Distant Mountain Battle Song

Chapter 224 The Price of Growth

Midsummer is the perfect time north of the Great Wall, when the days are hot and the nights are cool. It's the best time to enjoy rural life, when food is most plentiful on the wilderness, and when the more than 40,000 people of Yun Family Manor live the most comfortable life.

Only a sick person would think of leaving this wonderful place with beautiful women, hot springs, delicious food, and servants.

The dog is crazy. He threatened Yun Ce that if he didn't go out and bring back some powerful dead ghosts, he wouldn't be able to help the geniuses discovered in the orphanage to cultivate their inner energy.

The Mad Bull Knight is a standard general of a thousand men. The internal energy in the body of a general of a thousand men can help at least twelve children with the ability to sense qi to draw qi into their bodies and successfully transform them from ordinary people into martial artists.

It was only this year that Yun Ce learned that martial artists were actually very rare in this world. In the entire Yun Clan Manor, only Yun Ce, Zhang Min, Qin Shu, He Qingfang, Zuo Chong, and Zhou Da could be considered true warriors; the rest could only be called soldiers.

Yun Ce's martial arts skills are difficult to assess at present. Zhang Min's martial arts skills are only slightly better than those of a hundred generals. She belongs to the elite hundred generals and can fight two ordinary hundred generals without being at a disadvantage.

Qin Shu's martial arts skills were slightly better; he was able to kill two centurions in battle, and he had done so before.

He Qingfang is similar to Zhang Min, except that her combat skills are not as extensive as Zhang Min's.

The remaining two, Zuo Chong and Zhou Da, were just two ordinary centurions.

Last time, Gouzi helped Lei Ming and six other children to cultivate their inner energy, setting them on the path of martial arts. This time, he discovered twelve more promising talents, which made Yun Ce very happy.

At this rate, in less than two years, the Yun family will have nearly a hundred more martial artists trained by themselves. In less than ten years, the Yun family will be the leading powerful family in the North. In another twenty years, Yun Ce will be able to tell Cao Kun that his Cao family is nothing!

Thinking about the future opportunity to lead a Thunder Smoke Beast heavy cavalry composed of his own three thousand warriors to roam the world, Yun Ce couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Warriors... three thousand... riding Thunder Smoke Beasts... and they can even throw bombs...

Yun Ce only woke up from his dream when the chestnut horse's big tongue licked his face. Martial artists can be trained, but where can you find three thousand Thunder Smoke Beasts?
Moreover, Yun Ce didn't want the kind of Thunder Smoke Beast that had been modified by the Beast Supervisors. The chestnut horse was the best Thunder Smoke Beast. It was not just a mount, but a true companion. Those people erased the intelligence of the Thunder Smoke Beast in order to demand so-called loyalty. It was a brainless act of buying the box and returning the pearl.

"Where is your home? I remember you were a young horse that was captured and brought back by someone." Yun Ce asked, stroking the chestnut horse's long face.

The chestnut horse naturally couldn't understand what Yun Ce was saying. It thought Yun Ce liked to be close to it, so it wanted to jump into Yun Ce's arms. After all, Yun Ce would sometimes hold the puppies in his arms and pet them, and it wanted to be treated like that by Yun Ce.

The chestnut horse weighs nearly two tons, which Yun Ce can still lift. However, to actually hug and pet the chestnut horse, Yun Ce would have to wait until he had mastered the skill of "Law of Heaven and Earth".

I don't know what the most powerful person in this world looks like, but judging from the few experts we know, the Han Dynasty probably wouldn't allow such a powerful person to exist.

Guided by the dog, Yun Ce arrived at the children's home and met the twelve young geniuses: eight boys and four girls. Each child was very energetic and clean. After more than a year of raising them, their temperament had improved. However, their appearance was still somewhat... indescribable.

Eji was in charge of looking after the children. She held a little girl who was just ten years old in her arms and reached out to touch the head of another boy who was a little older. She said to Yun Ce with pride, "The best performer is Aiji. Alou is a little slower, but Zhang Min said that all twelve children are excellent."

"Ai-hime? Who gave that lousy name?"

Seeing that the little girl in her arms was starting to look aggrieved at a visible speed, Eji shouted at Yun Ce, "I named her, and I love this little one. So what? You're not satisfied?"

Yun Ce shook his head and said to the little girl in E Ji's arms, "You deserve a better name."

He thought this little girl would take the opportunity to ask him, the head of the family, to rename her, but to his surprise, the little girl gritted her teeth and said to Yun Ce, "I will be called Ai Ji."

Yun Ce immediately thought that this little girl was stupid. You know, when he was ten years old, he was already skilled at maneuvering around various big shots and asking for benefits. This little girl is no match for him.

Just as Gouzi said, the twelve children had indeed developed a sense of Qi. What they lacked now was someone to inject a small amount of Qi into their bodies, guide it throughout their entire bodies, and leave it there for them to consume repeatedly until it disappeared into their bones and muscles, becoming the most basic nourishment. Then, new Qi belonging to them would appear.

It is not easy for a martial artist to cultivate a wisp of Qi, because Qi is the excess energy that automatically dissipates when the body becomes strong to a certain extent. Martial artists can collect this dissipated energy and circulate it in their bodies to make their bodies stronger, stronger, and more agile.

There are actually quite a few people who can sense Qi, but the problem is that very few are willing to impart their Qi to others and guide others to draw Qi into their bodies so that they can eventually become martial artists.

Once your energy is depleted, it's gone forever and can never be regained. If you want to return to your original level, you can only continue training.

Therefore, apart from fathers and sons, no one would be willing to do such a thing, after all, it involves real money, and there is no guarantee of a return.

Most importantly, the process of drawing qi into the body must be voluntary. If someone is forced to draw qi into another person's body, that person will be in trouble. This is because the process of drawing qi into the body is essentially handing over one's life to another person, making it extremely easy for them to leave you with hidden dangers.

Therefore, often only fathers do this in order to help their sons grow up quickly, and sons will only accept it when their fathers personally intervene.

Otherwise, they would rather spend years honing their bodies, accumulating more internal energy to break through on their own. Of course, this would take a very long time, and some people would never reach the point of self-breakthrough in their entire lives. This was not a problem for Yun Ce. His own internal energy was infused into him by Gouzi after Gouzi had thoroughly studied internal energy. In addition, Shehuo helped him refine the Dragon Arm, allowing the excessive nutrients from the Dragon Arm to be transformed into energy to nourish his body. This is how he became a killing god capable of slaying three thousand people in battle.

Besides, it was the dog that instilled the children's inner energy and stored it. In other words, it was the dog that helped the children draw energy into their bodies. Yun Ce himself couldn't handle such a delicate task.

Yun Ce examined the twelve children—actually, it was Gouzi who examined the twelve children. After understanding the children's physical conditions, Yun Ce needed to go to Tiewei Pass to find suitable Qi for the children to enter their bodies, which was very troublesome.

After returning home, Yun Ce took the dry rations prepared by E Ji and rode away on his chestnut horse.

Knowing that Yun Ce would face another series of fierce battles, E Ji did not show much concern. According to her, there was nothing to worry about. Isn't it dangerous for a hunter to go hunting?

Would a wife prevent her husband from going hunting because it's dangerous?

This is the way life is, and there's nothing we can do about it.

This time, Yun Ce did not go to Tiewei Pass. He disliked that military fortress filled with sorrow and despair. Before the war even began, he was already putting himself in the position of a loser or a martyr. This only showed that the people living in that city were a bunch of cowards.

What is a warrior?
He remained calm in the face of change, forgot his own death at the sound of the drum, and fought desperately to survive when in a life-or-death situation.

They will use their lives, weapons, hands, and even their bodies to turn desperate situations into smooth paths and death traps into deadly traps. Only in this way can they be called true warriors.

Yun Ce set up his tent by Ghost King Lake.

Since the appearance of Ghost King Lake, no one has been willing to approach it. It is said that if you get close to the lake, you can hear the sighs of the dead souls in the water.

Yun Ce felt that there shouldn't be many dead souls in Ghost King Lake. After the Shehuo ignited Coal Hill, only a little over two thousand Ghost Fang soldiers were killed, less than three thousand, which was less than his achievements in Xiangcheng.

That said, Ghost King Lake isn't very beautiful, mainly because the water is black. This is understandable, given that it used to be a huge coal mine.

He picked up a few black stones from the lakeside, examined them carefully, and then happily said to the dog, "Look, washed coal. Top-grade coal."

"This is a battlefield, not your coal washing plant."

Yun Ce didn't think the joke Gouzi told was funny at all.

"Isn't it much funnier for me to remove corns from your wife's eyes?"

When Yun Ce heard what Gouzi said, he didn't want to talk to it anymore. He picked up a lot of water from the lake to wash coal and built a large hollow coal tower on an open space.

A lot of hard firewood was placed at the bottom. After the firewood was lit, the coal tower caught fire. Perhaps because the coal was washed, it burned very vigorously.

It was getting late, and the vast earth was black. The fire that Yun Ce lit at first looked like a star in the sky. But as the sun completely set, the true nature of the fire was revealed, illuminating a large expanse of black earth.

"Dog, guess whether the wandering knights or the Ghost Fang people will arrive first?"

"Let's start with the corn on your wife's foot."

"Can't we just talk like this?"

"No, unless your wife gets another corn on her foot."

"What good will it do you if she has a corn on her foot?"

"You know nothing. This way, I can delete the record and pretend I never removed your wife's corn."

"Anything that has existed will leave a trace; how can you possibly erase it completely?"

"I can shred files and reinstall the system, how could it not be completely deleted?"

　Amidst the typhoon, with howling and screaming outside, I'm typing away inside with headphones on. (More to come...)

　　
　
(End of this chapter)