Chapter 1: Attack in the Snow

In the afternoon, snowflakes floated in the northern sky of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

It's the end of another year!

As one of the three major families in the local area, the Ye family in Fengyang City has been preparing for the annual end-of-year clan competition a month in advance.

In the Cangyun Continent where martial arts are prevalent, the end-of-year clan competition is undoubtedly the most important grand event for each family!

Ding!

Dang!

In the back hall of the Ye family's weapon hall, a shirtless boy with a black stone pendant tied around his neck and wearing coarse cloth trousers was waving a big iron hammer in front of the furnace, constantly hammering a piece of red-hot pig iron.

The fire reflected his face red, and beads of sweat had already seeped out of his resolute face and muscular body.

"Bang!"

The young man was tired of hammering, so he threw the sledgehammer aside, wiped the sweat from his forehead, looked at the burning iron block, and couldn't help muttering:

"I just want to refine a knife, why does my aunt have to cheat me like this! Where did you find this piece of broken iron?"

He has been smelting this piece of black iron for two years, and he spends at least one hour every day to hammer it, but until now, it has only slightly deformed.

After two years, the knife was not refined, but his body was stronger than ordinary people, and he was extremely skilled in wielding the sledgehammer weighing more than 200 kilograms.

He shook his head helplessly and fought with a metal puppet next to him.

Suddenly, the sound of "bang bang" was heard in the hall.

This metal puppet is also rare, and can use different boxing techniques to fight him. In less than a quarter of an hour, it has changed three or four sets of boxing techniques.

The young man's attack was completely unpredictable, and he was completely countering the moves. He didn't care about being hit by a few punches occasionally.

Suddenly, he and the puppet exerted force at the same time, and their fists hit each other.

There was a loud bang.

The metal puppet retreated two steps, but the young man retreated four or five steps in a row before he could barely stand.

The young man rubbed his swollen fists, and the muscles on his face twitched slightly in pain, but his bright eyes were full of disappointment.

"Is my aptitude so bad? I have worked hard for four years, but in the end I am still at the third level of body refining. There are still ten days before the end-of-year clan competition. If I can't reach the fourth level of body refining by then, I will have to rush to the branch!"

The major realms of martial arts practice are body refining, true essence, sea transformation, Yuandan, and Tiangang. Each realm is divided into nine levels, and each level is divided into four levels: front, middle, back, and peak.

Some people also generally call the first, second and third levels of each realm the early stage; the fourth, fifth and sixth levels are collectively called the middle stage; the seventh, eighth and ninth levels are collectively called the late stage.

In Fengyang City, there is no martial artist in the Huahai realm. Reaching the middle stage of the Zhenyuan realm is enough to support a large family.

As for the realms above Tiangang, they are all legends!

The shirtless boy is called Ye Liuyun.

His current realm, to be precise, is the late stage of the third level of body refining, which is collectively called the early stage of body refining.

At this moment, his heart is full of reluctance, and at the same time, there is a deep sense of powerlessness.

When Ye Liuyun was ten years old, Ye Liuyun's aunt Feng Wanru came to find his mother, as if something had happened in his mother's family.

Then his father accompanied his mother back to her mother's home and never came back. The aunt was left by his mother to take care of him and took over his father's position as the elder of the Qitang.

Ye Liuyun has always wanted to make himself stronger through his own hard work and practice, so that he can find his parents in the future and see the outside world.

But in the past two years, his realm has been stuck at the third level of body refining! No matter how hard he tried, his realm did not improve.

Disciples from both the main and branch branches of the clan looked down on this "waste" and "mediocrity".

Even Ye Xinyu, who was engaged to him, looked at him with contempt and disgust every time she saw him. She proposed to cancel the engagement several times, making him a laughing stock of the whole clan.

Ye Liuyun grabbed a piece of clothing and put it on, then walked out of the back hall sadly.

Aunt Feng Wanru was already drunk and sleeping on the rocking chair, and there were several empty wine gourds lying on the wine table next to her.

He glanced at Feng Wanru, her face was rosy, her eyelashes fluttered, and her chest rose and fell. He quickly retracted his gaze and dared not look at it any more.

Feng Wanru was eight years older than him. She was young, had a stunning face, and was graceful. Coupled with her transcendent temperament, she was definitely a great beauty!

But this beautiful aunt became an alcoholic, often drunk, and had no image of a lady at all!

Feng Wanru was well-informed, and Ye Liuyun's understanding of the outside world came from her stories. But many times, Ye Liuyun thought that Feng Wanru was exaggerating on purpose.

But in terms of cultivation, in addition to letting him exercise his body, he did not give him any pills for physical training. He also said that this was for his own good.

Ye Liuyun did not understand. Because others did not have blood awakening, they also took pills to improve their realm. He also resisted, but it only made Feng Wanru angry, and it did not work.

Therefore, Ye Liuyun's realm was slowly improved, which had a lot to do with the fact that he never took pills.

Feng Wanru didn't care about his realm, but seeing that his bloodline was not awakening for a long time, and there was no way, she drank to relieve her sorrow.

When Ye Liuyun thought of this, he felt sorry for his aunt.

"I wonder if my aunt can bear it if I am driven to the branch?"

He sighed, picked up the wine gourd on the table, and went out of the house to get her some wine.

Ye Liuyun didn't feel cold either. Facing the snowflakes all over the sky, breathing the cold air, and crunching on the thick snow, he felt much more relaxed.

Just when Ye Liuyun was two streets away from the tavern, he suddenly stopped and frowned.

"Do you want to kill?"

A sense of danger came to his mind, and his heart jumped suddenly.

Suddenly, a masked man in a black robe jumped out of the alley next to him and rushed towards him like a gust of wind.

Ye Liuyun smelled the fragrance of a woman in the wind, which was very eye-catching in the fresh air after the snow.

But Ye Liuyun's realm was too low after all. He sensed the danger but couldn't avoid it, and was stabbed in the lower abdomen by the black-clothed man.

He subconsciously covered his lower abdomen, and his hands were covered with blood.

The black-robed man then slapped his chest with a palm.

"It's a woman! This hand and the smell of the wind just now... Ye Xinyu? Is she going to kill me?"

A thought flashed through Ye Liuyun's mind.

He didn't know others. Although Ye Liuyun didn't have a good impression of his fiancée, he still observed her carefully. So he could tell at once.

It's just that Ye Xinyu had only humiliated him a few words and instigated others to cause trouble for him before. She herself had never taken action, let alone wanted to kill him.

At this time, he didn't have time to think too much. With a "snap", the black-clothed man's palm hit the pendant on his chest, as if it had broken the pendant.

The moment Ye Liuyun fell backwards, one hand hurriedly clenched the pendant on his chest. That was the only memory his parents left him.

Ye Liuyun fell to the ground, and the man in black stabbed his throat with another sword.

"Hmph!" A cold snort echoed in the street like thunder. Then a strong momentum pressed against the man in black.

Puff!

The man in black was shocked and froze. He could no longer stab with the sword. He spit a mouthful of blood on his mask and turned to run away.

Seeing the man in black run away, Ye Liuyun was relieved. It seems that someone rescued him. I thought I was going to be killed!

At this time, even he himself didn't know that the black pendant absorbed all his blood.

Then the pendant flashed and enveloped Ye Liuyun's whole body. The wound on his body immediately recovered as before.

"The wound healed? What's going on?"

Ye Liuyun was shocked. Before he could figure out what happened, the black pendant flew into his body again.

At this moment, perhaps because of the serious injury he had just suffered, his consciousness became increasingly blurred and he gradually fell into a coma.