Chapter 413: Daily Management

This letter was from Ceng Fuzi, and Zhou You had long since thought of how to use it.

Originally, when challenging the martial arts hall, Zhou You had the idea of using this letter to build momentum and pull the martial arts halls on the Wanxiu Mountain side into it as well.

Later, after thinking about it, this move was of little use and would easily intensify conflicts.

The interior of Wanxiu Mountain was filled with many factions, unlike Dayin Mountain which banded together against outsiders; although there were many martial arts halls in the city, they were like loose sand.

If Zhou You really used the letter to mobilize a branch of the Wanxiu Mountain martial arts halls, the incident would escalate into a conflict of interest between two sects.

If things blew up that big, he would also face a situation where he was riding a tiger and could not get off, and would have to throw his lot in with the Wanxiu Mountain camp.

He did not want to pick a side; while he certainly did not look favorably upon the Tiger Form Fist Martial Arts Hall, he also had no particular fondness for the branches of Wanxiu Mountain.

After the challenge, Zhou You opened up the situation, so it would be better to use this letter as a favor to build a connection of goodwill.

His sparring partner Li Hao had above-average aptitude, and it was not good for him to waste his time in Fucheng now; giving him a chance to see what he could become was worth a try.

Zhou You had become addicted to sending people away; having just sent Qi Fengzi to the Medicine King Sect, he was now going to send Li Hao to Wanxiu Mountain.

It was not that he lacked connections; starting to cultivate them now was not too late!

"Zhou You, the letter's author is one of the strong martial artists of Wanxiu Mountain, Hall Master Sun Dingxiu of the Dividing Water Divine Staff."

"I do not know when we will meet again after this trip to Wanxiu Mountain, take care!"

Li Hao finally left Fucheng, using the recommendation in this letter to join Wanxiu Mountain, and as soon as he entered, he apprenticed under a certain Senior Martial Master.

That Senior Martial Master had a friendship with Hall Master Sun; if not for this connection, many people would not even have the qualifications to apprentice under him.

With a backer, his start at Wanxiu Mountain already surpassed more than ninety percent of his fellow disciples.

After bidding farewell to Li Hao, Zhou You threw himself into the daily routine of a martial arts hall master.

The system of Daqian Martial Arts Hall was tentatively planned to be one fist and one medicine; the fist was the Double Body Tiger Form Fist, and the medicine was the Silver Tide Whale Swallowing Pill.

The Double Body Tiger Form Fist required one mind to be used for two purposes, and when unleashed, it was like a group brawl, but the corresponding consumption in actual combat was also great, so it required a large amount of blood-replenishing medicine to be effective.

For the time being, the Silver Tide Whale Swallowing Pill had not yet been refined, but there was no shortage of pills in the martial arts hall.

Qi Fengzi had researched several types of low-grade Secret Medicine, covering the ranges of strength, blood, and even Martial Masters.

The medicinal formulas held by Bo Xiaolin were also left in the martial arts hall, and were picked through and integrated for his own use.

Zhou You's current medicine refining skills were extraordinary, having reached Lv23, and he could refine both low-grade and mid-grade Secret Medicine.

Through his planning, the Strength Apprentices in the martial arts hall were regularly distributed one type of free medicinal paste, and if they had further needs, there were six types of Secret Medicine available for a fee.

The same went for the Blood Qi Apprentices; apart from the Secret Medicine supplied for daily cultivation, they had to spend money if they wanted to progress further.

As for the needs of the Martial Masters, they were supplied with mid-grade medicine like the Tiger God Pill as normal.

The Tiger God Pill was one of the Secret Medicines of Dayin Mountain, and it was also the most widely circulated in the city's martial arts halls; because the medicinal ingredients were common and the refining difficulty was not high, it was very popular and effective for the vast majority of Martial Masters practicing Tiger Form Fist.

However, for Zhou You, it was far from enough; the minimum was the Silver Tide Whale Swallowing Pill, a high-grade Secret Medicine.

Every martial arts hall had its own signature skill, and the core was not passed on; besides the Mountain Monarch Life-Swapping Pill, Wang Laohu surely had another high-grade Secret Medicine, though unfortunately, no one had ever seen it.

The Secret Medicine supply of Daqian Martial Arts Hall adopted the method of outsourcing raw materials and semi-finished products to Xingren Tang, while the final processing into finished products remained in his own hands.

