The Modern Martial Immortal-Chapter 3: Grandmaster

At the Chihe Residence, Yaoguang was just about to turn on the television when everything went dark...

"The power’s out again," he said lightly.

The outages have been a little too frequent recently..

Are they connected to the daemons?

The blackouts have been happening more often for a year or two now.

That means these daemons weren’t always around, or at least, they’ve only started making their move recently.

But then, how had Xia Li already made his name ten years ago?

He couldn’t make sense of it. Still, there was no point in overthinking.

A year before, a young man had encountered a daemon by chance. After reporting the incident, he was attacked and killed by another daemon the very next day. That was when Yaoguang transmigrated into this world, taking over the young man’s body.

The fact that he’d been found this fast went to show just how deeply daemons had infiltrated human society.

In any case, he only needed to focus on his own path.

If daemons came to kill him, he would kill daemons.

"Nations differ from one another. Dayu is not Daxia."

Yaoguang sat down on the sofa and closed his eyes to rest.

Inside his mental world, an ancient tree nearly four meters tall was slowly growing, radiating a mysterious aura.

It appeared to Yaoguang that this tree was behind his transmigration. However, he still had plenty to discover about it.

One thing he knew was that the three branches that had sprouted from the main trunk represented a different profession each.

[Martial Dao] [Daemon Hunter] [Merchant]

Practicing the Martial Dao, slaying daemons, trading for profit... All these actions fed the tree with nutrients, or rather, experience points, allowing its branches to grow. The key was that he could direct the tree’s nourishment toward whichever branch he wished to develop.

Right now, Yaoguang’s focus was on the Daemon Hunter branch.

[Slayed a third-tier high-grade Horned Fiend. The first tier of the Daemon Hunter branch has received growth nutrients... Growth halted as the main trunk has absorbed all nutrients.]

He glanced at the Martial Dao branch next.

[Nutrients injected from the main trunk. Rapid growth in progress.]

Upon closer inspection, the Martial Dao branch contained more detailed information.

[Tier: Third-Tier, Grandmaster]

[Dao Fruit: Formless, Perception][1]

As the Martial Dao branch continued its rapid growth, Yaoguang could sense it piercing through the void, drawing upon boundless and unseen knowledge of the Martial Dao from some mysterious realm. This knowledge then flowed into his mind to be fully absorbed.

In that instant, everything about a grandmaster’s refinement of internal organs became crystal clear to him.

He completely absorbed every bit of knowledge related to refining the organs.

Even among grandmasters, none could rival his insight into the organ refining stage. Not even a martial paragon could match a tenth of his comprehension.

After some time, Yaoguang opened his eyes.

The third tier of the Martial Dao branch had begun to bloom, only one or two steps away from bearing fruit.

"The Martial Dao's third tier hasn't yet reached perfection, but I can already feel it. My body can now reach full internal refinement. It’ll only take three to five years for blood renewal and marrow cleansing."

He paused briefly. "No, I can push harder! With all this knowledge, I can refine my organs through methods others would consider extreme. That will significantly shorten the time required. And if I use medicine to speed it up even more, I could finish internal refinement in a year."

He could become a grandmaster in one year, and a martial paragon in two.

"Besides..."

Yaoguang inhaled deeply. His chest expanded, and the power within his body condensed in an instant. Then, as he thrust out his arm, his bones and muscles resounded in unison.

Boom!

A deep, muffled sound exploded throughout the house.

The air before his fist was blown apart, creating a visible shockwave that rolled outward in all directions.

Some small ornaments in the living room were lifted and scattered by the wave, and even the curtains flapped violently.

"Core jin," Yaoguang murmured.

The Fourfold Training Method included training the physique externally, stretching tendons and strengthening bones, strengthening the internal organs, and finally renewing the blood and cleansing the marrow.

In other words, it meant strengthening one’s physique to the point of evolution.

Meanwhile, clear jin, hidden jin, transforming jin, and core jin represented the Fourfold Combat Method of Martial Dao.

Only those who mastered core jin could concentrate their qi into a core, and through its power, undergo blood renewal and marrow cleansing.

"So this is core jin."

Yaoguang calmed his surging blood and qi.

After forming a core and completing blood renewal and marrow cleansing, one would break through the limits of the human body and step into a new realm, thus transcending the ordinary and becoming a martial paragon.

Hence, those who reached this realm were honored as martial paragons.

Such a figure might not even exist within the entire Tiannan Province. Moreover...

"A martial paragon can already surpass the limits of the human body. Then... what about what’s beyond that? A martial god? Some kind of heavenly being? Immortality? Riding the clouds, shaking the mountains and rivers with one punch, maybe even shattering the void?”

He didn’t know. But since daemons existed, then becoming an immortal himself was hardly a farfetched idea.

His mind lingered for a moment upon the blooming flower on the Martial Dao branch.

"The Dao Flower of the third tier has bloomed. Less than twenty percent until the grandmaster tier is complete. I wonder what kind of Dao Fruit it will yield then."

