Lu Sheng headed towards the cabin he was in earlier based on memory.

Entering the hall, he ascended the wooden stairs to the left.

Arriving at the chamber entrance, Lu Sheng glanced at the red lantern above, unable to shake off a faintly creepy sensation.

Whoosh... Abruptly, a cool breeze blew past. Lu Sheng swiftly spun around, feeling as if something drifted past his back an instant ago.

"With the Man Rollers already destroyed, there shouldn't be any monsters still coming for me. Perhaps I'm just being overly nervous," Lu Sheng steadied his heart after not spotting anything amiss. Turning back around, he reached out to push open the cabin door before him.

Creak. The sturdy wooden door slowly opened. Crimson light brightly illuminated the inside also hung with two large red lanterns.

"Anyone here?" Lu Sheng called out again, slowly walking inside.

"Yes..." Suddenly, a hoarse voice responded from behind Lu Sheng.

He hurriedly turned to see an old crone holding up a white lantern, eyes wide staring at him from the doorway.

The wrinkles on her face resembled layer after layer of gnarled tree bark. Clutching the lantern, she scrutinized Lu Sheng with muddled old eyes.

"You shouldn't be on this boat right now, young one," she said.

"I dropped something here earlier, a waist pouch. Just came back to retrieve it," Lu Sheng forced out a smile.

"I see... Then look for it, look carefully for it." The old woman's expression remained impassive. Still clutching the lantern, she silently drifted towards the other rooms and out of sight.

Lu Sheng watched her departure until the crone disappeared through a doorway. Only then did he walk over and shut the door.

Turning around, he surveyed the room's decor. Those previously absent large red lanterns now hung on one side of the wall, their scarlet glows dyeing the entire room a gorgeous crimson.

Lu Sheng carefully searched around where he sat earlier. Indeed, he discovered the dropped waist pouch wedged inside a gap beside the cushion.

Unfastening the dark brown leather, the silver and gold notes were still inside along with Duan Mowan's slip of paper and that monster's leftover powder wrapped in paper. Everything accounted for.

After storing away the pouch, Lu Sheng straightened and cast another look around the interior. For some reason, the lanterns' lights seemed to shine even redder than before.

An inexplicable sensation stealthily welled up from the bottom of his heart. "Time to leave."

Lu Sheng swiftly headed for the exit and reached to slide the door open. The door completely refused to budge!

His heart shook in shock. Applying brute strength that originally only needed a light pull to open this door, it now felt as if something incredibly heavy blocked the other side. Even with Lu Sheng's current power, he could barely force it open just a sliver.

"Not good!" With warning bells blaring in his mind, Lu Sheng focused inner qi and fiercely yanked with full might.

Bang! He harshly pulled the door open, even ripping apart the sturdy wooden handle. Darting out in one smooth motion, Lu Sheng raced downstairs along the passage and leapt outside in a few strides down the intestinal corridor.

With a prod of his toes, he utilized the coiled ropes of the pleasure barge as footholds to explosively accelerate himself onto the riverbank in one bound.

Though Lu Sheng hadn't practiced any qinggong or lightness skills, his saber arts still built a basic foundation in footwork. Thus, his speed exceeded ordinary people by a fair amount.

After disembarking, Lu Sheng glanced back at the ship. The painted barge remained the same completely devoid of people atop its deck, yet the alarms in Lu Sheng's heart had already faded. Clearly no longer sensing any threats.

He deeply eyed the vessel once more before turning to sprint back into the city.

Arriving home in one breath, Lu Sheng shoved the door open and twisted the lock with his other hand. The pitch-black room was icy cold and lifeless.

He slowly paced to the desk and took out a firesteel kit. Sparks crisply flashed to light the candlestick.

The dim candlelight rendered the lower half of Lu Sheng's face bright at times and dark at others.

"That pleasure barge is likely related to evil creatures again too. To think I just escaped the Man Rollers only to encounter new trouble at the Crimson Barge. I was planning on indulging in leisure cultivation for a couple days before training the new inner skills. But now it seems best not to delay and first make all possible preparations."

Lu Sheng moved from the desk to his bedstead and dragged out a heavy iron chest affixed below the bed frame through built-in grooves that ordinary people would find difficult to budge. He carefully fished out a small key from his waist pouch to unlock the container with a clack, flipping the lid open.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Inside the box were two slender manuals bound in old yellowish cloth.

Taking out one, Lu Sheng gripped the volume and re-shut the strongbox before locking it tightly.

Written cleanly upon the manual were the five vigorous swooping characters for: Azure Pine One Will.

Lu Sheng gently turned to the first page after the brief overview. Next was that painting of the ancient pine against the barren cliff face.

He concentrated on examining the image for a time with rapt focus before lightly closing it, sitting cross-legged on the bedstead commencing tranquility meditation according to the method.

Despite intermittent practice this whole time, possibly due to conflict with the other inner force cultivated previously, whenever he felt on the verge of coalescing inner qi, his progression would instantly be subsumed by Jade Crane Skill.

The same held true now. Before long, Jade Crane Skill rapidly spun into motion, swiftly wrecking the ethereal concept held in mind for Azure Pine One Will as an auspicious crane with unfurled wings seemed to loudly call out within his body, spreading its wings as if to take flight.

