Longevity by Grinding Skills

He turned to gaze at Wan Miaoyin, his eyes unnervingly calm—like a pool of stagnant water. They were a stark contrast to the violent transformation his body was undergoing.

Wan Miaoyin’s heart quivered.

She had only ever seen eyes like that once before, when her master took her to the Grand Celestial Palace as a child. They were the eyes of the Palace Master.

Her lips trembled as if she wanted to say something. But as she watched the Gilded Mace loom ever larger, she ultimately closed her eyes.

The Gilded Mace tore through the air, and the wind from its passage billowed her flowing Twelve-Broken Immortal Skirt.

THUD!

In that instant, brains splattered. The Divine Weapon completely obliterated Wan Miaoyin’s head, reducing her to a headless corpse. Her body swayed for a moment before collapsing to the ground.

CLANG!

The Gilded Mace, slick with brains and bone fragments, rolled onto the ground.

Three breaths.

As Xu Yunfan deactivated the Linn Character State, his body deflated like a punctured balloon. He knelt among the corpses, the purplish veins beneath his cracked skin visibly shriveling. Black, resin-like scabs oozed from fissures all over his flesh. He stared at his own fingers, split and bleeding. The cracks weren’t just on his hands; they covered his entire body, even his cheeks.

The Gilded Mace had forcibly tapped into his body’s potential, allowing it to swell to its peak for a short time. Now, like a receding tide, his body was returning to its Mortal Body state.

His bones, which once resonated with Golden Sound and Jade Vibration, now felt like a mountain range drained of its Dragon Vein. When his fingertips brushed against his side, he could feel a hollow cavity beneath his ribs.

He was noticeably thinner after the ordeal.

Xu Yunfan let out a breath, a trace of fear still lingering. ’If I had forced myself to wield it any longer,’ he thought, ’my body would have suffered an irreversible collapse. The end result was easy to imagine.’

After a short rest, Xu Yunfan, having recovered a sliver of strength, took a black shirt and pants from his bundle and put them on. He used the black cloth that covered his Jar Gold Hammer to wrap the Gilded Mace and strapped it to his back.

He could only wield this Divine Weapon while in the Linn Character State. Normally, he couldn’t even touch it; he could only carry it on his back with the Extreme Dao Relic Shell as a buffer.

Even so, he could still feel faint wisps of a scorching aura emanating from the Gilded Mace.

A Divine Weapon!

’Truly terrifying.’

Moreover, this was a malevolent weapon, one that had witnessed countless battles and absorbed an endless amount of Evil Qi from the battlefield. If an ordinary person were to touch it, the surge of Evil Qi would instantly drive them mad.

Without the Extreme Dao Relic Shell and his novice-level Linn Character Technique, he would have already died from the Divine Weapon’s backlash moments ago.

Messages were flooding the Attribute Panel in his vision.

They were mostly notifications about Skill Level increases for his Red Rope Copper Body Cloak Hammer, interspersed with improvements to his Flying Leg technique.

His Skill Level had increased by nearly two hundred points.

’The gains are truly greatest in a life-or-death battle,’ he mused.

Xu Yunfan glanced at Wan Miaoyin’s headless corpse, which still possessed a strange, morbid beauty. He stepped forward to search it but found only a few Silver Notes and nothing else.

As for the old monk who had turned into a monster, he had been reduced to a pulp, mixed with the surrounding earth and stones. There was no point in even trying to search him.

’Oh, right, the Mountain-Stabilizing Bead.’

Xu Yunfan’s spirits lifted. He carefully recalled the direction the Mountain-Stabilizing Bead had flown. Just as he was about to start searching, the bead shot out from the jungle. It circled once over Wan Miaoyin’s corpse, then transformed into a streak of light and vanished over the horizon.

It happened so fast that Xu Yunfan barely had time to react.

’That Divine Weapon has an owner.’

His expression shifted. He glanced down at himself, confirming that his black clothes and covered face hid his identity. Without a moment’s hesitation, he fled.

...

...

「Two Hours later.」

The moonlight fractured into countless shards of jade.

An elder in a white Daoist robe, with the white hair of a crane but the face of a youth, arrived by treading on a wisp of mountain mist. The strands of energy radiating from his temples pressed three-inch-deep pits into the surrounding earth.

