POW!

An extremely loud and resounding slap rang out, ruthlessly interrupting that dark-faced fellow’s words. The powerful force sent him flying, and over ten teeth tumbled across the floor.

“I’m sorry, this tome has taken the fancy of this young master.”

Long Chen looked down at the dark-faced fellow with a face seemingly full of regret, apologizing with great flair.

That slap was very resounding, and it echoed throughout the entire Battle Skill Pavilion. Everyone who had been busily browsing the Battle Skills immediately put down the manuals in their hands and turned in shock.

“Who dares to be so presumptuous as to act violently within the Battle Skill Pavilion?!”

Suddenly, a cold shout rang out, and a black-clothed man appeared from the inner part of the Battle Skill Pavilion. His face was cold and strict as he looked at Long Chen and the dark-faced fellow.

That man’s blood and qi surged just like a towering mountain, pressuring the others and making it difficult for them to breathe. Long Chen’s pupils contracted…

“A strong Blood Condensation cultivator...”

It was unexpected that this place would actually have a hidden Blood Condensation realm cultivator. But thinking about it some more, this place was an important part of the Battle Skill Pavilion, and having a strong person keep guard would save them some worries. 

It was forbidden to practice martial arts within the Battle Skill Pavilion. This was a rule that everybody knew, and breaking this rule meant you would be taken into custody.

“Speak, what happened here?” The Blood Condensation cultivator angrily shouted.

“If you want to know, then ask him.” Long Chen didn’t have the slightest amount of fear as he spread out his hands in innocence.

The dark-faced fellow became indignant. It was obviously him who had suffered the blow, so why would he still need to ask him? “Senior-”

“Senior!”

At this moment, the distant Zhou Yaoyang hurriedly ran over. He reported to the Blood Condensation expert, “Senior, it was like this: Wang Mang’s face suddenly felt extremely itchy, so he gave himself a slap. There really wasn’t any force or battle; you can check for yourself.”

The dark-faced fellow who was called Wang Mang became bewildered. But just as he was about to say something, he saw the distant Li Hao doing his best to give him a meaningful glance, so he swallowed his words back down.

“You’re the Savage Marquis’s son?” 

“Yes.” Zhou Yaoyang hurriedly nodded.

That person nodded his head and looking at Wang Mang on the floor, he said, “If your face is itchy then just scratch it; don’t make such a fuss. Clean up after yourself. I don’t want to see such a situation a second time.”

After speaking, he turned and left, leaving a crowd of astonished people wondering why Zhou Yaoyang would actually help Long Chen.

“Haha, didn’t you hear what he said? Hurry up and clean up your crap.” Long Chen laughed as if he had totally expected this entire turn of events. Turning around, he walked away to continue looking for a Battle Skill.

“Hateful bastard.”

Looking at Long Chen who downplayed this event, Wang Mang was angered to the point where his eyes were practically spitting flames. That one slap of his caused him to feel extremely vexed.

“Wang Mang, endure it. If you were to open your mouth and accuse Long Chen of hitting you, then he would be taken into custody for one month, but after one month, he would be released safe and sound. However, if you swallow this anger now, then tomorrow, Li Hao will help you take back this face. Therefore, you must absolutely endure it.” Zhou Yaoyang informed him.

Wang Mang nodded his head. He knew that Li Hao had arranged a battle with Long Chen. But having bullied Long Chen for so long, he was already so accustomed to it that it had reached the point where it was just playing around.

However, today, his playing around had caused him to receive a huge slap in the face, and he didn’t even have a place to complain. The anger from the broken pieces of teeth could only be swallowed into his stomach.

A couple of people were busily picking up the scattered teeth and wiping off the bloodstains when Zhou Yaoyang suddenly asked, “The swelling on your face is very minor, so it appears that Long Chen’s strength is still not very high. But how is it that he managed to knock out so many of your teeth?”

The others were also very suspicious. According to common sense, only an extremely powerful force could knock out such sturdy teeth.

“Who knows? It’s completely ridiculous,” Wang Mang gloomily said. What he didn’t know was that Long Chen had used his knowledge as an alchemist. Long Chen was already as familiar with the human body’s physiology as he was with the back of his hands.

