Decaying World-Chapter 50

'In their eyes, the Clear Wind Sword has a limit, and entering the Internal Force Realm is the ceiling. Unfortunately, in my eyes, the Clear Wind Sword has no limit.'
Lin Hui sighed with emotion in his heart.
'Safety, ultimately, depends on oneself. Relying on others is unreliable.'
Closing his eyes, he adjusted his breathing and tried to sleep, but felt restless and couldn't drift off. After tossing and turning for a while, he simply got out of bed, picked up his sword, and practiced a set of the Clear Wind Sword Technique. Only then did his body feel refreshed, and he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Early the next morning.
Lin Hui had just gotten up when he saw a young girl, about thirteen or fourteen years old with her hair in buns, wearing a light blue dress with centipede buttons, waiting in the small courtyard in front of his bedroom door.
"Young Master Hui, this servant is Ding Ning—'Ding' as in the surname, 'Ning' as in peace. The Master arranged for me to serve you. If you need anything, please instruct this servant to do it." The young girl hurried forward, bowing and curtseying.
"Ding Ning... good name. Understood. Go help me brew the All-Essence Powder my father prepared for me and bring it here," Lin Hui instructed.
The All-Essence Powder Lin Shunhe had promised him yesterday—which boosts energy—was perfect for testing its effectiveness on him.
Since reaching the limit of Body Tempering, Lin Hui hadn't felt an increase in energy for some time. The Blood Seal's speed of evolving one move every four days hadn't changed. If this medicinal powder were effective, it might further shorten the evolution time.
"Yes. I'll go ask the kitchen," Ding Ning responded quickly.
Lin Hui washed up on his own, dressed neatly, and then began practicing his sword.
Because the Blood Seal took a long time to evolve, aside from practicing the sword, he often spent his free time researching and pondering the principles of Body Tempering.
The Body Tempering principle of the Perfected Seven-Section Swift Sword was magical. It was clearly just a routine sword technique, only slightly harder than those in his previous life, yet by using the correct Force Nodes, it could produce such miraculous effects.
This made Lin Hui very curious about the so-called Force Nodes.
After extensively comparing the differences between the original and perfected Force Nodes, he carefully recorded and tested them, discovering a sliver of the Seven-Section Swift Sword's tempering secret.
Now, practicing the Seven-Section Swift Sword again and savoring his internal speculation, Lin Hui began to practice the Clear Wind Sword Technique.
Half an hour later, Ding Ning hurried into the courtyard carrying a medicine pot, along with exquisitely made soup dumplings and a small bottle of sour plum soup.
Lin Hui ate breakfast first, then picked up the bowl of All-Essence Powder decoction and drank it in one go.
After resting for a while, he waved Ding Ning away to eat her own breakfast. Lin Hui sat cross-legged on the stone stool in the small courtyard, feeling faint threads of heat gradually emerging in his abdomen.
The heat spread continuously throughout his body like ripples in water. The slight fatigue from his focused sword practice dissipated rapidly under the wash of this warm current.
His heart moved, and he quickly called up the Blood Seal.
Script surfaced at the bottom of his vision.
[Clear Wind Sword Technique Forty-Seventh Move — Clouds Part, Mist Disperses. Evolution Complete.]
'It really works!'
Lin Hui's face lit up with joy, and he stood up abruptly.
He had only started evolving this move the day before yesterday. Yet now, on just the third day, the evolution was finished!
He had checked just after waking up, and it was still evolving. Now, not long after drinking the medicine, it was complete.
'Is it a coincidence?'
Feeling the warm current still spreading in his body, Lin Hui felt it wasn't.
Without a second word, he continued to strengthen the next sword move.
Soon, the Blood Seal's evolution time surfaced.
[Clear Wind Sword Technique Forty-Eighth Move — Mist Arises from the Sea. Time required for evolution: 4 days.]
No change.
But the warm currents in his body seemed to find a new target, surging rapidly and continuously toward his heart.
One minute. Two minutes. Five minutes.
Swish.
Lin Hui watched helplessly as the remaining evolution time in the Blood Seal script decreased rapidly from four days to three.
At this moment, the warm current in his abdomen finally dissipated slowly, vanishing completely.
"One dose saves about two days of evolution time. Not bad, not bad!" Lin Hui was delighted. After so long, he had finally found something that could shorten the Blood Seal's evolution time.
Actually, he had eaten herbs claiming to replenish energy before, but none worked. It seemed now that their vintage was too low, and the medicinal efficacy insufficient.
'Since the All-Essence Powder is effective, I need to accumulate and take more...'
Lin Hui made up his mind.
Over the next two days, he took two more doses of All-Essence Powder at his father's place, saving four days of evolution time.
Because he consumed it too quickly, the herbs ran out temporarily. Lin Hui simply inquired about the prescription in detail and confirmed that a herb called Tree Scorpion Tail was missing. This ingredient was also the most expensive in the entire prescription, taken from a mist zone monster called the Tree Scorpion.
Immediately, without hesitation, he asked about the Tree Scorpion's range of activity, which happened to be in the edge mist zone toward another town.
It just so happened that during this time, he needed to avoid You Ying from the Inner City and the search teams of the Hundred Flowers Sect. He rarely went to other towns, so he decided to go out for some activity this time, considering it his first long trip.
The discovery that All-Essence Powder was useful for his Blood Seal evolution gave Lin Hui great enthusiasm for hunting Tree Scorpions.
If he could take two doses of All-Essence Powder a day, wouldn't he be able to finish evolving one move a day? The remaining moves of the Clear Wind Sword Technique could be completed in a short time. Moreover, with the acceleration from the medicine, he would dare to attempt evolving those items that required long evolution times.
