Chapter 115 – Zhang Guanyu
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“Not really,” Lin Ming said with a faint smile. He continued, “Here, life is too comfortable and luxurious. The quiet and simple days of the Seven Profound Martial House are much more suitable for cultivation.”
“This… Brother Lin is too assiduous. Sometimes proper rest is needed; a bowstring stretched too taut isn’t necessary a good thing. Some degree of relaxation is also good. Since Brother Lin has decided to go, then I will call the guards to protect Brother Lin on his way back. The Crown Prince quickly called his royal guard to keep Lin Ming safe as he returned to the Martial House.
When Lin Ming left, the four young maidservants were relieved, but they also felt a faint disappointment. Their entire manor of several hundred people had been busy at work for the past few days meticulously cleaning the entire manor, but Lin Ming had only taken a look, and hadn’t even sat down…
However, this manor now belonged to Lin Ming. Regardless of whether he slept here or stayed here, they had to keep everything clean and spotless every day.
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“What? Challenge me in fourth months?”
In a sumptuously decorated hall, on top of a soft silk mattress, an exceedingly handsome young man lazily reclined against a headrest. This young man’s hands were greedily hugging an enchanting beauty of great assets. At the foot of the mattress, a young, beautiful maid was slowly massaging his legs, and on the other end, a charmingly pretty woman was plucking crystal grapes with her slender fingers, and gently placing them into the young man’s mouth.
This man was the third place master of the Seven Profound Martial House’s Ranking Stone, Zhang Guanyu. Besides the core disciples of the Seven Profound Martial House, he was the only gifted genius with a fifth-grade martial talent.
Not only that, but Zhang Guanyu was an outstanding talent who was raised by the Allied Trade Association1. In the future, he had the possibility of becoming the president of the Allied Trade Association!
The Allied Trade Association was a large organization that was heavily invested in the Sky Fortune Kingdom, and even in several nearby countries. It had existed for a long time; it was even older than the Sky Fortune Dynasty. With such a great organization, its history and strength were profound and unthinkable.
Zhang Guanyu’s martial talent was only inferior to Qin Xingxuan within the entirety of all the young martial artists of the Sky Fortune Kingdom. With the important position that he occupied, It could be said that he was a favored son of heaven. Beautiful women, wealth, power; all of these were easily within his reach.
However, even with the vast resources of the Allied Trade Association and with his own gifted talent, he still hadn’t produced any amazing results. On the Seven Profound Martial House Ranking Stone, he was only third, below Ling Sen and Ta Ku.
Ling Sen had his Ashura martial intent. His strength was formidable and disgustingly abnormal; being below him was understandable.
But Ta Ku was only a superior fourth-grade talent. Although he did have inborn divine strength, his talent was inferior to Zhang Guanyu, and the resources at his disposal were far inferior. It was unjustifiable for Zhang Guanyu to be suppressed by Ta Ku.
Ultimately, it was decided that Zhang Guanyu’s heart of martial arts was too weak, and he excessively wallowed in debauchery.
When he had passed the Dream Trial, Zhang Guanyu’s results had been horrible. But even knowing this problem, the Allied Trade Association had no way to force Zhang Guanyu into abstinence. This was because a martial artist had to follow their heart and soul. If they were forced to go against their nature, their heart would be suppressed, and their cultivation would be hindered.
Facing this situation, the Allied Trade Association did have a backup plan. That was simply to let Zhang Guanyu practice the Seven Profound Martial House’s Acacia Faction’s cultivation methods.
However, the Acacia Faction’s high-level cultivation method manuals were only passed down to core disciples. If Zhang Guanyu wanted to study them, he could study the branch methods. At this point, his family’s deep history demonstrated just how far their hands could reach. The Allied Trade Association relied on its wide-reaching network and nefarious methods to forcibly create an opportunity and persuade the Seven Profound Valleys’ Acacia Faction to pass on a part of its core cultivation method manual so that Zhang Guanyu could practice it. Zhang Guanyu had already been practicing this cultivation method for half a year now, and his cultivation had already been greatly increased.
