Chapter 288: Golden Feather

The Inside Ze Ding governed the blue light, gathering it like quicksand at the bottom of the cauldron, accumulating a layer of shimmering, rippling light.

Liang Qu sat cross-legged, digesting the fish meat, circulating two mental cultivation arts, and spreading Qi and blood through his meridians.

The Ten Thousand Victories Holding the Origin Art for strength, the Dragon-Subduing and Tiger-Taming Art for tempering the body.

A vast amount of Qi and blood was exhaled and inhaled, returning to nourish his entire body, polishing the fifth aperture, and while nourishing the resonance, it even made the back of his head feel faintly hot.

The Jade Pillow Pass, located between the occipital bone at the back of the head, parallel to and opposite the Upper Dantian, is the center of the "Spirit"; when the aperture opens, the Spirit flourishes.

Liang Qu had opened all five apertures, and as his cultivation art circulated, he had already launched an offensive against the sixth aperture!

It was just a pity that until the fish meat in his stomach was completely digested, the sixth aperture still showed no signs of loosening.

The Martial Path is like building a high-rise on flat ground.

The higher the building, the more the difficulty of construction increases exponentially.

At first, a one-story wooden house only requires driving piles into the mud and plastering walls with mud to look like something, but by the seventh or eighth floor, one must drive into granite and use bricks and stones for walls; the difficulty cannot be spoken of in the same breath.

On the contrary, having been polished through the first five apertures, his Qi circulation became increasingly rounded and smooth, his whole body overflowing with vigorous energy, as if he had taken a hot bath in winter; even if he went out wearing only a single shirt, he would not feel cold.

Mountains do not reject dust, rivers do not refuse the full.

There was progress, so it wasn't all in vain.

Liang Qu could keep his composure.

The road is difficult.

Martial cultivation is the business of a great man; the further one travels, the more dangers and obstacles there are, and they are unavoidable.

He had studied two books at the academy, "Annotated Edition of Haomu Hall Miscellaneous Notes" and "Reflections on Cultivating Nature and Life by Yu Guanxiu." After gaining a basic understanding of the Martial Path, the academy instructor Si Hengyi immediately had him study the "Pass-Clearing Text."

It stated that holding to the Martial Path is like having many "life-threatening passes and road-blocking demons" that must be cleared one by one to advance on the Great Dao, hence the name "Pass-Clearing."

Most of the content warned disciples that the Martial Path is arduous and dangerous, that all shortcuts are crooked paths, and that one must be patient and endure loneliness if there is no breakthrough for a long time.

Xiang Fang Su, Ke Wenbin, and others were noble sons of marquises and counts, about ten years older than Liang Qu, and lacked no variety of cultivation arts or martial arts, yet they were only at the Wolf Smoke Realm.

Xu Yuelong's grandfather, Duke Xu, was already a two-step Grandmaster at the age of forty, possessing the potential of a Martial Saint; as a grandson of a Duke, he was thirty-six and only at the completion of the Hunting Tiger Realm.

Now in mid-August, counting fully, it was less than two months away from a full year since Liang Qu came to this world. He had confidence in doing better at the same age, so naturally, he was neither anxious nor impatient.

Otherwise, if other martial artists heard that someone had cultivated to the five apertures of the Galloping Horse Realm in less than a year and still felt it was too slow and couldn't be patient, they would probably vomit blood.

Communicating with the Inside Ze Ding.

The light blue essence rose and fell at the bottom of the cauldron, a shallow layer, about half a finger deep.

"It increased by two thousand eight hundred and ninety-one points of Water-Marsh Essence?"

Liang Qu was surprised. He had thought the treasure fish given by the old toad wouldn't be bad—at least not like the horn-pomfret or red-blood perch from near Yixing Town—so he expected at least several hundred to a thousand points of Water-Marsh Essence. He hadn't expected that eating only half of the pure meat would yield nearly three thousand.

Counting the fish bones and fish organs, wouldn't one fish be worth over two thousand?

Even if it didn't reach the Golden Gong Fish the toad sent last time, it was still extremely precious.

"The Treasure-Abundant Toad is truly extraordinary."

The old giant clam said the mysterious turtle was a rare species with the ability to seek fortune and avoid disaster, very difficult to catch, and only a rare species with stronger fortune could subdue it.

The Treasure-Abundant Toad was also a rare species, yet he happened to run into it and managed to fleece it...

