Ancient Strengthening Technique

AST 866 – Arriving at the Sky Penetrating Mountains, The Strength of Golden Jiao King?

Looking at Sword Qi that shrouded him, Qing Shui raised his speed to its limit. The powerful Cloudmist Steps had many types of steps fused in it. In addition to the Nine Continents Boots that he was wearing on his feet, Qing Shui was still very formidable in speed.

The steps of the woman were agile and graceful like a butterfly, yet as quick as a snake. Her sword technique was also growing swifter. Qing Shui was already pressured in dealing with her. If he had to withstand this, he must retaliate.

He couldn’t use his Hidden Weapons. Putting aside the issue of being able to cause injury, they weren’t suited for sparring.

He took out the Big Dipper Sword and immediately resisted her advances with the Basic Sword Techniques. When it came to the realm of Sword Techniques, Qing Shui had not seen anyone better than him. Rather than swapping pointers, it was more like they were swapping sword technique pointers.

Neither party used their full strength and they didn’t go further than necessary. Although the ‘Basic Sword Techniques’ was simple, it was most direct without any flashy movements. Even for Qing Shui’s current realm, it remained simple and unsophisticated with a strange imposing beauty. It was easy to be neglected for its simplicity.

The woman had only found out how high this young man’s sword technique realm actually was along with his speed during their exchange. She only realized now that everything this man knew was top-notch. His cooking skills, sword techniques and drawing…..

“Just what else does he know? What is his strength?”

The woman seemed to have realized that she was wondering about too many things. Why was she wondering so much? But then again, she couldn’t stop herself from wondering and she didn’t know why either. She merely wanted to know how he could cultivate all these to such a realm.

Perhaps her mind wandered when she was thinking, she seemed to be unaware when Qing Shui’s sword stopped at her neck. By the time she snapped back to reality, her Mystical Connection Divine Sword had already cut Qing Shui on his shoulder.

Qing Shui thought that this would be considered over the moment his sword had reached her delicate neck. He didn’t expect it to be over this quick either, although it was just a simple spar.

“How sharp. It’s simply all-conquering.” Qing Shui took a look at the wound on his shoulder. Blood was gushing out from it. He didn’t expect things to turn out this way at all. He wasn’t on his guard so this woman managed to stab him very easily.

Qing Shui was dazed. The look in his eyes was a little strange. Fresh blood stained his entire shoulder crimson very quickly. The woman was startled before she frantically apologized, “I’m so sorry.”

The woman actually came over. She held Qing Shui’s arm, took out medicine and poured some on it. Qing Shui could smell a faint delicate fragrance in the air as the woman approached. It smelled very nice. It was the best fragrance in the world.

“It’s alright, I was the one who didn’t evade.” Qing Shui silently moved a step backwards and pulled his arm out of her grasp.

“I’m really sorry!” The woman had a very serious look on her face and was very apologetic.

“Injuries are unavoidable in sparring. I’m alright, I’ll go clean up the wound,” Qing Shui laughed in a relaxed manner.

“I’ll help you dress it.” The woman offered after hesitating for a moment.

“I can do it myself. There’s blood all over, it’s better you don’t touch.” Qing Shui smiled after he finished his sentence and then made his way behind the big tree that was not too far away.

.

Qing Shui had declined her good will because he didn’t want to be involved with her. Not even a little. Especially in this kind of situation, he didn’t want to have any physical contact with her.

That was because he knew that this type of woman basically had never experienced any contact with men. Perhaps she had said something like this today because she was apologetic. However, Qing Shui didn’t want her to do something like that because he was also afraid. Not only that, this type of woman was especially clingy.

The woman watched Qing Shui’s silhouette. This was the first time a man had rejected her and had refused her offer to dress his wound. She didn’t know what to feel. Should she rejoice, be happy or be disappointed?

Disappointed? No. She had met a man with some integrity…..

If Qing Shui had known about the thoughts of this woman, he wouldn’t know what to think.

He took off his bloody clothes and applied some medicine. Qing Shui had a very special constitution. His speed of recovery was very fast. After simply dressing the wound, he changed his clothes and came out.

When he came out, he saw that the woman was still there in the distance. She seemed to be waiting for him. Qing Shui walked over to her. It was still very early right now. The sparring earlier had lasted only for a little while so he still had to go through his morning practice.

“Is it serious?” The woman asked apologetically. After all, he got stabbed by her before they even entered the Sky Penetrating Mountains. They would be reaching the Sky Penetrating Mountains very soon so she was actually very worried, in a guilty way.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry. My body recovers very fast. It’ll be completely healed by tonight at the latest. I’m going to practise my fist for a while,” Qing Shui finished his sentence with a smile and walked away to somewhere a little further.

The woman opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. She thought that Qing Shui would return……

She had done it on purpose, although she felt very apologetic about it.

Otherwise Qing Shui wouldn’t be hurt.

After Qing Shui walked away, his mood grew a little heavy. He didn’t know what attitude he should show her. Accidentally? She should be able to feel the sword on her neck. For someone with that strength, it was impossible for her to be distracted. Even if she was distracted, he would be able to tell from looking.

Although she might have something on her mind at that time, that stab must have been on purpose. She wanted him to return now so she thought of injuring him so that he wouldn’t be able to go to the Sky Penetrating Mountains. After all, this wound normally wouldn’t completely heal in less than a month.

Qing Shui slowly practised his taichi fists iat a distance as thoughts kept running through his mind. Should he go alone or go with her? He could only guess at the reason why she had done this on purpose but not the exact reason.

However it was simply impossible for a situation like this to happen for someone with her strength.

