Shocking the Nine Heavens With My Sword

Zhou Heng looked at Shi Qingfeng with a smile that was not a smile, considering whether to give the guy a beating first.

After all, with the Frost Cold Sword in hand, entering the Nine Spirit Sect wouldn't be difficult!

He walked over to Shi Qingfeng, and as their four eyes met, it seemed as if fierce sparks were flying between them.

Boom!

Just then, Zhou Heng suddenly threw a punch, incredibly fast, and it landed heavily on Shi Qingfeng's abdomen.

At that moment, no words could describe the expression on Shi Qingfeng's face!

—This brat actually dared to hit me? Hit me! Hit me! Hit me! Goddamn you and your eighteen generations of ancestors!

"Oh—" He couldn't help but open his mouth wide as his body arched through the air and then fell heavily to the ground, boom, stirring up a cloud of dust.

Everyone was stunned!

After they were brought into the inn, the first instruction they received was not to fight in the city, or else their qualifications for the assessment would be revoked, and they would be subject to severe punishment!

Thus, they only dared to engage in verbal skirmishes.

But Zhou Heng was truly domineering, not saying another word before striking, forcing Shi Qingfeng's gastric juices to churn!

So damn arrogant! So damn domineering!

"Aren't you afraid of being punished by the Sect?"

"I think this guy isn't bold, he's just a blockhead!"

"The most unlucky one is Shi Qingfeng. He never expected someone would dare to attack in the city, catching him completely off guard! Although it was a sneak attack, it's a huge loss of face for him!"

After the shock passed, people began to discuss again.

Upstairs, however, a few people were seeing a deeper aspect of the incident.

"Shi Qingfeng may have been off guard, but as a Martial Artist, how could he lack the instinctive sense of defense!" Chang Kang's mouth curled up with an expression of seriousness.

"The speed of that kid's strike was so fast that Shi Qingfeng didn't have a moment to react!" Zhang Zijun tapped his fingers on the windowsill, his eyes filled with a strong fighting spirit.

"Miss, what's there to watch? You're a half-step into the Blood Refinement Realm; just mentioning it could probably scare them all to death!" At the window on the third floor to the west, a maid spoke with a look of disdain.

Beside her stood a young beauty, the highly-acclaimed Shen Xinqi, one of the top four geniuses and the only female among them.

"This young man is not simple!" Shen Xinqi's beautiful eyes were tightly fixed on Zhou Heng.

"How is he not simple? He doesn't look like he has any remarkable ability, Miss. What's so special about him?" The maid still seemed unconvinced.

"A kind of intuition!" Shen Xinqi said faintly, but a confident smile curled at the corner of her mouth.

All these reactions happened in a very short span of time. Although Shi Qingfeng had taken a hard fall, given his Body Refinement Ninth Layer physique, he wouldn't have really been hurt, so he quickly got up, wiped the saliva from the corner of his mouth, and his face grew terrifyingly dark.

He, the Shi Family's supreme genius, had actually been knocked flat on the ground!

This bastard, what gall!

Such an enormous shame and humiliation could only be washed away by tearing him limb from limb!

But he couldn't strike back—at this moment, naturally, someone from the Nine Spirit Sect would step in to suppress Zhou Heng. If he were to act, although it could be considered self-defense, the best outcome would only be a lighter punishment; he would still not evade consequences.

Endure!

This brat actually dared to publicly violate the rules set by the Nine Spirit Sect, surely his qualifications for the assessment would be revoked. Once he's expelled from the city, then I'll be able to strike.

A figure emerged with hands behind his back, his vigorous vitality like a solid substance, burning fiercely like a blazing furnace. Wherever he passed, the youngsters would involuntarily step back, as if getting too close would incinerate them to ash.

Blood Refinement Realm!

The whole place fell into a solemn silence.

This was a man in his forties, who walked over to Zhou Heng and Shi Qingfeng, furrowed his bushy eyebrows, and said, "What do you think this place is, your backwater little town? Get back to your rooms, all of you!"

What!

Just like that?

What happened to the rules of the Nine Spirit Sect! Didn't they say anyone who fights in the city would be disqualified from the assessment and face severe punishment? Why is Zhou Heng exempt? And from the tone of this man, even Shi Qingfeng was being reprimanded.

Tell me, isn't Shi Qingfeng wronged? He was the one punched hard and still refrained from retaliating, so why is he being treated the same?

Such a judgment not only left the young candidates baffled, but even the three geniuses upstairs—Chang Kang and Shen Xinqi—felt dizzy, as if they had fallen from the window.

Unfair! Too unfair!

"I won't accept this!" Shi Qingfeng yelled. Back in the Shi Family, he was a supreme genius, treated like a star surrounded by planets, and he had grown accustomed to being held in high esteem. He believed that with his talent, he would be valued wherever he went, but instead of being promoted, he now faced immense injustice!

"What right do you have to be dissatisfied?" The middle-aged man looked at Shi Qingfeng coldly and suddenly threw a punch.

"Ow—" Shi Qingfeng's body suddenly shrank as he was punched in the abdomen and sent flying once again. He arced through the air before crashing heavily to the ground.

Beaten up again?

Hiss!

This guy is really unlucky, huh!

Just who exactly is Zhou Heng, and why is he being treated so differently?

