Martial World

Rather than asking others, it was better to ask himself. If Lin Ming wanted to walk down the path of the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace, his dependence on pills was far too great. And, in order to make pills for the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace, each material needed was rarer than the last. Moreover, to refine them was extremely difficult, something that would be nearly impossible for anyone that wasn’t a grandmaster alchemist.

But, asking a grandmaster alchemist for help wasn’t easy to begin with. In addition to that, the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace often used ancient pill recipes, the kind that alchemists almost never refined. Even if they did, they would need to spend some time familiarizing themselves with the process. This only added another level of difficulty and a grandmaster alchemist might not be willing to waste so much time. Thus, there was no choice that would be as convenient as Lin Ming’s own alchemy ability.

“Divine runic master… alchemist… perhaps I really need to consider learning them…”

Lin Ming thought to himself. Then, at this time, a flame lit up in front of him. It was a sound transmitting talisman sending a message from Yue Liuxing.

The general gist of it was that she had completed the divine runic arts assessment with her little brother.

Yue Liuxing had been evaluated as a fourth grade inscription master, divine runic arts apprentice.

Yue Qifeng had been evaluated as a third grade inscription master, divine runic arts apprentice.

Yue Liuxing’s voice in the sound transmitting talisman was one of joy and happiness; she was clearly more than satisfied with her results. Moreover, they had both been evaluated as possessing extremely high levels of talent and were fortunate enough to be received as disciples by an Elder of the Divine Runic Masters Guild. Even though they were only ordinary disciples now, if they performed their duties well they had a chance of rising to be direct disciples in the future and possibly even being the ones to inherit the legacy of that Elder.

At that time, Yue Liuxing and Yue Qifeng would both become characters that could wield power as they pleased, mighty and unapproachable!

At the end of the message, Yue Liuxing invited Lin Ming to come and take a look at the Divine Runic Masters Guild.

This was just what Lin Ming wanted to do. He wanted to see what sort of scene the Divine Runic Masters Guild was like.

The tall pagoda where the Divine Runic Masters Guild was located was filled year round with the lingering fragrance of incense and medicine. In the skies around the pagoda, strange god runes appeared from time to time. Many martial artists that came to Divine Rune City would often come here for sightseeing and be amazed by the wondrous scenes all around them.

As Lin Ming arrived at Divine Rune Pagoda, he saw a line of martial artists all waiting to take the assessment. These people were all uncommon individuals, and in Lin Ming’s eyes, many of them could be considered heroic young elites. For Lin Ming to judge someone as a heroic young elite, they had to at least have the ability to stand tall in an ordinary World King Holy Land.

“What are they doing?”

Lin Ming could see that the content of the tests these young martial artists were taking was similar to the Seven Profound Martial House’s Ten Thousand Killing Array. They would need to enter the illusory magic array and then fight their way through to assess their strength.

“Brother Lin, over here!”

The voice of a young girl suddenly called out. Lin Ming turned to see that the one shouting to him was Yue Liuxing. She beckoned to Lin Ming from the crowd, having Lin Ming walk over.

Beside Yue Liuxing was Yue Qifeng, as well as another spiritas man.

This spiritas man had a middle Divine Lord realm cultivation. Lin Ming guessed that he wasn’t too old; for him to have this cultivation at his current age was quite rare.

“Let me introduce you, this is my senior-apprentice brother, fifth grade inscription master, third grade divine runic master Luo Yubai, Senior-apprentice Brother Liu. Senior-apprentice Brother Liu is the most magnificent direct disciple beneath my master and just completed his test to become a third grade divine runic master last year!”

Yue Liuxing clearly held deep admiration in her eyes as she introduced Lin Ming to this person. In particular, when she mentioned the words ‘direct disciple’ and ‘third grade divine runic master’, her eyes shined particularly bright as if she couldn’t conceal the envy and respect within her.

In Divine Rune City, inscription masters were divided into 12 grades and divine runic masters were divided into nine grades. It wasn’t hard to rise in grade as an inscription master, but wanting to rise in grade as a divine runic master was far, far too hard.

In the inner Asura Road, there were numerous twelfth grade inscription masters, but there wasn’t a single ninth grade divine runic master.

In fact, eighth grade divine runic masters were nearly myths unto themselves. As for ninth grade divine runic masters, they had only existed in ancient times several billion years ago; to divine runic masters, a ninth grade divine runic master was an existence close to that of god.

It was because of this extremely difficult grading system that Yue Liuxing was filled with admiration and yearning towards the term ‘third grade divine runic master’. A third grade divine runic master was high enough to receive a courteous reception from almost any large influence. This was particularly true for someone like Luo Yubai. With his extremely high talent, his future was limitless; he might even become a sixth grade divine runic master in the future. This meant that many Great World Kings would be respectful when seeing Luo Yubai, treating him with the same dignity that they reserved for their descendants.

Lin Ming glanced over Luo Yubai. This person was indeed outstanding. From looks, he seemed to be around 23-24 years old. He was tall and stood straight with an imposing and immaculate appearance. His forehead was wide and even, and he had the aura of a natural born ruler.

On his right eye was a small round lens, something that resembled a monocle. In fact, this was a common magic tool that divine runic masters used and was specifically for analyzing the structure of divine runes. He wore robes of black and white, like ink on water. The base of his clothes were white, and black ink traced lines along them. These lines were designs of divine runic inscriptions and looked natural and pleasing.

“Hello.”

Lin Ming politely greeted. Luo Yubai glanced at Lin Ming without any expression. Then, Lin Ming felt a sudden divine sense wash over his body as if it wanted to thrust into his spiritual sea and inner world, completely understanding him!

