“Arghhh!!!” He wailed in agony, reverberating to the whole underground.

“Tao Chen!” shouted the patrolling member on the left, unsheathing his sword as he hatefully glared at Lu Zheng, who steadied the fifth stance.

When he saw that Lu Zheng was in the defensive stance, he did not hesitate to attack with his techniques.

However, Lu Zheng, at this moment, was executing the second technique, Silent Depths.

As soon as the patrolling member was about to land with Lu Zheng, the latter parried it with minimal movements.

Seeing that his assault was blocked effortlessly, the patrolling member gnashed his teeth in anger as he continued to attack Lu Zheng relentlessly.

Thud!

He heard the noise of Tao Chen’s body colliding to the floor, hearing no more screaming from him.

He knew that he ceased to live.

After all, he clearly saw Lu Zheng’s cruel slash, targeting all of Tao Chen’s vitals with extreme precision.

Whenever he imagined if he was in Tao Chen’s shoes, receiving such a swift, unexpected attack, his body quivered in terror.

Hence, he was now endlessly attacking Lu Zheng, leaving no room for him to perform the same attack twice.

However, the more he attacked him, the more he felt something was wrong.

Lu Zheng was staring at him with a serene expression and parried all his attacks easily, with minimal movements, too.

That was then terror slowly crept to his whole being, making his hair stand on ends.

Suddenly, as he was being distracted by the fear Lu Zheng induced in him, Lu Zheng’s oceanic eyes flashed with understanding as it pushed the remaining patrolling member’s sword, losing his balance.

At that moment, Lu Zheng took the chance to execute the remaining technique of the fifth stance.

Lu Zheng’s expression remained serene, even his movements were filled with smoothness as he performed the Serenity Strike.

The patrolling member watched Lu Zheng attacking him helplessly, suddenly having the idea of welcoming death, taking him out of the world.

Hence, he dropped his sword to the floor and opened his arms, embracing the sword that was about to take his life.

In the end, he never recognized who Lu Zheng was due to his current clothes being shabby, but he knew he would die anyway.

He closed his eyes and waited for Lu Zheng’s attack to arrive.

When Lu Zheng saw it, he was startled, and he quickly changed the third technique to the first technique, Tranquil Slash.

After all, the third technique aimed to paralyze the enemy by striking the pressure points, but it would be pointless to the enemy before him who was ready to accept death.

Furthermore, Lu Zheng wanted to kill them either, so it would be better to kill him now than wasting time torturing him so they would regret insulting his clan.

He prioritized more on leaving the city than fully exacting his revenge.

Slash!

Lu Zheng did not hesitate to slice his neck, resulting in the head flying apart from its body and rolling on the cold floor, as the expression painted from it appeared peaceful.

There were now two corpses lying on the floor, and Lu Zheng stared at them indifferently.

It was not the first time Lu Zheng killed his fellow humans.

The first time was earlier, killing the two guards.

Now that he finally killed another individual in front of him with clarity, he felt not good.

He did not feel bad, either, for he knew killing was normal in his current world, as those who survived became stronger by eliminating those who could threaten them.

Lu Zheng saw them as nothing but a group of individuals who must die after annihilating his clan.

Lu Zheng’s strange mood did not last when he heard the system’s voice announcing in his head.

[Congratulations! You have successfully killed a Novice Rank Cultivator. You have obtained 0.8 strength points.]

[Congratulations! You have successfully killed a Novice Rank Cultivator. You have obtained 0.8 points in speed.]

Lu Zheng was filled with delight, knowing he obtained points again and was now receiving a refreshing feeling washing all over his body.

However, compared to before, it was only small, confusing him a bit.

That was when he read the announcement and was dismayed to know he only received less than a point.

But then, he felt it made sense since he killed a cultivator weaker than him.

If it was on the same rank as him, he would have received a single point.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Although a single point seemed not much, it was actually a massive enhancement.

For instance, if his strength was one point, which was the average strength of the humans, and had been increased by another point, it would mean he has double the average strength of the humans.

Such a buff, or whatever Ravyn called it, was really overpowered.

Hence, despite the less than points he received, he was not totally disheartened at all.

At the very least, as long as he continued to kill Cultivitar and the same rank or below as him, he could amass more points, providing him more buff.

As a result, it would only be a matter of time before he could completely avenge his clan.

From being a pipe dream before was now a reality that would happen in the future.

Whenever he thought of annihilating the Scorching Blade Clan, his eyes flashed with killing intent and determination, boosting his conviction of repaying what the Scorching Blade Clan had done to his clan.

He gripped the tilt of the sword and calmly swung it downward, removing the blood spilled on its pristine body as he continued to move forward.

Now, he was determined to only sheath the sword once he successfully escaped from the city.

He was resolute in eliminating those who dared to block his path.

***

Lu Zheng slowly made his way to the top, as the underground consisted of three floors, and he was currently on the lowest floor.

The other floors only existed to confuse others about the precise location of the treasury, as only the Clan Head knew about it.

