"Tell me, what happened actually!" the owner of the Golden Wolf Syndicate, also the appointed city lord, Cao Ming, questioned the subordinates kneeling before him. He was infuriated by the fact everything was stolen from the Inner Courtyard to Outer Courtyard vicinity.

Worst of all, the treasures that were arranged in the open to make them look less obvious suffered consequence when the thieves completely cleared every accessible structure. At this time, only the Core Tower, where the precious item such as Qi Accumulating Pills, Spatial Stones, Qi Weaving Stones, and others is stored, remained safe from the thieves plundering.

With a total amount of 600,000 to 650,000 Qi Sensing Pills this time, their losses in outrageous. As a greedy corrupt official managing the Wen Qing City's financial, this losses is too painful for him to accept! Along with the cauldrons, books, firestones, and medicinal herbs, all raw material is plundered by the group of thieves that not even a single member of the syndicate caught their existence.

But even in his wildest dream, he will never expect that this robbery is not done by a group, but it was the effort of Zhang Wu Ji alone! Will he end up with a heart attack if he knows the truth about how he lost half of his hard earned corrupted fortune?

"City Lord... The representatives from Upper South Merchant Corporation came." his assistant came forward and reported this incident to his lord. When the news about the representative is made known to Cao Ming, his facial expression becomes better.

"My Money Shaking Tree is here! I wonder what did he bring me this time! You and you, quickly go to the four brothels and bring me five prostitutes from each establishment. Tell them if they do not comply, wait for the Militarized Forces to enforce their duties!" Cao Ming pointed at two of his subordinates and gave them instruction.

"As for the two of you, quickly go purchase some Universal Health Pills for the representatives! Bring back the chefs from Heavenly Flavors Pavilion and Five Spice Pavilion to prepare a feast." his efficiency is unbelievably amazing. In a short period of time, he arranged most of his subordinates to prepare everything for the enjoyment of the representatives.

When all of them is ready, he returned with plenty of gifts to be presented to the representatives. For him, these people are the one that brings him with the wealth he can never imagine, and for them, the City Lord, Cao Ming, is nothing more than the best pimp in the Wen Qing City.

Since the business will be conducted no matter what happened, it was pointless to behave like a proper gentleman. Their meeting starts with a grand feast accompanied by dancers especially hired to entertain the guests. Given the fact they're literally allowed to do anything they wish, none of them controlled their mortal lust.

The group of dancers is the first to be ravaged by the beast in human skin, with a few corpses lying on the entrance due to their perseverance to not allowing the guests to violate their virginity. After the starters are done, three claps are heard.

In the next moment, twenty prostitutes from the Wen Qing City's top four brothels came inside the room to start serving them. By popping a few Universal Health Pills into their body, their Ancestral Inheritance Roots is aroused once more to begin defiling the beauties sent into the hall like a group of lambs waiting for slaughter.

At the end of the banquet, three dancers dead, with thirty-seven of them defiled. Amongst the twenty prostitutes, nineteen received mental trauma from ravaged by the ten honored guest. The last one failed to bear their brutality and died on the spot.

"I say... City Lord... Each time I'm here for the sake of doing business, I am always welcomed warmly by you with all of this hospitality." one of the ten representatives initiates a conversation with the City Lord to praise him for the top-notch service.

"Representative Wan's word is too much for this humble lord to accept. As long everyone is rejuvenated with all of these little gestures, this humble lord can be said as doing the right thing at the right time..." Cao Ming smiled as he replied to the first sentences.

"With these kinds of hospitality and gestures, how can the ten of us be mean to you! People! Bring in the merchandise we took here this time!" another representative joined their conversations and ordered his subordinates to bring out all the treasures into the middle of the hall.

"Krang! Krang..." the pile of treasures hidden inside the stacks of higher quality Spatial Stone is withdrawn and arranged nicely. Here, at least treasures worth over 400 Million in gold coins is taken out for Cao Ming to inspect.

"City Lord, based on our relationship, I will not twist around with my words. As long you can make sure that the Upper South Merchant Corporation can establish a foundation here to increase the flow of our business, we will not be stingy with our yearly gift before the starting of every year."

"As a City Lord that loved his people so much, you won't reject our generous offer, right?" Representative Wan speaks his request. The way he started the word is humble, but the sharpness of the sword in his words still aches the people listening to his words.

"Ah... Representative Wan... This surname Cao have to obtain approval from the Seven Star Sect before he can make such a decision. Hope representative Wan understand the crucial importance of this matter..." Cao Ming bends his standing posture slightly to indicates how sorry he felt regarding this matter.

This reply made Representative Wan's expression to turn sour. The way his mood changed is recognized by the other fellow representatives, where they soon step forward to start retrieving the treasures presented in the middle of the hall.

"Representative Wan, what is this means?" Cao Ming questioned. His emotion becomes nervous as he looked at the treasures slowly decreasing at every flowing second. Staring at Representative Wan and his fellow colleague, Cao Ming mind swayed.