Each time a tier reached completion, its branch would blossom and bear fruit.

Every Dao Fruit could give birth to a secret technique.

The Formless of the martial artist tier and the Perception of the martial master tier had both come from such fruits.

Ring ring ring~

The ringtone suddenly broke the silence. Yaoguang glanced at the screen. It was Su Anping.

Anyone looking at his call log could see that this number rang once every day.

As for who it belonged to... that was his body’s father.

Logically, since he had reincarnated into this body, he ought to bear this karma.

But that family was... well... utterly absurd.

Every one of them was a piece of work.

And since the "parents" had divorced more than two years ago, the relationships were entangled and messy. He simply followed the original’s approach and ignored them entirely.

The ringtone went on for a while, then stopped.

Just when Yaoguang thought it was the usual daily call, the phone rang again.

And this time, it kept ringing for six times in a row.

The caller clearly intended to keep calling until he picked up.

It wasn’t just Su Anping calling, but also a woman named Zhang Ya.

That woman was the body’s mother.

When the ringtone sounded for the eighth time, Yaoguang thought that something serious might have happened. He finally answered.

The moment the call connected, Su Anping’s anxious voice came through.

"Ah Guang, hide quickly—"[2]

But before he could finish, Zhang Ya seemed to have snatched the phone away. "Su Yaoguang! What’s wrong with you? I called you so many times and you didn’t answer! You think you're all grown up now, huh? You—"

Yaoguang hung up, cutting off her tirade mid-sentence.

Ten seconds later, the ringtone started again. He turned off the phone entirely.

"Boring."

Yaoguang tossed the phone onto the bed.

Hide?

He didn’t even need to guess; it was definitely some trivial nonsense from the Su Family again.

Only, this "Su Family" didn’t refer to Su Anping’s side, but rather the family of his biological father, Su Huaifeng.

He paid it no mind. He went straight into the cultivation room, using the Tiger-Leopard Thunder Technique to refine his lungs and shock his bone marrow, striving to complete the step of blood renewal and marrow cleansing to transcend beyond the ordinary and become a martial paragon.

Yet this time... things were different.

Less than an hour into cultivation, Yaoguang keenly sensed that a small mechanism in the corridor had been triggered.

He looked up.

With a light tap of his toes, jin burst forth, and he shot out of the chamber, landing beside the study’s open laptop.

The screen was divided into eight segments. In one of them, three agile figures were swiftly approaching.

"Daemons?" Yaoguang was a little surprised.

He activated his Perception. The environment condensed into a map projected in his mind, but there was no trace of a red dot.

Not daemons, but humans... Then he thought of that phone call earlier. So the Su Family is serious now?

***

Among the three intruders, one was clearly skilled at picking locks.

The door to Yaoguang’s rented apartment might as well not have existed; it was opened with ease.

Once inside, the man in a trench coat leading the group spoke in a low voice. "Be quick about it. Let Young Master Su die without too much pain."

"Young Master Su? He never acknowledged his ancestry. How’s he any young master of the Su Family?"

The short-haired man clicked his tongue. "Family feuds can get this bad? What an eye-opener. The Su Family really is ruthless."

"It’s just something dumb that a junior did. Why do you care so much? We’re getting paid, that’s all that matters. We’ve taken too many jobs lately, so we can’t stay in Dayu much longer. Once this is done, we’re gone for good."

The three exchanged a few brief, quick words, but suddenly, another voice interrupted them.

"Then, can you tell me which junior it was?"

"Who else? Of course it’s that cheap little brother of his—"

The short-haired man began to answer, but his voice cut off halfway. His eyes snapped toward the study door.

Yaoguang turned on the light.

The incandescent light flooded the room, instantly brightening it.

Almost at the same moment, the man in the trench coat who was clearly the leader, exploded into motion, darting forward like a cheetah pouncing on prey. In an instant, he crossed the four meters between them, and the gleaming dagger in his hand traced a swift, elegant arc toward Yaoguang’s throat.

Yaoguang didn’t even glance at the dagger.

He simply raised a hand, held his fingers together in the shape of a blade, and thrust toward the man’s throat.

Thud!

It was nothing spectacular, no flourishes or anything like that. It was just fast.

So fast that before the man’s dagger even reached him, Yaoguang’s finger-sword had already crushed his Adam's apple.

The fierce internal force not only shattered his throat but also sent a violent shock through his cervical nerves, robbing him of control over his body in an instant.

The man’s killing strike passed within three centimeters of Yaoguang’s neck as their bodies brushed past one another. The attacker staggered, then collapsed heavily to the ground.

Throughout the whole process, other than his hand, Yaoguang hadn't moved a single part of his body.

1. In Daoism and Buddhism, this refers to the achievements and results of Daoist or Buddhist practices. ☜

2. In Chinese cultures, the prefix "Ah" is usually used with the names of people who are close, especially family members. ☜