“Golden Finger?” Wu Di’s breathing sped up. This name sounded quite extraordinary! He had to learn the intricacies of this technique after he captured this kid.

Movement skills were hard to obtain, and combat skills were similarly rare.

After his long years of service to the Wu clan, besides some ki stones and medicinal ingredients, he had only obtained a few low-level combat skills. Now that he was at the sixth rank these skills were already obsolete.

That was why he was still using the Flame Blade to this day, even though it was a skill that he had stumbled upon during his youth.

Now that he was older, his cultivation had also come to a standstill. He could only improve his combat skills if he wanted to increase his strength. This was something that was constantly on his mind, and now Zu An was presenting him with one right before his eyes!

The heavens are showering me with blessings, sending me exactly what I need! Not only did they send me my enemy, they’ve also bestowed on me a high level fighting skill and two master rank storage pouches!

He felt as though all of the luck in his life added together couldn’t even compare to his luck this day.

A feverish desire began to overtake his mind. He charged at Zu An again. The blade in his hand swung about relentlessly, leaving behind streaks of afterimages. He was extremely satisfied with his condition today. He was somehow fighting at 120% of his usual strength!

He felt unstoppable. Apart from Brightmoon City’s City Lord and the Masters of the various major clans, no one else in the city was a match for his current self.

Zu An didn’t dare let down his guard. He quickly used his Sunflower Phantasm to dodge the attacks, while looking for a chance to counterattack.

Just like that, the two of them exchanged close to a hundred blows.

This sequence not only allowed Zu An to adjust to his current speed and strength, he also grew accustomed to using the Sunflower Finger.

Wu Di was the one who grew more and more anxious as the fight wore on. He had seized a clear advantage in the beginning, yet this kid was a bloody cockroach. He just wouldn’t die!

Eventually, Zu An grew more proficient in his finger thrusting technique. He slowly wrestled back the advantage, and it was Wu Di who soon found himself in a tough situation.

Alarm bells began to ring in his mind. He finally realized that Zu An was actually using him as a practice partner!

You have successfully trolled Wu Di for 513 Rage points!

He knew that he couldn’t let this continue if he wanted to avoid defeat.

He changed his strategy, opting to attempt to create an opening through brute force.

He thrust his blade into the ground. A ring of surging heat spread out in all directions around him.

Flames rushed out like vipers, devouring everything in their path.

“Don’t you love dodging like a coward? Let’s see you dodge this huge attack!” Wu Di said with a snort.

Something changed in Zu An’s expression. He saw that he couldn’t evade this attack, and quickly summoned the Tai’e Sword, bringing forth his Snowflake Sword technique.

Even though he didn’t have Chu Chuyan’s ability to freeze everything around him, snowflakes still appeared around him. The temperature cooled enough to resist the incoming flames.

“Snowflake Sword!” Wu Di’s pupils contracted. This technique was still fresh in his memory. After all, this was the technique Chu Chuyan had used to defeat him!

Hmph! I refuse to believe that you possess Chu Chuyan’s strength!

In fact, I won’t lose to Chu Chuyan again even if she were here!

Wu Di was furious. Flames surged across the surface of his long blade. “Absolute annihilation!” he roared.

He raised the blade above his head. The flames extended several dozen meters high, and he brought it down towards Zu An with tremendous force.

Using his Sunflower Phantasm, Zu An instantly split into two.

Wu Di sneered. How could his attack be avoided that easily?

He channeled the ki within his body, and his blade of flame instantly split into a dozen or so different blades arrayed in an arc, all slicing downwards.

If the first blade was a straight line, these dozen or so blades formed a fan shape. There was no way for Zu An to avoid it, no matter how formidable his movement technique was.

There was a huge explosion as the blow landed.

Within the area of effect of the attack, the ground was turned to scorched earth. The grass that had previously covered the area was instantly vaporized, exposing the bare soil underneath. Chunks of rubble flew everywhere, and the air filled with a burning smell.

Could it be that even his corpse was burned to nothing? Wu Di sneered. He got off too easily.

He felt a twinge of regret that he hadn’t been able to obtain the secrets of that Golden Finger technique. However, he hadn’t dared hold back, not after seeing the shocking strength Zu An possessed.

“Hey! What happened to honor and respect in a battle? You shouted Absolute Annihilation, but the technique you used was clearly Mountain Splitter!”[1]

The voice coming from behind him clearly sounded annoyed.

Wu Di was shocked. He immediately turned around and hacked his blade towards the source of the sound. Midway through his swing, he felt a finger touch his back. Then, his body went limp, and his vision darkened.

