Lin Hui retracted his gaze and looked at the three evolution branches at the bottom of his vision.
’The Hell Shocking Wind Sword has a corrupting power. It could easily attract unwanted attention from beings far beyond my level. Not suitable.’
’The Aurora Wind Energy Elental Sword is mainly for area-of-effect damage and consus a massive amount of energy. The key issue is that it’s difficult to sit still in a place of great winds for that long. Here, I have to get up at night to find shelter from the fog, and thirteen days is too long, with too many variables.’
Finally, his gaze fell upon Typhoon Swordsmanship.
It was the most suitable option—clean, without corruption, environntally friendly, and still powerful. Most importantly, its evolution requirents were simple.
It only required two seven-year periods—fourteen years in total.
’I have dicinal concoctions that can shorten the ti to a quarter of the original. Plus, with the thirteen stalks of Yun Lingzhi I have left, each one reduces the ti by three months, which adds up to over three years. So, for the fourteen-year requirent, I’ll first consu the Yun Lingzhi to cut off more than three years, then slowly take the dicinal concoctions. I should be able to complete the entire evolution within three years.’
’This is the absolute limit; it can’t be shortened any further...’ Lin Hui sighed. He turned to head back.
Suddenly, his body stiffened, and he froze on the spot.
Behind him, to the right of the hill, a silent figure in a silver goat mask had appeared at so unknown point.
The person was of a similar build to him, with a long saber at his waist. He wore a black leather trench coat, open to reveal a muscular chest and a tuft of golden chest hair that fluttered in the wind like a golden ascot.
"My friend, am I disturbing you?" the man in the goat mask said softly. "I happened to be passing by and heard you sigh. It made curious, so I stopped to see what was the matter."
"That’s a rather flimsy excuse," Lin Hui said calmly.
"I just needed a pretext. Don’t take it too seriously," the man in the goat mask chuckled, his voice clear and bright. He seed to be a young man.
"Are you looking for for a specific reason?" Lin Hui stared at the man, seemingly having guessed his intentions.
"Allow to introduce myself. My humble na is Fang Tiancheng, from the Inner City’s Fang Family. The Fang Family is a major clan within the Governnt Office, with many mbers holding important positions," the man in the goat mask explained.
"So, Brother Fang, you’re also here to propose a collaboration?" Lin Hui asked.
"Precisely. However, it seems I’ve arrived a little late," Fang Tiancheng said with a smile. He didn’t seem disappointed. Instead, he took off his mask, revealing a handso, sunny, and cheerful face.
"You don’t seem to care at all?" Lin Hui was a bit curious.
"That’s right. The family is the one who loses out on the collaboration, what’s it got to do with personally? I get a fixed fee for making the trip anyway," Fang Tiancheng laughed.
"True... It must be nice to be one of you Inner City People. You don’t have to worry about anything, no need to live in fear every day..." Lin Hui said.
"What are you talking about?" Fang Tiancheng was speechless. "There’s sothing wrong with your persecution complex. The Outer City might be a bit dangerous, but it’s not as exaggerated as you make it out to be, is it?"
"Monsters in the Fog Area, the nightti mist, the disappearances every year... you don’t think that’s dangerous enough?" Lin Hui scoffed.
"Have you seen it with your own eyes?" Fang Tiancheng retorted.
"..." That question actually made Lin Hui pause.
Seeing this, Fang Tiancheng continued. "I think you’ve spent too much ti in arduous training and have lost touch with the lives of ordinary people. If the Outer City were really that dangerous, how did you manage to grow up? How have the people around you—your friends, your companions—survived all these years?"
"..." That question really stumped Lin Hui.
"Observatory Master Lin, you don’t really understand the lives of Outer City People. Perhaps you once did, but the person you are now is no longer the person you were," Fang Tiancheng replied. "But even though we can’t sign an official agreent, we could try a private collaboration. Observatory Master Lin, your Body Technique is truly outstanding."
"What kind of collaboration?" Just then, Lin Hui confird his choice with the Blood Seal, selecting the evolution for Typhoon Swordsmanship. The characters in his vision vanished instantly, and only then did he turn his full attention to Fang Tiancheng.
"It’s simple..." Fang Tiancheng quickly described a plan that was far inferior to the one Wang Yueheng had offered.
Lin Hui had no objections. To him, money was just a number, as long as he could buy enough dicine. With his father earning money now, their family was raking in cash hand over fist every day. He didn’t need to worry about it at all.
After confirming the new collaboration model with Fang Tiancheng, Lin Hui’s mind kept replaying the man’s words from their first eting.
Returning to his residence, he shut himself in. He consud every last stalk of Yun Lingzhi, one after another. Aside from eating, drinking, and other bodily needs, he remained in seclusion, cultivating his Inner Strength and gnawing on the Yun Lingzhi.
For two consecutive weeks, Lin Hui did not take a single step outside. He kept at it until he had eaten all the Yun Lingzhi, reaching a point where the re sight of one made him want to vomit.
But the benefits were also apparent.
The fourteen-year requirent for Typhoon Swordsmanship was imdiately reduced to ten years and five months.
Only then did Lin Hui begin his daily regin of taking dicine.
During the period of taking the dicine, he was mostly free to move about.
Now that there was no urgent danger looming, and his rivals were sensible enough to beco collaborators, things had changed.
Qingfeng Temple officially possessed a quota for sending people into the Inner City.
Lin Hui took advantage of a break while preparing for a celebration to make a trip ho, visiting his mother, father, and Second Mother.
After finishing his Body Tempering and Inner Strength cultivation, he recalled Fang Tiancheng’s earlier words. A sense of unease lingered in his heart.
