"Senior Brother, such impressive skills!"
Wei Wude met Yan Chuan in private and was awestruck, yet still doubtful: "Once mastered, the ’Golden Blade Palm Technique’ can truly let one remain unflustered amidst the Sword Forest, capable of defeating a hundred men?"
Why didn’t he believe it?
"Defeating a hundred men is a bit tough."
"But with persistence, without enduring twenty years of hardship, facing twenty or thirty men wielding sharp weapons would be no problem at all."
Defeating a hundred men?
Ultimate skills are certainly hard to achieve!
Yan Chuan could easily shuttle among ninety-six steel blades in the Sword Forest not just because of his ’Golden Blade Palm Technique’, but more due to the foundation of ’Cheng Family Boxing’, and the recently developed ’Hundred Variations of Divine Flow’.
Through conventional practice of ’Golden Blade Palm Technique’, defeating twenty or thirty is already the limit.
"Now that’s more like it."
Wei Wude breathed a sigh of relief.
If it really was the skill to defeat a hundred men, even though he was already an arrest officer, he would still be tempted to retrain himself.
As for defeating twenty or thirty, it just wasn’t worth it.
Wei Wude’s thoughts turned, and he inquired curiously: "In July, Senior Brother created eighteen ultimate skills—’Iron Arm Skill’, ’Pushing Mountain Palm’, ’Pai Da Skill’, ’Leg-Kicking Skill’, ’Thousand-Pound Gate’, ’Foot Shooting Skill’, ’Snake Formation Skill’, ’Soft Bone Skill’, ’Golden Shovel Finger’, ’Iron Knee Skill’, ’Iron Bull Skill’, ’Whirlwind Palm’, ’Bamboo Leaf Hand’, ’Loach Skill’, ’Flipping Skill’, ’Iron Cloth Shirt Skill’, ’Flying Leg’, ’Roof and Wall Walking Skill’, ’Wave Wrapping Skill’. Today, there’s now an additional ’Golden Blade Palm Technique’, but apart from these, are there others?"
After seeing the ’Golden Blade Palm Technique’, Wei Wude no longer dared to belittle Yan Chuan’s ’Absolute Skills’, nor call them mere ’farming skills’.
He was very curious how many ’Absolute Skills’ Yan Chuan had created over the years.
"Besides these, only added ’One-line Through’, ’Leaping Skill’, ’Flying Skill’, ’Running Board Skill’, ’Flash Battle Technique’, ’Light Body Skill’, ’Penetration Skill’, ’Gun and Knife Immunity Skill’—eight in total, all lightweight body, movement skills."
Ever since the successful research and development of ’Divine Movement Transformation’, everything flowed smoothly for Yan Chuan, creating nine lightweight body and movement ultimate skills within three days, including the ’Golden Blade Palm Technique’.
Extremely effortless!
Wei Wude’s eyes widened.
The original eighteen ultimate skills were already quite comprehensive, now with nine more added, in terms of lightweight body techniques, the ’Absolute Skills’ were likely at the utmost level among the basics: "As one roams the Jianghu, whether you can fight is only secondary. Whether you can flee, escape, and protect yourself, that’s what’s primary. With these nine life-saving ultimate skills, the Martial Arts Hall will surely attract more to come and learn. Senior Brother, the Iron Wire Martial Arts Hall is truly revitalized!"
Yan Chuan chuckled, the survival issue of the Martial Arts Hall, with ’Absolute Skills’ and the ’Advanced Study Hall’, one focusing on the low-end market, the other on high-end tutoring market, in front of these two ’main forces’, the survival issue had long been resolved.
What Yan Chuan lacked now was more actual combat, real life-and-death battles!
Bloodthirstiness is essential!
"So, where’s the list this time?"
Yan Chuan didn’t chat much about ’Absolute Skills’ with Wei Wude, and quickly got to the point.
Wei Wude took out a stack of papers from his chest and handed it to Yan Chuan: "These are from the past ten days, along with previous updates, all included here."
Yan Chuan took the stack, flipped through it casually, a good twenty pages, densely packed with tiny handwriting, far more than previous times.
Wei Wude heard this and gave a bitter smile: "Senior Brother may not know, as the court’s efforts to promote martial arts begin to show results, the negative impacts are also many. The Martial Arts Academy teaches without discrimination, among the newly practicing New Martial Artists over ten, eight years, those who graduated by the thousands and tens of thousands. Seeing them graduate year after year, but there are only so many opportunities to earn money, and with varied natures, many turn to evildoing, committing theft, robbery, even murder and arson, or wreaking havoc. The number of these lawbreakers increases monthly, impossibly uncatchable."