Inside Ze Ding.

Wuzhiqi.

Having fallen into the water, a year had passed since then.

Liang Qu propped himself up with his hands, sat on the boardwalk, soaked his feet in the pond, and let his troubled thoughts flow away with the pond water.

The stars had already risen, the night wind blew across the pond, it was sultry, and green light spots danced in the shrubbery under the wall.

The silvery-white moonlight illuminated the surroundings, revealing a layer of shimmering clouds.

It would probably rain tomorrow.

It rains a lot in Jianghuai.

The plum rain season in June and July, and it still wouldn't stop in August and September; five or six consecutive days of sunny weather would inevitably be followed by a rainstorm.

Although not as lingering and mournful as the plum rain, it was fierce, soaking people through in the blink of an eye.

Children often stood under the eaves across the street, comparing who could rush to the other side and get less wet; if they accidentally slipped and got covered in a layer of mud, they would inevitably get a beating with a broom when they got home.

"Woof!"

Wulong had finished dinner, wagged its tail, crossed the courtyard to play in the pond, snuggled up to Liang Qu, and rolled around happily. As it rolled, it rolled to the edge of the boardwalk, flipped over half a circle, and suddenly there was nothing beneath it.

Liang Qu was quick-handed; he grabbed Wulong before it fell, held it in his arms, and rubbed its dog head. Its coat of baby fur felt extremely good, soft and smooth.

Animal cubs often grow rapidly, taking on their adult appearance in two or three months, and dogs would also show signs of erect ears; this behavior is to grow as quickly as possible to resist the risk of premature death.

But spirit monsters are different; most young spirit monsters already reveal extraordinary vitality, which is why their infancy is slightly longer.

Wulong's father, Black Tooth, could be called a half-spirit monster, as big as a small calf, and fighting tigers and leopards was no problem for it.

With Liang Qu's careful feeding, Wulong was even better than its father; calling it a spirit monster was no exaggeration.

More than two months had passed, and apart from its body growing a circle larger, it hadn't started "burning its looks" yet.

But Wulong had a good foundation, was pitch black all over, and looked good; even if it did "burn," it would only change from cute to spirited.

Wulong tilted its head and licked Liang Qu's palm. The giant beaver jumped into the pond, climbed onto the boardwalk, groomed its fur, and pointed at the warship opposite.

"The ship model is done?"

The giant beaver nodded, gesturing that it had built it with great care, exactly the same as the blueprint.

The beaver family was very satisfied with life in the pond; the environment was beautiful, they could do carpentry, had neighbors for company, and occasionally had treasure fish.

Although they were vegetarians, occasionally being able to eat meat dishes like treasure fish was a wonderful thing.

"Alright."

Dealing with the Treasure-Abundant Toad and the toad.

Liang Qu hadn't given up on the transaction with the toad, but it was just dark now, and he had to wait another two hours until midnight.

When there are more people in a place, there is more business, and nightlife is also rich.

In the past, after nightfall, apart from fishermen going out on boats, one couldn't see a soul in Yixing Market; basically, everyone went home to sleep.

Now that it had become Yixing Town, it was much livelier, and people still lit lanterns to do business after nightfall, especially since the curfew had just ended; many people had been holding back for a month, and many places were still lively.

Midnight.

Frog croaks and cicada chirps accompanied the snoring of some man.

The otters carried the warship from the pond and followed Liang Qu to Liu Quanfu's house.

Liu Quanfu had left the door open, and the big yellow dog in the corner didn't bark when it saw it was Liang Qu; it was a familiar dog.

Liang Qu waved his hand, three more otters separated from under the warship, stepped forward to remove the fixing boards, and wobblingly carried the warship.

Both ship models were taken, one person and six otters walked toward the reed marsh.

The reed leaves rustled constantly, and water snakes hiding in the mud were startled, squeezed out of their holes to escape, were caught by the otters carrying the ship, and stuffed into their mouths to be chewed with a crunch.

Entering the water.

The fat catfish had been waiting here for a long time.

It was an important person in Liang Qu's contact with the frog tribe, a capable general.

"Do you remember the fire bird we encountered last time?"

The fat catfish frowned in thought.

After a long time, it nodded.

It had some impression.

"Alright, this time, A-Fei, you go and exchange for a golden feather from the Red Fire Bird!" ===== CHAPTER 289 =====