Of course, drug resistance would develop sooner or later for any medicine, so he had to look for other prescriptions as future replacements.
Thoughts turned to action.
Immediately, Lin Hui bid farewell to his parents, left home with some simple food and silver notes, and rushed toward the mist zone where the Tree Scorpions were located.
The area adjacent to that direction was a distant town called Shiqiao Town.
Shiqiao Town and Xinyu Town were separated by three other towns, a considerable distance. For long-distance travel, he had to purchase an ox cart.
Originally, Lin Hui planned to rely on his movement technique to rush over alone, but since he wasn't familiar with the route, he went to the market and bought an ox cart for his first trip. He joined a few traveling merchants also heading to Shiqiao Town, forming a small caravan, and set off quickly.
Early in the morning, before the sky was fully bright and just as the mist dispersed, a small convoy of five ox carts set off unhurriedly along the mud road of Xinyu Town.
These ox carts were entirely black, with enclosed carriages.
The black oxen pulling the carts were draped in thick leather covers, looking like old oxen wearing leather coats. By simply pulling the hood on the ox's head forward, the head could be completely covered for the night.
Lin Hui sat on the last small ox cart in the driver's seat, holding a whip, following the four carts ahead.
The black ox he bought was old and slow, but it was steady. The cart ride was smooth and not bumpy, perfect for him to sit cross-legged and rest.
On this trip, he just needed to get enough Tree Scorpion tails; his father could supplement the rest of the herbs.
Actually, if he wasn't in a hurry, he could wait for his father to get them, but since he could speed up the collection himself, Lin Hui felt there was no need to waste time. Accelerating evolution as soon as possible was the true path.
Combined with the need to avoid trouble, he simply went alone.
'Hopefully, Master won't cause trouble over there.'
Halfway there, thinking of the exploration team from the Inner City and the Hundred Flowers Sect search team, he was somewhat worried about his senior sister causing trouble. Although he had warned them before leaving, they were still too close...
The journey was uneventful. It took two days for Lin Hui to drive the cart to Shiqiao Town.
After temporarily storing the ox cart at a carriage agency, he took his sword and empty bags and charged straight into the suburban mist zone alone.
Gray mist permeated the air. Inside the spherical cavity created by the Tranquil Incense, Lin Hui strolled slowly, gripping his sword.
His expression was vigilant, listening for movement around him at all times.
'The Tree Scorpion isn't a Harmless-level monster, but an Intrusive-level one. This level corresponds to Internal Force experts... Killing just one allows me to mix ten doses of All-Essence Powder with other herbs. Very cost-effective...'
Materials from an Intrusive-level monster could be exchanged for over a hundred thousand coins. This was precisely why the income of Internal Force experts from hunting far exceeded that of ordinary martial artists.
However, the risk was equally high. Compared to the stable income of teaching in a martial hall, if one accidentally encountered a pack of monsters while hunting, the outcome...
Only because Lin Hui was confident in his movement speed did he dare to come alone. Partly for materials, and partly to test his current full strength.
Especially the Sealing Array Toxin. This trump card had never been used in actual combat. Without testing it in combat, he might fail when he truly needed to use it against an Internal Force expert.
He had to determine when to use it, how to follow up after using it, and so on.
After moving slowly forward for over ten minutes, Lin Hui faintly heard the clash of weapons from the far right, but the sound soon faded and disappeared.
He paused vigilantly, confirming nothing was approaching, before continuing forward.
The mist zone here was full of black, withered trees of varying thickness. The trees formed a forest, mist permeating between them, the ground covered with withered leaves. Walking on them produced crisp sounds, and he occasionally had to reach out to push aside blocking twigs.
Lin Hui put the Tranquil Incense into a specially made leather belt pouch with one hand, then gripped his sword with both hands, crossing an upward slope.
Ahead appeared a massive fallen tree trunk. The trunk, over a meter thick, extended into the mist, its length invisible.
Many areas of the rough black surface had rotted, growing gray-white, unknown fungi.
The trunk blocked the way. On the right was a crooked wooden sign with scrawled, messy writing: [Ahead: Myriad Blood Valley. Danger Level: Intrusive.]
The writing was red, eye-catching, and clear.
'This is the place.'
Lin Hui took a deep breath, tightened his grip on the sword, jumped lightly over the trunk, and walked inside.
He had only walked a dozen meters.
Chi!
A black light flashed from the right, flying toward his chest.
The black light was extremely fast, shooting out from the mist and traversing the cavity supported by the Tranquil Incense in an instant.
This speed far exceeded any opponent Lin Hui had encountered before. Even his master, Mingde, wasn't as fast as this black light.
But he was no longer what he used to be. Having completed the Body Tempering of the Seven-Section Swift Sword, his reaction speed and movement technique had reached a level unimaginable to ordinary people.
The moment he saw the black light fly out of the mist, he activated his special effect.
'Featherweight Ascension!'
In that instant, the Clear River Sword in his hand flicked upward, precisely dotting the black light.
A massive impact force was transmitted from the sword tip, nearly knocking Lin Hui's hand askew, but he ultimately managed to flick it away by force.
Whoosh.
At the same time, a massive black shadow, fully four meters tall, crawled slowly out of the mist in front of Lin Hui.
It was a giant black scorpion covered in black armor, swaying its tail left and right!
'This is the Tree Scorpion?!'
Lin Hui narrowed his eyes, relevant intelligence collected beforehand flashing through his mind.
This was his first time engaging a full-strength, unexhausted Internal Force-level opponent head-on—and a strong one at that. Perhaps this could test the upper limit of his true strength...