Life-Burning Body Protection Shield, as the name suggests, consumes lifespan and a little bit of internal energy to form a very strong golden shield around the body. The more lifespan is consumed, the stronger the shield becomes, but there is an upper limit.

Li Heng couldn't determine the upper limit yet, but he estimated that it should be able to withstand the full force of a Grandmaster-level expert's attack. As long as the shield wasn't broken immediately, it would consume its lifespan to repair itself, making it very difficult to break.

However, once the shield is broken, Li Heng can immediately form a new one. It can be said that this secret technique is very life-consuming, but theoretically, as long as his lifespan is infinite, Li Heng can infinitely extend the shield.

The Life-Burning Power Enhancement Technique is also an amazing secret method that consumes lifespan to enhance internal strength during combat. Similarly, the more lifespan is consumed, the stronger the increased internal strength becomes.

It also has an upper limit. Li Heng tried it and found that he could only increase his internal strength by a maximum of one time before stopping.

"Sacrificing life to enhance physical strength" is also a heaven-defying secret technique that consumes lifespan to increase one's internal energy (only increasing the amount of internal energy), speed, and defense.

This secret technique also has an upper limit. Li Heng tried it and found that it could increase the benefits by up to 80%. This means that internal strength, speed, and defense can all be increased by 80% on the existing basis!

More importantly, all four can work together to affect Li Heng!

These are the three most overpowered buff-type life-saving secret techniques that Li Heng collected in Yuncheng. Moreover, they are truly life-saving buff-type secret techniques that do not consume martial arts foundation.

Therefore, Li Heng's sequence of using secret techniques changed to first using the Life-Breaking and Body-Benefiting Force, then the Overlord Force, and finally the Life-Burning and Strength-Boosting Technique and the Life-Burning Body-Protecting Shield, which maximized the benefits!

This further elevates his true combat power to an unimaginable level. Currently, no martial artist can force him to use all four of his secret techniques.

Now, his foundation and martial arts skills have become increasingly solid.

Moreover, he can master any martial arts technique very quickly.

Having undergone eleven retraining sessions, he was almost perfect and flawless in every realm below Grandmaster. After cultivating the Nine Tribulations Nirvana Technique, he also had very few flaws in the Grandmaster realm, making him a truly well-rounded warrior.

At present, he has only one goal in his cultivation: to continuously accumulate experience and break through to the Grandmaster realm.

However, he is not in a hurry to break through to the Grandmaster realm. He wants to achieve the same level of power as when he broke through to the Grandmaster realm, where he can immediately sweep aside opponents of the same realm. He will not break through to the Grandmaster realm until he has pushed the theoretical combat power of the Grandmaster realm to its limit.

……

Over the past year, due to the Third Prince's policy of offering free access to basic martial arts and allowing people to exchange battle merits for core martial arts, coupled with the constant threat of bandit attacks over the past decade, the people of Yuncheng have developed a strong desire to learn martial arts, to the point that it can be said that the entire population is practicing martial arts.

Therefore, the number of martial artists in Yuncheng has also reached a peak.

First of all, the number of first-rank martial artists has increased by more than thirty, and as for those below first rank, there are even more.

Moreover, there were three first-rank martial artists who broke through to the Grandmaster realm: the Mad Taoist who was crippled by the Three Swordsmen, the Drunken Scholar who lost an arm, and the Jiangnan Mad Beggar who went blind.

The three men's mental state had been completely shattered by the Three Musketeers, but a dramatic turn of events occurred later. Stimulated by the Night Emperor's miraculous feat of slaughtering nine Grandmasters in a single night, their martial arts mental state not only fully recovered,

Moreover, they reached an even higher level. After their mental breakthrough, relying on their already substantial accumulated experience, they successively broke through to the Grandmaster realm.

With these three breaking through, Yuncheng's strength increased once again.

On the other hand, when the Third Prince finished suppressing the rebellion in the other four states, he also brought back a large number of soldiers, provisions, and martial arts resources.

Ten of them were Grandmasters, and there were countless martial artists below the Grandmaster level.

If Emperor Xiangqing hadn't dispatched martial artists northwards several times to provide support, the Third Prince would have been able to attract even more grandmaster-level martial artists to come and help.

However, even this is already a tremendous harvest!

Three months later, the Third Prince completed the integration of all resources.

Everything is ready except for the final push; he is about to make a big move.