Chapter 412 Qu Ling Prefecture Two

Li Cheng Yi looked at the stone steps leading into the Prefectural Office, lost in thought.

This was very similar to the Tianyan system of He Yi Kingdom.

"What about the officials on duty in the yamen? Don't they come here either?" he asked again.

"Yinyue Zhenren is too powerful. As the strongest Fu Jiang (Prefectural General) stationed in the prefectural city, although this is nominally the Prefectural Office, everyone actually goes to Qu Ling Fort not far away. This sir, you must have just been transferred here, right?" The boss had amazing insight, and guessed with a smile.

"You have a good eye, boss." Li Cheng Yi nodded.

"Let me give you a piece of advice: don't go to the main Prefectural Office if you don't have to. That place is extremely strange. In recent years, many drunkards have stubbornly broken in, but they were all thrown out, driven mad," the boss whispered.

"Thank you for the reminder. Please tell me where Qu Ling Fort is." Li Cheng Yi gave him another large coin.

"Of course, of course." The boss accepted the money and smiled.

After eating red shrimp noodles, Li Cheng Yi quickly moved away from the Prefectural Office to the left, and after wandering around a few streets, he quickly arrived in front of a much more normal-looking yamen with red tiles and black walls.

This time, the style was much more normal.

There were soldiers guarding the entrance, and a plaque of the Qu Ling Prefectural Office was hung up.

People and sedan chairs kept coming in and out of the side door.

Li Cheng Yi showed his token and was led to a large courtyard inside.

A plaque of the Shen Wu Si (Godly Martial Bureau) hung on the courtyard gate, with black characters on a red background, in a flamboyant style that was not easily recognizable.

The Prefectural Lord was a rough and burly man named Deng Yan Dong, who readily issued Li Cheng Yi's transfer order, assigning him to the Third Battalion as Deputy Commander instead of the original Sixth Battalion.

According to him, the Sixth Battalion was full, and Li Cheng Yi was a step late, and now there was only a position in the Third Battalion. However, it seemed that the lucrative position in the Sixth Battalion was simply bait, hooking one person after another.

Li Cheng Yi didn't care, as he didn't rely on his position for anything anyway.

However, in his opinion, the Shen Wu Si here seemed much more lax than in Cangshi County. Even this Prefectural Lord Deng Yan Dong was embracing a dancing girl with one hand and groping her up and down when he received him. The table was covered with fine wine and delicacies, a scene of wealth and enjoyment.

In Cangshi County, the County Lord and Deputy County Lord often led everyone in sparring and exchanging blows.

But here...

In the huge courtyard, which was comparable in size to a football field, there was not a single person practicing martial arts or sparring.

Li Cheng Yi took the transfer order, and when he passed by the courtyard, he saw that the weapon and armor racks placed in the corner were covered with a thin layer of cobwebs. The sweatbands on the handles of some weapons were moldy and hardened.

Clearly, they had not been touched for quite some time.

Moreover, the Shen Wu Si had such a large area of land, but there were very few people.

The Blood Guard Bureau, a brother department, was right across the street, but while there were still two gatekeepers here, there wasn't even a gatekeeper on the other side.

'Perhaps it's been peaceful for too long...' Li Cheng Yi shook his head in his heart.

Even the military organization was like this, so it was obvious that this place had become corrupt to a certain extent.

He went to the small courtyard of the Third Battalion to report, and there were only two white-haired old men playing chess in the entire courtyard. One old man paused, got up, completed his entry procedures, and then waved his hand to signal that he could leave.

"Wait, I haven't even seen the Battalion Commander, and what about the teams in the battalion?" Li Cheng Yi couldn't help but ask.

"The Battalion Commander has gone out for 'flower wine.' She usually only comes once at the end of the month. You can come back then and see her," the old man in a white robe with gold-edged fish patterns waved his hand lazily.

"Flower wine? But isn't the Battalion Commander of the Third Battalion a woman?" Li Cheng Yi was stunned.

"She is a woman, and she's looking for men. It's very normal." The old man didn't turn his head back, touching his chin and continuing to think about the chess game.

