Chapter 137: Chapter 126: Martial Marquis Level Three_2
Li Quan’s intelligence network was limited in terms of development time and capabilities, therefore, although it could handle general information gathering, it was lacking in terms of obtaining more secretive information.
"I will have to rely on Li Cangqing after all. There are numerous books in the Li Family’s collection, various accounts of strange occurrences and various records. Maybe I can gain some insights from them."
This was what Lu Yan planned in his mind.
Two days later.
When Lu Yan met with Li Cangqing and proposed to look up some books, Li Cangqing agreed without hesitating.
Other than the Li Family’s martial arts and recipes, or some of the more precious old texts, accessing other books was not very difficult. With Li Cangqing’s status, it would just require a single statement.
The first floor of the Li Family’s book collection was full of all kinds of miscellaneous books.
There were descriptions of geography, local customs, strange stories, etc.
There were even a lot of supernatural tales.
Lu Yan started to browse through them one by one.
The first day yielded no results.
But he was not discouraged. Every day, other than cultivation, he immersed himself in the library.
Just like this, three months passed in the blink of an eye.
On this day, as Lu Yan walked out of the library, there was a hint of complexity on his face.
In these three months, he had examined a massive amount of information and finally gathered some useful clues from the numerous miscellaneous books.
There were indeed methods other than the regular use of Martial Food for a Martial Marquis to advance to a Grandmaster, that can increase the success rate.
For example, in the past, the grand feudal lords would send their Innate Martial Bodies to a sect called Shengxuan Sect, located outside Lingdong’s six countries, to cultivate. There was a certain chance that they could breakthrough and become Inner Strength Masters.
Several of the current master-level feudal lords had Innate Martial Bodies that had made breakthroughs in the Shengxuan Sect.
A Sect?
At first, Lu Yan was very curious. He had been in this world for so long and had not heard of any sects.
In the Da Chu Dynasty, there were numerous feudal lords. It was a world dominated by feudal lords.
After looking through a mountain of records again, he got a general understanding of Shengxuan Sect.
In the Da Chu Dynasty, sects were indeed very rare, but not non-existent.
The founding of the dynasty started with nine sects, which have existed since the inception of the Da Chu Dynasty and has continued till now, spanning over two thousand years.
The Shengxuan Sect, was one of the founding nine sects.
In Da Chu Dynasty, there were only these nine sects.
The records showed that the earlier Dagu Dynasty was very different from now.
In the Dagu Dynasty, the power of the feudal lords was weak, but there were many martial arts sects. There were thousands of martial arts sects of all sizes.
The most powerful sects even had the ability to intervene in royal matters.
During certain eras, the Dagu royal family was lacking in talent, and the royal power almost fell under the control of the sects.
It was because of this that the Da Chu Dynasty later decided to ban sects, leaving only nine behind.
During the thriving period of the Da Chu Dynasty, the power of these nine great sects was severely compressed, but after the turmoil in Da Chu, by leveraging their strong foundation, the strength of the nine great sects was quickly inflated.
Xuan Zhou, though under the rule of King Ming, one of the three kings, the power of Shengxuan Sect could match King Ming’s within Xuan Zhou.
However, this method wouldn’t work for Lu Yan at the moment.
Because crossing through Moling Mountain is currently very difficult due to the evil monsters stirring up trouble.
Therefore, the only other method left was the "Heart Tempering Decision".
According to a piece of strange news, there used to be a special martial art called "Heart Tempering Decision". It used a special formula to temper the heart, making it as tough as a silkworm thread.
If the "Heart Tempering Decision" is cultivated to a certain extent, it can significantly increase the success rate of breaking through to the Grandmaster Level.
However, the formula for the "Heart Tempering Decision" is extremely rare.
Every single formula is unusual and extremely valuable.
Even the basics are quite difficult to practice, especially as you progress further, the formula required becomes increasingly rare and valuable.
The key point is, merely practicing the basics doesn’t have much use. You must practice it to a certain extent to metamorphose the heart.
Therefore, this martial art gained some popularity for a while, but very few people actually mastered it. Whether someone mastered it or not was a mystery, so it quickly disappeared.
But right now in the Lingdong Six Counties, maybe only the Zhao Clan in Lingwang City still has a collection of it.
Unfortunately, the strange news did not record what exactly is needed to practice the "Heart Tempering Decision".
But Lu Yan felt that this martial art suits him very well.
He possesses the Dao Book. As long as he can cultivate this martial art to the basic level, he can form a Martial Arts Avatar. Afterwards, he can rely on the Dao Book to make continuous breakthroughs, without needing any other formula.
He just needs to find the method for the basic level.