The number of fugitives grows unceasingly.
Yet their strength is ever more formidable.
Even the Military Suppression Department finds it tricky, unable to catch them all, with the burden placed on Wei Wude and ordinary county constables, it becomes even more terrifying.
Left with no other choice, Wei Wude cast a wide net, compiling the lists and personal details of these fugitives into a book, distributing them to Yan Chuan and other Old School masters, New Faction elites, and the like.
Martial Arts Practitioners!
Whether New or Old School, there is no shortage of passionate heroes, fierce haters of evil. Giving them the list, maybe even without any bounty, they would actively track, capture, and eliminate them.
Stopping evil through martial arts!
Mobilizing the masses!
"Relying solely on government offices, they can never capture them all."
Although he talked a lot with Yan Chuan about this, he didn’t expect much from him. In the past two months, including the previous occasions, he delivered numerous lists to Yan Chuan, but the times Yan Chuan took action were few and far between—
Not only the most heinous.
But moderate in strength.
Also with a substantial bounty.
Yan Chuan only acts when he has absolute assurance. And in recent months, this Senior Brother spends all day at the Martial Arts Hall recruiting disciples, practicing boxing, seldom leaving except for the Advanced Study Hall.
"I’ve heard a bit about it!"
"Senior Brother should prioritize seeking the Grandmaster path; other matters can be put aside for now."
Wei Wude understood Yan Chuan; he smiled at his Senior Brother: "If Senior Brother truly becomes the last Grandmaster of the Old School, overshadowing all New Martial Artists, I, Wei Wude, would be honored!"
After discussing the main topic, Yan Chuan forcibly gave Wei Wude some pointers, then, after he left, Yan Chuan pulled out several stacks of files, including the current and ones from the past two months, and flipped through them one by one.
"Du Hanfeng of Guangling Academy, gone mad, enjoys drinking human blood, skilled in ’Six Sand Palm’, once the leader of the ’Iron Palm Alliance’ at Guangling Academy, one of the ’Guangling Ten Outstanding’..."
"’Tender Love’ Zuo Yifeng, once one of the Four Guardians of ’Coiling Silk Fist Society’ at Guangling Academy, left the academy three years ago, recruited by the Wang family, a wealthy family of Guangling County. Last month, Zuo Yifeng killed the Wang family’s second son, along with fourteen others including the elderly and women, committed heinous crimes, and fled. He is skilled in ’Coiling Silk Fist’..."
"New Martial Artists—"
Yan Chuan swiftly browsed, seeing that nearly ninety percent of the fugitives in the files organized by Wei Wude were New Martial Artists, with eighty percent hailing from Guangling Academy.
The court’s promotion of martial arts has benefits, but considerable disadvantages too.
These New Martial Artists, whose character had not been sufficiently honed, possessed greater abilities and ambitions and greater evil in their nature.
Anger arises from the heart!
Evil arises alongside courage!
They, with superior skills and courage, could commit anything at the drop of a hat, including murder, arson.
"No wonder the court is reluctant to issue open bounties or public arrests, only issuing documents within government offices and the Military Suppression Department."
New Martial Artists committing evil were manageable in small numbers, but if many, especially if manipulated by those with motives, they could become a weapon against the New Faction and Martial Arts Academy.
If it could be hidden, hide it!
Take Du Hanfeng, for instance, highly dangerous, yet the court continued keeping it under wraps. Even Yan Chuan wouldn’t have known if not for Wei Wude’s visit; he wouldn’t have been able to prepare, fortifying and equipping the ’Golden Silkworm Silk Armor’ in advance.
If unprepared, with Du Hanfeng’s surprise attack, Yan Chuan would likely have met his demise!
"Deceptive and harmful!"
Yan Chuan’s condemnation wasn’t of the court’s martial arts promotion or the New Faction and Martial Arts Academy but was directed at the court’s deliberate concealment of these extremely dangerous fugitives, its unwillingness to issue public arrest documents while desperately covering up and whitewashing peace!
This situation is common throughout history, a routine practice.
In both past and present lives, Yan Chuan couldn’t change it: "Only by strengthening oneself, being able to handle any villain, any changing situation, is the true and hard path."
He was clear-headed in his thinking.
His slender fingers skimmed over Wei Wude’s organized documents, noting a few of the extremely vicious ones that had appeared in Guangling City, with some degree of location, memorized them silently.
Yan Chuan shouldered the Red Tassel Spear, leaped over the wall, off to kill.