Chapter 18 – Green Willow City
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A large 3 m sized giant falcon carrying a large cloth bag in its claws swooped down from the air and landed on the ground. Suddenly the giant falcon morphed and turned into a 9-year-old naked boy.

"After achieving Flying Lv3, I'm almost floating in the air now." Mu Cheng quickly put on his robe in a good mood. As his flying skills increased, he became more familiar with maneuvering in the air.

Mu Cheng had believed he could reach Featherbranch Cliff in two months if he flew. But a problem cropped up, the map he had was only accurate in Blue Country's territory, Green Country's territory wasn't well explored by the citizens in Blue Country. And just like how he only managed to get a detailed map from the city lord's manor. Commoners would not be able to get such a big and detailed map.

Mu Cheng had arrived outside Green Willow City. Which was the city closest to Featherbranch Cliff, Not only could he try his luck and see if he can find some information regarding martial arts sects, he would also gather information about Featherbranch Cliff.

There was a commotion just outside the city, a large number of people gathered around to spectate. Mu Cheng got curious and stepped inside the crowd.

"Bastard! Eat my sword!" A man shouted and swung his sword at a burly man.

"Humph! Take my Moon Cleaving Saber!" The burly man shouted and swung his palm wide saber at the man.

Clang! Clang! The sword and saber collided several times and harsh metallic sounds echoed from their clashes.

"Hm... They're both just so-so. Their martial art is just third-rated... From the looks of it, their skill level is 3 and they're equally skilled. But the burly man is more muscular, so unless the other man is more agile. The match is already decided." Mu Cheng appraised the two men. Since both were equally skilled with their sword and saber, the burly man whose more muscular clearly had more strength would be the deciding factor.

A few clashes later, the man's arm was shaking badly and he dropped the sword.

"Die!" The burly man did not give the man a chance to surrender, he hurriedly swung his saber and beheaded the man.

"No! I Sur-!" The man did not even finish speaking before his head rolled down the ground. Blood spurted out of his neck as the body fell down to the ground.

"Huh?! Is it fine to just kill right outside the city?" Mu Cheng stared blankly at the scene in shock. He had thought the fight would end after the man dropped his sword. After all, they were just right outside the city.

"Moon Cleaving Saberman won by a narrow margin. This only happened because he's more muscular and stronger. Their skills were actually equal." The crowd started discussing as if nothing abnormal had happened. It seems that killing people outside the city was a normal occurrence.

After asking the crowd a few questions, Mu Cheng finally understood that the city's law was absolute, but the law was only in effect inside the city. Once outside, the guards won't even bat an eye. Unless the person was related to the city lord's manor or if the guards were given a specific order, they wouldn't give a damn. Killing, robbing, and other crimes were not allowed inside the city, but outside, they were free to do whatever they want. But unless it's a duel, few would dare to commit a crime right in front of the guards, because doing that in front of the guards was the same as taunting the city lord's authority.

So although you could kill someone outside, the person still needed to be careful of the victim's background and family. Because their family or friends might just retaliate.

The crowd murmured for a while and scattered.

Mu Cheng followed the crowd into the city. 

"Well, it seems like a level 3 third-rated martial art is like a skilled black belt practitioner. I'm looking for people who can cleave a meter in diameter wide tree in a single cut or people who can dodge bullets... If they reached level 10 or more, would that be feasible? Or maybe if someone trained in a second-rate martial art? Although I call them third-rate, second-rate, and first-rate. That's just my biased classification. Tai Chi and Will Intent Fist are classified as second-rate because they are way better than these martial arts I've come across in this world. Even the Blue Moon Swordsmanship is only a third-rate one, though it's much better than the average ones so I've classified it as a peak third-rate martial art." Mu Cheng thought silently as he made his way to a tea house.

Sitting down at his table, he ordered some calming tea and snacks.

