The proof of Emperor Wu began with daily rewards for diligence.

Less than ten minutes after Chen Jue rushed out of the old alley of the black market, a deafening roar that shook the entire city came from behind him.

A huge green mushroom cloud shot into the sky, turning into a green downpour that rained down on four or five blocks nearby.

Chen Jue's pupils shrank sharply. If the rain were to fall, he dared not imagine what kind of hell the outer city would become.

Fortunately, when the sky falls, there are always tall people to hold it up.

In the direction of the black market, a colorful Five Elements array rose from the ground, like a giant rag sweeping into the sky.

In an instant, it seemed as if a piece of the sky had been erased.

The green rain and mushroom clouds, along with the gloomy autumn weather, were erased by the Five Elements Array, leaving only a wide and long sky, as blue as a mirror.

"!!!"

Chen Jue turned around and looked at this miraculous method, utterly shocked.

Is this the strength of the top forces and top experts in Linjiang?

A single strike can shatter the heavens and change the world!

This grand scene had a tremendous impact on his young mind, which was only 240 months old.

Shocked, Chen Jue continued running with his belongings, passing through several alleyways without surveillance cameras.

They scaled the wall to break into a house, stole clothes, changed their appearance, and finally returned to Xingfu Community.

"Ah Jue, are you alright?!"

Upon learning of the incident at the black market, He Yuanshan immediately called.

"It's okay, Uncle, we'll talk after get off work."

Chen didn't say much on the phone. He drew the curtains in his study and laid out what he had learned that morning on the narrow desk.

First came precious medicines and rare materials.

Among the plants I know are: Peiyuan Ginseng with over ten years of medicinal value, Yangqi Grass of ordinary quality, Blue Firefly Grass (a water-element spiritual plant), and several Red Spirit Flowers (a fire-element spiritual flower).

I don't recognize it; it's a herb with one stem and five leaves, entirely red, and covered with a velvety layer.

There is a shrub that is one foot tall, shaped like a rapeseed flower, with its leaves covered with fine, fiery red scales.

There are also precious medicinal branches with vermilion stems, narrow leaves, and pale red scalding liquid flowing from their cross-sections.

The most amazing thing is a piece of reddish-brown soft moss. It begins to absorb spiritual energy as soon as it is placed on the table, and grows slowly. Touching it makes your fingertips feel slightly hot, and it has a faint burnt aroma.

All of these things together are worth at least 600,000 gold coins. No wonder people in the martial arts world say that murder and arson bring wealth and honor; it turns out that this is the kind of place where wealth and honor are bestowed.

Besides precious medicines and spiritual materials, Chen Jue's main gain from this trip was the USB drive containing a large number of cultivation manuals.

However, he had already thrown away the physical USB drive. While borrowing clothes, he took the opportunity to use the homeowner's computer to upload the contents of the USB drive to anonymous accounts on different websites.

Chen Jue used a VPN to download the content to an old, obsolete mobile phone.

He casually flipped through it, and after confirming that nothing was missing, he closed his phone and went to flip through the two physical printed books on light-body skills.

"Silent Steps" and "Dragon's Body Technique".

He never forgot the earnest teachings of his teachers during his student days.

If the foundation is not solid, the ground will shake; if the mindset is unstable, trouble will come sooner or later.

The fact that he managed to steal the large number of martial arts manuals from the USB drive was just an unexpected bonus.

Currently, the outer city is teeming with star demons, rife with undercurrents and numerous crises.

If he does not follow the original plan to quickly grow stronger, but instead fails to prioritize and is greedy for more, he will surely drown in the treacherous undercurrents of the outer city.

The "Silent Step" emphasizes concealing one's breath and landing silently, making it adept at stealthy assassinations.

The "Dragon's Body Technique" is agile, swift, and versatile, excelling in close-quarters combat.

Chen Jue liked both types of lightness skills, and when watching them, he inevitably compared them, contrasting their advantages and disadvantages, and felt a desire to learn from each other's strengths.

However, he was not a martial arts master after all, and his attempt to learn from others' strengths and make up for his weaknesses in the early stages of his studies inevitably made him seem overly ambitious and inadequate.

Of course, Chen Jue didn't expect to learn it all at once.

When he couldn't figure things out, he would sit cross-legged and meditate to accumulate the five elements of true energy.

Now, his Qi and Blood value is as high as 160%. Under the Three Cycles of the River Chariot, the efficiency is 2.7 times that of running a single chariot. He can accumulate a wisp of Five Elements True Qi in two hours.

However, it was precisely because of his high efficiency that the qi and blood he consumed often could not be replenished in time. He could only interrupt his breathing midway to practice the Six Harmonies Saber Technique and further study the newly acquired lightness skill.

……

at the same time.

Inner city, Wu residence.

Wu Nanyuan, from a collateral branch of the family, is undergoing a severe family punishment.

"You mean, the person who robbed you defeated you without using true energy, but didn't kill you in the end, only taking the Universal Flash Memory Disk?"

"And Wu Cheng, Wu Yu, and Wu Tian were brutally murdered simply for stopping that person for a moment?"

"On what grounds?"

"..."

Wu Nanyuan was still wearing the thin black clothes she wore that morning, kneeling in the separate ancestral hall of the Twelve Houses.

The relentless questioning from Wu Yue and the elders of the collateral branches echoed in his ears.

She wasn't lying.

However, her parents died early, and she never showed her talent to her clansmen. Therefore, she was of low status and her words were as light as feathers, so light that they had no weight at all.

Moreover, she didn't want to argue; it was just a beating, and she had already suffered countless beatings since she was a child.

got used to.

But this time, she clearly underestimated the wickedness of human nature.

The one who enforced the family law was Wu Yu's mother, a despicable woman who lost her beloved son but vented her resentment on other people's children.

Wu Nanyuan endured fifty lashes, and even with the support of her "Double Water and One Ice" internal energy, her back was still covered in blood, with not a single piece of good flesh left.

She knelt with difficulty before the twelve ancestral tablets, the densely packed array of them. The wounds on her back, sticky with bits of cloth, began to fester. A sudden high fever numbed her consciousness.

In a hazy, dreamlike state, Wu Nanyuan saw her mother's back.

He saw her waving anxiously at him, urging him to escape quickly and leave this man-eating hellhole.

……

Six o'clock in the afternoon.

He Yuanshan returned to Xingfu Community on time and immediately launched into a tirade against Chen Jue, who was reading a book.

"Hahaha! Ah Jue! Too bad you're still on vacation today!"

"You wouldn't believe it, but today Zhang Wei learned that all four of his nephews and nieces who were on duty had died at the entrance of the old alley..."

"That shocked, furious, and frustrated expression, that cracking clenched fist—it's a scene of unparalleled brilliance!"

Chen Jue was demonstrating two famous light-body techniques when he saw his uncle so happy. He said, "We didn't kill anyone, so why are you so happy?"

"Haha, I'm happy as long as I see Zhang Wei get his comeuppance."

"Besides, the graduation season at Linjiang Martial Arts College is over now, and it will be extremely difficult for their fourth group to find replacements. They will probably have to work at full capacity for the next year, otherwise their performance will definitely suffer... It's really terrible."

He Yuanshan talked on and on, happier than if he had found money himself, watching Zhang Wei suffer misfortune.

"By the way! Ah Jue! What exactly happened at the black market today? There was such a commotion, and even powerful figures from the inner city made a move..."

"This matter has caused a huge uproar online."

"Some people saw a green mushroom cloud and speculated it was a chemical plant explosion..."

"Some people saw green trees and guessed it was a demon invasion; all sorts of outrageous rumors were flying around..."