The Brilliant Fighting Master

Outside the Time Palace, Whitty was laying out straight, his head on his paws. He was wagging his tail and rolling his blue eyes in low spirits due to boredom.

Suddenly, he stopped wagging his tail and raised his head. He stared in one direction, then immediately dashed over as quickly as lightning.

Six sharp arrows were shot at where he had been resting. They hit nothing and imbedded themselves into the ground and rocks. They were sharp enough to kill a person.

Hah!

Whitty’s hair stood on end. He started to snarl, and his eyes turned red.

“Don’t make any trouble.”

When Whitty was about to attack, he recalled what Jiang Chen had told him before he had entered the Time Palace.

While he was distracted, a net was thrown over him, trapping him.

Whitty waved his paws, but he couldn’t manage to rip the net.

Six spears shot at him like shooting stars.

Whitty was forced to try his best to dodge them with the net on.

However, he didn’t expect the net to have barbs. While he was moving, the barbs pierced his body, and he started to bleed.

The fatal spears missed him one by one, but the last one hit his head!

Fortunately, it only grazed him instead of hitting him right on the head.

Even so, it had scratched his skin. The blood dyed his hair the same red as his eyes.

“Wow, this animal is powerful. Even the star chasing arrows couldn’t get him. And it’s able to move with the golden silk net on.”

“The net will just make it suffer. It would be better to die quicker.”

“Tut, tut, the inviting smell of blood. I’m sure it’s refreshing, very refreshing.”

Six men from the Sword Association showed up, one by one, each with a cold smile on their face. They put another arrow on their bows while speaking.

“Dada, what did you mean by ‘not making any trouble’?”

“Don’t kill anyone.”

Whitty was making a great effort to escape the net. When he had finally ripped it, he recalled the conversation with Jiang Chen six days earlier.

But before he could get out of the net, the arrows were shot at him again. This time, each one hit him successfully.

Ahh!

He had intended to growl, but the growl suddenly became a hoarse and tragic scream. Whitty fell.

“Haha, an animal is an animal. Even though it’s powerful, it’s foolish.”

“Its fate was decided when the golden silk net trapped it.”

Those from the Sword Association cheered up. They came up to Whitty to collect their trophy.

The six arrows had pierced deep into one of Whitty’s sides. He was lying in his own blood.

“What a waste. So much monster blood!”

Whitty saw feet approaching him. He was gasping for air, his eyes wide open.

He recalled the last sentence Jiang Chen had said to him the other day.

“That being said—” Jiang Chen had smiled at him mysteriously, looked around and squatted down to whisper into his ear, “If someone intends to kill you, kill him first!”

The change had happened suddenly. Whitty, dyed red by his own blood, was giving off a bright red light.

The six men from the Sword Association thought there were problems with their eyes until the six star chasing arrows in Whitty’s body were squeezed out and the six holes recovered at a speed that couldn’t be observed by the naked eye.

As Whitty stood up, the golden silk net was broken by a tremendous force and split into two.

The blood in his hair fell like raindrops.

“How?!”

The six were scared by Whitty’s sudden change.

The golden tiger stripes turned back to black. His hair was as white as snow.

Arcs of electricity erupted from his head, legs, and tail, flickering like flames.

They couldn’t see eyeballs in Whitty’s eye sockets. Instead, two thunder-like gems were glowing!

“It’s a transformation. The animal has transformed!”

“Quick!”

The six men from the Sword Association became extremely scared. They hurried to run away from Whitty and gather their star chasing arrows.

“Die!!”

Suddenly, they heard a voice.

The arrows in their hands fell. They opened their mouths wide. They couldn’t believe what they had heard.

It had spoken?

The monster could speak?

Growl!

A long, sonorous tiger growl exploded in the Hero Palace. Rocks were split. Trees collapsed.

“Run!”

The explosion made the six spit blood. They ran in different directions.

“Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!”

However, a cold voice was following them.

