Chapter 691: Catching Up (2/2, Autumn Subscription)

That's right! It's 【Curse】!

Once one reaches the Human-rank level, some of the more advanced martial arts begin to involve the supernatural.

Just like the Tiger Claw Technique, a martial art created by imitating animal movements.

The people of this world, in their pursuit of greater strength, began to study and imitate the supernatural!

If one were to say that a Cursed Spirit Root is the ultimate imitation of the supernatural — a complete fusion of human and supernatural power into one —

then creating martial arts by imitating supernatural power is a comparatively low-end way of borrowing that strength.

Of course, calling it low-end doesn't mean Fang Yue can learn it easily — the two are similar yet entirely different paths.

In any case, Fang Yue found it extremely difficult to learn.

According to Lord Han's records, to raise the realm of the 【Frozen Heart Method】 further, one must gather supernatural materials and absorb them through cultivation, only then can the power of the 【Frozen Heart Method】 continue to grow.

This is a step of deepening and strengthening the 【Curse】-like power obtained through imitation, so that it feeds back into oneself, raising one's own strength and realm.

The subtle connections and complex core principles of cultivation behind it — Fang Yue only half-understood them at present.

After all, it was a complete inheritance; one couldn't grasp it just by reading the written explanation. Only by experiencing it step by step in person could Fang Yue gain a deeper understanding.

It was also thanks to Lord Han's vast knowledge and broad experience, able to explain the profound in simple terms — otherwise, just the explanations alone would have been enough to make Fang Yue's head spin.

Through his understanding of the 【Frozen Heart Method】, Fang Yue also gained a certain grasp of the strength of the Extreme Ice Sect Elder 【Ni Dongmei】 he had once encountered in Mo Cun.

Human-rank as the floor, Cloud-rank as the ceiling.

Their strength range fell within this division.

Because aside from certain special martial techniques, most martial techniques only begin to take on 【Curse】-like effects once one reaches Human-rank.

Moreover, as martial arts, the simulated 【Curse】 effects are also rather singular.

For a martial technique like 【Ni Dongmei's】 to simulate the 【Curse】 effect so well, one would need long, dedicated study — there was simply no way to achieve that level of effect otherwise.

The black ring overhead was still raining 【Night Rain】.

The intervals between raindrops grew shorter, and the number of raindrops increased, keeping Fang Yue's hair damp for long stretches of time.

Running a hand over the top gave a hair-gel effect — for styling purposes, Night Rain was quite the convenience.

But on the flip side, with rain constantly falling overhead, his Qi and Blood were almost always draining, making it increasingly difficult for Fang Yue to enter a cultivation state for long.

He was afraid that if he dragged himself out of the state too late, Night Rain would finish him off in one wave.

Fang Yue had gone from needing only one or two pills during the day to replenish the Qi and Blood drained by Night Rain,

to needing a full ten pills during the day to restore his Qi and Blood.

Fortunately, at night, with the Night Breath helping, he could simply cultivate straight through without worrying about Night Rain at all — this gave Fang Yue enough buffer time to push against the Frozen Heart Method.

……

Three days later.

"Lord Ye, today is the day of the Martial Decision. As a merchant caravan ranked outside the top hundred of the 【Tian Shang Meng】, we must take part in the 【Martial Decision】 preliminaries, and everyone must be present. The Alliance Leader of Tian Shang Meng, Lord Tian Wangchuan, will be there in person to explain the rules…"

Yang Hongxia arrived early at Fang Yue's door.

But to her surprise, along the crack of Fang Yue's door, specks of ice crystals had spread out.

She tried pushing the door open, and Yang Hongxia's eyes went wide.

The entire room had already been frozen solid by frost, like one enormous block of ice.

And inside that block of ice… drip, drip — the sound of rain.

Even though the entire room had become a giant block of ice, every piece of furniture frozen solid, the clear sound of raindrops still fell upon Lord Ye's head — like water wearing through stone, it had dripped a hole through the human-shaped ice around Lord Ye, and dripped onto his head.

"L-Lord Ye?!"

Yang Hongxia cried out in alarm.

She had come to the door in person two days ago to mention this date — the day the Martial Decision began. Though she hadn't seen him then, she had heard Fang Yue reply. How could it be that now, the moment she saw him, Fang Yue looked like this??

"L-Lord Ye, are you alright?!"

Yang Hongxia panicked. Setting aside how much she cared for Fang Yue, just the fact that without Fang Yue, the Martial Decision matters of Dayang Fu would have no resolution was enough to throw Yang Hongxia into disarray.

And just then…

The ice melted.

Like an iceberg thawing, the thick, solid block of ice that had filled the entire room rapidly dissolved into a great pool of water that surged outward.

Yang Hongxia instinctively dodged aside, waiting for the water to drain out before looking back into the room.

The whole room looked as though it had sunk to the bottom of the sea — everything was drenched. Only Fang Yue himself was perfectly dry; his Innate Qi Shield acted like a barrier, keeping the water out — it just couldn't block the Night Rain.

"L-Lord Ye?"

At Yang Hongxia's hesitant call, Fang Yue slowly opened his eyes.

The instant Fang Yue opened his eyes…

Cold — it hit her full in the face!

Like a biting wind and snow lashing her cheeks, in just a moment Yang Hongxia felt frost forming on her own face!

Hiss—

Yang Hongxia couldn't help but draw in a sharp breath. She — she was a martial artist! A Post-Heaven realm martial artist who had entered the Dao!

Yet before Lord Ye, even the cold he unconsciously radiated was somewhat hard for her to withstand!

Once again, Yang Hongxia felt the weight of Fang Yue's power.

"I must work harder — I need to cultivate with everything I have! Otherwise, even if one day I win Lord Ye's heart, I won't have the strength to stand at his side!"

The thought flashed through Yang Hongxia's mind. Lowering her head respectfully, she said: "Lord Ye, the day of the Martial Decision has arrived. A palanquin is waiting outside. Please come with me to the Martial Decision venue."

Yang Hongxia also wanted to raise her strength. Just as the late Hai Guanjia had said, she was a Martial Dao prodigy to begin with.

At least within all of 【Chunuan City】, Yang Hongxia was a true-blue prodigy — only this prodigy had been born into a merchant caravan, with the ultimate goal of inheriting the caravan business and steadily putting down roots in 【Chunuan City】.

Because of that, her Martial Dao training was not strictly managed.

After a period of Yang Hongxia's laxness and slackness, no one really supervised her to keep cultivating diligently.

Therefore her strength had actually stopped at the Postnatal realm long ago, without any improvement.

If not for the upheaval in Dayang Fu, with the merchant caravan relying on her alone from top to bottom, forcing her to grow and toughen up, she probably would have collapsed by now.

At the same time, she also increasingly understood the importance of strength; besides inviting a Guest like Fang Yue to hold the fort, she herself had thought about raising her own strength.

However, after losing the former Regimental Commander and Hai Guanjia, the merchant caravan had far too many affairs, and after a bout of busyness, there was simply no spare time left for cultivation, so the Martial Dao was shelved once again.

"The Martial Decision… once the Martial Decision is over, I'll pick up Martial Dao cultivation again and catch up to Lord Night's footsteps!"

The social niceties have basically all been gone through.

Starting tomorrow there's nothing to do, I'll just stay home and update at ease.

(End of this chapter)