8: Ambushed and killed, cultivating the five elements simultaneously

The twilight was like cotton wool soaked in ink, slowly pressing down the contours of the eaves. Lin Yang delivered the last packet of Stone Root Grass through the back door of Huichun Hall, and as his fingertips touched the cold silver, the corner of his eye caught a greedy gaze flashing behind the pharmacy counter.

That was the attendant Zhu Dahai, short and sallow-faced, currently pretending to fiddle with an abacus, yet his knuckles were white from exertion. This was the third time Lin Yang had come to sell medicine this month. Each time, the perfectly stripped Stone Root Grass made Zhu Dahai's heart itch — a raw stone that ordinary pharmacies needed three days to process, this youth could extract the complete roots in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea. He must have mastered some secret technique.

"Take care, little brother." Zhu Dahai put on a fake smile, watching Lin Yang disappear at the alley entrance, then turned and pushed open the back door of Ma Qi's gambling house. Scar-face Ma Qi was using fingers wrapped in cloth strips to roll dice. After hearing the purpose of the visit, Triangle-Eyes Wu Gang immediately spat, "He's just a brat! If we steal his secret method and sell it to the pharmacy owner, we'll get at least a hundred taels in bounty!"

The third watch drum sounded, and the river flowing through the town shimmered with phosphorescence. Lin Yang took a shortcut through Lantern Alley. The moss on the bluestones was saturated with dew and felt slippery underfoot. A faint smell of blood suddenly drifted from the end of the alley. He paused, his right hand quietly resting on the Kindling Knife at his waist.

"Clatter, clatter."

Three dull sounds came from overhead — the sound of roof tiles being crushed. Lin Yang spun around abruptly and saw three dark figures swoop down like bats from the roofs on either side. The strong winds they generated upon landing ruffled the stray hairs on his forehead.

Zhu Dahai stood in the center, gripping a two-foot short sword. The low-quality gem inlaid on the scabbard glittered under the moonlight. "Brat, hand over the secret method for stripping Stone Root Grass, and we might leave you a whole corpse." Behind him, Ma Qi toyed with a Serrated Knife, the scar on his cheek twitching, while Wu Gang's triangle-eyes darted over Lin Yang's clothes, as if estimating whether he was hiding any silver.

Lin Yang's lips curled into a cold arc. His left thumb rubbed the callus on the web of his right hand — the hard skin formed from days of writing forbidden characters. "Just you guys?"

"You're courting death!" Wu Gang, the most impatient, thrust a Rusty Iron Spear forward. The sound of the spearhead tearing through the air made one's eardrums ache.

Lin Yang advanced instead of retreating, and the Fire-attribute True Essence in his Dantian Qi Sea suddenly boiled. "Tiger Strikes Six Directions!" he roared. Six golden-yellow fist shadows exploded in the alley, more solid than when he killed Luo Hu last time. The punch wind swept over the wall, actually scraping off a layer of plaster!

Wu Gang felt his vision blur. Just as he raised the iron spear to his chest, it was struck simultaneously by three fist shadows. With a "crack," the spear shaft snapped in the middle, and the remaining three punches smashed into his face like heavy hammers. The crisp sound of his nose collapsing mixed with a scream. Wu Gang's entire body was thrown back like a broken rag doll, his head slamming heavily against the stone roller at the end of the alley, splashing red and white everywhere.

"M-Martial Skill!" Zhu Dahai was so frightened he stumbled back half a step. His short sword slid out of its sheath with a clang, a faint silver light flickering on the blade. "Attack together! He's only one person!"

Ma Qi's Serrated Knife slashed toward the back of Lin Yang's neck with a bloody wind, while Zhu Dahai's wrist flicked rapidly, sending out four silver sword shadows that struck like venomous snakes, locking onto Lin Yang's throat, heart, and shoulders. This Silver Snake Sword Art was a Yellow Rank Medium Grade Martial Skill he had bought, and while it wasn't as exquisite as the Tiger Shadow Fist, it excelled in being tricky.

Lin Yang tapped his left toe on the ground, spinning his body like a top. As he avoided Ma Qi's blade, his right fist swept out horizontally. The six fist shadows and four sword shadows collided in mid-air, producing a crisp clang of metal. The resulting Qi shockwave caused the lanterns on both sides of the alley to burst, and sparks hissed as they landed on the damp bluestones.

"How is this kid's True Essence so profound?" Zhu Dahai was secretly alarmed. He had cultivated the Crimson Sun Art to the Houtian Seventh Level, but while the opponent clearly only had Houtian Sixth Level cultivation, his True Essence seemed inexhaustible, and every fist shadow carried a scorching heat wave.

