By the time Gu Chenling came to it was already noon of the next day. The glow surrounding him and the skill manual scroll had faded. Despite having stayed up the whole night he did not feel exhausted.
But then again, ghosts which are spirit bodies did not need sleep to begin with. It was only due to habit that he went to sleep every night. According to the jade pendant while ghosts did not need to sleep, sleeping did help alleviate mental fatigue.
Either way, instead of feeling fatigue he felt quite refreshed. In fact, he felt even better than after waking up from sleeping.
Gu Chenling got up from bed and washed up, again something ghosts did not need to do. But old habits die hard.
After washing up he went out to the inner courtyard full of motivation. Standing in the middle of the courtyard, he closed his eyes and recalled the content of the skill manual he had purchased the day before.
He followed the instructions of the manual and let the yin energy in his body accumulate in his legs and feet. And then he moved his feet to follow the instructions described in the first level of the Moon Swallow Steps.
The Moon Swallow Steps itself had nine levels, with increasing difficulty per level. In general, this movement skill could be characterized by the words elusive, swift and light. Those who practiced it would not only be fast, but they would also be experts in evading attacks while maintaining the poise and weightlessness of a feather in the wind.
Having gotten some understanding of the movement skill, Gu Chenling could only nod his head at the stall owner's keen eye. The movement skill really suited his personality as he was rather elusive and not very confrontational.
Either way, he was still a beginner and it would take him an unknown time to reach the final level. But he was not in a hurry.
He practiced all morning and even extended the practice into the afternoon without break. At first he stumbled quite a few times. But he eventually got the hang of it slowly. It was like learning a dance, following a specific order of steps to complete a whole sequence of movements.
His speed increased with his proficiency. And by the end of the day he could already tell that there was a significant difference in movement speed compared to before he started his training.
Gu Chenling felt that spending so many merit points was worth it.
During the next week or so he used all his spare time outside of some daily chores practicing the first level of the movement skill until he mastered it. As it was only the first level it was the easiest to learn and did not take all that long to master.
He did not know whether it was his imagination, but he felt like his body was lighter. It was only by a miniscule amount, almost negligible. His movements seemed more effortless and faster. Not only his feet and legs as he had expected but his whole body seemed affected.
But Gu Chenling did not spend much thought on it. If it was really like that, it would be easier to tell once he had learned more levels.
So he soon started practicing the second level. He could tell that it was more difficult to learn than the first level. But he already expected it, so he was not discouraged.
Gu Chenling wanted to take the bounty hunter assessment test when he reached full mastery of the third level. But as he was in no rush to take the test he took on a more relaxed training schedule after he had finished learning the first level.
Like that more than a month passed.
He had already reached proficiency in the second level and had confirmed his conjecture that the weight of his spirit body became lighter the more proficient he was in the movement skill.
Currently, Gu Chenling was practicing the third level and was close to mastering it. It was only a matter of a few days.
Chenling had felt it was odd before that learning the skill came so naturally to him. So he did some research and what he found out reassured him that he was not some kind of martial arts genius.
Supposedly, the higher the compatibility between the skill and the practitioner, the easier it was to learn and master the skill. The quality of the skill manual also played a role as lower quality skills usually had some miscellaneous and unnecessary moves compared to higher quality skills that had filtered out anything redundant.
He also found out that high quality skill manuals were pretty rare and therefore very expensive. The cheaper ones usually started at 80,000 merit points and the more expensive ones cost more than 100,000. After finding this out Gu Chenling really counted himself lucky.
Although, he was not entirely sure why he had gotten such a large discount for the skill manual he still felt grateful to the stall owner. Not only did the stall owner choose a suitable skill for him, but he also did not care to make Chenling pay the full amount of what the skill manual was worth.
The rich and powerful were sometimes whimsical and might help those lesser fortunate. But that did not mean that they were easy to please and taken advantage of. Gu Chenling had met a good person this time. He would be sure to thank the other the next time they met.
Gu Chenling was just about to finish one round of the third level routine when he felt an uncomfortable feeling in his chest and stopped in his tracks. He habitually grabbed his chest. But something felt weird. Unlike the suffocating pain he used to feel whenever his heart was acting up it felt more like a coldness eating away at him on the inside.
However, before he could pinpoint what exactly that feeling was it disappeared again.
Did his heart disease reoccur?
He should have been healed and his physique should have been transformed by the jade. Furthermore, the uncomfortable feeling was not in the right place. So what could it possibly be?
A brief search through the jade's data base only left him more confused.
The only cases he could currently find did not fit his situation.
Residual pain from ailments that were left by incomplete healing and transformation? Gu Chenling knew that his heart defect and all the other physical problems he had had been healed.
Phantom pain from healed ailments? Wrong location and different feeling of uncomfortableness.
A bad feeling due to something happening to a loved one in the world of the living? Gu Chenling doubted he had been close enough to anyone during his lifetime for that to happen.
