Chapter 40: First-rate Warrior, First-rate Tragedy
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The news of Su Mu’s awakening quickly spread throughout the military camp.
But not many people cared.
In this life, he was just a little fool and not the martial arts genius from his previous life.
Other than Liu Leqing, few people cared about him.
Only Liu Gaotian heaved a sigh of relief after learning that Su Mu had opened his eyes.
His daughter finally didn’t have to be obsessed with a fool anymore.
…
Without anyone paying attention to him, Su Mu practiced his martial arts in silence.
To be more precise, he was breaking the world in silence!
He only slept for four hours a day. He was up early and retired late every day to cultivate martial arts, almost to the extent of madness.
Liu Leqing was the only one who knew how hard Su Mu worked.
This was because that little girl had been with him the entire time.
No matter how early Su Mu woke up or how late he slept, she would always accompany him.
Su Mu felt a little guilty.
Liu Leqing was a good girl.
Unfortunately, they were not meant to be together.
Perhaps, only in a virtual world would there be such a good girl…
※※※※※※
The first five small realms in the early stage of martial arts were skin refinement, muscle refinement, bone refinement, organs refinement, and blood refinement.
Step by step, from the outside to the inside, he tempered his body and strengthened his innate energy essence.
Only after the body had been tempered to perfection, would one be qualified to cultivate Gang Qi and advance to the post-liminary realm.
Su Mu spent 5 days to refine his skin.
To train his muscles, Su Mu spent 7 days.
In just 12 days, he had become a third-rate warrior!
This was faster than Su Mu had expected!
However, Su Mu did not stop and continued to train like a madman.
After another 27 days, Su Mu’s bone refinement was complete, and he became a second-rate warrior.
His cultivation speed had slowed down.
Refining the organs and blood was something that first-rate warriors had to cultivate. It was very difficult!
80% of the martial artists were stuck at this step, unable to cross it in their lifetimes.
But to Su Mu, it was just a matter of time.
He continued to practice martial arts every day, zealously refining the innate energy essence in his body to nourish himself.
42 days later, Su Mu had completed his internal organs refinement and advanced into a first-rate warrior!
At this time, Su Mu had only practiced martial arts for 81 days!
In 81 days, he had gone from zero to a first-rate warrior. This speed was truly terrifying!
If word got out, others would probably take it as nonsense.
That was why Su Mu had never told anyone about his progress.
Liu Gaotian and the others didn’t even know that he was practicing martial arts.
As for Liu Leqing, she did not know enough to be able to tell.
Although she could feel that Su Mu was improving every day, she didn’t know exactly how far he had reached, and strength was not her concern.
To Liu Leqing, as long as she could see Su Mu every day, she was already very happy.
Su Mu’s speed of improvement was so fast, not only because of his 12 points in physique, but also because of [Big dreamer].
It paid off well.
But… Forget it, I’d better focus on my martial arts.
…
The last realm of the fifth refinement was blood refinement.
After it was completed, the body would undergo a process of remolding.
64 days later, Su Mu was standing on top of two plum blossom pillars, unmoving like a mountain, his aura as majestic as a tiger.
Suddenly, his body trembled, and black filth was discharged from the surface of his skin. His entire body emitted a foul smell.
“It’s done!”
Su Mu opened his eyes, and a flash of joy appeared in his eyes.
After 64 days, he had finally succeeded in blood refinement!
With that, his body refining was completed, and Su Mu was now a powerful warrior in his own right!
After that, he would have to cultivate Gang Qi.
Once the stellar energy was formed, one could enter the post-limitary realm.
If it didn’t work, then he would be stuck at first-class innate for life.
Of course, Su Mu didn’t have such a problem.
His only worry was that he didn’t have enough time.
…
“Oh… Brother Mu, you stink.”
Not far away, Liu Leqing covered her nose and fanned the stench away with a hand.
But immediately after, she stepped forward and grabbed Su Mu’s hand, dragging him away.
“There’s a pond over there. We caught frogs there when we were young.