"Lingwang City, Zhao Clan, it seems I’ll have to make a trip there."
Lu Yan’s gaze was firm.
At present, Lingwang City was facing off against the evil monsters, bringing together a large number of powerful people. It was undoubtedly a dangerous place.
But after Lu Yan had broken through to the Martial Marquis Level Three, his strength had greatly increased. He was not afraid of even the Martial Marquis Level Five, and as long as the Grandmasters didn’t make a move, he was confident that he could compete with anyone.
Lingwang City, what’s wrong with making a trip there?
Once back at the Sanjue Martial Arts Hall, Lu Yan made some preparations. Three days later, he embarked on his journey, leaving Baicao City and headed north.
When he was close to Changfeng City, Lu Yan did not stop, he continued to travel northward.
A few days later, a city appeared ahead.
At the top of the city wall, the characters ’Zhuifeng City’ were engraved.
"The Wind Chasing Life-taking Sword of the He Family at Zhuifeng City is not bad. I could study it."
A thought came to Lu Yan’s mind.
His trip to Lingwang City this time was mainly to obtain the special martial arts, the Heart Tempering Decision. However, on his journey, he also planned to acquire a few top-tier martial arts to study.
Recently, he had not had any martial arts to cultivate. After elevating the two second-rate archery martial arts to the Unity of Man and Martial Arts, there were no more martial arts avatars to upgrade.
To obtain top-tier martial arts, the best way is through those martial marquis-level feudal lords.
With his present strength, he was enough to suppress these slightly weaker martial marquis-level feudal lords.
He was different from others.
Other people cultivating top-tier martial arts, one would already take all their energies. Nonetheless, many people can hardly cultivate a top-tier martial arts to the stage of Reaching the Peak of Perfection, not to mention Transcendent and the Unity of Man and Martial Arts levels.
Even the few with extraordinary martial arts talents who have exceptional comprehension may at most learn two or three arts. That is already their limit.
Consequently, the amount of top-tier martial arts collected by those grandmaster-level feudal lords is not too many, probably just a dozen or so.
Any more would be redundant.
But he was different, the more top-tier martial arts, the better.
The details about the He Family in Zhuifeng City surfaced in his thoughts.
When he was with the Red-clad Guard of the Liu Family, he gained a general understanding of some feudal lords in Li’an County, including the number of the military martial artists and martial marquis.
The He Family had three hundred soldiers and four martial marquis.
The highest cultivation level was Martial Marquis Level Four.
It was just the right gauge.
Zhuifeng City’s location was right next to the Blood Land Vein.
The construction of most cities was such that they were built close to the Blood Land Vein.
Only special ones like Changfeng City that was surrounded by two Blood Land Veins was built at a distance from the veins, between the two Blood Land Veins.
Lu Yan did not enter Zhuifeng City. Instead, he headed directly towards the Blood Land Vein.
"Stop, what are you doing?"
There were naturally martial soldiers guarding around the Blood Land Vein. As Lu Yan approached, he was immediately scolded by a group of soldiers.
"I want to take a look at your top-tier martial arts."
Lu Yan cut to the chase.
The soldiers of the He Family were stunned for a moment. Then one of them shouted: "Are you out of your mind? I give you three breaths worth of time, now scram."
Lu Yan did not back down; he stepped forward.
"Take him down. If he resists, kill without mercy."
A captain among the martial soldiers shouted.
Suddenly, nine swords were thrust towards Lu Yan.
But these were just martial artists who had experienced one limit-breaking, two limit-breakings, at most four limit-breakings. Lu Yan didn’t even take them into account.
He did not even move his hand.
When the nine longswords came in contact with Lu Yan’s skin, a force of bone strength exploded.
Clang! Clang!...
The nine longswords shattered. The powerful force knocked the nine martial soldiers flying backwards, coughing up blood heavily, all severely injured.
If Lu Yan had not shown mercy, they would have been killed by the shock.
Lu Yan stepped forward and headed towards the summit of the Blood Land Vein.
Whiz! Whiz! Whiz...
Arrows streaked across the sky one after another, followed by bursts of colourful flower blossom sounds.
"Enemy attack."
"Form the battle array."
The roar was echoing on the Blood Vein.
Lu Yan’s face was calm as he quickly rushed towards the mountaintop.
There were two reasons why he chose to attack during the day instead of at night.
The first was to show off his powerful martial force to intimidate the opponent.
If he wanted them to obediently hand over the top-tier martial arts and the Divine Intent Diagram, he would have to completely smash their confidence.
The second reason was to test his strength, to see if he could handle a large number of martial soldiers.
There’s a big difference between fighting alone and facing an army of martial artists.
