Chapter 145 - Come to My House for Dinner Tonight (2 more updates! Seeking monthly passes!)

"If you have that kind of mindset, you might as well practice the skills from the Yuan Body Martial Hall more.""Even if you’re given the top-tier Martial Arts, without the corresponding talent, temperament, and understanding, it’s still useless."

This was probably Li Qianxuan’s last piece of advice to Fang Yu.

From now on, each to their own duties, Li Qianxuan would not help Fang Yu without a special reason.

After all, once they’ve set aside the initial relationship from when they first met.

The current Diao Deyi, is nothing but an underling of big brother Li Baizhen.

And big brother has too many underlings.

With hundreds of them, there are many capable people.

Diao Deyi is not worth mentioning. Naturally, he’s not worth Li Qianxuan’s special treatment.

Patting Fang Yu on the shoulder, Li Qianxuan, who had already chosen the secret manuals, walked out.

From now on, everyone would go their separate ways.

Fang Yu just felt that Li Qianxuan was acting strangely today, as if he was saying farewell.

Could it be that he also plans to play the role of a generous demon rushing to his death?

Scratching his head, Fang Yu called out.

"Mr. Li Qianxuan, are you free tonight? Come to my house for dinner, my second sister said she wants to thank you."

Li Qianxuan:...

The atmosphere!

Look at the atmosphere!

I’m thinking of having nothing to do with you in the future, and suddenly you bring up having dinner, what does that mean?

"...I have to work tonight."

"Oh... what about next time? Tomorrow? The day after? The day after that?"

Fang Yu stretched his neck and asked, but Li Qianxuan had already walked away briskly, soon disappearing from view.

"Why did he run off?"

"Shy?"

"Never thought Mr. Li Qianxuan would have such a shy side."

Fang Yu pondered thoughtfully, indeed, appearances can be deceiving.

With Li Qianxuan gone, Fang Yu could only study on his own at the Martial Hall.

He first found the on-duty person at the Martial Hall.

Not very strong, but nearly forty years old.

Glancing at the approaching Fang Yu, Sui Cunzhi asked.

"What is it?"

"I want to check my merits."

"Identity Card."

Handing over the Identity Card, upon checking.

"0 points."

Fang Yu:...

Fang Yu: ???

What???

Hasn’t it been updated yet?

Didn’t Li Baizhen say he would have someone run the process for me right away, to settle the merits for killing the demon?

Why is it so slow?

Fang Yu sulkily retrieved his Identity Card.

But Sui Cunzhi seemed experienced.

Seeing that something was off with Fang Yu, he said.

"Merits not matching up? Don’t rush, the merit settlement is usually very prompt."

"If you got merits this morning, they should be tallied before noon."

"You can first walk around inside and pick out Martial Arts; if there’s something suitable, take it first."

"When you come back to settle, perhaps your merits will be in place by then."

Fang Yu thought.

That does make sense.

The Martial Hall is really big, with three floors.

The first floor is open to ordinary members of the Foolish Underworld.

The second floor is open to members above the rank of ten households.

The third floor is open to hundred households.

At Fang Yu’s level.

He could casually browse the first and second floors.

However, since there is a threshold for going up to the second floor.

The Martial Arts on the second floor must be better.

With that thought, Fang Yu headed to the second floor first.

Upon reaching the floor, facing rows of cabinets, Fang Yu’s eyes shone.

These were all treasures.

Unfortunately, learning Martial Arts isn’t as easy as glancing at a secret manual.

Even as a player, one needs to comb through the manual, learn, understand, and practice personally.

Only when the system prompt indicates a proficiency level, lighting up the Martial Arts name on one’s personal panel, can attribute points be added to it.

Spear, sword, sword, hammer, fist, foot, leg, internal cultivation, external cultivation, miscellaneous studies...

Each cabinet is roughly organized according to the main category.

Starting from the staircase entrance.

The first row, at a glance, all hot Martial Arts of fist, kick, Sword, and sword Technique.

The further back you go, the fewer books there are on the shelves, and the more esoteric and disorganized the categories become, with some shelves even lacking labels.

Fang Yu took a quick tour around the second floor, then stopped in front of the footwork techniques section.

He randomly picked up a secret manual.

"Green Bloom Kick."

Flipping to the first page, there was a brief explanation of the Martial Arts.

Something about an unparalleled leg technique suddenly understood amidst the green blossoms.