Lin Ming’s mind chilled. He immediately summoned a little power from the Magic Cube, and in addition to the Divine Mist Heart Mantra that he studied, he concealed his inner world and spiritual sea, making it so that Luo Yubai only saw faint white mirages.

With Luo Yubai’s cultivation, it was impossible for him to see through any secrets within Lin Ming. But, no one liked being probed by others, and this was the most basic form of politeness between martial artists.

Luo Yubai certainly knew this. But, as a divine runic master and also a spiritas, he was particularly skilled in the aspect of sense. In any normal circumstances, it was impossible for human martial artists of the same step to discover that he was probing them, much less Lin Ming who was at a much lower cultivation boundary.

Upon discovering that there wasn’t anything special about Lin Ming, Luo Yubai proceeded to ignore him. Since Lin Ming was a human, this made it so that Luo Yubai had fundamentally no interest in exchanging any pleasantries with him.

He pushed up the monocle on his eye and faintly said to Yue Liuxing, “These two are your friends?”

“Y-yes.”

Yue Liuxing was a bit embarrassed as she saw the lack of expression on Luo Yubai’s face.

“Mm… later, don’t bring irrelevant people to the Divine Runic Masters Guild. We’ll consider it fine just this once.”

Luo Yubai used a sound transmission to speak and didn’t say it out loud. Then, he turned and left.

But, his expression and gestures demonstrated a clear sense of superiority that caused Xiao Moxian’s eyes to twitch. She could approximately guess what Luo Yubai had said to Yue Liuxing, otherwise there was no way she would look so awkward.

“Just who does he think he is!” Xiao Moxian pouted. Yue Liuxing was frozen where she was, her face filled with an apologetic expression.

Lin Ming didn’t care about this at all. He indifferently said, “This person is an outstanding young elite of the Divine Runic Masters Guild and has an inborn sense of superiority. Unless you are an equally outstanding character it is hard to enter his view.”

Luo Yubai’s cold response hadn’t surprised Lin Ming at all. This was because Yue Liuxing’s status was insignificant to begin with; she was considered amongst the lowest echelons of the Divine Runic Masters Guild. As for the friends she invited over, they weren’t divine runic masters nor were they part of the soul race, and their cultivations were only at the peak of the early Divine Lord realm, so who would bother with seeing them?

“Imagine there is a successor of a royal family. One day, a son of a branch family with no status at all decides to invite his own common city friends for a visit. In the eyes of the world, it is impossible for that successor to treat those common city friends with any sense respect at all; in fact, that successor is likely disinclined to meet with them to begin with, because those common city friends have no value in his eyes. Currently, this other person views us in the same way.”

Lin Ming’s words were all spoken with a true essence sound transmission. Xiao Moxian was still miffed after hearing this. “What a snobby little bastard. I can beat up 10 of these people and still not be satisfied!”

“It should be more than 10.” Lin Ming smiled. “But in terms of inscription technique, he can defeat me 100 to 1 I believe.”

Lin Ming self-deprecatingly said. These words were not modesty; they were the truth.

Xiao Moxian also worried a little for Lin Ming after hearing this. “Then how do you plan on learning? Learning these sorts of things will probably require a great deal of time.”

“Yes, but I don’t plan on taking a conventional approach; I have other methods available to me. I’ve never had much contact with the Divine Runic Arts so it’s impossible for me to judge how much time it will take, but I believe that my speed of learning the divine runic arts will be at least 100 times faster than anyone else’s.”

Lin Ming confidently said. Xiao Moxian was left stricken – 100 times?

Something that would take someone else a hundred years to learn, Lin Ming could learn in a single year?

“Miss Yue, about how old is this Senior-apprentice Brother Luo of yours?” Lin Ming only cared about how many years Luo Yubai had spent to become a third grade divine runic master.

Yue Liuxing thought about it for a while, “He is over 400 years old…”

“Over 400 years old… could he have used 400 years to learn the divine runic arts?” Lin Ming frowned. Although he was confident that he could quickly learn the divine runic arts, taking 400 years to become a third grade divine runic master seemed a bit too much.

“How could it be so long? Senior-apprentice Brother Luo first started studying the divine runic arts when he reached the Divine Lord realm, so he has probably studied the divine runic arts for around 70-80 years. Studying the divine runic arts requires a tremendous amount of time and you also need a ridiculously solid soul force as a support. Many martial artists first cultivate the martial path first before studying the divine runic arts. Me and my little brother are also the same, that is why we are only divine runic art apprentices right now. There is still a long road ahead of us and we will continue to primarily focus on cultivating.”

“So that’s how it is!”

Lin Ming finally understood. When a martial artist was young, that was the prime time in their life to cultivate martial arts. From their teenage years to when they were several dozen years old, martial artists were in a constant race against time. The higher their cultivation achievements were in their youth, the more life potential they could dig out in the future, meaning that their future achievements would also be greater. If they placed too much time and energy in learning the divine runic arts, then the losses would simply outweigh the gains.

“70-80 years to become a third grade divine runic master, that is also acceptable.”

Lin Ming was constantly calculating the time he needed to learn the divine runic arts.

If a divine runic arts talent like Luo Yubai needed 70-80 years to become a third grade divine runic master, then if he could increase this speed by 100 times, Lin Ming could reach the same level in maybe 10 months.

Of course, a third grade divine runic master was far from reaching Lin Ming’s requirements. He needed to become a divine runic grandmaster and also minor in alchemy. Only like this would he be able to refine the pills needed for the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace.