My Martial Dao Has No Bottlenecks

With a grim expression, Wu Zhenshan led his men from the Martial Arts Academy back to the Martial Preparation Hall in the City Lord’s Mansion, where he strode directly into the inner chamber.

Xu Zhang had been waiting for some time.

"I didn’t bring him back."

Wu Zhenshan tossed his hat onto the table, his voice laced with suppressed fury. "Liang Cheng accepted a bandit-suppression mission on West Mountain from the Martial Arts Academy’s Foreign Affairs Hall. He’s already left the academy."

Xu Zhang’s eyes narrowed. "What a coincidence."

"Coincidence?"

Wu Zhenshan sneered. "Lü Bingchen and Lu Qingzhou were working in concert. This was clearly a pre-arranged escape route. That brat from the Lu Family has some nerve."

"Then what do we do now?"

Unwilling to let it go, Xu Zhang said in a low voice, "If Liang Cheng really hides out for a few months, by the time he returns..."

He didn’t finish, but his meaning was clear. Given the monstrous talent Liang Cheng had displayed, who knew how far he could advance in a few months?

"He won’t be able to hide."

Wu Zhenshan walked to the window, gazing at the gloomy sky. "Suppressing bandits on West Mountain... Heh, a fine excuse. And if he’s suppressing bandits, then dying at their hands would be perfectly reasonable, wouldn’t it?"

Upon hearing this, a cold glint flashed in Xu Zhang’s eyes. "Wu the Treasurer, you mean..."

"The terrain of West Mountain Black Wind Ridge is treacherous, and the bandits are vicious."

Wu Zhenshan turned, his tone as calm as if discussing a trivial matter. "It’s perfectly normal for a lone disciple of the Martial Arts Academy to have an ’accident’ during a mission. Even if the academy wants to investigate, the mountains are vast and the forests are dense. With no evidence left and no witnesses, what could they possibly find?"

Xu Zhang nodded slowly. "Then I can handle it myself."

Wu Zhenshan shook his head. "That won’t be enough. Liang Cheng managed to escape from the Flipping River Flood Dragon and even killed Xu Cangming. Even if luck was a factor, he’s not someone an ordinary True Qi Realm cultivator can take down easily."

"You’ll send several of your best men to coordinate, and I’ll send my own confidants. A two-pronged encirclement, reinforced by the West Mountain Thieves, must ensure a single, decisive strike. We can’t give him any chance to escape."

Xu Zhang took a deep breath. "With a force of this size, won’t it cause too much of a stir?"

Wu Zhenshan’s eyes were grim. "The stir will be much greater if he returns alive. So this time, it must be done cleanly. And it must be done fast!"

They looked at each other, seeing the resolute killing intent in the other’s eyes.

Now that they were in open conflict, they had to be ruthless.

...

「Martial Arts Academy, Mingxin Pavilion.」

Lü Bingchen dismissed his attendants, leaving only Lu Qingzhou behind. He got straight to the point. "The Task Order. Did you give it to Liang Cheng?"

Lu Qingzhou bowed. "This disciple acted on his own initiative. I ask for your punishment, Master."

Lü Bingchen stared at him for a moment before sighing. "Punish you? You did the right thing. If you hadn’t acted so decisively, Liang Cheng would have been taken away today—a lamb led to the slaughter."

He walked to his desk, picked up a brush, and began to write swiftly.

"Mission documents, filing records, the Foreign Affairs Hall’s receipt archives..." Lü Bingchen wrote without pause. "As of today, the recipient of the task is changed to Liang Cheng. All procedures must be backdated and completed."

Lu Qingzhou bowed quickly, his face full of gratitude. "Thank you, Master."

Lü Bingchen raised a hand, gesturing for him to stand. "Wu Zhenshan won’t let this go. He will definitely send men to West Mountain. We must make this an airtight case: Liang Cheng accepted the mission, and he went to West Mountain. Period."

"Only then, if something really happens to him on West Mountain, will the Martial Arts Academy have grounds to intervene. Otherwise, he’ll be considered to have left without permission, responsible for his own life or death. We wouldn’t even have the right to ask questions."

He finished the last line and stamped the document with his personal seal.

"Take this. Go find Master Chen in the Foreign Affairs Hall. He’ll know what to do. I want this to be so flawless that no one can find a single discrepancy."

Lu Qingzhou accepted the documents and bowed solemnly. "This disciple understands."

Stepping out of Mingxin Pavilion, Lu Qingzhou let out a soft sigh of relief.

This gamble wasn’t just for Liang Cheng; he was also betting his own future at the Martial Arts Academy.

...

「Deep within West Mountain’s Black Wind Ridge.」

Liang Cheng stood at the edge of a broken cliff, a churning sea of clouds below his feet. More than two months had passed since Lu Qingzhou’s warning and his flight from the Martial Arts Academy.

He hadn’t gone looking for the Black Wind Thieves. Instead, he had plunged deep into this primeval mountain forest, which stretched for thousands of miles, and concealed himself within it.

He found a hidden valley.

The valley contained a Cold Pool, its water bone-chillingly cold but perfectly suited to the water-attuned nature of the Broken Wave Technique. He built a simple thatched hut by its edge and began his secluded, arduous cultivation.

He drank from mountain springs when thirsty and hunted Demon Beasts when hungry, living off the land with the sky as his roof.

The elixirs Elder Huang had given him were plentiful, but he discovered that consuming the raw Essence Blood of Demon Beasts and using it to nourish his own Qi Blood was incredibly effective for his Stone Armor Skill—a pleasant surprise.

Just then, several lines of small text appeared in the depths of his consciousness.

[Broken Wave Technique First Layer: Great Success (5951/6000)]

[Stone Armor Skill (Copper Armor): Great Success (4520/5000)]

He felt the Qi Blood within him surging, filled to the absolute brim.

He sat cross-legged by the Cold Pool and swallowed a Qi Blood Pill. Closing his eyes, he focused his mind. The Broken Wave Technique’s Heart Method began to circulate slowly as his Qi Blood surged like a great river, washing through his meridians again and again.

He could clearly sense something gestating deep within his dantian.

This was Qi Sensitivity.

The transition from Transformation Force to True Qi was, in essence, a qualitative transformation of one’s Qi Blood.

One had to constantly compress and refine their immense Qi Blood until it finally condensed into a True Qi Seed within the dantian. From that point on, Qi Blood would transform into True Qi, which could be released from the body and used to perform all sorts of miraculous feats.

This process was like forging steel, a tempering that brought about a fundamental change in his Qi Blood.

Time trickled by as Liang Cheng cultivated.

The sun set and the moon rose; the moon set and the sun rose again.

A faint white mist began to steam from Liang Cheng’s body—a sign that his Qi Blood circulation had reached its absolute peak and was seeping through his skin.

The bronze luster under his skin flickered erratically, and his Stone Armor Skill seemed to breathe in and out in rhythm with the flow of his Qi Blood.

His aura grew increasingly stable.

As if sensing something, the birds and beasts of the valley had long since fled, as though an ancient Fierce Beast were awakening by the Cold Pool.

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