Book 1 Chapter 32: Soul Warrior stage; acupoints
The night was not over yet. Only, the bright moon had already moved from one side of the sky to the other. Even the insects in the grass were making much less noise than earlier, as if they had fallen asleep because of being unable to endure the loneliness of the late night.
Bai Yunfei went out of Luoshi City right after bidding farewell to the two girls.
In front of Uncle Wu’s grave…
“Uncle Wu, I have fulfilled my promise to you. I already killed Zhang Yang with my own hands. Now you and Xiao Yu’er can rest in peace in the nether world…”
“Uncle Wu, later I probably won’t be able to come see you again. I have no intention of staying in Luoshi City and even in Qingyun Province. I want to leave this place to look for the path of my own life.
“I have decided the destination. Hopefully I can live the kind of life I want to live at that place…
“Uncle Wu, though we only spent half a day together, you gave me a warm feeling similar to what my grandpa had given me. In the end, you even died to save me… I will engrave the words said by both my grandpa and you in my heart!”
Bai Yunfei kowtowed three times respectfully to Uncle Wu’s grave. When he stood up, the sorrow on his face gradually faded away, replaced with an unparalleled determination!
“I’m leaving now, Uncle Wu. No matter what problems I will have to face in the future, I will definitely live free and with a clear conscience!”
The moment Bai Yunfei turned around and left, a subtle change suddenly occurred in his body. His body, which had always been slightly bent unconsciously, was now perfectly upright. That trace of confusion and sadness in his eyes had disappeared. Now his clear eyes were filled with confidence and resolution.
With the death of Zhang Yang, Bai Yunfei had taken his revenge and his state of mind had changed quietly again. He was already no longer that lowly and weak coolie who had struggled for survival by moving rice sacks in a rice store. Instead, he was now a powerful soul cultivator who could fight for his ideals!
An invisible aura was emitted from his body. Within this small area, the remaining several insects which were crying suddenly became quiet. Even the moonlight in the surroundings seemed to ripple because of Bai Yunfei’s aura.
“I broke through… The Soul Warrior stage!” As Bai Yunfei felt the surging soulforce in his body, he was somewhat stupefied. He raised his right hand, holding it before his eyes, and clenched it with force. It seemed he was making sure if this feeling was real or not, “For the last two days, no matter how I have practiced, my soulforce hasn’t increased at all. I also guessed that this was the sign of me being about to break through to the Soul Warrior stage. Originally I planned to go to Li Chengfeng’s place then use the Upgrade Technique under his protection to break through this final barrier. Who would have thought I would have a breakthrough in this way?!
“Looks like in additional to the increase of soulforce, a stage breakthrough is closely related to the state of mind as well. It’s good that I understand this now. Later it would save me many detours…”
Bai Yunfei walked up a hillside, turned to take a look at Luoshi City, which was still shrouded in the darkness of the night, then turned around and went in the other direction.
“Luoshi City is about to be thrown into chaos. I can’t let the Zhang family discover my whereabouts. After saying goodbye to mom and grandpa again, I’ll leave immediately…”
… … … …
The next day, the entire Luoshi City was plunged into extreme chaos and panic.
This was because almost all of the various underground forces in Luoshi City had been turned over the previous night!
Normally these dens of bullies had fearsome reputations and nobody would dare to provoke them, but it was said that a woman had single-handedly stormed these places and injured countless gangsters. The bosses of some gangs had even almost been crippled. And the enemy’s goal was only to find a person, a young girl kidnapped by a certain gang in the city.
How could a woman do this kind of thing? She certainly could, because she was a soul cultivator! Moreover, she was an extremely powerful soul cultivator! It was said that the boss of the Axe Gang, who was also a soul cultivator of the Soul Apprentice stage, had been unable to withstand even a single strike from the opponent and got one of his legs broken directly!
However, this was definitely not the main cause of the chaos in the city.
The main cause of the chaos was that the young master of the Zhang family Zhang Yang had been killed in the same night!
His body was discovered in the headquarters of a gang in the city. Zhang Yang and his two bodyguards were all dead and the members of the gang in charge of that area had all disappeared!
When Zhang Yang’s mother heard this news, she almost passed out. And when she really saw her son’s damaged corpse, she fainted immediately. Only after her servants hurriedly gave her emergency treatment did she finally slowly wake up then throw herself on Zhang Yang’s corpse and weep in agony.
“Send for master right away! Mobilize all the forces! I want everybody to carry out a search!! Search for those runaways of that gang and find out who killed my son! I want his entire family to be buried with my son!!”
Therefore, Luoshi City was plunged into chaos. Almost every family was interrogated and searched by the Zhang family’s men. Even those gangs which were dependent of the Zhang family all dragged their injured bodies around looking for the runaways.
