Chapter 11. A Living X-Ray Scanner!

Chapter 11. A Living X-Ray Scanner!

After 13 days of traveling, Ren Qingquan and his group finally arrived at Wind Bamboo City. As they had been delayed due to Ren Qingquan vomiting every certain distance until the second day after leaving Bear Forest City when Ren Qingquan finally forgot about the blueish bloody corpse he saw at the inn. Wind Bamboo City is a city under Martial Spirit Sect's jurisdiction. It is located close to Azure Empire's border and is one of the place where the sect's test will be held. Wind Bamboo City is built near a massive bamboo forest that occasionally generates some whistling sound due to the breeze.

By the way, one might be able to realize it by now. Most cities in this world are named after natural landscapes near that city like bear forest and wind bamboo.

Ren Qingquan could already see a quite long snaking queue to enter the city. As they passed those people lined up for entry and drove into another much shorter queue.

Shouldn't they also wait in that line over there?This is slightly different than when their group entered Bear Forest City. As Ren Qingquan remembered, they also need to queue with other people to enter that city.

Seemingly able to sense the questioning glance that Ren Qingquan sent her, Xiao Ling explained to him.

"During normal time, most city only opened a small gate and everyone must line up on that gate. But during a special time like Martial Spirit Sect's test, a huge influx of people will arrive at the city. To keep noble families from throwing a tantrum, cities usually opened their main gate and set another queue for nobles. That long line you see are for common people, trade caravan, or low level martial arts practitioner. As a top family in the Great Azure Family, this carriage is equipped with Ren family's insignia which allows it to enter the main gate's queue."

"Ohhh"

Ren Qingquan nodded upon hearing that explanation. Although he felt it is unfair for the common people to queue at such a long line on this hot day, Ren Qingquan has no complaints as a beneficiary of these rules.

Long live the aristocracy!

As they entered the gate, Ren Qingquan looked at the system map that had been opened some time ago. Seeing several big dots just after arriving at the city makes Ren Qingquan have the illusion that martial artist practitioners are dime a dozen. As he continued to use [Scan] as the carriage advanced, most of those dots are Martial Apprentice and Martial Master and occasional Martial Grandmaster mixed in.

Arriving at a five storied inn, Ren Qingquan and his group entered it. When Xiao Ling went forward to book their room, Ren Qingquan could hear the price of the room which is close to ten times more expensive compared to the cost of his stay in Bear Forest City which already included reimbursement for the wall Xiao Ling exploded. Which is probably an insanely high price as Ren Qingquan could see Xiao Ling's expression turning ugly.

As the guard placed his luggage, Xiao Ling followed Ren Qingquan into the shopping street in Wind Bamboo City. Looking at the stalls and stores selling basic needs like food, only a few normal people come and trade there. The main attraction in this city during Martial Spirit Sect's disciple recruitment test is the stall opened by martial artists that flocked to join the test or just selling their trinket for money.

The things they sell are extremely diverse. From precious herbs to concoct medicine, minerals used to forge treasured weapons, some part of ferocious beasts, and even things excavated from ruins.

With the system's map active, Ren Qingquan went like a fish in water as he walked from one stall to another purchasing many things that contain a lot of energy. Together with Xiao Ling who is in charge of bargaining, Ren Qingquan doesn't need to be afraid of being ripped off. While at it, Ren Qingquan also tried to learn about how much money he actually has by observing the ongoing trade around and Ren Qingquan came to a conclusion. He is rich, as in extremely super filthy rich.

Ren Qingquan couldn't understand what goes in Ren Shiluo's mind as he gave him such a massive amount of money. This time, Ren Qingquan purchased more than a hundred items from herbs to trinkets like statues and broken swords. While going back to the inn, Ren Qingquan also took some herbs and 'ate' them in front of Xiao Ling.

Actually, Ren Qingquan used [Devour] on those items as they entered his mouth. Ren Qingquan does that as an excuse for the soon going to be missing items he has purchased and his sudden increase in strength.

After seeing the corpse at the previous inn, Ren Qingquan finally truly realized how dangerous this world is and steeled his heart to quickly increase his strength, even if he needed to show some of the system's abilities. Especially, soon he needed to join Martial Spirit Sect without being accompanied by any guard nor Xiao Ling the missile. Every time he thinks about it, Ren Qingquan loses some of his sense of safety.

Looking as Ren Qingquan ate the precious herb they had just purchased, Xiao Ling quickly stopped him.

"Young master, what are you doing! A medicinal herb must be consumed after being concocted into medicine to discard its impurities, otherwise it might cause your martial arts practice to slow down."