His slap had been struck in a skillful way so that Wang Mang’s gums would loosen, and the teeth on that side of his face had taken the opportunity to tumble out.

Long Chen’s attack had been very vicious. Teeth were not something that could be easily regrown; they were not like other injuries that could be healed with medicines. In the future, Wang Mang could probably only use the other side of his face to eat. 

Having learned from Wang Mang’s mistake, everyone became much more well behaved and no one dared to once again provoke Long Chen.

Long Chen was also happy to leisurely browse through these ancient tomes. The Battle Skills here could only be read in the pavilion and could not be taken outside.

Spirit of the Bull.

All Battle Skills could be divided into three categories: Heaven, Earth, and Mortal. And as for all these Battle Skills and techniques here, all of them were merely the lowest level of the Mortal category. 

Although they were the lowest level, these Battle Skills were still extremely precious treasures. Even though they were only for the high status noble heirs, it still required a Blood Condensation cultivator to oversee it. From this, one could see just how important Battle Skills were to the Phoenix Cry Empire.

“Although it’s a low grade Battle Skill, its usage of spiritual energy is clear and direct, making its effect pretty good.”

After completely reading through the Battle Skill in his hand, Long Chen nodded. This particular Battle Skill was very suited to him especially since he was extremely familiar with the body’s meridians, meaning he could master it very quickly.

He carefully read through it once again. His current Spiritual Strength was extremely formidable compared to a normal person, and it was a great assistance towards his memory. Essentially, he was almost at the point where he could remember anything he saw.

The Spirit of the Bull technique was completely memorized by him. Placing it back, he saw a different support Battle Skill, Windchasing Steps.

Windchasing Steps was a kind of footwork technique. Spiritual energy would flow through a set of specific meridians focusing around the feet, increasing one’s speed and explosiveness. Whether it was traversing large distances or short evasions, this technique was extremely effective.

“Excellent, another practical technique I can use.”

Long Chen faintly smiled, and once again busied himself to carefully remember all the routes of the spiritual energy and the details of how to do so.

“Time’s up, all noble heirs must put the tomes back. If anyone dares to secretly steal some, even death is not a harsh enough punishment!”

At this moment, the Blood Condensation cultivator once again appeared. His cold shout was transmitted to everyone’s ears, and everyone hurriedly placed back the tomes in their hands.

Several people, who still wanted to continue, sighed and shook their heads. The Phoenix Cry Empire was truly exceedingly strict with Battle Skills. Every month they would only have half a day to study here.

Many people had to spend several months’ time just to learn a single Battle Skill. But although they were discontented, no one would dare to complain.

Long Chen looked up slightly surprised. He hadn’t expected that the time would pass by this quickly. But if other people were to learn that Long Chen had used just a short four hours to completely memorize two Battle Skills, they might be shocked to the point that their jaws would hit the ground.

Within the recordings of a Battle Skill, there were the extremely cryptic and difficult to understand portions, especially with regards to some of the terms about moving spiritual energy and qi around specific meridians. And what confounded people even more was attempting to practice moving their spiritual energy in such a complicated way while also reading.

Leaving the Imperial College, Long Chen said his farewells to fatty Yu and the others before going up to Shi Feng and whispering a couple things.

When Shi Feng heard what Long Chen was saying, his whole face burst into shock, and although he quickly suppressed it back to his normal expression, he was unable to conceal the shock in his eyes.

Returning home, Long Chen saw that the room where he had condensed the FengFu Star had been cleaned up. However, it still wasn’t safe for people to live in yet due to how heavily he had damaged it. Luckily, his family estate had many rooms, and they had prepared a new one for him.

First, he went to his mother’s room in order to assure her that he was alright. Many things had consecutively come up during these days, causing Mrs. Long to become agitated and worried.

Ever since Long Chen woke up, it seemed like he had changed and become a completely different person, causing her to feel a bit of unfamiliarity.

However, the good thing was that Long Chen had already adjusted himself now, and after accompanying and talking to his mother for a while, she calmed down by quite a bit. Nonetheless, he didn’t tell her about the life and death battle that he had arranged with Li Hao. 