He was at a loss.
Still confused, Gu Chenling decided to not think about it any further and to continue training.
During the next few days the uncomfortable feeling reappeared from time to time. But it still disappeared after a few seconds and did not disturb his life any further than making him freeze on occasion.
Finally, despite all distractions and Gu Chenlings lackadaisical attitude towards training he finally mastered the third level. A cool sensation ran through his whole body, leaving it feeling even lighter and more easy to move than before. This had also happened when he completed the second level, only on a smaller and less noticeable scale.
Either way, Gu Chenling had finally reached his initial goal of mastering the third level which meant that he would now look into registering for the bounty hunter assessment.
Registering for the assessment did not have any real requirements aside from having at least a genuine third order jade or higher and paying 10,000 merit points as registration fee. Gu Chenling could fulfill both requirements without any problems. So far so good.
But when he did some research on the assessment itself and looked up people's experiences with the assessment, passing was an entirely different matter. There were many who registered hoping to pass the assessment and become a bounty hunter in order to earn merit points faster and more easily. However, many underestimated the test or overestimated their own strength and either did not pass with minor injuries if they were lucky or experienced grave, life-threatening injuries and even death when unlucky.
This was one of the reasons why lower order ghosts were prohibited from taking the bounty hunter assessment. It was to prevent them from intentionally taking the test to commit suicide. Of course, punishing sinners and not giving them the opportunity to improve their circumstances also played a role. But suicide prevention was probably the main reason.
The assessment itself was pretty straight forward. It consisted of measuring one's aura and a background check to make sure that the examinee had not committed any major crimes. After all, ghosts who had been good people during their lifetime could have changed in the afterlife and turned to crime anytime. People were unpredictable.
After filtering the morally corrupted out came the main part of the bounty hunter assessment which was a combat test.
In the combat test had some variations. Sometimes the examinee would have to go up against a malicious spirit, other times against a cluster of malignant spirits or even a spirit beast. The only thing that did not change was that one would have to subdue the opponent within a timespan of thirty minutes.
The difficulty was generally kept the same. But depending on the opponent one would have to face different challenges. Malicious spirits usually were smarter and more scheming so one would have to be careful of pitfalls.
The cluster of malignant spirits were usually lower level spirits that had fused together for one reason or another and thus had no real dominant conscience, therefore only operating on instinct. However, their behavior was unpredictable, too.
Spirit beasts could be placed somewhere in between malicious spirits and the spirit clusters as they were smarter than the spirit clusters, but still operated based on their instincts. Their ferociousness was, however, the highest amongst the three.
According to the forums Gu Chenling consulted, going into the combat assessment without proper martial arts skills and weapon was basically committing suicide. Knowing this, he figured that he would have to postpone the bounty hunter assessment after all.
If he went to the assessment now, all he could do would be to evade and run away. He doubted that the little self defense he knew could take down a beast or a spirit cluster that had multiple extremities to attack.
Gu Chenling was still missing a weapon and a martial arts skill. So he decided to take another trip to Tranquil Lake City.
Unfortunately however, he did not find any weapon or martial arts skill that satisfied him even when scouring the whole bazar. He did not see the stall owner from last time either.
That was not a surprise, though. The bazar operated on a voluntary basis. People who had something to sell could set up a stall after paying a fee and sell their stuff. There was no obligation to set up a stall everyday. Therefore, one would find new stalls and things to buy on a daily basis.
Only on the third day looking around did Gu Chenling see the stall he had been searching for. It was set up the same way as the last time which was how he recognized it or else, if he had only looked at the stall owner in the common cloak, he might have walked past the stall. Too many people wore the same robe, covering their appearance.
"Senior," he greeted the stall owner respectfully and thanked the other for choosing a good movement skill for him the last time.
"Senior, do you have any martial arts skills that would be suitable for me to practice?" He cast a hopeful glance at the stall owner who scrutinized him wordlessly from under his hood.
Finally, after a long pregnant silence the throaty and aged voice sounded: „It depends on what type of martial arts you want to practice." After a pause he continued. "The purpose of practicing, too."
Gu Chenling nodded in understanding. "I want to take the bounty hunter assessment," he stated, not hiding his intentions. "I was thinking that I could use a weapon with a longer range. But I am not sure which weapon to choose."
He had always been cautious and steadfast in nature when it came to facing uncertainties. Using a short range weapon when going up against a beast that could easily overpower him in terms of physical strength and ferocity or a spirit cluster that could overwhelm him with multiple attacks at once would be stupid, especially when Gu Chenling lacked experience in combat. Besides that he also wasn't someone who ran into things head first so a sword or other kinds of close combat weapons.
"Choosing a weapon is up to you. Come back when you have chosen one," the stall owner ordered gruffly, waving Gu Chenling away.
Knowing that the stall owner was right, Gu Chenling could only nod and turn to face the challenge of finding a suitable weapon for himself on his own.