"Sigh... conflict between inner skills. Am I doomed to eternally stagnate without any possible progress?" Lu Sheng thought irritably after opening his eyes. His hand unconsciously squeezed the medicine pouch at his waist lightly while rolling something round. He faintly paused upon touching that paper bundle of powder.

"Wasn't this the monster's leftover speck of powder before?"

He gingerly unfolded the packet. As expected, black powder filled it but he seemed to recall the powder wasn't this color initially.

"I first awakened my abilities due to that water monster's leftover rock shard and goose egg stone. Could I also..." His eyes lingered on the powder as indistinct, peculiar notions flickered through Lu Sheng's mind.

"Deep Sapphire!"

He fiercely recited inwardly.

Clank! A blue box promptly hovered in sight before his eyes.

Glancing at the modifier interface, the Azure Pine One Will option still didn't exist within. Lu Sheng hesitated briefly while looking between the powder and screen.

He tilted the paper package to completely pour the contents onto his palm. At the start when he obtained this powder, he was extremely careful never to let it touch his skin for fear it was some corrosive or toxic substance. But now that he was at his wit's end, trying this wouldn't hurt since he could quickly fling it away if anything happened.

Next, he brought his other hand's index finger to his mouth and deeply bit down, squeezing a drop of blood onto the powder below.

Hiss...! Sure enough, the moment the blood drop contacted the powder, faint plumes of white smoke suddenly arose. Very quickly, the black powder swiftly transformed into white, seemingly shedding its color entirely.

Lu Sheng sensed strands of gloomy cold qi gradually seeping inside him from his palm.

'Commence martial arts projection?'

Almost at the exact same time, that gloomy qi instantly got absorbed by something inside his body. While on Deep Sapphire's modifier, a prompt box just appeared asking that question.

"I knew it!" Delight flashed through Lu Sheng's mind. This function had indeed emerged.

He previously discovered the fourth level of Saber Technique of the Black Tiger appearing and nurtured some suspicions that this modifier could further project developments of martial skills based on the knowledge reserves inside his mind. Thus generating the fourth level of Black Tiger Saber Technique.

Yet despite practicing countless methods afterwards, he never encountered anything similar to Black Tiger Saber Technique again. Thus, doubts once more sprung up.

Now it seemed aptitude was indeed lacking without remnants of ghosts or monsters preventing him from continuing projection into deeper martial realms.

"Relying on that goose egg stone found during the Xu family's destruction to awaken my modification ability previously, and now this monster's leftover powder after its death. It's truly hard to separate myself from the supernatural indeed," Lu Sheng thought self-mockingly.

Staring at the prompt box suspended before him, Lu Sheng composed his psyche.

'Commence martial arts projection?'

"Yes."

After confirming, Lu Sheng swiftly sensed a peculiar feeling as if his modifier could perfectly integrate and fuse all learned martial arts and skills, projecting developments based on his knowledge reserves.

These cultivation methods and skills were things he grasped so it was akin to reorganizing and systematizing the knowledge database inside his mind before reconstructing martial arts by selecting different cores. Just like building houses out of toy blocks where he had many options to choose from.

And indeed, several optional buttons appeared behind the martial skills inside his modifier interface. Clearly marking out what could or couldn't undergo projection.

Lu Sheng looked over them from top to bottom.

"Ideally, I could select Dark Destruction Technique as the core to absorb and integrate other systems. Using Jade Crane Skill as the architectural framework would also work. Black Tiger Saber Technique and Heart Breaking Palm Technique aren't bad either," Lu Sheng was somewhat hesitant. But immediately felt resigned. "Unfortunately, there isn't much of that powder at all, only a few limited selections."

Observing the interface, there were merely two choices available: Jade Crane Skill and Black Tiger Saber Technique.

"Only these two huh..." Mentally focusing his will, Lu Sheng clicked the Jade Crane Skill button.

"Inner force lays the most crucial foundation."

After picking, all buttons faded away as the modifier interface slowly dimmed into ambiguity. Lu Sheng sensed portions of knowledge and comprehension regarding Jade Crane Skill within his mind automatically activating while fusing together with memorized content from the original manual, constantly stimulating and clashing at a rapid pace, birthing countless insights in but a blink.

In just ten breaths of time.

Lu Sheng closed then slowly reopened his eyes. An entirely new fierce aura emanated from his body.

Jade Crane Skill and Black Tiger Saber Technique's explosive striking method perfectly blended. This was the modifier's projection utilizing Lu Sheng's knowledge bank to attain Jade Crane Skill's higher advancement, fusing Black Tiger Saber Technique's vigorous aura technique to create a variant exceeding the original Jade Crane Skill's might through bursts of force.

This new inner force preserved the original's formidable resilience and restorative ability while adding rather lethal explosive force.

"Adapting Black Tiger Saber Technique's explosive striking methods into this inner force cultivation unexpectedly evolved the life nurturing art into a combative internal force with injurious qualities... This projection truly is formidable!" Marvel filled Lu Sheng's heart. "If there was more powder or even better, a goose egg stone like last time from the water corpse, perhaps I could project even more advanced levels from skills like Dark Destruction Technique."

Sensing the new inner force, the original self-healing capacity of Jade Crane Skill also seemed enhanced a trace.

"This can't be considered Jade Crane Skill anymore after merging Black Tiger Saber Technique's vigorous aura techniques. I'll call it Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill from now on." As this thought arose, the name displayed for Jade Crane Skill within his modifier correspondingly changed to Black Tiger Jade Crane Skill in five characters.