The gaunt middle-aged man also carried an iron bow on his back, dressed as a hunter. When he saw Lu Yan, he clearly paused for a moment, but then his gaze was immediately captivated by the fiery red Red Knife Leaf.
"So many Red Knife Leafs."
After seeing the Red Knife Leafs, the gaunt middle-aged man's eyes burned with intense desire, which he quickly concealed.
Lu Yan, holding an iron bow, watched the other man attentively, ready to unleash his power.
Despite being thin, the stranger had a lithe step and an unnoticeable but present aura, giving off an extremely dangerous vibe, even more so than a fierce tiger.
This was a Limit Breaking Warrior.
"Haha, young man, no need to be nervous, I mean no harm."
The gaunt man let out a laugh, raised his hands, and retreated, saying, "Young man, you are truly impressive; to think you could find such hidden Red Knife Leafs. Rest assured, we have our codes among Leaf Seekers; the one who finds the Red Knife Leaf first gets to keep it. I shall take my leave now."
After saying this, he backed up more than ten meters, then turned around to leave.
But the instant the gaunt middle-aged man turned around, he suddenly grabbed his iron bow, bent it to notch an arrow, and fluidly turned back to shoot an arrow at Lu Yan.
But before his arrow could fly out, he saw another arrow shoot straight towards his throat.
The gaunt middle-aged man was taken aback and hurriedly dived to the side, narrowly avoiding the arrow's assault.
"Clever boy, so treacherous," grumbled the bedraggled man, his eyes fierce, murderous intent uncovered, as he loosed an arrow at Lu Yan.
"It goes both ways," Lu Yan said, releasing his own arrow as he spoke.
These Red Knife Leafs were worth at least three hundred silver, an amount with considerable value, and although the opponent was clearly a powerful Limit Breaking Warrior, his retreat had been too prompt and too smooth—altogether abnormal.
Anomalies indicated a trap, so just now, Lu Yan didn't hesitate to strike first.
The two arrows collided mid-air and fell to the ground.
The men quickly fired their second arrows, but Lu Yan's speed was evidently faster. His arrow flew like a shooting star, aimed at the other's throat, causing his second arrow to veer severely off course.
The opponent could only block with his iron bow, intercepting Lu Yan's arrow.
"Not bad for a youngster, your archery skills are strong," the gaunt middle-aged man cursed under his breath before he threw down his iron bow and leaped towards Lu Yan, his form swift like a cheetah.
Expressionless, Lu Yan continued to bend his bow and notch arrows, firing off three consecutive shots in an incredibly short span of time.
The three arrows were release consecutively and seamlessly, each one following the other like Chasing Wind and Moon, aiming for the man's forehead, throat, and heart—all vital points.
"Blade and Axe Palm."
The gaunt middle-aged man bellowed. His palms became pitch black as though they were made of iron, and he struck out with three consecutive chopping palms.
Boom, boom, boom!
All three arrows were chopped and broke into pieces, falling to the ground.
"Ordinary archery is just that: ordinary. Arrows that can't be imbued with qi-blood have limited use against a Limit Breaking Warrior," Lu Yan sighed internally.
If it had been martial arts of the archery path, the effect would have been completely different. He remembered the arrows shot by the Liu Family's martial soldiers last night, which even penetrated unfathomable Martial Spirits, their power so strong they could split metal and stone.
"Kid, time to die,"
Having fended off the three arrows and closing in on Lu Yan, the gaunt middle-aged man leaped high, bearing down from above with a palm aimed straight at Lu Yan's head.
He was utterly confident in this palm.
Blade and Axe Palm, a third-rate martial arts technique that could harden the practitioner's palm like iron, as sharp as blades and axes.
After thirty years of dedication to this technique, although his talent limited him from reaching the peak of perfection, he had attained the pinnacle of mastery; he didn't believe a green boy could block it.
This palm would surely split Lu Yan's skull.
"Second limit-breaking," Lu Yan thought to himself.
The opponent's full-force attack, coupled with the surge of qi-blood, made it easy to discern his cultivation level.
This was Lu Yan's first time facing a Limit Breaking Warrior head-on, and as they were on par, he naturally couldn't afford to be careless. He stimulated his qi-blood to the fullest, invoking his Iron Thread Fist.
The qi-blood roared through his body, pouring into the 288 collateral channels in his hands, and instantly, black lines appeared on Lu Yan's palms.
Crash!
Lu Yan unleashed a full-powered punch, colliding with the opponent's blade-hand.
Crack!
In the moment of the collision, the opponent's blade-hand deformed severely, contorting into a mass, with hand bones shattering into more than a dozen pieces.
The gaunt middle-aged man staggered backwards, his face twisting with excruciating pain.
After repelling the foe with a single move, Lu Yan, like a tiger descending from the mountains, threw another full-force punch at the man.
"You can't kill me, I am..."
The gaunt middle-aged man cried out in terror.
Thump!
Lu Yan punched him squarely in the chest, his fist penetrating straight through, blood, flesh, and bones splattering in all directions.