The woman watched Qing Shui’s silhouette and the slow movements of his fists. She was really distracted earlier but it wasn’t to the extent where she would cause an accidental injury. This was a spontaneous decision on her part and she had even subconsciously decided to do it, although it didn’t seem to have achieved the end result that she desired.

The woman from Mu Clan sighed before making her way towards the tent.

After Qing Shui returned this time, breakfast had already been prepared. However the taste was as different as heaven and earth compared to last night. In fact, it was actually rather hard to swallow.

“Cough cough. We have been eating this before. Let’s all stop behaving like this. Besides, we can’t always let Qing Shui cook!” The fourth uncle of the Mu Clan woman, Mu Yiping said gloomily. He also thought that the food tasted very bad.

Since their previous meal was delicious, which was rare for them, the disparity between that and this was simply too great.

Qing Shui also knew now that the Fourth Uncle of that woman from Mu Clan was called Mu Yiping and her other Sixth Uncle was Mu Yiang. Among the elderly men, other than Mu Yiping and Mu Yiang, the others were addressed as Third Uncle, Seventh Uncle and Eighth Uncle. Qing Shui didn’t know the name of that woman from Mu Clan, neither did he have any intention of finding out right now.

The two grandmothers weren’t directly related to the Mu Clan but had been in the Mu Clan for a hundred years so they were basically no different than the Mu Clan people. The woman from Mu Clan addressed them with Granny. It seemed like they had watched the woman of Mu Clan grow up.

They continued their journey towards the Sky Penetrating Mountains after they packed up. No one other than the woman knew of the incident where Qing Shui was stabbed and no one had realized it so far either. The woman always seemed a little guilty whenever she looked at Qing Shui.

This had even became a little knot in her heart.

She thought that her actions were a little too petty. After all, she had already agreed yet she still did something like this even though her motive wasn’t a malicious one.

Qing Shui hadn’t had much reaction from the beginning to the end but he had refused to let her dress his wound and this flustered her a little. Despite everything, this was her first time being rejected by someone.

After two days, the Sky Penetrating Mountains had came into view in the distance. They would arrive in another two hours.

They saw quite a number of people along their way. They were all riding on a flying beasts and looked strong. This had broadened Qing Shui’s horizons quite a lot. It seemed like there were really many people coming to the Sky Penetrating Mountain everyday and on top of that, they were all powerful cultivators.

“Let’s take a break o the outskirts of the Sky Penetrating Mountains for tonight. We’ll go in early tomorrow morning,” the woman suggested to everyone.

Qing Shui saw that there were a lot of tents pitched in the surroundings. It seemed many people had made the same decision too. Looking at the sky, only half of the afternoon had passed. There was still quite some time left before nightfall.

He raised his head to look at the mountains that penetrated the skies. The towering and enormous mountain silhouettes gave people a heavy feeling. Qing Shui had felt the same way when he was at the Giant Beasts Mountains and it deserved to be called dangerous grounds.

“Is your arm alright?” The woman’s voice came from Qing Shui’s side. She had tried to slow down their journey as much as possible and also ensured that they reached here at this time. This way, they would be able to stay one night in the outskirts of the Sky Penetrating Mountains.

Qing Shui turned his head around and smiled, “It’s completely healed.”

He rolled his sleeve all the way up to his shoulder and revealed a scar that was only about three inches long. He didn’t want this woman to keep thinking about it so he helped her to eliminate her worries.

Seeing that scar that no longer seemed significant, the woman inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

“Give me some brief explanations about these Sky Penetrating Mountains!” Qing Shui realized that both of them really didn’t have much to talk about with each other.

“Sure!”

The two of them walked slowly toward the Sky Penetrating Mountains, their walking pace was very slow. Then the woman spoke up. “The dangers in the Sky Penetrating Mountains are hard to predict. Not only are there formidable demonic beasts and poison beasts, the Qi of Xiantian cannot be activated in some places. Then there are also poisonous miasmas, poisonous insects and herbs. All kinds of deadly dangers lurk around here. But a thousand li into the Sky Penetrating Mountains is still relatively safe. Most people hunt for treasures around this area.” The woman provided a brief explanation.

When Qing Shui heard this, he wasn’t really bothered about the poisonous things as he wasn’t really allergic to any of those. However, he was startled as soon as he heard about how the Qi of Xiantian might not be able to be activated and agreed that this Sky Penetrating Mountains was indeed dangerous. There should be some powerful demonic beasts dwelling in there or some mystical objects.

Mystical objects existed in the World of the Nine Continents. For example, the ‘God Slaying Stone’ that was classified by grades. Different grades would prevent cultivators or demonic beasts of the same level within a specific range from activating the Qi of Xiantian and dantian energy so that they could only use their physical strength. This was why some special buildings would utilize the suppression of the God Slaying Stone. Every single one of them was a priceless treasure.

Basically most cultivators could only use 1% of their strength when they were unable to activate their Qi of Xiantian or if their dantian was sealed. Some cultivators would even instantly be crippled into an ordinary person.

Other than areas where Qi of Xiantian couldn’t be activated, there were also some demonic beasts of Chieftain level. They also possessed mysteriously formidable strength and were very reactive on their territory.

“How far did you manage to go when you all went to the Sky Penetrating Mountains before?” Qing Shui asked after thinking for moment.

“Ten thousand li. That was our limit.” The woman answered Qing Shui.

“Where is that Golden Jiao King roughly located? Will it be further than ten thousand li?” Qing Shui asked with a smile.

The woman gave Qing Shui a weird look before finally answering him, “The Golden Jiao King should be further away than ten thousand li but the people from the Cheng Clan were very unlucky. They bumped into it right around the ten thousand li range.”