How did this guy get behind me? That was his final thought.

Zu An was gasping for air. A sixth rank cultivator was a formidable opponent after all. If it hadn’t been for big sis empress bullying him into learning how to split into three figures, he might have met his end right then.

That was why he didn’t dare to hold back any further. He seized the opportunity and delivered a fatal blow with his Sunflower Finger. However, he didn’t expect this opponent to die so easily, from just a single jab.

If he knew that that would happen, he would have used a little less strength. He could have slowly tormented him for a few more Rage points.

However, Wu Di had already served his purpose as a practice partner, and had outlived his usefulness. This thought made Zu An feel much better.

Zu An brought his breathing under control again, and began to reflect over the details of the battle.

He’d fought against tough opponents before, but he had always relied on the Keyboard System’s tricks to catch his opponent off guard. This was the first battle in which he’d relied purely on proper cultivation and skills.

When he finally recovered, Zu An walked over to Wu Di and reclaimed the two master rank storage pouches.

His hand suddenly felt something hard. When he took it out, he saw that it was a package containing some bottles.

Wu Di didn’t have any spatial storage devices on him. Spatial storage devices were still quite rare in this world. Even though Wu Di was at the sixth rank, he wasn’t deemed qualified enough to have one.

Zu An opened up the package and recognized that the contents were bottles of medicine. However, he could tell immediately that they were common-grade items. Now that he’d seen Ji Dengtu’s exquisite concoctions, he couldn’t care less about these inferior items.

Zu An continued to search the body. As he searched, he muttered, “Brother, you don’t want to sleep out in the open like this, do you? I’ll take whatever banknotes you have left on you. If you have a few hundred taels of silver, I can even let you sleep next to those two master rank elders. How great of an opportunity would that be? You can even consult those two elders about cultivation once you’re down there.”

“Huh? Nothing? Not even a single note? What the heck? You’re freaking broke!”

“Wait, what’s this?”

Zu An had grown rather furious. In the end, however, he finally found two books that were tightly bound.

One of them had the two words, ‘Flame Blade’, on the cover.

What the heck? Do you have something to do with Jiumozhi?[2]

He had to admit that even though this Wu Di wasn’t particularly special, this skill of his was pretty badass. It would be sick if he could also reach a point in his cultivation where he could control a blade of flames.

The power of the skill doesn’t matter. It’s all about how cool it looks!

He quickly flipped through it, and his heart sank. An individual needed to wield the fire element to cultivate this skill!

Zu An didn’t have the power of flames. There was no way he would be able to learn this skill.

A note in the manual caught his eye. It said that this was a growth-type skill that grew in power together with the strength of the wielder’s fire element. The more powerful one’s fire element became, and the rarer the type, the stronger each move would become.

This was surely why Wu Di kept losing. His fire was the most basic type of fire! If Pei Mianman—with her special black flame—used this skill, its power would surely be many times greater.

“Whatever. I’ll just hang on to this. I can give it to big Manman even if I can’t use it myself.” Zu An stored this Flame Blade manual into his Brilliant Glass Bead.

The second book had the words ‘Ki Gathering Scroll’ on the cover.

Hm?

Zu An flipped through it. The book seemed to explain how to concoct pills.

However, this book wasn’t complete. A large portion of it was missing!

Thankfully, the first section of the book gave an introduction to pill concocting, as well as the prescription for a pill called the Ki Gathering Pill. This pill could increase a cultivator’s ki and accelerate their growth.

Mi Li had just told him to be on the lookout for some treasures or pills to aid in his cultivation. He hadn’t expected to obtain a lead so quickly!

Relying solely on Ki Fruits, which he obtained through trading Rage points, was way too slow. If these Ki Gathering Pills could also raise his cultivation, wouldn’t it make leveling up ridiculously easy?

Unfortunately, the more he read, the more discouraged he became. The preliminary condition for concocting pills was that the alchemist needed to wield the fire element. Moreover, the more precious the flame, the better the results of the pill, and the greater the benefits towards their cultivation.

Not learning the Flame Blade skill was still acceptable, but this Ki Gathering Scroll made him realize that he definitely had to find a way to awaken the fire element within him.

He needed a ton of resources in order to gain cultivation ranks, and he could only rely on his own efforts.

However, elemental fire couldn’t be awakened through desire alone.

He was already at the fifth rank, yet he hadn’t seemed to have awoken any elemental power.

1. I am guessing that these are Chinese video game skill names.

2. Jiumozhi is a character from Jin Yong’s Demigods and Semi-Devils.