This was also the choice of most martial arts halls, saving manpower and resources while keeping the secret formulas in their own hands.

In fact, Qi Fengzi had heard people from Xingren Tang mutter more than once: "Confidentiality? Do they really think we people from the Medicine King Sect can't reverse-engineer it? Ninety-nine percent of the secret medicine formulas on the market trace their origins back to the Medicine King Sect; they are the ancestors of medicine refining."

After the matter of the Secret Medicine was settled, the next step was internal management.

The thousand-plus disciples of the martial arts hall were a mixed bag, and there was no shortage of those who relied on nepotism to slack off; these people had no use other than to freeload. "Streamline and slim down, eliminate the weak and keep the strong; I only want elites."

Zhou You took Qi Qingdi as the lead, and sent the two, including Zuo Lv who had just recovered from serious injuries, to assist him in the assessment and registration of the Apprentice Disciples.

During that period, Daqian Martial Arts Hall was in chaos for quite a while, with many people causing trouble and refusing to comply.

Qi Qingdi displayed the demeanor of a great general, and with the help of two Martial Masters who were eager to perform, he suppressed the dissenters one by one.

The unqualified were all eliminated, and those with bad records were subjected to family law before being expelled, with everything bestowed by the martial arts hall being reclaimed.

Things proceeded in an orderly manner.

"Master, after strict assessment, the martial arts hall now has 437 registered disciples; please take a look."

The methods Qi Qingdi showed during the reorganization made people sigh at his youth and wisdom, and he even earned a nickname... Heart Tiger.

After this, the hidden dangers and unrest within the martial arts hall were wiped away.

Daqian Martial Arts Hall was now completely under Zhou You's control, with no possibility of losing control again.

"There are 37 merchants and shops in the city willing to provide funding."

"On the side of the Leatherworkers' Guild, with the bridge built by Song Fugui's brother-in-law, they are also willing to reach a cooperative relationship with the martial arts hall."

"On the side of the vegetable market, a contract for monthly delivery and settlement has been signed; the vegetable money is settled monthly, and they send people to deliver the goods."

One item of business after another slowly unfolded, and Daqian Martial Arts Hall had finally gained a firm foothold in Fucheng.

Zhou You knew clearly that these people were just icing on the cake; the real reason was the order given by the Prefect that day, which hammered home the final outcome of the challenge.

And the reason the Prefect inquired about this matter was because of the Fist Intent Puppet.

The Fist Intent Puppet was a tiger-skin banner Zhou You had unfurled to buy himself time and space to grow as quickly as possible.

The fact that no one had come to his door yet did not mean no one was watching, because some were waiting, waiting for Zhou You to completely take root in Fucheng, becoming inseparable from the surrounding environment, making it difficult to cut ties and break away...

Therefore, the Fist Intent Puppet was very important; it was a crucial bargaining chip for him to fight for benefits and had to be refined as soon as possible.

The progress of the Bewitching Blood Qi Gu's erosion had already accounted for about 30% of the total volume inside the puppet.

The imprint aura of the Witch Tribe's strong martial artist had already been digested in part, unknowingly, and integrated into the body of the Gu Insect.

Fortunately, with the blessing of the Seal Script Bewitchment, this transforming Gu Insect had a very strong digestive ability and could actually imitate a trace of the strong martial artist's aura, though the amount was still very small, just a bit better than nothing.

"The transformation of the physical body is the key to advancing to the Martial Master level."

Zhou You wanted to advance to an Intermediate Martial Master, so he had to break through the bottleneck in his body, which was why he tempered his Iron Body during the process of practicing his fist.

Eight times the blood weight of an ordinary person and more than twice the defense of steel gave him the strength to rival an Intermediate Martial Master, yet it became a constraint during his advancement.

In the stage of "extreme hardness turning to softness," the greater the physical strength, the more the difficulty of turning to softness rose in a straight line.

Day after day of tempering and impact, the formidable physical body still had no limit to its transformation.

Zhou You even tried Taiji Fist, thinking that overcoming hardness with softness might be useful, but the result... it was useless.

He had encountered a bottleneck; it was truly life-threatening.

The situation in the outside world was not peaceful either; during the time he was in Fucheng, the Witch Tribe army gathered and captured another city.

The city that fell this time was larger than Gongliang City and Su Cheng combined, and the population of refugees fleeing to Fucheng surged.

(End of this chapter)