"Everyone return to your rooms. What kind of decency is this, crowding around here!" the middle-aged man said coldly, "The next person who causes trouble will be immediately expelled from Fengyu City!"

With a light remark, he brushed off everything Zhou Heng did before.

Struggling to his feet, Shi Qingfeng thought that after all, Zhou Heng was only at the Seventh Layer of Body Refinement; the damage he could inflict was limited. But the middle-aged man was a genuine Twelfth Layer of Body Refinement. If he exerted his full strength, he could even blast a hole through his abdomen!

Although he had held back, it still left Shi Qingfeng dizzy and vomiting uncontrollably on the side, as if he was about to throw up even his stomach acids.

Feeling the gazes of sympathy, schadenfreude, or disdain upon him, Shi Qingfeng clenched his fists tightly in hatred. He swore that he would kill Zhou Heng!

And he would do it in the most brutal way possible!

Zhou Heng just smiled faintly and walked into the inn, returning to his room.

— The fact that he had received such differential treatment must be because Feng Tengyuan and the person in charge of the inn took care of him. He just hadn't expected the extent of the preferential treatment to be so great.

None of that mattered. First, he would refine the two Gathering Yuan Pills and see their effects.

Zhou Heng sat down cross-legged, took out a Gathering Yuan Pill, unwrapped the wax paper, and tossed it into his mouth. The pill melted upon entering his mouth, reaching his stomach quickly and dispersing into millions of warm currents wandering inside his body.

These warm currents immediately turned into strands of free energy that could be directly drawn out and refined.

But… Zhou Heng frowned inwardly. These free energies were quite impure, and he needed to remove the impurities before he could refine them into True Yuan Force. Compared to the energy released by the black Broken Sword, they weren't on the same level at all!

It took an hour for Zhou Heng to completely refine the energy from one Gathering Yuan Pill, which roughly translated to the effect of three days of his diligent cultivation.

Although it couldn't compare with the black Broken Sword, combined with his own hard training, it was equivalent to the grueling efforts of an ordinary person for four days. With constant support from Gathering Yuan Pills, the rate of improvement in cultivation level would also be terrifying!

However, the impurities contained in the Gathering Yuan Pill were too abundant. After consuming one, it was necessary to expel these impurities from the body; otherwise, the accumulation of impurities could greatly harm a martial artist.

The human body would automatically eliminate the impurities, but this process took about a day. Therefore, even with a large supply of Gathering Yuan Pills, one could only consume a maximum of one per day.

But the energy from the black Broken Sword would eventually be exhausted, and for Zhou Heng, the Gathering Yuan Pill was still an extremely valuable resource. Unfortunately, it was too expensive, and he was embarrassingly short of funds!

Zhou Heng's room suddenly became lively, with numerous youths coming to visit. Some wanted to clarify his relationship with the Nine Spirit Sect, while others wanted to forge a connection with him.

At first, Zhou Heng managed to cope, but later he couldn't stand it anymore and simply left the inn to explore the ancient city. After all, it was a big city with many novelties that couldn't be found in Origin Stone Town.

Like auction houses, for example.

Auction houses sold everything—demon beasts, pills, cultivation techniques, weapons. Anything you could think of could be found here! Of course, the prices were not something the average person could afford. Zhou Heng weighed the less than ten silver taels in his pocket and couldn't help but retreat.

The next day he consumed the second Gathering Yuan Pill. The six days' worth of cultivation improvement didn't even come close to one-tenth of a single energy release from the black Broken Sword—it was a drop in the bucket!

Of course, if one could consume one pill a day, the effect couldn't be ignored!

But a single Gathering Yuan Pill cost two hundred silver taels, and at one pill a day, it would amount to over seventy thousand silver taels a year, which was more than the Zhou Family's annual income!

Indeed, the poor pursue literature while the rich pursue martial arts. The Zhou Family could be considered wealthy in Origin Stone Town, but in Fengyu City, they were barely better off than beggars.

"It looks like the remaining seven days won't be enough to advance my cultivation level to the Eighth Layer of Body Refinement!" Zhou Heng sighed. He paused, then suddenly remembered that he still didn't know the specifics of the Nine Spirit Sect's examination.

It would probably just be a test of strength, after all, as they were selecting martial arts geniuses, not literary scholars.

He didn't take this matter to heart, focusing instead on studying the Sky-soaring Nine Forms. Unfortunately, mastering the Nine Forms required opportune moments, and he remained stuck outside the gate of the fourth form, missing the final step and feeling an urge to demolish the house in his frustration.

In the past few days, Shi Qingfeng rarely appeared in the inn. As several people who came to visit and socialize reported, that guy had gone to the Gravity Room in the Treasure Pavilion for cultivation.

The Treasure Pavilion was the only auction house in the city and had no ties to the three major sects. It was unclear how it came to occupy such a lucrative business, and the sects surprisingly showed no greed; it was a mystery that made no sense.

The Gravity Room was quite magical—a seemingly ordinary room with gravity several times the normal due to the operation of a formation. Training in such an environment didn't help with increasing one's cultivation level but could make one's Yuan Force more condensed.

Moreover, having adapted to greater gravity, a martial artist could jump higher and run faster in normal conditions, truly enhancing combat power!

However, the fee for the Gravity Room was also outrageously expensive!