The gaunt middle-aged man convulsed a few times and then lay still, dead.
"I know, you are a dead man."
Lu Yan coldly added a sentence and withdrew his fist, feeling a wave of nausea.
He had been careless, not expecting his opponent to be so fragile. Had he known, he would have held back.
This made Lu Yan realize that even within the realm of third-rate martial arts, the difference in levels could mean a vast disparity in power.
Both of them were second limit-breaking martial artists with similar Qi-blood, but his Transcendent Iron Thread Fist completely overpowered the Mastery level Blade and Axe Palm.
It wasn't that the Iron Thread Fist was stronger, it was just more refined.
To illustrate with the Iron Thread Fist, before Reaching the Peak of Perfection, with Qi-blood remaining constant, each increase in skill level would increase its power by roughly twenty percent.
After breaking through to Reaching the Peak of Perfection, the power would increase by thirty percent, and another thirty percent increase upon reaching Transcendence.
Thus, Lu Yan's Iron Thread Fist was more than sixty percent stronger than his opponent's.
Lu Yan wiped the fresh blood off his hands onto the grass and started searching the emaciated middle-aged man's body.
There were two silver tickets, each worth fifty silver; together they amounted to one hundred silver, plus a small amount of loose change, totaling one hundred and ten silver.
Lu Yan unceremoniously pocketed them.
Besides that, there was a thumb-sized, grayish and nondescript orb, neither gold nor jade, and it was unclear what it was made from.
When Lu Yan touched the orb, the Dao Book in his mind began to flicker intensely, exuding a yearning.
A yearning... to consume the orb.
Yes, consume it.
Lu Yan was rather astonished.
It was the first time the Dao Book had had such an anomaly.
Lu Yan tried to communicate with the Dao Book, and the next moment, his forehead glowed as the Dao Book Illusion emerged.
Whoosh!
The orb transformed into a streak of light and was absorbed by the Dao Book Illusion, which then vanished without a trace.
At that moment, the previously still Iron Thread Fist Avatar began to move again and started to practice its form.
"Could that orb have such an effect?"
Lu Yan was startled, and then overjoyed.
The Iron Thread Fist Avatar moving again was ultimately a good thing.
"Let's study this later; first, I have to pick the Red Knife Leaves."
Lu Yan laid out a cloth bag and began to pick the Red Knife Leaves, placing them into the bag.
After picking all the Red Knife Leaves, Lu Yan weighed the bag; it was about a pound and a half, worth around five hundred silver.
This was a considerable sum of money.
Now, buying a house was no longer a concern.
"It's a pity that after the Red Knife Leaves are picked, the roots quickly wither. Otherwise, I could have returned next year for another harvest,"
Lu Yan mused.
Red Knife Leaves were very special; once the leaves were harvested, the roots would wither, making it difficult to find Red Knife Leaves in the same place two years in a row.
Lu Yan glanced at the body of the emaciated middle-aged man, considering whether or not to bury him—not out of kindness, but to destroy the evidence.
However, at that moment, Lu Yan heard voices coming from outside the valley.
They were still some distance from the valley, but from the sound of it, they were clearly heading this way.
"His cohorts?" Lu Yan thought. "There's no time."
Lu Yan had to give up on burying the body and quickly left the valley, heading in the opposite direction of the voices.
Soon after Lu Yan had left the valley, several men dressed as hunters entered and saw the emaciated man's corpse.
"Fang Rong is dead, punched straight through the chest—a powerful fist indeed,"
said an elderly man as he bent down to inspect the body.
"Can you tell what martial arts it was?"
asked a mustachioed, burly man standing nearby.
"With so many fist techniques in martial arts and Fang Rong's chest so badly damaged, it's hard to tell. Wait, his palms are badly fractured with distinct marks,"
the elder remarked as he picked up Fang Rong's right hand. Despite the severe deformation of the palm, one could make out several lines imprinted on it, as though they were left by iron wire.
"These marks, they look very much like those left by the third-rate martial art, Iron Thread Fist,"
the elder judged.
"Iron Thread Fist?"
the mustachioed, burly man asked in confusion. "To my knowledge, there is no one in Changfeng City who practices the Iron Thread Fist."
"The Iron Thread Fist has a wide dissemination. To my knowledge, there is a martial arts school in Wo Ye City of Qingfeng County that specializes in Iron Thread Fist,"
said the elder.
"Old Wu really has seen a lot and knows wide," praised the mustachioed man. "Right now, with Qingfeng County suffering from natural disasters and bandits arising everywhere, it's not strange for martial artists from there to be wandering around Changfeng City."
The group looked around and quickly discovered the roots of the Red Knife Leaves.
"A murder for treasure, and the target is on our Wu Family; this is seeking death,"
said the mustachioed man with murderous intent.
"Fang Rong's body is still warm; the culprit couldn't have gone far. Send the order out to block all routes of escape and search for anyone carrying Red Knife Leaves. This batch should weigh around a pound and a half, not difficult to identify with such a distinct characteristic,"
the elder advised.