How can he not be? The treasure worth 400 Million Gold Coins decreased until only 150 Million left. One minute later, everything returned into the hand of the representative. They shared their Spatial Ring for a moment to stack all the treasures in one and handed the ring to Representative Wan.

"City Lord, what do you think this surname Wan is? They're collecting the treasure for the sake of my lord. Do you know the price of this Onyx-Class Spatial Ring? In the Crystal Auction City, the price for this ring starts from 300 Million Gold Coins, but they usually sold around 450 Million to 500 Million at the end of the bidding."

"I'm sure you're interested in this treasure right? What is better than having a wearable ring that able to store so much treasure wherever you go?" Representative Wan presents the ring along with 400 million gold coins worth of treasures inside.

"Hahaha! Representative Wan, you made me nervous for a while there. Deal! I will make sure the Headmaster of Seven Star Sect agrees with the participation of Upper South Merchant Corporation to establish a new foundation in the Wen Qing City!"

"Do Representative Wan have a location for the starting of foundation in mind? If not, this City Lord can introduce you a few locations." Cao Ming approached Representative Wan and collected the ring in his hand.

"This surname Wan do have a location in mind. Would the City Lord be generous to present the piece of land belonged to your Golden Wolf Syndicate?" Representative Wan smiled as he looked at Cao Ming.

"Wha... What? You want the land where my Golden Wolf Syndicate is occupying for years?"

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Meanwhile, in the Wen Wu City...

"Now now... This kind of waiting is suffering." Zhang Wu Ji stares at the black gemstone that starts to form in the air. After putting all the ingredients and Spatial Formation Inscriptions and Fighter Qi into the Formation Plate, he activates the plate for it to start the conversion.

But, he thinks differently compared to the people originated from this world. With his UPGRADE System, Zhang Wu Ji already able to shorten the process from ten hours into one hour is all its required. Next, he did not place all his hope on one single Formation Plate, but instead, he activates seven plates at one time.

With the conversion of 0.1 Carat of Spatial Onyx Gem in every hour, Zhang Wu Ji needs to activate this seven plates for a total of 50 times for them to reach the requirement of 5 Carat Spatial Onyx Gem. In total, he'll need a total of fifty hours for them to complete, which is over two days worth of time.

While waiting for the preparation of the Spatial Onyx Gem to complete, Zhang Wu Ji proceeds with the other activities he might have in mind. First of all, he will have to process all the material he stolen from the Golden Wolf Syndicate.

Five days passed without himself noticing about it.

With all materials is processed into their best quality, Zhang Wu Ji now can either choose to proceed with the rewriting of his Cultivation and Martial Manuals or forging pill and equipment. He gave both of them consideration and finally decided on working with the Manual Rewriting first.

Reason?

After such a long period of having no improvement in his martial arts, Zhang Wu Ji is now carrying a new intention to improve them and created something new. Similar to his Bronze-Grade Nourishment Art, it was a duality Attack and Healing ability that's unexpected by any other cultivators.

He's daydreaming. In his mind, a Martial Art that can overwhelm all his opponents below Inner Qi Warrior's strength, and the Cultivation Art that can strengthen a cultivator from his weakest strength into the top of Inner Qi Fighter in less than a year as he does.

"Master, we brought back everything you instructed." Li Jing and Li Yin reported outside of him private building. Before waiting for his next instruction, Li Yin already entered the Forging Room to arrange the materials neatly in case his master wanted to start forging for something.

As for Li Jing, all the books inside the six Wooden Universal Plates is for his master's direct reading. This means, instead of going into anywhere, it shall go to his master's hand directly. When Zhang Wu Ji came out from his room, he was satisfied with their excellent performance in completing his task.

Their gift for completing his task? The Qiyue Flying Sword. It was a gift worth 300 Million Gold Coins. And like it was nothing, Zhang Wu Ji allowed them to keep it for their personal use. If Yang Chen Kun knows about it, he may throw out not only blood but his internal organs out of anger.

How can a current Headmaster of a sect not possess a mere Flying Sword?

Back to his room once more, Zhang Wu Ji tried his best to resist the attraction brought by the number of raw materials recently brought back from Li Yin. Their existence is now waiting for him to process, it was a great difficulty for him to not went to them.

"Let's get you ready first..." Zhang Wu Ji begins.

With all his writing material is prepared, Zhang Wu Ji started his effort is made many copies of the improvised manual before he considered fusing them together to form something new. This effort he made brings him many answers in things he wanted to know.

It was in his first few efforts to fusing that brings him the understanding that no matter how many time he fused the same manual, the results come out from them is based on the law of four phenomena. Based on the way he stacked them separately, Zhang Wu Ji found the results that came out from the fusion followed a certain kind of Law.

The Spring Phase represents Growth and Rebirth, allowing manual resulted from this phase to carries the ability such as recovery, physical enhancement, increase in birth rate, and other similar effects.

Next comes the Summer Phase, which represents Adulthood and Emotion, birthing the effect such as Increases in Quality, the grown ability but paired with heightened cost, the ability to control the inner demon, and so forth.

On the Autumn Phase, abilities such as equal exchange, storage, condensation, and harvest appeared. This is due to the Fall Season represents the meaning of Balance and Preparations.