The new and improved Zhang Guanyu was like a fish in water. He had s*x every day, and his cultivation steadily grew. He led a dreamy life of revelry and carnal pleasures with unsurpassed comfort.
Tonight, just as Zhang Guanyu had been planning to enjoy the company of two pretty concubines, he received news from the Seven Profound Martial House that Lin Ming would challenge him within four months.
This caused his libido to be reduced, and the flames of anger in his heart to rise. This Seven Profound Martial House, it was as if they were taking him as some sort of sharpening stone!
“Haha, yes, Elder Wang visited the Crown Prince’s palace to directly pass on the Seven Profound Decree to Lin Ming, and inform him of the Seven Profound Martial test. The requirements of the test are that he achieve the peak Altering Muscle stage when 16 years old, or to reach the Bone Forging stage when he is 18 years old. In addition, if he can enter the top ten rankings of the Ten Thousand Killing array within 3 months, defeat you in 4 months, defeat Ta Ku within 5 months, or defeat Ling Sen within 6 months, then he will have an extra reward. And these are truly rich rewards!”
The one who spoke was a man over 20 years old. In the Sky Fortune Kingdom, he was one of the seven core disciples of the Seven Profound Marital House; his name was Zhou Yu. Zhou Yu came from a martial arts cultivation family, and he also practiced the cultivation methods of the Acacia Faction. He and Zhou Yu had a good relationship with each other due to this.
“Humph! Since they want to use me as a sharpening tool, fine, I will break this sword! This Lin Ming has become too arrogant these days. A mere piddling third-grade talent little boy dares to claim without any justifications that he is the genius of a century in the Seven Profound Martial House!”
These years, although Zhang Guanyu’s strength was inferior to Ling Sen and Ta Ku’s, he still had the esteemed reputation of being the second most talented individual in the younger generation of the Sky Fortune Kingdom. And that first place spot belonged to Qin Xingxuan. However, Qin Xingxuan was just a woman, and because of that, he did not envy her at all. Zhang Guanyu never envied women, because as long as he conquered a woman, then their own talent became his. And if he could not conquer them, then that was unimportant as long as that woman was not conquered by other men. If it was so, then Zhang Guanyu could bear it.
But this Lin Ming was different. In these past days Lin Ming had stolen the spotlight from him. All the attention of the major powers of Sky Fortune City and the common martial artists was on him; who would remember someone like Zhang Guanyu?
What did Zhang Guanyu count for? Although he was third on the Ranking Stone, and had a talent above almost everyone else, what the people cared about most were not talents, but results. In the streets and alleys of Sky Fortune City, as long as a person mentioned the younger generation of the Seven Profound Martial House, it would all be about the name Lin Ming!
Just hearing this name made Zhang Guanyu feel unhappy. And now, even more directly for Lin Ming’s test, the Seven Profound Martial House had listed out such ridiculous conditions! They had actually planned on using him as a stepping stone for Lin Ming to rise up further as a mythic genius!
This aroused Zhang Guanyu’s wrath. It was always him that stepped on others, when was it others’ turn to step on him!?
“Well done! What a Seven Profound Martial House Master! Since you dare to use me as a human-stepping stone, then I will step on that person you have so kindly chosen and trample him underneath my feet mercilessly! This is just right; I have already cultivated the ‘Divine Acacia Power’ to Large Success of the first layer. I’ll have you look at the disparity between a third-grade talent and a fifth-grade talent!”
Zhang Guanyu’s face flashed with a hideous look. He gripped the breasts of the charming woman in one hand, and pulled the woman who was feeding grapes towards him. The women gave a surprised shout and the three of them tumbled together onto the bed. The curtains closed, and Zhang Guanyu smiled evilly as he started to rip off the clothes of the two concubines.
Since his heart was burning with anger, he naturally had to vent it somewhere. Zhang Guanyu’s method of venting was very direct, and that was to vent it on a woman’s body.
