Chapter 85: Don't Buy, Don't Look?

"Ah, really?" Lu Yu hurriedly apologized, his attitude very sincere, "Old man, I'm truly sorry. I was just so engrossed in reading that I accidentally flipped through a few too many pages."

"It's fine, it's fine." The old man waved his hand magnanimously, a kind expression on his face, "Little brother, this Nine Yang Divine Skill and the Tathagata Palm from before are both rare peerless arts in this world. If you buy both together, I'll give you a discount—nine yuan for one, how about that?"

"But this Cultivation Method is still too hard for me to understand; I can't quite grasp it. How about I take a look at the others?" Lu Yu said, blinking his eyes.

At this moment, he was also muttering to himself. Could it be that both of these were fakes, or was it that he hadn't read enough to meet the system's collection standards?

Regardless, he made up his mind to browse through all dozen or so Secret Manuals first. If there was nothing to gain, he would spend ten yuan to buy one to take back and study, just treating it as paying for a lesson.

"Alright then." The old man hesitated for a moment before finally nodding in agreement. Compared to those who had come to buy books before, the young man in front of him looked much more reliable.

Unlike some people who asked a question for every word they read, dawdling for half a day only to buy nothing at all, purely wasting his time and energy.

Lu Yu was seen picking up a Secret Manual, reading it for a while, then putting it back, only to pick up another one, repeating this process. The people from Chenjiazhai who arrived one after another were all confused at the sight.

"Guohao, what is Little Yu doing?"

"Is he picking out a Martial Arts Manual? But aren't all the things this old man sells fakes?"

"That's right, he shouldn't get scammed by him."

Lu Guohao smiled helplessly and said, "He's probably choosing. But since Little Yu is doing this, he must have his own plans, so let's just watch."

"Hmm." The others looked at each other, feeling that they really couldn't help much.

On the other side, the old man stopped making noise as well. At first, when Lu Yu picked up a certain Cultivation Method, he would enthusiastically introduce it, but this kid would put it down after reading halfway, then put it down again after reading halfway.

"Could this kid be here specifically to cause me trouble?" The old man frowned slightly, pondering to himself.

Just then, Lu Yu's heartbeat suddenly accelerated.

There's a chance!

That's right, he had found a real one!

The specific information is as follows:

【Shadowless Great Fast Blade (Incomplete): Not Even a Clue (0%)】

【Collection Progress: 36%】

【Completion Conditions: Body Tempering Third Layer, Basic Blade Technique lv5】

【Conditions not met, cannot complete】

The characteristic of this blade technique is that its speed is incredibly fast; often, before the opponent can even react, the blade is already upon them, which is why it is called the Shadowless Quick Blade.

As it happens, he had just bought a Dagger, and this Dagger is between a blade and a sword, capable of being used as both a blade and a sword, making it perfectly suited for practicing this blade technique.

This way, even if someone got too close and he didn't have time to use a gun, he could still use the blade to defend himself.

Thinking of this, Lu Yu was overjoyed, but he tried his best to restrain himself, not letting the slightest strangeness show in his eyes.

Because he knew that perhaps there were other real items among the unread Secret Manuals, and this old man running the stall must know these Secret Manuals like the back of his hand.

If he showed something off and was detected by him, it wouldn't be so easy to continue obtaining information for free.

"Could this kid have discovered that this blade technique is real?" Unexpectedly, the old man still detected a trace of abnormality.

However, just at this moment, Lu Yu put this Secret Manual back in its original place just like before and picked up the one next to it.

"I say, little brother, are you actually going to buy or not?" Seeing that Lu Yu had flipped through almost half of the Secret Manuals without any intention of buying, the old man couldn't help but become a bit impatient.

"Buy, I'm definitely buying." Lu Yu answered immediately without even thinking.

"Then you've been looking for so long, is there not a single one you've taken a fancy to?"

"There are some, it's just that I want to see if there are better ones later on." Lu Yu said with a face full of smiles.

The old man's gaze inadvertently swept over a Secret Manual, thinking to himself: Of course there are good goods, but even if you see them, you can only miss out.

Of course, if you bought them all, that would be a different story.

It's just that these are all incomplete copies; after all, it's only ten yuan, what kind of peerless divine skill could you expect to buy?

Lu Yu breathed a sigh of relief inwardly and continued to pick up a Secret Manual.

He was very familiar with the name of this Secret Manual, called 【Water-Pointing Swimming Dragon Skill】, which sounded like the common type of martial art. But if it were the real deal, that would be a different story.

Lu Yu opened the first page to take a look, then immediately looked at the Skill bar in his mind, and was suddenly filled with surprise.

Found another one!

【Water-Pointing Swimming Dragon Skill (Incomplete): Not Even a Clue (0%)】

【Collection Progress: 10%】

【Completion Conditions: Body Tempering Second Layer, Basic Movement Technique lv3】

【Conditions not met, cannot complete】

"Basic Movement Technique?" Lu Yu muttered to himself. He knew Basic Footwork, but what was this Basic Movement Technique?

"Forget it, now is not the time to ponder this; the top priority is to keep reading and increase the collection progress."

He turned the page and quickly browsed the content of the second page.

He saw that in the Skill bar, the collection progress of 【Water-Pointing Swimming Dragon Skill】 was growing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

When he reached the halfway point, Lu Yu very consciously put down the Secret Manual in his hand.

【Collection Progress: 30%】

In other words, even if he read this entire Secret Manual, he wouldn't reach 100% collection progress; this old man was indeed very shrewd.

Subsequently, he quickly flipped through a few more, all of which were fake.

In the blink of an eye, only the last two were left: one was 【Vajra Indestructible Divine Skill】, and the other was 【Vajra Palm】.

To be honest, Lu Yu felt that this trip had not been in vain. He had discovered two Martial Arts Manuals in a row, and he had seen them for free without spending a single penny.

But people are always greedy; if there were another real one among the remaining two, that would be even better. Just hearing the names, they sounded very imposing.

"Little brother, that's about enough, right?" Just then, the old man reached out and stopped Lu Yu; the smile on his face disappeared, and his tone became unfriendly.

"You've already looked at so many books before, you should have found one you liked by now, right? If you still haven't, then there's not much difference whether you look at these last two or not."

"Heh, this old man is getting anxious." Sun Gang thought it was quite interesting.

In the past, every time he passed by, this old man would be all smiles; although he might curse people behind their backs, this was truly the first time he had directly put on a dark face like this.

"Hmm, this is normal, right?"

"Yes, it is indeed quite normal." Zhao Shan and the others nodded one after another.

Lu Yu only looked without buying, and he had been looking for such a long time; if they were in the old man's position, they probably would have lost their patience long ago.

"Huh?" Lu Yu was stunned, his gaze met the old man's, and a strange feeling welled up in his heart.

What was going on? Could there really be something good in these remaining two Secret Manuals? Of course, it could not be ruled out that this old man was playing hard to get.

He pondered for a moment and said with a smile, "Old man, there are only two left, just let me take a look; I will definitely buy it after I finish looking."

The old man glanced at him and said, "Buy it first, then we'll talk."

"I'll buy it after I finish looking."

"Buy it first, then look."

"You won't let me look if I don't buy?"

"I won't."

"You really won't?"

"I really won't." The old man shook his head firmly.

Because he suspected that this brat was sent by some annoying person to deliberately mess with him.

He was putting on such a serious act; if one were to say this brat was an expert, he hadn't even discovered the two real ones earlier.