3

After that the teams were divided evenly with Hong taking care of majority while the other groups taking care of the stragglers. They hunted for only five day since within those three days almost entire horned sheep population went extinct.

On the final day, Hong once again felt depressed. The past days had been quite fun. He had adventures with people he had only seen in comics, and they were a pleasant bunch. He felt alive fighting, having a purpose, instead of simply repeating the same moves thousands of times, fully knowing that it won't be enough. So after the hunt he suddenly excused himself and went deeper into the forest.

Lu Piao unlike others had noticed his change. Unlike his usual swordsmanship, today Hong moved lethargically. Almost as if he was back in his gloom. So after the others went home, Lu Piao decided to follow him.

Following the path Hong had taken for a few minutes, Piao found himself near a small clearing. The ground had been riddled with sword marks and footwork imprints, and at the center of the clearing he saw Hong sitting with his arms propped to the ground while his sword, which had severed the life of tens of horned sheep was pierced to the ground next to him.

Hong had sensed the arrival of Lu Piao. There was another signature behind him, but seeing it was not an unfamiliar one, he had elected to ignore it.

Noticing Lu Piao sitting next to him, he smiled and started with a very commonly used conversation starter on earth.

"The moon's quite pretty isnt it?"

Lu Piao looked agast at the phrasing. He quickly scooted a few feet away"I'm not into men , gaylord".

"Neither am I " Hong replied before continuing " have you ever felt how it seems close to us, but in reality it is always out of reach?"

"Nope, don't think I've ever felt like that" the response came instantly making Hong chuckle. He felt glad to have a 'bro' to share his problems with.

"Then think of it like this. There's a erotic painting in your room" , Lu Piao's eyes brightened as he began imagining such art in his room. "And behind that painting is the women's hot spring, but you can't see it without tearing the picture " , Lu Piao's face morphed more and more perverted as he kept imagining, "But the thing is ,you can't tear the picture because the things in the room doesn't belong to you"

Seeing Hong's depressed face , Piao replied" that does sound bad, but what dose this have to do with what's bothering you?"

"It's just, I am a fighter, sure I have more explosive strength now, but it will have an end. Unlike you and our other friends, I can't cultivate, so my growth will come to an end while you and others continue moving foreward. I will know that there is a higher power but it will always be out of my reach."

"Just like the women's hot spring"

Hong let out a dry chuckle before repeating "yeah, Just like the women's hot spring "

Silence reigned for a few minutes before Lu Piao spoke up again." I don't know about you, but I would find a way to buy the house just in case" to which both laughed.

"You should go home, your father would be worried if you became late than usual" Hong told Lu Piao, to which he agreed, he invited Hong to go back together, but he refused saying he needed some time alone.

Lu Piao walked slowly meeting Nei Li on the way back.

"Is there really no way to help him out?" Nei Li had gifted them strong cultivation techniques and had knowledge in alchemical and inscription methods of ancient kindoms, so Lu Piao hoped that he might have a solution to his problems, but Nei Li's words shattered that hope .

"I don't know anything either, nothing I did worked on him" which was true. Nei Li considered Hong as a good person, he had seen the brotherly bonds between Hong and Lu Piao was nearly strong as the ones between him and brother Piao. Not to mention, when Nei Li had asked for teachings on swords, he had provided them quite enthusiastically, so he had given Hong few stronger than normal, cultivation techniques to see if any one of them would work, but it was all for nothing. Therefore after hearing Hong's reasons today he had decided to give up on him. He didn't want to Hong to join the dark guild out of envy or spread the information and techniques he would teach to his group , into wrong hands.

Sensing the absence of any other presence in vicinity, Hong let out a deep sigh. The sad face now held an expression of determination, while his eyes revealed a hint of fighting spirit that wasn't there before.