So, he left Qingfeng Temple, and even left Xinyu Town, strolling aimlessly along the main road leading away from the town.
From ti to ti, swift horse-drawn carriages sped past on the road, their wheels carving new tracks into the thick, accumulating snow.
On both sides of the road, a series of small, wooden courtyard houses passed him by.
From these courtyards, he could occasionally hear the sound of brooms sweeping away snow.
Before he knew it, Lin Hui once again found himself standing before the towering Fog Wall.
Ahead, an exhausted trade caravan was slowly erging from the fog, passing by him on his right.
Lin Hui watched them, still guessing which faction they belonged to, when suddenly, more than a dozen n in black vests and lon-skin caps rushed out of a courtyard on the side of the road.
These n skillfully rushed to the caravan’s side, helping up so of the more obviously injured mbers and guiding them toward the courtyard.
They began to treat the injuries, and then the caravan mbers took out a portion of their goods as paynt.
Soon, cart after cart of transported goods was transferred to the n in black vests from the small courtyard.
The two parties exchanged goods for services with a practiced ease that suggested they had done this many tis before.
This scene attracted not only Lin Hui’s attention but also that of a few other passersby, who all stopped to watch.
One of them, who was standing a bit closer, noticed the fresh, unaccustod look on Lin Hui’s face and couldn’t help but sigh.
"Are you also waiting for family or friends, sir?"
"..." Lin Hui didn’t reply, only glanced at him.
The man seed to have filled in the blanks himself and sighed again.
"These Fog Area caravans... even though the routes are well-established, the casualties are still high. My eldest son died halfway through a journey... Now my second and third sons are still in the sa line of work. I don’t know when they’ll ever be free of it..."
"Why don’t they find a different job?" Lin Hui asked after a mont of silence.
"Change to what? These days, every job has its risks. It’s better to stick with what we know best, what we have experience in. At least one trip in this trade can feed us for a year." The man gave a self-reassuring smile, took a long-stemd pipe from his pouch, lit it, and took a drag, exhaling a puff of smoke.
"My family started out as farrs. But because you can’t work at night—the mont the sky starts to dim, you have to leave ti to get back, or it’s too dangerous—the harvest was never very good. Then one day, my wife suddenly fell ill. We didn’t have the money for a doctor, and she was gone in just a few days.
"From that day on, my two sons and I understood. A man doesn’t just live to survive; he has to earn money! He has to live like a human being!"
"In this Outer City, even when you go out, you can’t go too far. The mont it gets a little dark, you have to calculate your travel ti back, or you’ll be stuck outside overnight, which is extrely dangerous," he said softly.
"If you’re unlucky and run into strong winds while spending the night outside, and the wind blows open even a small gap in the furs covering you, not even a Jade Talisman will save you. A person is just gone in a flash." The man waved his hand, trying to describe how fast it happens.
"The first ti I went out on a caravan run, we were spending the night in the Fog Area. I personally saw a veteran in our group... the wind blew open a gap in his coverings, he didn’t notice, and the result..."
The man rambled on. It seed that having a quiet listener like Lin Hui was to his liking, so he kept talking nonstop, as if letting out years of pent-up words all at once.
Lin Hui listened quietly without interrupting.
For so reason, he felt he was beginning to understand the way of survival for the ordinary people of this world, the ones with the least presence.
They were like ants, taking as many risks as possible during the limited safe hours to desperately earn money, to carve out a space for their own survival.
They were like that, but what about him?
He suddenly felt a little lost. Ever since awakening the mories of his past life, he had been driven forward by an imnse sense of crisis.
But now, with the increase in his strength, that once-intense sense of crisis had slowly faded and weakened.
The disappearances would never happen to him. His father’s business was developing well, and he even had connections to the Inner City. Everything seed to be heading in a good direction.
But was he truly happy?
Was this kind of life really what he wanted?
For a mont, Lin Hui felt the confusion of having lost his goal.
He watched the caravan. After unloading their goods and wounded, they quickly took on new carts from the courtyard, turned around, and slowly walked back into the Fog Area, embarking on their return journey.
’Perhaps I should get to the bottom of this Jade Talisman business. Then, I can use the Summoning quotas to cultivate so of my own people, stabilize the situation, and then go see what the Inner City is like... ’
Compared to the vast Inner City, the Outer City was like a gray area, a buffer zone between it and the Fog Area.
’After I’ve seen everything I want to see, maybe I’ll find a quiet place I like, marry a wife, have a child, and then live a peaceful life, waiting to grow old. Maybe one day, I’ll be just like that old man, standing at the edge of the Fog Area, waiting for my own child to co ho safely.’
Lin Hui’s mind was a whirlwind of complex thoughts. For so unknown reason, he looked up at the snow-filled sky.
Across that gray, hazy canopy, an invisible, cold wind was also blowing, scattering the snowflakes into slanted lines as they fell.
He watched the cold wind that blew the snow. Though it was invisible to his eyes, Lin Hui felt a strange sensation.
He seed to understand so essential nature of the wind. It was like the fate of the old man’s family he had just described—impermanent, chaotic, and unpredictable.
"Does the snow give rise to the wind, or does the wind bring the snow?"
Lin Hui gently caught a snowflake, watching it lt in his palm.
In that instant, a line of text inexplicably appeared at the bottom of his vision.
’Notice: Due to your enhanced understanding of the characteristics of the calamitous wind, the progress of your Typhoon Swordsmanship has been shortened by one month.’
"!?" Lin Hui was stunned.
The evolution progress can be shortened like this??
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