"Tai Chi and Will Intent Fist are both from Earth. But Grandpa Fu also practices Tai Chi. Hm... Tai Chi is about soft and hard movements. And to fuse two extremes of the opposite elements, Yin and Yang. So it's something that can be created in both worlds... No, nevermind. Will Intent Fist is about imitating and emulating the will and intents of different animals. Which also works in this world which has animals... So nevermind that conjecture. Basically any martial art can be created in either world." Mu Cheng had a headache.

Taking a sip of his tea, and munching on some sweet fried vegetables, Mu Cheng's thoughts continued to swirl "All I've seen is third-rated martial arts in the cities. Grandpa Fu, the old hermit living far away from civilization had a second-rate martial art. Now I'm going to Featherbranch Cliff to look for martial arts sects. Could it be that all real martial artists avoid the secular world?" Mu Cheng felt like he had found an important lead.

"Ugh. If I knew this, I would have asked where Grandpa Fu learned his Tai Chi." Mu Cheng held his head in frustration. At that time, he only had the thought of getting adopted and live a lavish life. But after spending three years lazing around, Mu Cheng already got bored of that kind of life and wanted to find some excitement from supernatural forces. How exciting it would be if there were immortals flying in the skies, with a wave of their hand, they'll move mountains and rivers.

Of course, Mu Cheng isn't aiming that high, even just martial artist jumper and gliding around in the skies, with a sword chop, cutting a house apart would also do. After all, Mu Cheng has such a cheat like golden finger to aid him. As long as he finds some fitting skills, he can certainly bring the skill to it's utmost.

Mu Cheng listened to the nearby customer's chatting about various interesting rumors and recent news while sipping on his tea and eating some snacks.

Bang! Suddenly the tea house's door was smashed apart, and 12 suspicious men in dark cloaks wearing bamboo hats to hide their faces stepped in aggressively. The leader of the group swept his gaze around and stopped on a certain table with a single middle-aged man sitting alone. The group walked forward and surrounded the man with great hostility.

Some of the customers seemed to have understood something and quickly left the tea house in a hurry.

"I have a feeling these men are quite strong. Much stronger than that Moon Cleaving Saberman. But even so, would they dare to so openly disregard the city lord's authority?" Mu Cheng wondered as he continued sitting at his table and watched the show in great interest.

"Man Xierui! How daring! To sit here in leisure even after the Crimson Brute Sect put up the kill order on your head!" The leader sneered.

"How grand! Law Enforcement Elder Liu, you even dare to disregard the ancient agreement and act wildly in the secular world." The man sitting on hir chair frowned.

"Hah! To hell with the agreement. If you obediently surrender, we'll treat you as a prisoner. Otherwise... Hehehe!" The leader gave an icy cold smile.

"You're dreaming! Let's fight outside the city. There are too many innocent bystanders here." The middle-aged man frowned and stood up from his seat.

"That's not up to you!" The leader waved his hand and the cloaked group of 12 all pulled out their blades.

"You're crazy!" The middle-aged man said angrily as he drew his sword.

Bang! Swish! Clang! Clang! The table was cut in half and collapsed. The twelve cloaked men aggressively advanced while wildly swinging their blades. The middle-aged man was able to defend against all twelve of the men without getting hurt. Occasionally he would jump backward or step sideways and dodge a few slashes.

"Aaah!" A tea customer that tried to run out of the tea house got his arm cut off by running too close to the fight.

"That's! Their martial arts are much more refined and complex! It's definitely second-rate martial art or higher! A high level martial art! And he said sect! Crimson Brute Sect? They seem quite reckless and don't care about hurting innocent people... Maybe that's a so called demonic sect? At least the righteous sects would choose nicer names." Mu Cheng was completely captivated by the group's battle.

The tea house was just a small one with only a dozen tables on the first floor. In no time, their battle had ruined half the first floor, four unlucky tea customers were bleeding badly and lying unconsciously on the ground. One of them had a crushed chest, another one had his body almost cut in half, with some of his guts spilling out. The third one had a table foot pierce through his stomach and the last one was the first victim who got his arm cut off while trying to flee. The rest of the customers and staffs in the tea house had already evacuated, only Mu Cheng who was captivated by the fight continued sitting on his table watching the battle.