“You were so stupid back then. You couldn’t catch a single one. I gave one to you, do you remember?”
Liu Leqing brought Su Mu to the side of a pond as she recalled their interesting childhood memories.
Su Mu didn’t hesitate. He took off his shirt and jumped into the water, quickly washing up.
Liu Leqing was indeed someone who grew up in the military camp. She was more courageous than the average girl.
Su Mu’s well-defined muscles made her blush.
But the little girl didn’t turn around. She watched the whole process with her eyes wide open without even blinking.
After half an hour, Su Mu finished washing up and put on his clothes.
“Let’s go. Don’t stare at me. What are you doing?”
“I can’t help not staring.”
Liu Leqing blushed, lowered her head, and said some cheesy words.
For a moment, Su Mu was speechless.
…
Since he had just broken through another realm, Su Mu did not continue and gave himself a rare break.
He and Liu Leqing took a walk in the field for a while.
Liu Leqing was very happy. She caught butterflies one moment and crickets the next.
It was not until the sun was about to set that the two of them calmed down and walked back to the military camp.
Who knew that as soon as he returned to the camp, he would hear Liu Gaotian’s angry roar.
“I’m not doing it! This time, no matter what, I won’t send anyone to do that bullshit mission! Aren’t my soldiers human?
“How am I supposed to explain this to their parents if they’re not even alive?
“Get lost! Get as far away as you can!”
Hearing this, Su Mu couldn’t help but frown, a bad premonition welling up in his heart.
Three times, third time was the charm!
Every time, a hundred people would be transferred, and after they went, they would disappear without a trace.
It was ridiculous to the extreme!
Even if those bandits were all first-class experts, they shouldn’t have caused such a ruckus, right?
Three hundred people fell down into unknown depths, but there was no splash, not even a single corpse to tell of their tale.
The whole incident was extremely strange. It was no wonder Liu Gaotian was so angry.
One had to know that each battalion of the Great Qian Army had 1000 soldiers.
Excluding the 100 or so who were conscripts, Liu Gaotian’s battalion only had around 800 people.
In just half a year, they had lost 300 people.
Furthermore, the losses were so baffling. How could Liu Gaotian tolerate this?
This time, no matter what, he would not let his soldiers carry out that damn mission!
…
Under Liu Gaotian’s curses, a strong man dressed in black armor left the camp without a word.
Before he left, he turned around and gave Liu Gaotian a cold look.
Then, he mounted his tall horse and quickly disappeared from everyone’s sight.
From that day on, no one came to Liu Gaotian to ask him to send troops to carry out some random mission.
However, Su Mu felt a little uneasy.
He was the only one who knew what the Beiling Prince was doing.
Could a mere commander change the Beiling Prince’s grand scheme?
This was clearly impossible.
Feeling uneasy, Su Mu had looked for Liu Gaotian once to remind him to be careful during this period.
However, Liu Gaotian did not seem to listen to him. Instead, he asked him when he would marry Liu Leqing.
This made Su Mu somewhat helpless.
[Tiangang] would get in the way.
If they were forced to get married, there would definitely be an accident.
It was either befall Su Mu or Liu Leqing.
For some reason, Su Mu felt that Liu Leqing was more likely to get into an accident.
He was the host, so the possibility of something happening was small.
For the sake of Liu Leqing’s safety, Su Mu would never marry her.
…
After he managed to evade this matter, Su Mu continued to practice his martial arts fanatically.
If possible, he wanted to advance to the post-liminary realm before the famine.
However, to cultivate stellar energy, one needed a suitable martial art technique.
It was impossible to cultivate stellar energy with just a few basic martial arts.
Most importantly, time did not allow it.
Five days later, Su Mu had been practicing martial arts for five whole months.
There were still two months before the Great Famine in Jizhou.
One day, Su Mu practiced martial arts until late at night before he left with Liu Leqing.
But before they could return to the camp, Su Mu caught a whiff of the faint smell of blood.
And… A familiar rotten stench!