After each exclamation, one man died.

…

In the Time Palace, Jiang Chen had smoothly broken through the initial phase with the help of Ying Wushuang’s notes. He had become a real Reaching Heaven State. His body had become a carrier of martial arts.

A halo emerged in his Qihai, sticking close to the edge.

This was the halo of heaven.

As the halo of heaven started to turn, the power of the Reaching Heaven State would erupt.

One’s state level was decided by how many halos of heaven they had.

The Reaching Heaven State wasn’t divided into a preliminary stage, middle stage, or late stage. Instead, it had nine stages, corresponding to the number of halos of heaven the practitioner had.

One would be able to break through the Reaching Heaven State and become a revered practitioner when they possessed nine halos.

By then, Jiang Chen was in Cloud One of the Reaching Heaven State.

A turn of the halo of heaven was the process of accumulating power from exerting power.

The incredible effect caused by the extraordinary meridians was the enhancement in efficiency of one’s halos of heaven.

In the same amount of time, a Reaching Heaven State could accumulate more power than someone of a lower status, or the same amount of power could be accumulated in less time.

Both of these two could be fatal factors in a fight.

Before entering the Time Palace, Jiang Chen hadn’t been a match for Ying Wushuang, who was already past the initial phase of the Reaching Heaven State.

But by that time, he, in the middle of developing his sixth extraordinary meridian, could defeat Ying Wushuang easily.

Most importantly, in the eyes of outsiders, his strength had enhanced to ten times what it had been in less than ten days.

This was the power of the Time Palace.

My strength will improve greatly when I finish developing all of my extraordinary meridians and recover all of my holy pulses. By then, it’ll be easy for me to defeat Ning Haotian!

But why am I still a little nervous?

Jiang Chen was supposed to be happy, but he felt uneasy somehow. His instincts told him something bad had happened.

He couldn’t figure out why he had this feeling.

He looked towards the hourglass and saw there was still some sand remaining.

What should I do?

He wasn’t in a hurry to develop his extraordinary meridians, and he had just made a breakthrough in his state, so the only thing left was martial arts technique.

I haven’t fought with any powerful swordsmen recently. The improvement of my Immortal Doctrine of Sword was thanks to the enhancement of my creation of wind.

However, my knife method has improved very much.

Jiang Chen took his belt off and grasped his black knife.

This knife had been a gift from the leader of the Natural Law School, who was also his apprentice brother. The handle, the sheath, and the blade were all black. It was six inches longer than the Redcloud Sword.

The blade wasn’t very curved. It could have even been used as a sword if the back of its blade were edged.

The black color of the knife was to hide its original look, since this knife was a keepsake.

Along with the knife, he had also received the Ultimate Knife Method.

It wasn’t an average martial arts technique, but even Jiang Chen wasn’t able to judge the class of this knife method, because it contained the creation of nature and martial arts techniques that hadn’t existed 500 years ago.

It was composed of seven movements. One would be able to exert all of them once one learned them, but different people could exert them to different extents. The last special movement could be less powerful than the first movement.

So, Jiang Chen had decided to take advantage of his remaining time to work on his knife method.

“Jiang Chen, what can your right-handed knife do to enemies you can’t defeat with your left-handed sword?” Ying Wushuang asked a few days later.

The full spirit of the knife. The full spirit of the sword.

The two couldn’t add up. They were independent, so enemies that he couldn’t defeat with the full spirit of the knife, he couldn’t defeat with the full spirit of the sword either.

It was a waste of time for Jiang Chen to practice swords and knives, since enemies that could be defeated by knives could be defeated by swords, too.

But enemies that couldn’t be defeated by swords couldn’t be defeated by knives, either.

“Alas, I was impressed by the creation of nature and martial arts techniques, yet why is it so backward here in some other aspects?”

“It’s all right if you don’t know much about the development of extraordinary meridians, but don’t you know the great integration of martial arts techniques?”