"Young man, are you from the countryside?" The other gray-robed old man on the opposite side, with an air of immortal grace, looked up and smiled at Li Cheng Yi.

"Um, yes. May I ask, elders, why does this place...feel so strange?" Seeing that he had a good attitude, Li Cheng Yi immediately bowed to him and asked.

"Strange? Our Qu Ling Prefecture is filled with peace and prosperity, and all evil is warded off. This isn't strange, you're just not used to it yet. When you've been here for a while, you'll understand how good and how happy this place is," the old man said with a smile.

"Isn't that right? Every year, we capture tens of thousands of alien slaves from the Night Sea alone. These are all top-notch goods in terms of appearance and physique. After they're trained here, they're sent to all parts of the country, and even sold to other countries, in exchange for massive resources and wealth. Based on this, we attract a large number of wealthy merchants and clans to settle down, and countless good things such as resources, secret treasures, and secret techniques converge and are traded here. How can living here not be comfortable?" The old man in the gold-edged fish-patterned robe said with a chuckle.

"Slaves? There is a slave trade here?" Li Cheng Yi was taken aback.

"This place is adjacent to the Night Sea, and every day, slave-catching armies enter the sea to capture people. Any race with a little characteristic, whether on the islands or in the sea, even those flying in the sky, can be brought back for you. The Prefectural Lord's slave-catching army is guarded by his four Yin Shen (Nether Gods) disciples. No one can stop their slaughter," the white-robed old man said leisurely.

"Four Yin Shen...?" Li Cheng Yi's heart skipped a beat when he heard this. Obviously, these four, along with the mysterious Prefectural Lord, Yinyue Zhenren, were the strongest peak martial forces in this Qu Ling Prefecture.

"May I ask, elders, are those four Yin Shen all Blood Yuan experts who have fused Zhenyin (True Imprints)?" He tentatively asked, carefully choosing his words.

"Of course. To become an Yin Shen, it means that among the Prefectural Lord's disciples, they must fuse Zhenyin to stand out," the white-robed old man said meaningfully, sizing up Li Cheng Yi thoughtfully.

The new kid went straight for Zhenyin fusion in a few words. Obviously, only experts at that level could make him value and fear them. This was an instinctive manifestation of people.

What one asks about and cares about the most at the first moment is naturally what one cares about the most.

Li Cheng Yi didn't mean to hide it either. He was coming here with the reputation of being a true Qi martial arts genius, so it was normal to be proud and arrogant.

"Young man, don't be too ambitious. Even if the true Qi martial artists of our Shen Wu Si fuse Zhenyin, like the three Prefectural Lords and Deputy Prefectural Lords, they are far from being a match for those bloodline experts. You should understand how big the gap is between a rabbit wearing a suit of armor and a lion or tiger wearing a suit of armor. The foundation is too different," the white-robed old man advised.

"Thank you for your guidance, elder. I will remember it." Li Cheng Yi cupped his fist and bowed respectfully.

This place was indeed worthy of being a prefectural city. Right off the bat, there were four bloodline martial artists who had condensed Zhenyin. The Shen Wu Si actually had three who had fused Zhenyin. Obviously, they wouldn't have fused Zhenyin of the non-grade. Even so, in the eyes of the old man in front of him, they still couldn't defeat those four Yin Shen at all. One could imagine what level the even more powerful Prefectural Lord was at.

'It seems that I can't be as unscrupulous as before in this place. I have to hide myself properly...'

After bidding farewell to the two old men, Li Cheng Yi went straight to the armory here.

As the Deputy Commander of the Third Battalion, he was considered a mid-level officer in the Shen Wu Si and was also qualified to browse the public secret manuals in the armory for free.

The armory here was close to the Shen Wu Si courtyard, a three-story wooden pavilion in a separate courtyard.

There was no one guarding the door, and a thick layer of white ash had accumulated on the gray stone slabs on the ground, indicating that no one had been here for a long time.

Li Cheng Yi pushed the door open and walked step by step to the door of the pavilion. Because he was worried about mechanisms, he didn't directly cross over but honestly pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The layout inside the door was the same as in Cangshi County, with inlaid grids on three walls.

However, most of the grids here were full, with secret manuals placed in them, while most of the grids in Cangshi County were empty.

