[In the 284th year of the Daqing era, you are 29 years old. Your foundation has increased by 260%, and your internal energy penetration is 100%. You have reached a point where you can no longer advance. The last time you reached this stage in the simulation, you were already over fifty.]
At the end of the year, you set off for the border between the Qing and Wu kingdoms... but upon arrival, you realized you had been somewhat naive: the border between the two countries stretched for hundreds of miles!
Although this world isn't just any random, vast, high-fantasy continent spanning millions of miles, its scale is still astonishing. The territories of the three kingdoms of Wu, Qing, and Ning each stretch for three to four thousand miles, comparable to a small part of China.
[There are dozens of villages along the border between the two countries. After some time of trekking and on-site verification, you have identified three villages closest to Wu Kingdom and most likely to be "attacked": Xiaohe Village, Hongshu Village, and Potu Village.]
The three villages are located very close to each other because a piece of land from the Qing Kingdom was "inserted" into the Wu Kingdom's territory, forming a mosaic-like mortise and tenon structure. These three villages are situated in this location.
You settle in "Potu Village," a village that lives up to its name, built on a not-too-steep hillside—specifically, the lower part of the hill. Behind "Zhenyuan Mountain" lies a dense forest.
Not only can you frequently venture into the forest to hunt wild animals to supplement your meat supply for martial arts training, but you can also practice martial arts atop Zhenyuan Mountain, enjoying the vastness of the sky and feeling free from constraints, while also having a high vantage point to monitor the situation of the three nearby villages.
[In the 285th year of the Great Glory, several months have passed. Your martial arts progress is average: having already achieved the penetration of internal energy into your bones, your next step is to ensure that this energy circulates continuously throughout your body in order to reach the Martial Master level.]
Of course, this doesn't mean you haven't made any progress in the past few months. Reaching the limit in martial arts cultivation doesn't mean your physical potential has been fully developed. Your total internal energy has increased by about 50% compared to last year.
Just like an ordinary person, even without practicing martial arts, can increase their strength several times over through other training methods, reaching a limit where they can even fight a second-rate martial artist with internal energy using only an ordinary body.
On this day, you practiced your swordsmanship atop the mountain. Each strike unleashed a blinding white light spanning several meters in the air. Within this beam of light, with a cross-section of two to three square meters, even a dozen or so large trees as thick as bowls would be cleaved in two!
"What a pity," you sighed softly. The Sunlit Technique doesn't offer much help to a martial artist's "energy circulation," not even as good as the Heavenly River Circulation. Fortunately, it's quite helpful for some later stages of martial arts.
[Once the internal energy penetrates to the bones, one reaches the limit of a first-rate martial artist. Completing the "energy circulation" elevates one to the Martial Master level! After becoming a Martial Master, the next step is to achieve "muscle and bone resonance," followed by the condensation of "martial will." After unifying essence, energy, and spirit, one becomes a Grandmaster!]
[And the Grandmaster title is merely the first step in the path of martial arts, as Zhu Baowen puts it!]
"My future is still a long road ahead..." You've only uttered a few words of reflection when you suddenly see an unexpected event unfolding in the distance below the mountain: a group of people, about a hundred or two, are traveling dozens of miles away.
They are as tiny as dust; if hundreds of them weren't gathered together, you wouldn't even notice them!
[And the direction this group is heading is towards Xiaohe Village. You frown; judging from the direction and location of that pile of "dust," they started from within the Qing Kingdom!]
"I hope it's not what I think," you murmured to yourself, then activated the accompanying lightness skill of the Sunlit Technique. With each step, it seemed as if a firecracker exploded beneath your feet: a burst of light in that instant.
[Now that you've reached the pinnacle of first-class skill, you can run at full speed at a normal pace of 45 meters per second, and with the use of internal energy and lightness skills, this can surge to 60 meters per second... However, you need to conserve some stamina and internal energy for combat, so you only maintain a high-speed running state of 50 meters per second.]
Yun Shou exclaimed in surprise, "Isn't this almost at the speed of a high-speed train?"
However, he also knew that increasing speed was much more difficult than increasing strength and physique, and it would become increasingly difficult as one progressed. Even a Grandmaster might not be able to break the sound barrier, but the combined strength of a hundred ordinary people was not as great as that of a Grandmaster.
Because martial artists are lightweight, weighing only around 200 pounds, their initial acceleration is much easier than that of high-speed trains and vehicles. The only problem is that air resistance increases over time, leading to slower acceleration.
[In just over ten minutes, you approached Xiaohe Village, while the group that was already closer had naturally arrived long ago. Because you were so far away before, you hadn't even noticed they were riding horses!]
When you arrived at the village, you found a group of over a hundred people dressed as soldiers. They had all dismounted and were searching the village.
The search was conducted house by house. Those found were dragged to the center of the village and kept under surveillance. A dozen or so people were responsible for tying them up. They searched the houses while shouting and cursing. Besides the people, they also filled large and small bags with valuables.
"There's still one who slipped through the net." You hadn't been looking for long when soldiers spotted you standing outside the village. You took a deep breath. Having practiced martial arts alone atop Zhenyuan Mountain for months, far from human habitation, your sharp edge was concealed.
While you're not quite like an ordinary person, you'll never let these soldiers discern your level of martial arts skill.
[A soldier approaches and orders you to follow him. You enter the village, where a sergeant notices your distinguished bearing and inquires about your background and whether you have martial arts training.]
You decide to play along with them in a charade to see if they're really as you suspect... In your more than ten years in the martial world, you've witnessed much darkness and heard many stories in your past life, but you've never truly experienced something like "massacring a village and exterminating a clan."
[You might find it hard to believe that a nation would actually harm its own civilians in order to eliminate a Grandmaster and gain an advantage in war?]
[So you tell the sergeant that you are a wandering martial artist, albeit only a third-rate one, but you want to travel the world ahead of time and push yourself to forcibly develop internal energy.]
The sergeant gave you a half-smile, then gestured for two soldiers to restrain you. He casually remarked that they had urgent business to attend to and that you, a wandering martial artist, should behave yourself until they finished.
Those two soldiers were quite strong; they were both third-rate martial artists who had cultivated their muscles and blood. They held you down while others tied you up. You didn't resist—but in your mind, you had already begun to equate them with robbers and bandits!
[Having practiced martial arts for many years, you haven't killed many people. Most challenges between martial artists are limited to a draw, where a winner is decided and the loser is eliminated. At worst, the opponent will be bedridden for a few months, and few of them will suffer any damage to their foundation.]
[Only bandits, mountain thieves, and gangsters—those who commit evil, you shall cripple and maim; those who kill the innocent, you shall also kill!]
You are not a saint, but you are neutral and inclined towards good. Within your power, you should naturally act according to your conscience!
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