It was a mystery why his mother was aware of it and was even passing the information to her son.

Lu Zheng finally arrived at the spiral stairs leading him to the second floor after killing ten more external disciples, and all of them were Novice Rank Cultivators.

It was normal that it was lacking any internal members since the numbers of the external compared to internal had a vast difference, to begin with.

Scorching Blade Clan accepted any disciples to become external disciples, but few would pass the examination to become internal disciples.

At most, they had thousands of external disciples, while they only had less than internal members.

Furthermore, most of the internal members were Apprentice Rank and above, and they possessed high levels of combat abilities, too.

Unfortunately, they could still not be compared to Lu Zheng who had a drastic change after a single day.

The ten external disciples Lu Zheng killed provide five increases in strength, three in agility, and two in speed.

Now, Lu Zheng was stronger than before, receiving a powerful buff.

He even believed if he had a fair duel with Jade Fang, without the temporary boost of power and the element of surprise with him, he would win.

That was how confident Lu Zheng was with his current power.

Furthermore, Lu Zheng discerned he would not ascend to the Rank soon since achieving higher ranks required the cultivation of Qi balls.

For now, he only had one ball, which was equivalent to one Qi point.

If he wanted to become an Intermediate Rank Cultivator, he needed to have ten Qi balls.

However, he did not want to yet, as ascending means the points he would receive from killing Novice Rank Cultivators would decrease.

He did not want to lose his advantage.

As he halted before the spiral stairs, checking if there were patrolling external members above, Ravyn’s voice echoed inside his mind, seemingly hearing his thoughts earlier.

“There will be a limit to how many points you will receive by killing Novice Rank Cultivator. The system is not that magnanimous.” His voice carried a hint of amusement.

Lu Zheng’s eyes widened, feeling a bucket of water pouring on his head.

He nodded, not doubting Ravyn’s words at all.

After all, from what he had observed from Ravyn, he was the type of person who took things seriously.

He would never joke, even though it appeared his tone appeared to be mischievous.

Lu Zheng had now faced trouble on how to ascend to the Intermediate Rank.

After all, he only had two extra points left, while his Qi points only had one point.

If he wanted to ascend to the Intermediate Rank, he needed ten Qi points, which was not near enough.

He could only wish he would receive Qi points from killing Apprentice Rank Cultivators since they had their meridians opened and had Qi balls on their dantian.

Lu Zheng soon discarded those worries, for he had to focus on leaving the underground first.

Since he had been standing for a minute and perceived no patrolling external members, he decided to tread carefully.

The spiral stairs lacked torches, so it was obviously dark.

One had to carry a torch by grabbing one from the walls of each floor.

When Lu Zheng walked underground, he obviously grabbed one torch because he was afraid of the dark.

Furthermore, since he was going down, he must have a torch since the stairs were uneven.

If he stupidly had a miss-step, he would have rolled downwards, receiving broken bones and unnecessary bruises.

However, now that Lu Zheng had Qi, his senses were enhanced, even more so due to the increase in durability and strength points.

Furthermore, his eyes were getting used to the dark, so he did not need a torch to walk the spiral stairs upward.

He could clearly see the steps he must take, so he did not face difficulty when going up the stairs.

Slowly, Lu Zheng arrived on the second floor.

There, he saw two external patrolling disciples chatting by themselves.

As always, they were telling the story of how they killed the Azure Tide Clan, and raped the female members, even creating a licking noise, infuriating Lu Zheng.

However, compared to before, Lu Zheng controlled his temperament, calming himself down.

The fact that he could finally control his bad temper must have been influenced by the Ocean’s Heart Qi Technique.

Nevertheless, as soon as they were talking badly about his clan, he did not hesitate to kill them.

This time, he tried a different stance again, which was the third stance, Crashing Wave, aiming to be familiar with the stances and techniques, wanting to become the shadowy figure.

The Crashing Wave stance was divided into three techniques.

Tidal Smash, a powerful overhand strike that crashes down with the weight of a tidal wave.

It was also a powerful move when it came to attacking by surprise.

Breaker Strike, a diagonal slash that carries the momentum of a breaking wave, capable of cleaving through defenses.

As he successfully wounded the other external members with the first technique, the other reacted. He attacked him, but he had long slashed him first, making the other member take the defensive state.

However, the Breaker Strike completely broke his defense after parrying it, leaving him open.

Yet, the other member utilized all his strength, attacking Lu Zheng with a swift downward slash.

Lu Zheng could still attack him, but the other member’s slash would successfully hack his shoulder, so he did not want to risk it.

As a result, Lu Zheng executed the third technique, Wave Crush, a heavy, sweeping strike that knocked opponents off balance, completely destroying the possibility of the other member landing an attack on him.

Then, Lu Zheng finished with a simple horizontal slash, decapitating his head, making it fly from its body, and rolling to the ground.

When it halted, the face depicted a horrified expression.

Lu Zheng was about to rejoice, but his expression turned ugly when he only received a single notification, even though he had already checked that the other external member he wounded was now dead.