Author's note: Second episode is brought to you by Daniel L!
Host's note: I'm just hosting this on RRL with permission.
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For the next several days, the Jin territory has been quite serene. The city, at this time, was in chaos with prices of goods skyrocketing and shops closing down left and right.
But as Jin Xia predicted, by having Jin Liu Dan take authority over the city matters, the chaos was somehow contained. As expected, this move had not only strengthened the people’s trust in the Jin Clan, but allowed the clan to control much of the city’s matters.
The new shops that opened were mostly set up by the Jin Clan members, while the rest went through a contract with the clan in order to open independently. Besides the Azure Sky Auction House, almost all of the shops in Tian City were now under the Jin Clan’s influence.
Other than the streams of visitors who wish to acquaint with the new overlord of Tian City, there has been no further movement from the Jin Clan’s side since the brief incident.
The reason was because everyone in the Jin Clan was currently busy cultivating.
After Liu Dan Xia had stabilized the clan’s internal affairs, Jin Xia brought all the Jin Clansmen together and bestowed upon an array of martial arts books.
These skills included cultivation method, techniques in attack, defense and agility, and even a Low-grade soul enhancement art.
The rest of the techniques ranged mostly from Low-grade to at most Mid-grade skills. While these may not seem a lot, it was already more than enough to give the Jin clansmen the shock of their life.
A Graded skill was, after all, much rarer than even a Symbol artifact.
Because in this bloody world where fights happen often, many people place their trust more so on their own fists and strength, rather than outside assistances such as weapons and artifacts.
Coupled with the scarcity of Graded skills, these factors naturally contributed to the preciousness of Graded skills over Symbol artifacts (or Graded artifacts).
Now that Jin Xia’s clan was united, he was more inclined to help improve their strength. This way, when he leaves on his journey, he would have less to worry about his clan’s wellbeing. He was not an unfilial nor heartless person, after all.
With the new rush of wealth and river of Graded skill books, the Jin Clan had been fervently purchasing a huge abundance of medicinal herbs and martial pills to nurture its younger generation.
Although the amount of pills given to each younger members of the Jin Clan was at most two per day, it was already a huge improvement from before.
Moreover, the clan had lately been hiring many strong cultivators to help protect the Jin mansion– a move that would have been practically impossible long ago. Of course, the screening was overseen by Jin Xia, who meticulously selected ones whom he found had not only decent cultivation, but also “decent heart.”
There were quite a number of people who wished to take advantage of the Jin Clan’s rise in power and join them so that they could likewise enjoy a boost in status.
Those people were, of course, directly sent away from the Jin Clan’s mansion.
Occasionally, Jin Xia would stop by the family’s main hall and hand over to his father a few bottles of high quality martial pills to distribute to the most outstanding peers in the younger generation.
While the type of pills varied from time to time, the only similarity between them was that they all had a quality rating of at least 5 stars. This may not sound like much, but compared to the country of Great Azure, where the rarest pill was only rated 3 stars, the Jin Clansmen could be said to be taking the most luxurious delicacies in the entire country.
Jin Xia likewise did not tell the clan about the rating of the pills he gave them.
And with Jin Xia’s current incomparably high status in the clan, which was even greater than the patriarch himself, no one dared to question him.
Meanwhile, Xie Mei had already begun cultivating.
In just four days, she had already went from being non-cultivator to someone who was at the 2nd stage of Wudan. This training speed could already be considered quite fast.
At the same time, Xie Mei had also began to touch on the martial art skills Jin Xia had given her. After her initial breakthrough of the 1st Wudan stage, Xie Mei had been deeply touched.
Standing in her own yard, Xie Mei had a complicated look on her face.
“This…is the feeling of a cultivator?” She whispered under breath in awe. Her body felt as if a certain weight had been lifted. It was an amazing sensation breaking through.
Lightly grasping her chest, Xie Mei looked towards Jin Xia’s yard as confusion and gratitude flashed through her pretty eyes.
Her perspective on Jin Xia had now taken a turn for the better.
After all, to be able to break through when she was already 16 years old could originally be said to be impossible.
But with Jin XIa’s guidance, she had actually brought about a miracle that was practically unheard of in the country, or even in the continent for that matter!
If it could said that Xie Mei was at first suspicious and cautious towards Jin Xia’s words, then it could be said that Xie Mei is now completely trusting of her young master.
The fears and slight hatred towards Jin Xia (the previous one) that she held in her heart from before were slowly extinguishing along with her breakthrough into the Wudan realm.
As for Yu Fei and Qing Fei, with their cultivation back, they naturally did not fool around and went straight into practicing the skills Jin Xia had given them.
“Ha!” The air whistled loudly as a slender sword pierced into a tree.
*Ch!*
A long vertical crack appeared on the tree trunk from the sword’s strike.
“Amazing…” Fei Yu murmured under her breath as she retracted the normal sword Jin Xia had given her for practice use. “Practicing this [Seven Petals Sword Arts] seems to come so easy for me; it was as if this style was made for me. It’s almost like our Fei family’s [Crimson Fei Sword arts], but much more effective…”
After practicing the sword style for a while, Fei Yu could quickly tell that the sword art that JIn Xia had given them was not simple at all. The moves were not only powerful, but the style suited almost perfectly with her body! She was very close to comprehending the first layer of the sword art.
“Sister Yu! Look! Look! My sword was able to pierce into that tree trunk in my yard just by training it a bit!” A sweet voice called from the distance, as a girl in light-green clothes came skipping over. Giving her older sister a big smile, Fei Qing said:
“I think I’m very close to understanding the first layer of this [Moonlight Sword Arts] Jin Xia gave me. I don’t know why, but whenever I train this sword art, I feel a surge of energy in my body. It’s weird because I never felt this way when I was practicing our family’s swords arts…”
Fei Yu smiled and nodded: “Yes, these sword arts the young master gave us are truly profound. It may have been right to rely on him for now.”
