“There are problems with the implementation, but the thought is definitely correct! Even if it’s incomplete, this is still a new technique! Water severing is too basic, how about Water Rupture? It is not as swift as wind or as tough as earth, it doesn’t have a specialty which makes it an ace attack. The only attribute water has is the structure of it which does not break apart easily.”

Hei Long grew interested in Zhao Fan’s observations. When he thought about the problem for a bit, he could only come to one conclusion.

“If a blade is made purely with water, that means that if it’s sliced in half, both sides will continue moving forward instead of breaking apart. The problem is if you imbue the edge of the water blade with severing, it doesn’t act like water and the whole edge will shatter when attacked.”

“The edge…” Zhao Fan came to an epiphany.

One hour passed in the blink of an eye. The sun shone directly in the center of the sky.

“Brother Fan!” A voice stretched towards the field.

Liu Zhong saw a silhouette in the distance, sitting next to several stumps. He quickly ran up to the figure, stopping when he saw the motionless Zhao Fan with his eyes closed.

“Brother Zhong, before you take me on another adventure, help me try out a move of mine” Zhao Fan’s eyes opened and he stood up facing the other party.

Liu Zhong didn’t reply for a second, but then smiled.

“You know me too well, okay show me what you got!” He took a couple of steps back and unsheathed his swords.

Zhao Fan nodded and raised his hand.

“Water Rupture”

A bizarre scene appeared as a water blade the size of a sword flew out vertically from Zhao Fan’s body. It stretched all the way from his toes to his shoulder and moved at a fast speed too. Previously, Zhao Fan only tried his ideas on small attacks, but now that he was facing an opponent there was no need to restrict his strength.

Liu Zhong was caught completely off guard, he expected a small attack coming from Zhao Fan’s palm, completely forgetting about the special attribute of his opponent’s body.

“Darkwind Severing!” The two swords enlarged and struck out in a cross. The two swords sliced the approaching attack into four as easily as slicing butter. Liu Zhong frowned as a flash of disappointment showed on his face.

“What?” Liu Zhong yelled and retreated, turning into a shadow.

The giant attack continued moving forward!

“The specialty of water is just its strange form! Without anything else in it, the attack will not harm me!” Liu Zhong suddenly came to a conclusion and stopped trying to dodge. With complete confidence, he sliced upwards, bisecting the attack again. When small parts of the water landed on him, he grew even more confident.

“It’s just water, what harm could it do to me?”

When tens of small drops of water shot at his upper body, Liu Zhong suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. Why would Zhao Fan test a purely water qi attack? His figure turned blurry the moment the water collided with his body.

As it splashed on his body, he felt a slight bruising pain from the impact, but then a much more painful stinging sensation.

“Severing??” Liu Zhong materialized again and inspected his body. Blood coated his fingers when he passed by the places where the water qi made it through. Tens of shallow cuts appeared on his chest and legs, when he turned around, the hard earth was visibly split apart in some places.

“If I did not use Dark Infusion, would I have been gravely injured just now?”

“How was that? You aren’t hurt right?” Zhao Fan quickly ran over and saw the impact of his own attack. Once he saw Liu Zhong’s blood covered fingers, he felt very worried and was about to apologize when Liu Zhong spoke.

“It’s only a few cuts. No worries, just warn me next time, alright? By the way, I know water attacks can split apart, but that doesn’t apply to severing right?”

“If I told you ahead of time, it wouldn’t be an accurate test, I will go a little easier next time because we aren’t actually fighting. As for how the attack is made, would it be so special if I told just anybody?” Zhao Fan laughed. Liu Zhong blushed in embarrassment. It was going a bit over the line to ask about something like that.

“I’m just joking, it’s a lot simpler than you probably think. All I did was split the severing qi into small parts and spread them out throughout the whole attack. Even if part of the attack is destroyed, the severing qi wouldn’t dissipate”

Liu Zhong was stunned and thought for a bit about this process. Before he voiced his concerns, he stopped himself. Zhao Fan considered telling him, but he felt that the latter was a little suspicious.

The process seemed really simple but how could it be easy to quickly separate strands of severing qi during battle? It was only possible for someone like Zhao Fan who could keep the attack inside his body and slowly assemble it, if someone else tried to do it, they would not be able to do anything with their hands while their meridians held the attack. Liu Zhong didn’t know exactly how special his body was and it should stay that way.

Zhao Fan didn’t share anymore and Liu Zhong took that as a cue to switch topics.

“Ah, the reason I came here is because I wanted to ask you about something. Have you heard of the Hunters Union?”

“Of course, the big organization with quests for killing beasts, who doesn’t know about it? If you want to get a mission there, the minimum is, I think, a tier seven beast?”

“That’s right, missions are divided by rank, from C to B in our city. C-rank missions are between tier 7 and tier 9 beasts. B-rank missions are between tier one to tier six demonic beasts, these are mainly for the top personnel in our city or the powerful people in sects.”

“So you want to try out a tier 7 beast so soon? Wasn't tier 6 troublesome enough for our group?” Zhao Fan frowned.

“We don’t have the luxury of playing it safe with the competition drawing closer and closer. I don’t think it would be impossible to kill a tier 7 beast if we show a few trump cards, no?” Liu Zhong punched Zhao Fan’s shoulder with a slight smile.

“You are the one who’s going to have to spit out your aces, you can barely block one of my moves! Alright, let’s go see what this hunters union is about” Zhao Fan laughed. Liu Zhong smiled weakly and led the way.

They quickly arrived before a building no less decorated than the Alchemist Guild. When they stepped inside, the first thing they saw was a huge bulletin board stretching up three meters. Tens of papers were attached to the board forming a triangle shape. There were lots at the bottom and very few at the top.

“See those on the very top? They are B-rank missions of the highest difficulty. We should look for those at the very bottom.”

They walked up to the board and started to search for a suitable mission.

As Zhao Fan inspected the missions he found that there were a few different types. The most popular were missions looking for beast ingredients as well as escort missions. Behind those were missions to kill a specific monster.

“Why are missions to kill a specific monster so popular?”

“Oh, the Hunters Union has a policy where they create a bounty on any beast which has killed more than five people. Another chunk comes from family or friends of dead cultivators wanting to avenge them.”

Zhao Fan nodded and went back to searching. All of the missions he found were tier eight beasts or groups of tier seven beasts, the very lowest missions must have already been snatched.

“Here I found one!” He excitedly led Liu Zhong. The mission was to kill a crystal crab found living close to a lake and bring back its carapace. The mission provided some information about the crabs, stating that they liked to live alone and were mostly tier seven beasts.

“Perfect! Let’s quickly take it” Liu Zhong didn’t wait for Zhao Fan’s approval and hurriedly snatched the paper from the board.

“Let’s go and register the mission” They turned around and saw a group of brutish men who blocked their way.

“Is there a problem?” Liu Zhong frowned.

“You kids learn any respect in that shiny Academy of yours? Put the mission back and scamper off” One of the men said in a mocking tone.