Behind him, twelve layers of Cloud Patterns were collapsing and dissipating—the price of using the Tianshu Secret Technique to travel at such speed. Every wisp of his aura seethed with killing intent.

Gazing at Wan Miaoyin’s headless corpse, now completely devoid of Vitality, the elder’s eyes grew as cold as Cold Iron. He stared, unblinking.

At his sleeve, the Mountain-Stabilizing Bead circled endlessly around his wrist.

He saw the scorched black Evil Qi lingering at the stump of Wan Miaoyin’s neck. The wound was neither smooth nor rough; it had the strange texture of Meteorite Iron searing through Ice Soul. It was clearly the work of a peerless, malevolent weapon, one saturated with the killing aura of countless battlefields.

"Miaoyin..."

The elder slowly knelt and lifted Wan Miaoyin’s body into his arms. The Evil Qi had scoured her body clean, leaving not a single trace of an aura. It was impossible to track the killer.

Judging from the scene, the only thing he could tell was that his foe had used a heavy weapon.

In the suffocating silence where all sound seemed to die, the old Daoist finally turned. Cradling Wan Miaoyin, he departed in the direction of the Central State’s Jade Capital.

* * *

After a night of frantic travel, the Gilded Mace on Xu Yunfan’s back suddenly trembled, like a dragon at the edge of an abyss.

He spun around to gaze behind him, and for some reason, felt a great weight lift from his heart.

It was as if he had just avoided some kind of disaster.

’Seeking fortune and avoiding misfortune?’

Xu Yunfan was surprised. ’It seems there are still more mysteries to uncover about the Linn Character Technique.’

Finally, Xu Yunfan could go on no longer. He stopped in a patch of wild forest to rest and recover.

Beiye City was over 180 miles from Changyi, the State City of Qingzhou. The road was rife with bandits and wild beasts, and in his current condition, he simply couldn’t travel for long stretches.

’I need to hunt something to eat.’

A dry leaf spun in the night wind, drifting to the ground. At that moment, the subtle twitching of Xu Yunfan’s ears ceased. From about a hundred yards to the southeast, carried on the clatter of metal and pottery, was a familiar scent—the aroma of barley wine and roasted meat.

It was the signature aroma of the Changfeng Tavern’s secret recipe: roasted roe deer leg, coated in salt and pepper.

He rose abruptly. The back of the hand he used to push aside thorny bushes was covered in half-dried scabs. When he parted the last clump of Beggar’s Ticks, his view suddenly opened up.

Eighteen Cloud Patterned Sandalwood Wagons formed a protective circle around twenty-three Cyan Felt Tents. In the center, a half-burnt wooden skewer jutted from the embers of an extinguished bonfire. The remnant of a golden jujube on its tip identified it as a skewer exclusive to Drunken Branch, a premium vintage that the Changfeng Tavern supplied to the State City.

"Who goes there!"

A familiar, resonant voice with a metallic timbre rang out. A towering figure, moving like a pouncing tiger, burst from the camp, shattering a Bronze Lamp in front of a tent as he came.

SHING!

The rasp of a Yanling Saber being drawn seemed to slice through the moonlight.

But when the man saw Xu Yunfan’s face, half-cast in shadow by the moon, he sheathed his saber and offered a salute.

"Young Hero Xu?! What are you doing out here?"

It was Liu Tianyun, one of the managers of the Changfeng Tavern and its only First-Level Martial Artist.

Because Xu Yunfan was a frequent patron at the tavern, he was quite familiar with the manager. Running into him now was a pleasant surprise.

Xu Yunfan didn’t mince words. He reached into his robes and, with a flick of his fingers, produced an Official Ticket from the Jade Capital Treasure Tai Long Record, the note arcing slightly from the force.

"Brother Liu, I was wondering if I could purchase some Exotic Beast Meat. If you have any Pills for restoring one’s qi and blood, that would be even better."

Only then did Liu Tianyun notice that while Xu Yunfan’s breathing was steady, he appeared rather frail. He was also thinner than before, looking like someone who was just recovering from a major illness.

He immediately relaxed. A natural smile spread across his face as he looked at the high-rolling patron before him.