Immortal Martial Saint, starting with unlimited stat points

Cangsong Village.

Zhou Chen carried the wild boar to the front of the yard.

The gate that was smashed by Li Xiong's palm strike some time ago has been completely renovated.

It was made for him by a carpenter in the village.

Pushing open the much thicker courtyard gate than before, Zhou Chen put the wild boar down on his back, causing the ground to tremble slightly.

He stretched out his body, took out a dagger, and immediately began to disembowel himself.

After cleaning, cut off the whole hind leg and roast it.

After a long while, a strange fragrance wafted into Zhou Chen's nostrils.

He knew that this was the special aura of demon beast meat.

In the original owner's memory, even when his father was alive, he only ate it a few times during festivals.

Before long, more than ten pounds of wild boar meat were all gone into Zhou Chen's stomach.

Martial artists who have entered the Body Refinement Realm consume a tremendous amount of energy to maintain their bodies every day, making them veritable gluttons.

After dinner, Zhou Chen practiced archery and Zhenyue stance alternately, quietly waiting for the countdown to reach zero.

-----------------

A few days later, in the early morning.

Zhou Chen drove the oxcart slowly back to Cangsong Village.

Along the way, we encountered many hunters heading into the mountains, and they all greeted us warmly.

After entering the village, Zhou Chen returned the oxcart he had borrowed from the village chief, Qin Song, and smiled as he weighed the silver he had earned from selling the game.

Uncle Sun once told him that if he wanted to learn martial arts at any of the major martial arts schools in Xingde County, he would need to pay at least three taels of silver a year for tuition.

If it's a famous one, it can cost five or even ten taels or more.

This truly proves the saying that "the poor study literature and the rich study martial arts."

In the past few days, he has been hunting in Yunsong Mountain during the day and practicing Zhenyue Stance and archery at night. With the help of the relics, his strength has improved again.

Today, he borrowed an oxcart to transport his hunting spoils from the past few days to Xingde County.

This time, however, the gaunt man who used the name of the young master of the Zhao family to force people to buy and sell was nowhere to be seen.

Two pig demons that had just entered the skin-refining stage, one bear demon that had mastered skin-refining, and one snake demon that had reached the flesh-refining stage were sold for a total of ten taels of silver.

Zhou Chen planned to find a martial arts school to learn one or two martial arts techniques after the New Year.

Otherwise, relying solely on the Zhenyue Stance, which only involves practicing techniques, would be far too inefficient against the strange people fighting the epidemic.

In the blink of an eye, a semi-transparent panel appeared.

Name: Zhou Chen

[Realm: Flesh Refining Realm]

【17:18:31】

【Fine: 4.1】

[Qi: 0.0]

【God: 1.5】

[Supernatural Ability: Spirit Tracking (Beginner, 40%)]

[Skill: Archery (Proficient, 7%)]

【Trap (Beginner, 12%)】

【Zhenyue Stance (Mastery, 23%)】

[Relic: Breakthrough Relic (Beginner) *5]

[Qingfuqian: 30]

In the past few days, Zhou Chen has found another of the Three Treasures relics in the old world, which has increased his spirit attribute by 0.5 points.

At the same time, perhaps due to the day and night hard work in cultivating the Zhenyue Pillar, and the abundance of monster meat to replenish his nutrition, his spirit attribute naturally increased by 0.1.

According to the information he gathered in the county town, he has now reached the advanced stage of meat processing.

If you continue to cultivate and increase your strength to 500 jin, which is equivalent to 5 points of spirit attribute, you can try to guide the power of qi and blood throughout your body to temper your bones.

In this way, one can reach the Bone Forging level.

Besides the three treasures, Zhou Chen also killed two black plague monsters, further improving his proficiency with the Spirit Tracking technique.

Meanwhile, after several days of exploration, he found a total of seven artifacts that had broken through to higher realms.

One was used to improve his long-neglected trap-making skills.