Yes Hong didn't trust Nei Li, even if he was the brother of his best friend, Lu Piao. Du Ze, Wei Nan, Zhu Xianjun and Zang ming were okay but he felt Nei Li's intentions to him to be calculating and cold, like he saw him as a pawn to move around. Not counting the half baked techniques he had given, Hong really didn't want to associate with a man who not only has deadly problems thrown at him frequently, but also makes more trouble to others surrounding him with his ego. Sure, he's a good person, but the price he would have to associate him for table scraps was not worth it.

But it wasn't all bad. As a fighter, finding a good cultivation technique for spiritualists is almost impossible. But thanks to his brief association with the old regressor, Hong managed to acquire several techniques ,higher in level than the ones present in glory city without a problem.

Hong had lived for about twenty five years in the past regression, and during that time , he had investigated and studied what the cultivation of this plane was, so he could find a way to incorporate it in his martial arts.

Upper dantian cultivation. That was what being a spiritualist means. They use heaven and earth energy to create soul force, which in turn was used to improve their dantian or soul realm, which in allows them to to store and control more spiritual energy. Demon spirits were the left over soul realms of demon beasts. They had no consciousness, or intelligence but still maintained their instincts, shape and skills that allows the spiritualists to transform and use the skills without increasing their soul realm.

Thankfully they were not able to glimpse at his soul form, due to the lack of spirit force in him, but since normally soul form presents lineage , attributes and nature, he was sure his one would be quite exotic due to the qi art was practising.

Hong moved back to his residence. A small room in the servant lodgings on the Lu clan grounds. Then taking a brush and some ink, he quickly jotted down the techniques , in English, since he might get caught or they could be lost and stuffed them into his pouch after folding them neatly.

He had collected many weak, weird and forgotten techniques from the library in his past life, and now using all of them he will deduce a perfect art that would complement and remove the main weakness of his martial art. Lifespan.

Martial arts are powerful, no one can argue with that. But unless one has talent, they would take long to gain a significant achivement in that field. Also unlike cultivation arts of many stories, most martial arts don't improve lifespan with the increase of realm. Though some can increase life expectancy, they are either demonic or had weak attack power. Hong's current martial art had used these to increase his life expectancy, but it wasn't by much as done by cultivation.

Path of Martial arts in this world were divided into many realms by Hong after identifying specific characteristics that change.

Follower -person begining to enter a martial path

Apprentice-person who can move their body according to the martial arts they practice

Martial artist-person who can use qi

Martial master-martial artists who can use qi in a specific way that makes the martial art (creating flames, plum blossoms, ice..ect )

Martial grandmaster- martial artists who have unlocked their upper, middle(heart:-physical body) and lower dantians.

Zenith-martial artists who have gained total control and have a smooth flow of energy through all meridians at all time.

Body reforming- martial artists who return their bodies to their physical prime.

Origin returning-martial artists who begin to absorb energy from the surroundings and convert it to qi.

Youth retaining-martial artists who perfected the inner and outer energy flow, they have qi flowing through their entire body, they don't completely rely on meridians to control energy.

Inner completion- martial artists who have created a pseudo body completed using qi unique to every part of the body. They are somewhat able to influence external energy with just their martial arts.

Though there are only a few levels, the strength between levels was immense. Zenith level martial artists in murim could destroy massive cliffs, hundreds of meters in hight in full powered punches, while the ones at youth retaining level could cause natural disasters for miles. Of course the tiny world was more durable with the amount of energy it contained, but these body reforming experts could destroy a peak legend rank spiritualist with relative ease.

The problem of power levels come after the law level. Law power allows spiritualists to completely control physical world without any intermediate. No matter how strong martial arts are, they can't fight when the entire world is against them. A fire law practitioner would just have to order the surroundings of the martial artist to burn and voilà, you get a well cooked martial artist.

Hong was currently a advanced martial master at the moment. He was able to reach this level quickly, only thanks to the high recovery power obtained from the super art he had made which allowed him to heal when ever he was wounded during martial art practice, using a bit of internal power and the demon beast meat, which has higher amount of energy compared to normal food .

But knowing how Nei Li's actions would hasten the arrival of the beast horde , he had to reach zenith realm as soon as possible.