Priding itself on leaves not touching the body, green flowers blooming en masse.

Anyway, it sounds mighty impressive, flip further back—

Level: Beginner level Flower-class Martial Arts.

Great, fits right into my stereotype of this airy-fairy kind of Martial Arts.

Continuing to flip a few more pages.

Fang Yu discovered, this "Green Bloom Kick" wasn’t all that bad.

Just not as mystical as it was made out in the introduction; clearly, the Martial Artist who created this technique oversold it.

The "Green Bloom Kick," ultimately, is fast.

But not the kind of fast meant for running away, rather the quickness of kicking out amidst a field of myriad flowers.

In simple terms, it uses rapid kicks to create multiple residual images of the leg to confuse the enemy, then conceal the true strike within them to take them down.

Basically, it’s like sneaking an attack, only that you create the opportunity for a sneak attack yourself.

Fang Yu thought, if I’m kicking out shadow images, not turning someone into a bruised mess, and still saving the hidden move for the last moment, wouldn’t that be asking for trouble?

But as he flipped further, he found the subsequent pages of the secret manual were all blank.

What’s going on?

Fang Yu was a bit flustered.

It wasn’t until the last page that he saw a line of fine print.

"Those who decide to exchange for this secret manual, please proceed to the counter to receive specific Revealing Elixir."

Ah?

Ah???

Fang Yu’s mind spun briefly before he finally understood.

Meaning to say, the manuals here only had the first few pages visible.

The rest had their text and illustrations hidden.

It isn’t until you go down to exchange for it with your merits that the person on duty will give you something like a Revealing Elixir to apply and reveal the contents of the rest of the manual.

What an odd anti-theft measure.

Fang Yu scratched his head.

He flipped open a few more secret manuals, and they were all the same.

This was awkward.

Fang Yu was thinking if there was a loophole to exploit, read through the manual, memorize its content, and practice it to see.

Maybe he’d manage to sneak past the proficiency prompt and freeload.

It seems that won’t work now.

Additionally, Fang Yu discovered something else.

Many of the popular Martial Arts had advanced versions available.

For instance, the ordinary "Flying Pigeon Sword Technique" would have the "Ten-Message Flying Bird Sword Technique" placed beside it once you’ve mastered it.

You could tell there was a connection from the name alone.

A quick look confirmed it; it was an advanced evolution of the previous Swordsmanship, naming the prerequisite "Flying Pigeon Sword Technique" necessary to learn this Martial Arts.

Otherwise, practicing halfway the sword Techinque won’t be comprehensive, it will be more trouble than it’s worth, and the power may even be less than that of other Swordsmanship of the same level.

Correspondingly, as an advanced Swordsmanship, "Ten-Message Flying Bird Sword Technique" was classified as intermediate Flower-class Martial Arts.

This interested Fang Yu.

After all, from a beginner to intermediate level of the Flower-class, that’s a good number of attribute points.

If he could start right off with an intermediate-level Flower-class ranking, the remaining attribute points could directly elevate Martial Arts to a higher level.

Instantly, Fang Yu started looking all over the second floor for intermediate-level Flower-class Martial Arts.

But after searching, Fang Yu found that most intermediate-level Flower-class Martial Arts required previous Martial Arts as a foundation.

Some just needed one beginner-level Flower-class Martial Arts.

Some needed several beginner-level Flower-class Martial Arts as a basis.

Fang Yu even took out those Martial Arts requiring multiple foundations and seriously reviewed each one.

Then, he discovered.

These foundational Martial Arts were utterly trash.

Their power, lower than others of the same level.

Their practice, more complicated than others of the same level.

Some even required specific Medicine Pills, assistance through medicine.

In short, too many restrictions, and all these foundational Martial Arts served one purpose.

That was to fulfill the basic requirements to learn the advanced intermediate-level Flower-class Martial Arts.

It’s undeniable that these demanding intermediate-level Flower-class Martial Arts do have formidable power, significantly stronger than others at the same level.

Otherwise, Fang Yu wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of finding these low-level foundational Martial Arts to study one by one.

This is like the grand fusion of seven Calabash Brothers, gearing up for something big.

Fang Yu sighed.

The excitement was there, of course.

But the problem is, it’s too much hassle.

So many foundational Martial Arts to learn, that’s too many points to spend.

This doesn’t fit his strategy for leveling up Martial Arts through the panel.