Within the mountainous valleys, a small group of bandits were waiting for their next victim while sitting in a hole in the ground. It wasn't a well known group of bandits as they were quite weak and weren't as imposing as other bandits. They just lived life however they wanted to. They chatted and they laughed everyday, talking about anything and everything.

At this moment, one of them, a young woman, heard a strange noise coming from deeper within the mountains. It was the sound of metal.

"This is stupid. I should've just hid in the city..." The voice of a young boy's complaints echoed through the valley. Naturally, this was Jian Yu. After exiting the gorge, he had made his way south, towards the Blood Reaches Sect. It's been roughly a week since he started his slow march.

The woman told the rest of the group of bandits to quiet down as she peeked towards the origin of the sound. As her eyes moved above the hump of dirt the group calls cover, she saw an oddly colourful hunk of armor with a few brown spots walking on the designated path through the mountains. The armor also occasionally shook which revealed a swinging bag, full to the brim. To the woman's shock, the height of the hunk of armor was only about 1.3 meters. Clearly, this was some rich kid. The woman's eyes glittered as she visioned herself and her partners in crime enjoying an entire week in leisure.

"What is it old hag?" One of the bandits asked.

The woman glared at him but answered nonetheless, "It's a lone rich kid. Watch out for any tricks. If nothing else, easy money."

Only short sentences were needed to convey the situation to each other as they were experienced bandits. After eyeing Jian Yu, she could clearly sense the ripples of the strength of the 5th level of qi condensation which further boosted her confidence. Her entire group was at the 5th level of qi condensation as well, excluding the leader who was at the 6th. Together, they would definitely be able to loot Jian Yu of his money. Or so they thought.

They silently prepared their weapons to launch a preemptive attack on Jian Yu.

Just as they were about to jump out of their hole, Jian Yu suddenly had a strange premonition of danger. His hand unconsciously moved to clutch at the bag at his waist.

"Who's there?!"

Then, a sound of somebody clicking their tongue out of irritation sounded out followed by the reveal of 6 figures.

It was a group composed of 2 women and 4 men. Each and every one of them had their faces wrapped up in a black cloth to hide their identity. After all, they wouldn't want to relax in a city hiding.

The reveal of the bandits didn't surprise Jian Yu. He had anticipated this as his father had an experience similar to his current situation. The difference was, Jian Yu was thoroughly prepared.

"Are you guys here to rob me of my precious treasures?"

The man standing in the center of the group, presumably the leader, chuckled, "Yes, we're here to take your treasures, now be a good boy and leave them behind."

Jian Yu looked at the man from head to toe. From his posture, Jian Yu could tell that the man was brimming with confidence. Chin pointing upwards, hands placed behind his back... Yep, this man looked a lot like him previously.

During his time in the gorge, Jian Yu was left with an abundance of time to himself. Most of the time was spent on cultivation, but he occasionally reflected on his past actions. He recalled how everytime he put on that look of arrogance, people around him seemed to get annoyed one way or the other. Then he thought to remind himself to adjust his behavior to the preference of others to maintain a good reputation.

Other than that he would go about imagining situations that would never happen in reality.

Now that Jian Yu was facing off against this group of bandits, he would definitely choose to benefit from it.

Taking the chance given by the bandit leader's disregard for himself, Jian Yu took it out a handful of talismans and tossed them all at the bandit leader in front of him.

Fireballs and huge rocks formed which all flew straight at the bandit leader. To his shock, the strength of these attacks were roughly at the great circle of the qi condensation stage!

*Boom*

The man exploded upon the impact of the attacks, leaving blood splattered all over. The other five bandits stared with complete and utter rage at Jian Yu.

"You killed big brother Shou! I'm gonna rip you apart!"

Without hesitation, they launched themselves at Jian Yu with disregard for their own safety. The death of their close friend broke their hearts and let loose a beastial rage. As they all closed in, Jian Yu took out another handful of talismans, but less than his first handful.

"That was overkill. I need to save more."

He tossed them at the nearest bandit who then summoned up a mound of dirt to cover himself. Yet, his defences were meaningless when faced against a dominating power.

This time, the bandit didn't explode but he was flattened by a huge rock. One could only imagine how heavy the rock must have been.

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Before Jian Yu got to take out another handful of talismans, the other four bandits hit him with their own attacks. The strength of four cultivators at the 5th level of qi condensation struck him.

However, Jian Yu wasn't even injured. Here was knocked back a couple of meters but his armor had absorbed most of the damage, leaving him unharmed.

Seeing this, the bandits were then hesitating. Although this man had killed their leader and another one of theirs, if they continued, the same would probably happen to them. So, they nodded their heads towards each other and went to collect the equipments of their friends before running off. It clearly wasn't their first time at a failed robbery.

But how could Jian Yu just let them take away his prized possessions that he earned?

With another handful of talismans in hand, Jian Yu warned the other four bandits, "Don't you dare touch them or else you'll be the next one to go."

His voice was soft but his message was very clear. This was a threat to the one who would first collect the equipments of their fallen comrades. Now, none of them wanted to die first so they quickly left before Jian Yu changed his mind.

After they left, Jian Yu lunged towards the bandit leader. Although he had exploded, that was only the fleshly body. The equipments he had was left behind, ripe for the picking. Jian Yu looked through for anything better than what he was already wearing but he only found a bag behind the clothing. He tried opening the bag but strangely, it wouldn't budge open.