In fact, even Lin Yang was surprised—the True Essence refined by the chaos star core was not only pure but also possessed the resilience of Five Elements blending. When Ma Qi's Serrated Knife struck again, Lin Yang was actually able to simultaneously mobilize the hidden Water-attribute True Essence, coating his fist with a thin layer of frost.

"Sizzle!" The moment the fist and knife clashed, Ma Qi felt as if the blade had struck a red-hot branding iron before instantly being frozen by ice, and the web of his hand suddenly split open. Lin Yang took advantage of his distraction, transforming his left fist into a palm and striking his chest. Five fist shadows stacked together, forcefully shattering his internal organs.

Bloody foam surged from Ma Qi's throat, steaming hot. His scarred face twisted into a grotesque shape under the moonlight. When he fell with a thud, he was still clutching the bloodstained Serrated Knife.

Only Zhu Dahai remained in the alley. The hand holding his sword trembled uncontrollably, and the tip of the short sword scratched messy lines on the ground. "You can't kill me!" he suddenly shrieked, his voice sharp like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. "My uncle is the Third Shopkeeper Zhu Ming! A master of the Gang Qi Realm! If you kill me, he will surely flay you alive!"

Lin Yang slowly walked closer, his boot sole grinding over the bloodstains with a sticky sound. "Gang Qi Realm?" He raised his hand to wipe away the blood droplet splashed on his cheek, his eyes colder than the river at the mouth of the alley. "Then let him come and try."

Six fist shadows condensed once more, this time carrying the dual fluctuations of Fire-attribute and Water-attribute True Essence. Before the punch arrived, the air was already rippling with interwoven cold and heat. Zhu Dahai hastily raised his sword to block, but the sword shadows shattered inch by inch the moment they met the fist shadows. The remaining force surged like a tide, blasting his entire body against the brick wall.

"Argh —" A shallow dent was smashed into the brick wall. Zhu Dahai's ribs pierced his flesh. He opened his mouth, seeming to want to say something, but the three subsequent fist shadows completely crushed his life force.

Lin Yang searched the corpse and pulled out an oilcloth packet from Zhu Dahai's embrace. Inside were thirty-two taels of silver fragments and a small blue booklet with the seal script characters "Ice Frost Art" on the cover. He flipped through a few pages, saw that it recorded a Cultivation Technique for circulating Water-attribute True Essence, and casually tucked it into his pocket.

When he returned to the small courtyard, morning fog was creeping along the base of the wall. Lin Yang sat under the lamp, carefully reading the Ice Frost Art. As his fingertip traced the pages detailing the Qi channeling method, a bold idea suddenly arose. He attempted to simultaneously circulate the Crimson Sun Art and the Ice Frost Art. The expected conflict between True Essences did not occur — the chaos star core emitted a soft light in his Sea of Consciousness. The Fire-attribute True Essence rolled like crimson magma in the original dantian core, while the Water-attribute True Essence actually condensed beside it into a pale blue dantian core the size of a pigeon egg. Both revolved slowly around the star core, without interfering with each other.

"Five... Five Elements Simultaneous Cultivation?!" Lin Yang shot up, knocking over the wooden stool. He tremblingly examined his Dantian internally. The two dantian cores flickered indistinctly, and his total True Essence volume already faintly surpassed that of a Houtian Eighth Layer Martial Artist. This meant that as long as he gathered all five elemental Cultivation Techniques, his strength would increase exponentially!

As soon as dawn broke, Lin Yang climbed the wall and sneaked into the Lin Family Martial Scripture Pavilion. The old man watching over the place was dozing at a desk. Lin Yang tiptoed up to the second floor and found three basic Cultivation Techniques on a dusty shelf: the Thick Earth Art, the Sharp Gold Art, and the Withered Wood Art. The pages smelled moldy, clearly untouched for many years.

Back in the small courtyard, he spread the five Cultivation Techniques on the table. The chaos star core vibrated violently in his Sea of Consciousness. The moment the five elemental Cultivation Techniques operated simultaneously, Lin Yang felt the Spiritual Qi between heaven and earth surge into his body like a hundred rivers returning to the sea. The speed at which he absorbed demon cores was five times faster than before! Inside his Dantian, the Gold, Wood, and Earth dantian cores successively condensed, forming an image of five stars surrounding the moon with the Fire and Water cores. Thirty-one activated acupuncture points twinkled like stars, and a faint hum sounded as the True Essence circulated.

Although the five True Essences could not merge for the time being, this level of profundity alone was enough to make Martial Artists of the same rank incomparable. Lin Yang gazed at the crimson flame and pale blue ice crystals simultaneously appearing in his palm, a burning ambition igniting in his eyes — the chaos star core had granted him not just the power of revenge, but a broad and smooth Heaven-Defying path to change his fate.