Listening to the tender and lewd sounds of the women in bed, Zhou Yu only shook his head, turned around, and left.
He had known Zhang Guanyu for a long time, and had some understanding of Zhang Guanyu’s level of maturity. Zhang Guanyu would never resign himself to willingly be some other man’s stepping-stone. But now, since the Seven Profound Martial House has pushed Zhang Guanyu into opposition with Lin Ming, then Zhang Guanyu would naturally take some measures to deal with Lin Ming.
Zhang Guanyu was a person with a very arrogant heart and an even stronger possessive nature. He was the kind that wished to possess all the beauty and fine things of the world. He would not admit defeat just because of the unlimited potential of Lin Ming’s future achievements!
Although Zhang Guanyu was a lustful playboy, lascivious, and extremely arrogant, he still grew up around an abundance of gifted individuals. He was raised up in the sophisticated and complex environment of the Allied Trade Association, and was still able to rise to the top. The main reason for this was Zhang Guanyu’s top-tier talent, but regarding intelligence; he had never been a fool.
Zhou Yu knew better than anyone that if Zhang Guanyu despised anyone, then that person would surely die a miserable death. Zhang Guanyu was scary. In this world, there were two types of martial artists that were dangerous to provoke – the crazy, and the mad. The first was a martial crazy, like Ling Sen, whose individual strength was terrifying. But the latter was a mad lunatic like Zhang Guanyu, whose natural disposition was an insane paranoia, and would easily take one’s life.
The strong fear the unreasonable, the unreasonable fear the suicidal, and the suicidal fear the crazy ones. Zhang Guanyu was a crazy one. If someone stabbed him with a knife, he would not dodge or evade, but take the pain from the blade and then rip out their throat!
Dealing with such a psycho, the average man simply wouldn’t dare to fight with him.
“Zhang Guanyu might confront Lin Ming before four months pass, but I don’t know what means he’ll use to do so.”
Zhou Yu’s face showed a trace of an interested smile as he pondered this. Lin Ming wanted to be a core disciple, but it wasn’t so easy. First, he had to overcome the hurdle known as Zhang Guanyu.
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By the time Lin Ming returned to his room at the Seven Profound Martial House, it was already late at night. He took out the spatial ring and carefully looked at it. He had already deposited some gold and true essence stones inside. Although the inner space of the spatial ring was unstable, as long as the ring was not destroyed, it wouldn’t suddenly collapse. A martial artist would be able to sense when the lifespan of a spatial ring was coming to end, so there would never be sudden situations where everything in the ring would disappear.
Lin Ming had already accrued more than 200 true essence stones. He had true essence stones gifted from the Crown Prince, true essence stones gifted from Wang Gan, and also true essence stones that he received as a reward for entering the Heavenly Abode. There were also nobles who also wanted to gift true essence stones to Lin Ming, but he had rejected them. If Lin Ming received their gifts, then he would owe them a favor, and he didn’t want to tangle with any of this in the future.
The true essence stones he had now were already more than enough to use. He also had an abundant amount of time at the seven major killing arrays. However, if Lin Ming wanted to surpass Zhang Guanyu in four months, that would be very difficult.
He had thought of a new way, and what Lin Ming had thought of was – the body inscription symbol.
Of the inscription symbols from the Realm of the Gods, there were four kinds. These were object inscriptions, medicinal inscriptions, body inscriptions, and soul inscriptions.
Of these four, each was more difficult to get started on than the last. As for the soul inscription symbols, Lin Ming was not clear on them.
By now Lin Ming had learned the preliminary inscription symbols of object inscription and medicinal inscription. The plan for body inscription symbols needed a higher reserve of true essence. In the past, Lin Ming’s true essence was insufficient. But now that he had reached the second level of the ‘True Primal Chaos Formula’ and his cultivation was at the Large Success of Viscera Training, he finally had some confidence to be able to draw up this kind of body inscription symbol.
1: Formerly referred to as the Chamber of Commerce