Bang! The middle-aged man managed to cut off the arm of one of the cloaked men and kicked him away while only trading a two cm deep blade wound to his chest. He quickly fended off the other's attacks and jumped forward after the injured cloaked man with his arm cut off. The cloaked man with his blade arm now gone and his blade left on his severed arm, was completely defenseless to the middle-aged man's follow up attack. With a clean cut, the cloaked man held his bleeding throat in despair as he tried to utter a word.

The cloaked man with his throat cut just happened to roll over to Mu Cheng's side. Mu Cheng could see the dying man soundlessly mouth a few words. Habitually, he reached out his hand and touched the dying man.

"Inspect!" Mu Cheng silently thought.

Name: Wang Li

Age: 33

Strength: 3.8

Agility: 3.2

Vitality: 3.3

Intelligence: 1.8

Skills(5)> Blade Proficiency Lv6(200/2,000)

Lesser Crimson Blade Arts Lv5(400/1,000)

Shadow Step Lv3(0/400)

Blood Absorption Art Lv3(0/400)

Blood Lust Lv2(0/200)

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"His attributes are quite high! For a level 5 martial art to display such strength. It must be a second-rate martial art! I wonder what that middle-aged man and the leader guy have for martial art." Mu Cheng wondered.

Mu Cheng did not let go of the opportunity and quickly extracted the dying man's skills before he actually died. 45 AP! Mu Cheng now had 479 AP.

What drew Mu Cheng's interest was the Blood Absorption Art which seemed to increase the user's attributes by absorbing the blood of others, and the stronger the being's blood the better the result.

"This should be demonic arts right? But it seems that absorbing tiger blood or bear blood would yield better results than human blood? Of course if everyone were as strong as these guys, then it's a whole different matter." Mu Cheng pondered.

The fight intensified as if the killing of the cloaked man had angered the rest of the group. The cloaked men fought harder and more reckless, their eyes turning slightly red as if they were overtaken by blood lust. They seemingly gained infinite courage and stamina, each of their attacks contained great might and did not seem to be exhausting at all. The middle-aged man gained more and more wounds, each deeper than the last.

The fight continued for quite a while until another three cloaked men died under the middle-aged man's sword. But the price he paid was a mangled chest and his left arm severed. The middle-aged man managed to inflict a serious wound on the leader and immediately took the opportunity to flee. Even if he managed to kill a few more cloaked men, he would end up dying if he continued the fight. It was obvious that the middle-aged man was much stronger than the cloaked men, but a fight is never fair. The cloaked men used their superior numbers to slowly grind him down.

"Stop him!" A red-eyed cloaked man yelled angrily.

"Chase! Chase him!" Another cloaked man hurriedly ran after the fleeing middle-aged man.

"Stop!" The leader shouted.

"But-" The cloaked men had lost four of their men and were unwilling to give up after they managed to inflict so many injuries to the fleeing man.

"Once we chase him, he'll be able to fight us one on one and gain absolute advantage and kill us one after another. We're not his match one on one, it's only by besieging him that we managed to injure him." The leader said bitterly.

"Stop! How daring! You people actually dare to wantonly kill in our Green Willow City! You're not putting the city lord in your eyes! Obediently surrender! We've surrounded you!" Outside the tea house, the guards had long since surrounded the places as soon as someone had reported the incident. But they were sly enough to not act immediately and waited until the fight ended.

Over 40 guards were surrounding the place without fear even after seeing the battle from earlier. Either they had absolute faith in their numbers, or they believed those cloaked men were exhausted and unable to put up a fight anymore. After all, they were all dyed in crimson blood, their former black cloaks were now crimson.

"Humph! Fools! Kill them!" The leader sneered and commanded his men.

"Kill!" The cloaked men who had nowhere to vent their anger and grief, now found the perfect targets to vent. The 8 men albeit quite injured, were not something these common guards could put up a fight against. In just 5 minutes, all the 40 guards were slain.

The crowd who had thought there was a good show to watch, scattered in terror, fleeing for their lives.

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