"No worries, this is necessary to practice a technique I got recently from my dream called 'Mountain and Sea Swallowing Technique'."

Of course that mountain-whatnot technique is something Ren Qingquan just thought of and is used as a scapegoat for his [Devour]. Due to the crazy creativity of people in this world, there exist many weird techniques that require outside assistance especially by swallowing things.

For example, the 'Mountain Trembling Technique' fatty Zhang used requires the practitioner to eat a lot of food every day and store the fat in their body to be used to assist transforming their blood energy into vital energy. Which is probably practiced by fatty Zhang as an excuse to eat a lot.

There is also a technique stored in the system library that requires the user to practice it while doing 'night exercise' to gain double the results.

After eating the herb, Ren Qingquan purchased a vital energy from the system, causing his realm to finally reach First Stage Martial Master right in front of Xiao Ling.

'System panel'

[Name: Ren Qingquan

Realm: First Stage Martial Master

Point: 23

Technique: Body Tempering (Martial Saint)

Looking at his point that increased by 42, which is approximately 6 points a day. Ren Qingquan blessed whoever came up with the idea of a shopping street.

As the time of the test has begun, tens of arenas have been built at the city's central plaza. In the arena, there are several things that will be used for the test.

As more and more people arrived, Ren Qingquan could see his third uncle jumping and floating into the arena located in the center. With his arrival, the noisy crowd slowly grew quiet.

"The Martial Spirit Sect annual disciple recruitment test begins."

After saying that, Third Uncle immediately floated back and disappeared. Soon, some people wearing Martial Spirit Sect uniforms arrived and announced the test's rules.

"The test is separated into three categories based on age. Those below 16 will start first, followed by those below 25 and below 40 years old. For those who wished to enter the test, please line up to have your age checked."

Upon hearing the announcement, Ren Qingquan lined up next to the disciple holding a sign board with an age check written. After just lining up for five minutes, Ren Qingquan soon arrived in front of the examiner.

As Ren Qingquan looked at the examiner's eye, he could see it glowing with some light and soon he was judged to pass the age check.

"Pass"

With the word from the examiner, Ren Qingquan proceed to the arena.

Arriving at the arena, it is separated into three sections with three different test equipment. A set of boulders with different sizes, a huge log tied to a pole, and a device Ren Qingquan isn't sure about.

"The three tests tested are strength, endurance, and agility. As long as your score goes above 10, you pass."

With the examiner's explanation, Ren Qingquan walked into the set of boulders. The boulder here is written with different numbers to show its weight. Starting from 0.5 stone which is 30 kg to 10 stone which is equal to 600kg with a difference of 0.5 stone per boulder.

Pulling the stone with 2.5 written, Ren Qingquan successfully pulled it after some effort. Next the examiner asked a question.

"Do you want to try a higher weight or continue to the next test?"

"Let's go to the next test."

Next, Ren Qingquan walked into that mysterious device. Standing inside a circle at the center of a U shaped wall with many holes, the examiner seemed to see his confusion and explained.

"Someone will push some wooden stick from the hole in this wall, you need to evade those wooden sticks without being touched nor leaving the circle for as long as possible. We will begin anytime you are ready."

"Alright, I am ready."

With that, Ren Qingquan could immediately see several wooden sticks coming his way.

Ren Qingquan immediately moved just like a feather that is being blown from the wind caused by the wooden stick's movement. What he used just now is his Feather Step skill which never got the chance to act since his transmigration.

After close to a minute, the amount of stick targeting him at once already amounted to ten with many of them targeting his handsome face, Ren Qingquan blundered and caused one of the sticks to hit him in the leg. With this, the agility test is completed.

"You have collected 14 points and passed, do you want to continue to the next assessment or do you want to leave? Please note, the amount of points you get here doesn't matter as long as you achieve the minimum."

Looking at some of the arena where the endurance test already started, Ren Qingquan chose to leave.

That crazy endurance test actually asks the examinee to get beaten by that large log for as much as possible. Ren Qingquan even saw one of the examiners being sent flying because that guy couldn't maintain his balance.

As he is one of the earlier people that finished the test, Ren Qingquan needed to wait until the others finished and healed their wounds. Which might require several hours.

***

Consciousness space

I have scanned the poison on that guy killed by Ren Qingchen. Not only that, I also used the remnant soul reading function that has been added to [Scan] a long time ago. From that guy's memory, he seems to think the killer is someone from the Emperor's assassination squad due to the special poison only the emperor's assassination group should know. I also found out that poison could actually kill Martial Emperors if they are careless and guaranteed to kill even Martial Lords. That is why I warned Ren Qingquan but still sold that poison to him nevertheless as a trump card.