Winter Phase came last, representing Frailness and Hibernation. The effect from this phase bring forth abilities such as life extension, sacrifice, or exchanges for the sake of final struggling.

This four different Seasonal Phase able to bring out a different effect of the Manual resulted from the Fusion. And of course, this means that through following the order of Tai Yang, Shao Yin, Tai Yin, and Shao Yang, he can expect how the results appear.

In the next eighteen days, Zhang Wu Ji ignored the fact of his advancement into the 9th Stage of Inner Qi Fighter and the fact he now controlled 887 strands of Fighter Qi. Although the moment for him to enter the 10th stage of Inner Qi Fighter is not too far, it wasn't something too much to be concerned either.

Like how he sees from the way Inner Qi Warriors like his second brother and other top disciples from the Upper Five Counties fight, the usage of Warrior Qi during their battle is limited! The reason for this is because for every strand of Warrior Qi they use is an expensive wastage of 1,000 strands of Fighter Qi.

And only in a difficult battle one use their precious strands of Warrior Qi to fight. This is also the reason why his brother still battles using Tier-1 equipment and why even in a crucial period, the Warrior Stage cultivators only blasted their Warrior Qi and not attacking using them.

Worst of all, The moment one entered the Inner Qi Warrior Stage, it means that they are no longer blessed with the protection of Nature Law of Cultivators. The vanished protection means that from this moment onwards, the Nature Law of Cultivator is applied to them, and they will start suffering the backlash if they dishonored a few important matters.

The complete entry into 11th Stage Inner Qi Warrior is similar to the beginning of a proper path of cultivation. Unless one meditates to recover the exhausted Strands of Inner Qi, the strands of Qi within their body will not recover. And by suffering this symptom, it was the proof of one as a Warrior, and also one that started his path to Sheng Tian Process.

"No wonder when my master is injured, and he was struggling with the lack of Inner Qi within his body. If he cannot cultivate at all, how can the Inner Qi needed in his body is replenished?" Zhang Wu Ji finally understood. Based on the miracle is Small Nourishment Art can recover, it was too insignificant at all to help his master.

According to how he calculates the figure, the little amount of healing he's able to apply on his master is merely a speck of dust in the atmosphere. They exist, but they worth nothing when it was given to somebody four tiers stronger than his own.

"Luckily my effort did not disappoint me..." Zhang Wu Ji touches the first book placed just on the starting point on his left. He went through the description of appeared in his sight immediately to see what comes out from his eighteen days of seclusion upgrading...

Compassionate Meditation Manual +10 (Phase-Less)

-Ability Acquired (1): During meditation and chanting, increase the number of Natural Energy attracted to the Compassionate Zone by 60%. The Zone increase the multiplication opportunity of Natural Energy by 200%, allowing faster evolution and multiplication as long the Compassionate Zone is successively activated.

-Ability Acquired (2): During the activation of Compassionate Zone, the Nature Energy exist within the zone are twice as effective compared to the outside. Nature Energy cultivated inside the zone perimeters may have 0.2% possibility to be sentient.

-Limitation: Compassionate Zone only expandable to 2.5 meters wide around the user.

-Durability: 22/22 (Double Xuan Paper is in used)

-Special (+0): When the Natural Energy within the zone is assimilated by the user, Increase a bonus counter that will reward the user with (1) Full Recovery activation. Full Recovery only works on User alone.

-Special (+5): Full Recovery is now applicable to a target not above 18th Stage of Inner Qi Warrior Cultivation.

-Special (+10): Compassionate Zone is now can be activated separately for one hour in a targetted location. Upon completion, (1) drop of Natural Spring is created. (Take note: Natural Spring is volatile and can explode when made contact with water. Explosion capable of destroying Spatial Zone)

"Not bad... Not bad... Too bad the special effect is only activable by me through the upgrade system. With the other cultivator not possessing the ability to discern the Natural Energy by their unenhanced eyes, it is a waste to distribute this manual to my attendants." Zhang Wu Ji kept the first book inside his Onyx-Class Spatial Ring.

Although the Wooden Universal Plate works similar to the Spatial Ring, it was unable to carry the effect outside of the Spatial Realm, unlike the Onyx-Class Spatial Ring that works similarly to the cultivator holding the item indirectly.

Next, he moved his hand over to the second book from the left. When the Description Box pops out, he gives out a smile. It was something familiar to him back in the Earth. Back there, it was a fictional creation which was adapted into plenty chapters in movie and dramas.

But now, this book actually appeared before him, something that can be activated without an effort is needed because of his UPGRADE System!

"This is the Nine..."

"Master Senior!!! Urgent!!!"

"Again! Can't you guys let me take my sweet time for a moment here!" Zhang Wu Ji complained deep within his heart, forgetting that he was in seclusion for eighteen days already.

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[Author's Note]

I'm so sorry for the late update! Real life business with some distractions. Plus, the chaps are progressing nicely with some upgrade, so of course, I will need to research something for the story!

Tell me. Guess. Answer in the comments. What is the "Nine..." Martial Arts its related?