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“Mn.” Fei Qing agreed. Her recent change in impression of Jin Xia had been similar to Xie Mei’s –it was getting a lot better.
Jin Xia had indeed not once harrassed or forced them to do something against their own will, but had instead treated them courteously and like an equal. His manners were not condescending in the least.
But what made Fei Qing feel a bit depressed was because of this very attitude of Jin Xia’s.
“To have two beautiful princesses living in a quarter nearby, yet showing no signs of interests…is he even a man?” Fei Qing had grumbled in her mind once, when she noticed that Jin Xia did not express a hint of desire towards them.
While this was a good thing, of course, but for some reason Fei Qing felt a sense of loss in her heart. Like, she wanted something more from Jin Xia, but did not understand exactly what she wanted…
“Let us continue to practice hard and raise our cultivation. We cannot soley rely on young master Jin Xia to shelter us forever…” Fei Yu said.
“I know, Sister Yu.” Fei Qing replied, while smiling. Then, she turned and skipped back to the other side of the yard for practice.
Fei Yu looked at her adorable sister’s back, as her eyes sharpened a bit.
“Little Fei Qing, just wait until we’re stronger..we will definitely avenge our honorable parents in Heaven…” She softly murmured under her breath.
Then, she raised her sword once again and began to slice the air, aiming to perfect the sword style.
With the idea of following Jin Xia set in their minds, the two sisters knew that they had to get stronger if they wanted to be able to protect Jin Xia’s clan.
After all, with Jin Xia’s extraordinary demeanor and might, he was bound to attract a great deal of glory–and possibly an equally great amount of enemies as well.
Thus, like Xie Mei, the girls would cultivate inside their room in the morning, then practice outside their yard in the afternoon, and then go back to meditate during the night. With a meal break in between each session, the girls had practically immersed themselves in cultivation.
While everyone within the Jin territory was occupied with leveling up their strength, Jin Xia had not been practicing any martial techniques at all — even the ones that he had in memories, he did not choose to practice them.
This was because Jin Xia understood that while he may know how to exactly execute the skills from his previous life, his current corporeal form may not be able to handle to the resulting lashback.
And although Jin Xia had a plethora of skills in his memory, he was most concerned about the compatibility of the technique with his current body. Only by having compatibility would one be able to release the strongest attack and have the most solid defense.
When Jin Xia had first killed all the higher members of the three major clans in Tian City, he had only used his condensed Spiritual Qi to easily defeat them.
The difference in cultivation level had made this possible.
But in the future, he knew he had to recover back some of his old techniques. If not, faced with a powerful enemy in this world, he would likely perish and enter the Reincarnation cycle for good this time.
And strangely enough, Jin Xia was a little astonished to find that there were very few skills that were actually compatible with this body of his, at the moment.
Even the lowest level of martial arts that was most compatible with him right now, required Jin Xia at least reach the Emperor Realm before being able to practice it.
Otherwise, even with his powerful soul and extensive experiences, Jin Xia’s body would not be able to properly maneuver the high level skill.
The techniques he knew that was compatible with his body were all too imposing, that his current body was simply too weak to bring out its full potential even if Jin Xia was to practice it immediately now.
Realizing this, Jin Xia could only smile wryly. Even though he had lived for aeons, Jin Xia was not omnipotent and did not possess the knowledge of every single technique in the world.
Therefore, even after searching through the lower level skills in his memory bank, Jin Xia could not find any compatible methods for his body.
In the end, Jin Xia could only practice the family techniques that were passed down within the Jin Clan.
Because those were the traditional methods that were left behind by the previous Jin Xia’s ancestors. The compatibility rate would naturally extremely high with this body of his, which was a direct descendant of the Jin ancestors.
However, the strongest technique in the Jin Clan was called [Rising Over Heaven], a Mid-grade palm attack-based art.
Having visited the Treasure Hall of the Jin Clan once before, Jin Xia had read over this attack manual. It was said that if practiced to the highest level, one would be able to instantly cover the sky and decimate a large army
While it was traditionally ruled that only the patriarch may practice this skill, with Jin Xia’s present status in the Jin Clan, no one would complain if Jin Xia wanted to learn it.
There were also [Firefly Evasion], a Low-grade agility skill, and [Lightning Fist], a Non-grade attack skill. These were the methods that the previous host had learned before Jin Xia took over his body.
And while the level of these skills were not high, because of the “previous Jin Xia’s” impatient attitude and overall lack of comprehension, he did not achieve full mastery over these seemingly weak techniques.
Coupled with these two skills, there was a total of three compatible martial arts that Jin Xia could perform with his current body.
While three martial arts could be considered the minimum amount of arts a practitioner should possess, in Jin Xia’s eyes it was far from enough. As someone who preferred to have multiple cards up his sleeves, Jin Xia wanted to have more compatible skills to use when he fought, even if they were low-leveled ones.
Besides, Jin Xia was once a fanatical martial artist who had studied the Way of Cultivation for nearly thousands of millenniums. His knowledge was deeply profound. As such, he would naturally be able to “tweak” some of the low-level skills, and bring about a completely new power from within them.
Even raising the grade of those compatible martial arts would not pose a huge difficulty for Jin Xia.
With this thought in mind, Jin Xia had visited the Jin Treasure Hall and collected a few martial art books and scrolls that he found to not only be useful, but to be “adjustable” as well.
When Jin Xia was finished, he returned back to his room.
Sprawling the scrolls and books onto his table, Jin Xia immediately sat down and began to look through each of them.
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Host's note: I'm going to college tomorrow and some sort of maintenance is happening as well on RRL. So, tomorrow might be a bit iffy with updates.