He added the other one to the Zhenyue Stake at the Proficiency level to test the extent to which a beginner-level breakthrough relic could improve proficiency in Proficiency level skills.

As a result, the effect of the Breakthrough Relic, which could have increased proficiency by a quarter in beginner-level skills, was halved again.

Each breakthrough relic can only increase the mastery of a skill by about 12%.

In other words, to upgrade your current mastery level of Zhenyue Zhuang or archery, you need at least eight or more Breakthrough Relics.

But in any case, it's still much faster than Zhou Chen cultivating on his own.

With his aptitude, even a single day of practice would be insufficient to increase his proficiency in a skill at the master level.

A single relic that allows one to break through to a higher realm is comparable to twelve days, or even longer, of his arduous cultivation.

"Perhaps it's just that the Zhenyue Stance and archery aren't suitable for me to practice?"

"Otherwise, with my extraordinary wisdom and persistent efforts, how could the progress be so slow?"

Zhou Chen walked to the water vat, took off his clothes covered in mud, and splashed water to wash his body.

It is now the dead of winter, the well water has long been frozen, and the water in the vat is also icy cold.

Even so, Zhou Chen's expression remained unchanged despite the ice water being poured over his head.

He has now mastered the art of muscle training, and his vital energy and blood are so strong that he is no longer an ordinary person. He is even immune to the effects of heat and cold.

Such a temperature is nothing unusual.

After washing himself clean, Zhou Chen took a brand new blue outfit from the inner room and put it on.

The morning sunlight shone obliquely, the garment was spotless, the stitches were fine and even, and it fit perfectly.

Although they weren't fancy clothes, they still gave Zhou Chen a refined and noble air.

This was made by Aunt Sun a few days ago after she came to take my measurements, using new fabric that Uncle Sun bought from the county town.

Two sets were made in total. One set was a short, fitted outfit, to be worn when going into the mountains to hunt.

This outfit was for Zhou Chen to wear on ordinary days.

These days, Zhou Chen has been going into the mountains every single day, and this is the first time he has worn these casual clothes.

Just as Zhou Chen finished dressing, the sound of gongs came from outside.

"Taxes are being collected! Taxes are being collected! Everyone, gather at the village entrance, don't be late!"

The man banging the gong outside was named Qin Huo, the only son of the village chief Qin Song.

Whenever there is an important event in the village, he is responsible for notifying the villagers from all directions.

As soon as the gong sounded, Zhou Chen heard the sound of doors opening one after another in the nearby courtyards.

If you are slow to pay your annual tax and delay the tax official's schedule, you will be whipped.

Zhou Chen took the money he had just received, pushed open the courtyard gate, and joined the crowd.

"What! The annual tax has gone up again!"

"Your Honor, the tax authorities just raised it once last year, why is it so much higher again this year?"

Snapped!

The sound of the whip boomed like thunder in my ears.

Zhou Chen looked towards the village entrance and saw a woman with bluish lips wearing only a thin shirt, kneeling on the ground and kowtowing repeatedly to someone.

She sobbed, begging the man to show mercy.

"Sir, my wife and I have scrimped and saved to pay the annual tax. How are we supposed to survive with this tax increase?" The wailing was faint and weak.

On the other side, a man dressed in thicker clothing was being held down by two men in dark uniforms, unable to move.

"Yunniang, you should go back quickly."

"If we can't afford the annual tax, we can just go and repair the canal."

"I'll be back next year."

Before the man could continue speaking, the officer in the black uniform pushed him aside to prevent him from interfering with the normal collection of annual taxes.

"These bastards, why are they raising taxes again?"

"I think most of these tax increases went into their own pockets."

"Shh, are you out of your mind? You're worried about getting dragged off to work on the canal."

In recent years, those who were forced to perform corvée labor or repair canals because they couldn't pay their taxes have all gone out, but none have ever returned.

"Next up, Zhou Chen."