Leaving his mother’s side, Long Chen returned to his room. Locking his door, he directly swallowed the second FengFu Pill. 

Following the absorption of the second FengFu Pill, the FengFu Star on the bottom of Long Chen’s foot once again expanded ever so slightly. 

Along with the expansion, the FengFu Star’s ability to store spiritual energy once again increased, just like a Dantian.

However, the current FengFu Star was still in an embryonic form, and in order for it to reach a fully condensed form, a countless number of FengFu Pills were still required.

That was also why Long Chen had been so dismayed when he had first gone through his memories and seen the method to train in the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art.

Currently, he had consumed two FengFu Pills that were worth several hundred thousand gold coins, and yet, his FengFu Star was still in its embryonic form. He was still extremely far off if he wanted it to reach the completely condensed stage. Furthermore, it seemed there was a level beyond even that, which was something he still didn’t know anything about. Just the one FengFu Star was already a bottomless abyss that needed countless medicinal pills to fill.

However, Long Chen knew that the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art was the only technique he could use. Otherwise, he would be just mediocre his entire life. In fact, he wouldn’t even match up to an ordinary person since he didn’t have a Dantian. Without using the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art, his only fate would be to sink down to become a weak person that would constantly be taken advantage of.

It took him four hours to fully absorb this FengFu Pill. His FengFu Star’s embryonic form had increased slightly in size, allowing him to control a greater amount of spiritual energy.

By now, it was already the middle of the night. Long Chen stealthily left his room and entered the firewood room. Taking a deep breath, he began to slowly train in the Spirit of the Bull. Long Chen was already completely familiar with his meridians due to those Pill Sovereign memories, so this low grade Battle Skill was something he could master immediately without even the slightest problem.

He walked over to a stone grinder that weighed over half a ton and was normally used to crush up rice crops.

Holding it with both hands, he lifted.

“RISE!”

The huge stone grinder rose into the air, and Long Chen’s impression was that he still had some leftover strength. Nowadays, his strength should be enough to lift around 750 kilograms worth of weight.

However, his strength when Zhou Yaoyang had beaten him had only been 75 kilograms. Compared to before, it was a dramatic ten times increase.

“Excellent, not including other factors and just by relying on my current body strength, I can probably match up to people at the fifth Heavenstage of Qi Condensation.”

Long Chen couldn’t help but feel somewhat excited, and at the same time, he looked even more forward to training in the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art. Right now, he had only condensed an embryonic form, and his power had already increased by such an enormous amount; if he were to truly condense the complete FengFu Star, then just what kind of level would his power rise to?

Hesitating for a while, Long Chen couldn’t resist the urge to continue testing. Setting himself up, the air near his foot started to slowly fluctuate, and a scorching power swept from his foot and through his meridians, slowly collecting into his fist.

Fist of the Bull!

BANG!

Long Chen’s fist smashed onto the stone grinder, and with an explosive bang, the stone grinder was forced into the air and firmly slammed into the wall, causing the entire wall to break down.

Long Chen couldn’t help but foolishly stare at the powerful force. Originally, he had just wanted to experiment a bit with the power; he hadn’t expected that it would cause such a huge disturbance. 

From outside the room, other people were all awoken and alarmed. Knowing that he had caused a huge disturbance, he quickly slipped back into his room and laid down to sleep.

However, he was simply too excited to sleep, almost to the point of wanting to dance for joy. 

Nine Star Hegemon Body Art… Just what level had this cultivation technique reached? If all nine stars were condensed, then just what kind of power would be produced?

Long Chen was simply too excited and ended up being unable to fall asleep the whole night. When the first glimmer of the sun’s rising lit up his room, he slowly opened his eyes.

“Hehe, you want to take parts of my body? That’s quite a big dream; too bad you’re not able to achieve it.”

After rising, and washing his face, he heard that the servants were still discussing what had happened last night in the firewood room. Welcoming the rising sun, Long Chen couldn’t stop a certain thought from emerging from his heart:

“Today’s a good day. I can accomplish anything.”