Chapter 98: State

"Now, I can learn a new martial art again."

"Raise the Great Spirit Technique to perfection!"

A rough, hot current exploded inside him, spreading rapidly through his entire body.
Gradually, Qin Yi began to feel a tingling, prickling pain wherever the warmth passed.

In his mind, that lone figure kept practicing the Great Spirit Technique in furious repetition.

Five years of grueling cultivation.
Ten years of grueling cultivation.
Thirty years of grueling cultivation...

When that figure had pushed the Great Spirit Technique to its highest realm, he suddenly understood a secret move.

Qin Yi opened his eyes. His clothes were already drenched in sweat.
"Mm? This time the Great Spirit Technique only increased my strength by about ten percent. Why is it so much weaker than other arts, compared with before?" Qin Yi frowned faintly.
Last time, the Giant Elephant Force had increased him by thirty percent. This time only ten.
The Great Spirit Technique was not supposed to be a weaker art than the Giant Elephant Force—it was, after all, primarily a power-forcing cultivation.
Yet deep inside, Qin Yi had a vague idea of what might be happening.

"Try one more time, and you'll know. Bring the Returning Sea Technique to perfection!"

A burst of soundless force radiated again through him like an explosion of heat.

In the blink of an eye—twenty minutes later—Qin Yi checked again the changes and the growth of his strength.

"This time, bringing the Returning Sea Technique to perfection increased my strength by less than five percent!" Qin Yi rubbed his jaw.
"It’s possible that next time I learn another art, the amplification to my strength and speed will be almost negligible."

That was his suspicion.
Earlier, Li Yayuan had once said that humans had limits.
Perhaps he was now approaching the limit of his own mortal body.

Martial practice, after all, is the process of strengthening the body.
He had trained so many arts that his physical constitution had been continuously improving.
Now, with so many techniques piled together, his body had likewise been undergoing compounded training. Once the body reached a certain height, it might simply be unable to grow further.
It is like a bowl of water: once it is full, no matter how much more you pour in, it will not hold. It only spills out.
And the spilling might even accelerate the body’s collapse,
because it cannot bear any more water.

"Still, on the whole, I am stronger than before," Qin Yi thought privately.

"System!"
Qin Yi had called out, and the interface replied.

... (omitted)

Great Spirit Technique: Perfect (Shaking Heaven)
Returning Sea Technique: Perfect (Return to One)
Contemplation Method: Realization of Truth
Energy: 471

"I’ve gained two more secret techniques." Qin Yi felt as though his cache of secret arts had become crowded and overgrown.
He had no choice—after all, he had learned so many arts.
From last time he clashed with Wu Yulong, he could sense that Wu Yulong, with nine complete arts, was far stronger than ordinary when employing secret techniques.
That was precisely why he had won then: Wu Yulong's base speed and strength, amplified by nine arts, had reached a terrifying level, and then combined with secret techniques.
Otherwise, at this same tier, truly few could match him.

He checked the sky, took a bath, changed his clothes, and then ate a good meal.
After eleven at night, Qin Yi quietly came to where Li Yayuan was.

When she saw him arrive, Li Yayuan said, "Let’s go."

"Where are the people of the Forbidden Martial Hall?" Qin Yi asked.
"At the relay inn outside the city."
She set off first, Qin Yi following close behind.
Both were masters, and it did not take long for them to scale the city wall and leave.

Three li beyond the northern edge of the city, at a fork in the road in the woods, more than twenty figures suddenly emerged, all dressed in dark night robes.

"We have met you, Flag Master." The group bowed to Li Yayuan.

"Move."
Qin Yi followed them and continued north for another five li.
The group lay in ambush among the trees.

"Qin Feng, the Forbidden Martial Hall people are resting in that inn up ahead. Three Ninth-Rank disciples and more than twenty Forbidden Martial Guards. We move in quietly first, then strike."
"Alright!"
"Advance!" Li Yayuan touched the tip of her toe and floated first toward the brightly lit inn ahead.
Qin Yi vanished from sight at the same time.
The twenty-odd men in black followed in a rush.

The four Forbidden Martial Guards at the gate were silently neutralized by Li Yayuan and Qin Yi.
Just as they were about to move toward those rooms on the first floor:
"Who goes there!"
The voice thundered.
Three black shadows burst out, doors torn open from three rooms.

The first to rush out was a bearded man of about forty.
The other two were in their thirties. To Qin Yi’s surprise, one of them was Guo Hu—the same one who had been there before, during the ambush of Senior Zhang Daoxuan in Jiangning County.

"You take the two behind me. I’ll handle the big bearded man!" Li said, and before her words were fully gone, she swept toward the strongest of the three.

The two quickly locked together, and the fight became fierce and close.
Qin Yi likewise charged toward Guo Hu and the two Ninth-Rank men.
In an instant, the whole inn erupted into chaos—a storm of battle.

"Rong, surround and kill him!" Guo Hu, seeing Qin Yi charge forward instead of retreating, barked to Rongning beside him.
"Fine!"
Qin Yi had just sprinted halfway when he suddenly pushed off with his foot—stone slabs shattered beneath him.
His speed surged abruptly.
He became a black streak, suddenly appearing before the two men.

Rongning looked up at that hand-claw that had somehow appeared before his throat before he even knew it; his heart seemed to stop.
The acceleration had been too sudden—too fast for him to react.
"Iron Plank Bridge!"
Rongning’s head snapped backward as he forced out a desperate Iron Plank Bridge move.
His body arched back, and for a moment he could see that he had barely avoided that fatal swipe.

But just as he tried to roll and spring up, a searing pain shot through his neck, as if blood were gushing out.

"No—" Rongning cried out. He had clearly evaded that strike—how could that be?
A hallucination?
Yet before he could finish, he found his throat flooded with fresh blood, and he could not speak again.
It was real.
What he had believed was an escape from the strike had only been an afterimage.
Such speed was terrifying.

That was the last thought Rongning had. His body collapsed to the ground as his consciousness sank into darkness.

"Breaker Army!"
Guo Hu had not been able to adjust to Qin Yi’s abrupt acceleration either, but when he saw Qin Yi attacking Rongning, he did not hesitate and swung at him.
The blade in his hand turned to black light and cut into that black silhouette.
In the next instant, Guo Hu felt a strange lightness in his hand, and his heart tightened.
"Bad—it's empty!"
"Guo Censorate Inspector, long time no see," said a voice from behind him, ghostlike and calm.
Guo Hu did not hesitate; he turned and slashed once more.