At first, the people in Luoshi City were all at a loss, but after knowing about what had happened, they were somewhat flustered and accepted in fear to be interrogated and searched by the Zhang family’s overbearing men.
However, there was an unutterable ‘pleasant surprise’ in their heart — Zhang Yang had unexpectedly been killed! Could it be a certain deity had shown up and heard their prayers?
Of course, no matter how excited they were inside, they could not show it. Even though Zhang Yang was already dead, the Zhang family was still around. Therefore, they could only wait until the investigators had left to shut the doors, look up to the sky and laugh quietly then pray that the ‘great benefactor’ who had killed Zhang Yang would not be captured.
Luoshi City was in turmoil, the Zhang family’s men were anxious and nervous and the common people in the city were secretly celebrating — but the initiator of everything, Bai Yunfei, was hurrying to Li Chengfeng’s house.
After going quickly for a day, he was already very far from Luoshi City. He found a farmhouse in hope that he could stay there for a night. The farmhouse owner agreed very readily and refused to accept the reward money Bai Yunfei took out. He received him very enthusiastically. Even though the dinner was simple, Bai Yunfei was able to experience the honesty and enthusiasm of this family.
At night, Bai Yunfei sat with legs crossed on the bed. Holding a gray scroll in his hand with his eyes closed, he was studying the acupoint control method of the Soul Warrior stage.
A long while later, he slowly opened his eyes, but they were full of doubt. Only after staring at the scroll in his hand in a daze for a while did he put it away in the interspatial ring.
“The final stage of the Three Stages of Body Control is greatly different from the skin-flesh control and bone-blood control from before… Unlike the skin, the flesh, the bones and the blood, these so-called acupoints aren’t so easy to find at all. Even though I know where they are, I just can’t feel them.
“Plus, why does my mind feel familiar with some acupoints? It seems like I knew them before… That eye-related ‘Mingmu’ acupoint, why do I feel that it should be called ‘Jingming’ acupoint? And that‘Danchi’ acupoint in an elbow, I feel that its name is ‘Xiaohai’…”
“I always feel that there seems to be memories not belonging to me hiding in my head. They should have appeared together with that ‘Item Upgrade Technique’, but they are extremely vague and seem to be hiding in the depths of my mind. I just can’t take the initiative and examine them…
“But they don’t seem to do any harm. Plus, that feeling of familiarity with these acupoints in my mind can help me sense their existence better.
“But even though I’ve meditated several times, I still can only manage to sense the ‘Mingmu’ acupoint in the eyes. Worse still, I can barely sense its existence and can’t control it… Could it be I’m not talented enough?”
If Han Xiao, the chieftain of the Blackwood Stronghold killed by Bai Yunfei, knew what he was thinking, perhaps he would be stimulated so much that he would go back from the dead then vomit three liters of blood and die again. In the past, he could only sense the existence of the first acupoint after spending a whole month. Of course, Han Xiao was really not talented enough, but even most of those who were fairly talented would need several days to be able to sense the first acupoint when they tried to learn the acupoint control method after reaching the early Soul Warrior stage.
However, Bai Yunfei had needed less than a day before he could vaguely sense then first acupoint. What kind of ‘talent’ was this? Of course, at the moment Bai Yunfei still did not know at all how great a help this vague feeling of familiarity with various acupoints in the body would be to his cultivation…
“I can’t even sense the several most basic acupoints, how can I still practice the Wave Treading Steps?… Alas, I really look forward to this body-maneuvering soul technique. I want to practice it sooner to check it out.” With a turn of his wrist, a white scroll appeared in his hand — it was none other than the last soul technique scroll in the interspatial ring.
The Wave Treading Steps was a high human-tier soul technique which used several acupoints in the legs as the basis in coordination with a special soulforce channeling method and a special footwork pattern to increase the user’s speed and dexterity. Body-maneuvering techniques caused no direct damage but they could play an extremely important role, whether when you were fighting, giving chase or fleeing.
Bai Yunfei looked at the scroll in a daze for a long time, fantasizing about how this soul technique would turn out to be. Only after that did he put the scroll away in the ring, pat his forehead and say to himself: “I thought too much again. If I want to practice this soul technique sooner, I have to learn how to control these several dozen most basic acupoints as early as possible. At least I have to be familiar enough with acupoint control before practicing this soul technique…”
In fact, there were only about ten something basic acupoints that needed to be controlled at the early Soul Warrior stage, but Bai Yunfei was studying a ‘textbook’ given to him by that old man from the Fate School. Some of the acupoints recorded in it were relatively ‘precious’. In ordinary, small schools of soul cultivators, even only the headmasters can learn cultivation methods which used these acupoints.
However, Bai Yunfei did not know this. He only thought that they were ordinary acupoints that a Soul Warrior had to control…