He tried tearing through the bag's fabric by using his sharp fingernails which had not been trimmed since months ago. He tried cutting through the fabric with the other dead bandit's sword. Yet, the bag didn't even show an opening.

Then Jian Yu recalled the fact that some treasures are operated by infusing qi into them. He then tried this method on the bag and to his amazement, it worked!

In the world of cultivation, this was considered a treasure of holding. This means that the treasure could hold a huge amount of items inside it beyond it's actual size. This is mainly due to the treasure's internal dimension which opens up when somebody infuses their qi into it. There were different kinds of treasures of holding. A holding bag, belt, ring...

Jian Yu looked into the bag, not surprised at what he found. It was a few hundred gold coins, twenty of those crystals called spirit stones and a few weapons. All the things a bandit would find necessary to continue his line of work. However, deeper in the bag, Jian Yu found three books! Each one of them were supposed techniques written down to allow the cultivator to use qi in different ways.

They were just basic techniques to let cultivators get the hang of using qi. Respectively, the techniques were named Water jet, Wind blade, and Fireball. The names were pretty self explanatory.

Now with the discovery of a holding bag, Jian Yu was very excited. He could now try to take away more treasures from the gorge with him to the Blood Reaches Sect. And when you add the fact that Jian Yu now had magical techniques to learn from, he was walking along the line of ecstasy.

Without a moment of hesitation, Jian Yu left for the gorge. He decided to walk slowly as to take his time reading up on the three magical techniques and comprehending them. First up was the Water jet technique.

Water jet needed the cultivator to move water qi into the palm and concentrate it at a point. Once it's saturated enough, the cultivator would release all the water qi from that point, forming a jet of water. The more energy that's concentrated, the faster the water jet will be.

Although Jian Yu doesn't talent for using water qi, he should try to understand the concept behind the medical technique. So, he channeled his qi accordingly, expecting a failure. After all, he had never felt an affinity towards the elemental qi found in the cultivation world.

However, as he channeled his qi to gather at a point on his palm and released it, a blue billet was shot out of his hand at fast speeds. He traced the bullet with his eyes and saw a distant rocky wall shatter apart after the bullet made impact.

"Strong!"

That was Jian Yu's opinion on the technique. Although simple, it seemed very strong. After his first attempt at the water jet technique, he then tried to practice the other techniques.

Wind blade required qi to be spread out across the edge of the hand and released as the cultivator slashed with his hand like a sword. Jian Yu found that his Wind blade was similar to the one depicted in the book. It only lacked the speed of a proper Wind blade as Jian Yu didn't use wind qi.

The result of practicing Fireball was very similar to Jian Yu's Water jet. It only produced a blue bullet that was bigger than the previously. Ability wise, the difference was that the previous bullet had more penetrative strength compared to this one which had more crushing power.

Another week passed by as Jian Yu made his way back to his treasure trove. Along the way, Jian Yu cultivated and practiced the magical techniques to the point where he became more efficient at using them. It didn't even seem like a week to him as he quickly found himself near the crevice leading to the pile of treasure.

Jian Yu moved hastily at the sight of it and prepared the bag of holding. Taking off his armor, Jian Yu prepared to go back down to claim what is his. However, his eyes stole a glance down into the gorge and found that... it was empty! Not even the dirty water was spared, it was taken too!

"Who would want to take away that shit water?"

Confused, he hurried down for an inspection of the crime scene. After looking around, Jian Yu found that nothing was out of place in the gorge, leaving the only possibility that somebody had taken it away from him. Just thinking of it made him infuriated to the point that his fingernails were cutting into his palms.

As Jian Yu silently raged on in his heart, he was shocked to find that a gigantic, 10 meter tall door had mysteriously appeared at the far end of the gorge!

"Was it there before?"

There were no engravings embedded upon the door but it emanated a very ancient aura. The metal used to craft the doors were rusty but that didn't hide the splendor of it at all.

Jian Yu immediately wanted to leave the gorge behind and continue to head to the Blood Reaches Sect but that pendant hanging on his neck was pulling him to the door. The string around Jian Yu's neck bore deeper into his skin, not giving Jian Yu the opportunity to leave at all. Finally, the sound of a dragon's roar filled his ears and the gigantic door blasted open. Behind the door was a blinding light which Jian Yu's eyes couldn't pierce.

The roar of the dragon froze Jian Yu's nerves and his feet were stuck to the ground. He literally couldn't move but his he was mentally panicking at full speed. Seeing that he was being dragged towards the open door caused a small tear to form at the corner of his eyes.

"I'm too young to die..." he whimpered.

*Woosh*

Jian Yu's eyes were forcefully shut by the blinding light as he passed the door. Jian Yu started to think happy thoughts that he was going to enter another treasure trove.

However, pain followed soon after he finished his thoughts as his body was frozen and shattered into countless pieces a countless times. His mouth opened to scream but no sound came out. His heart beat faster and faster as he experienced this torture. A cold stream of energy also made it's way into Jian Yu's meridians, to carry out the same torture done to his body. The pain of having one's meridians destroyed was much more painful than having his balls kicked.

Days passed by to which Jian Yu felt were months...