Standing at the door, waving away a strand of cobwebs that had floated down, Li Cheng Yi's eyes swept around and quickly locked onto the Black-grade martial arts books in the grids on the right wall.

The Black-grade martial arts books were next to several Silver-marked Silver-grade martial arts books. At a glance, there were more than ten books.

'I really came to the right place!' Li Cheng Yi took a deep breath, suppressed the excitement in his heart, and quickly approached.

Reaching out his hand, he first took down a Black-grade secret manual.

"Qing Xin Suo Yu Gong (Heart Cleansing Jade Seeking Skill)."

After flipping through and checking, the Zhenyin fusion part inside was not deleted. The copy of the secret manual mainly retained the matching cultivation secret medicine part.

Without the secret medicine, this skill couldn't be learned at all.

But what Li Cheng Yi needed was the theoretical part of these Zhenyin fusions.

With continuous reading, how to fuse Zhenyin was written extremely clearly on it.

The principle was very simple.

Since the previous extraction of true Qi was to imagine oneself as a form that could attract the spirit of Zhenyin, thereby absorbing the marrow of Zhenyin.

Then, Zhenyin fusion was to completely transform one's body and mind through external means into a form that could attract the spirit of Zhenyin even more.

Thereby attracting the main body of the spirit of Zhenyin to enter, and finally completing this step of fusion.

Therefore, this involved a human body modification step.

The secret manual mentioned that above Black-grade, the main difference in power between different martial arts lies in the power of the Zhenyin itself, and the degree of compatibility between the martial art's transformation of oneself and the spirit of Zhenyin.

First, the Zhenyin itself had strengths and weaknesses, which was easy to understand.

The second was mainly how high or low the compatibility between everyone's transformed self and the spirit of Zhenyin was.

The higher the compatibility, the more spirits of Zhenyin that were fused, the stronger the power was. Naturally, fusing 100% was the strongest.

However, generally, Black-grade martial arts could only fuse three to five percent.

Silver-grade could fuse six to seven percent, and the strongest top-grade gold-patterned grade could fuse eight to nine percent.

This was the difference.

The secret manual in Li Cheng Yi's hand was a top-grade Black-grade martial art that could reach 50%.

He flipped to the back, which was densely filled with steps on how to transform oneself, using mind-image hypnosis, and transforming oneself into a monster that was similar to a human but not a human, thereby attracting the spirit of Zhenyin to fuse.

This made him frown.

He picked up another secret manual again.

"Lin Guang Hu Sha Gong (Approaching Light Tiger Shark Skill)." This book was the same. Because the shape of the target Zhenyin spirit was similar to a tiger shark, it was necessary to transform oneself into a flesh and blood monster with the appearance of a tiger shark. Although it was only a temporary transformation and could still return to a human state.

But...Li Cheng Yi looked at the various bloody insertions, transplants, and primitive forced organ migration surgeries inside, and felt an indescribable sense of nausea in his heart.

'Too primitive.'

'No wonder Wang's ancestors couldn't come up with a method to fuse Zhenyin by themselves. This method...cannot be created independently by ordinary people at all.'

Li Cheng Yi looked at one book after another, all with the same steps.

First, sense the approximate shape of the spirit of Zhenyin through true Qi traction and induction, then transform one's body and mind to constantly approach the other party, thereby attracting it to descend and merge into oneself.

Finally, completely fuse it into the body.

The spirit of Zhenyin itself had no intelligence, and after fusion, it was naturally dominated by humans.

This was the fundamental principle of the so-called Zhenyin martial arts.

Different martial arts were nothing more than different levels of compatibility in self-transformation.

The same Zhenyin could only be fused with one type of martial art. Once it was snatched by other martial arts practitioners, then later comers could only wait until the other party died before they could continue to fuse this Zhenyin spirit.

This perverted system also led to the fact that the first comers were always strong, and the later comers were always weak.

Even in the end, the Zhenyin spirits completely ran out of slots and were all snatched up, and the last new martial artists would be reduced to the point where they couldn't fuse at all.

This formed a complete and solidified division between the Zhenyin class and the ordinary martial arts class.