Chapter 118: Heading North

“Junior Sister… she’s dead.” White Wraith’s body trembled slightly, seeming very worried about how the Old Man would react to this news.

So after she finished speaking, she closed her eyes and half-knelt on the ground. It was only after a long while, when the punishment she imagined didn’t come, that she raised her head and looked toward where the Old Man was.

“What exactly happened? How did Rakshasa die?”

White Wraith then told the Old Man everything that had happened to Blood Rakshasa on the New Continent. The Old Man listened with his eyes closed, and only after White Wraith finished did he say lightly, “Rakshasa was my disciple. Even in death, she cannot have died for nothing.”

“It just so happens I have emerged from seclusion and still require a blood sacrifice. Let the location be set at that Xinlu Port.”

…

Far away in Xinlu, Zuo Zhicheng was still unaware that yet another big trouble was coming his way. After finishing his instructions for the Martial Arts Association, he had already boarded a passenger ship heading north.

Zuo Zhicheng stood on the deck of the passenger ship. This ship was quite large, roughly as tall as a seven or eight-story building, with five levels in total. The bottom level had common bunks for ordinary people, while the upper levels had private rooms for officials and nobles. Naturally, Zuo Zhicheng was staying in a private room.

Standing at the bow now, he could see the entire Xinlu Port growing smaller and smaller in his view, gradually shrinking into a tiny dot between the sky and the earth.

This time, his destination was an island in the sea called North Tooth Island. It was a transit station in the ocean and one of the ports established by Great Qi on the New Continent, though geographically, it fell under the rule of the Central Governance region.

The purpose of Zuo Zhicheng’s journey was to seek the final breakthrough in the Human Aspect through killing. However, killing a large number of people couldn’t be done recklessly, as that would obviously provoke hostility from the Imperial Court or other factions.

So Zuo Zhicheng chose targets who, even if killed, wouldn’t worry him about being wanted by the Imperial Court or besieged by other forces. On this New Continent, such targets naturally were bandits, robbers, pirates, and the like.

However, fighting bandits and robbers could easily leak information about Zuo Zhicheng. The vast ocean was different. Here, Zuo Zhicheng could kill without any worry about someone leaking the news, as long as he killed all the witnesses on the pirate ship or in the pirate lair afterward.

As for the specific pirate locations, he had already asked Qingyue Qiu to help him find them. When Qingyue Qiu heard he wanted to kill pirates to hone his martial arts, she didn’t stop him and had already arranged a military guide for him on North Tooth Island. When the time came, he had options: he could blend in with the military, search for pirate nests, or disguise as a merchant ship to lure the pirates.

The reason he chose this ship was that in recent months, three passenger ships had gone missing on the route to North Tooth. The authorities suspected a new pirate force had appeared. However, this force was very cunning; they never attacked fleets with slightly stronger defenses. Every time they struck, their targets were always the most ordinary passenger ships.

But this also indicated that this group of pirates wasn’t very strong. So Zuo Zhicheng chose to try his luck, to see if he could encounter this mysterious group of pirates.

Besides Zuo Zhicheng, there were other passengers on the deck looking out from the ship’s railing. To his left was a young gentleman bragging to two girls beside him: “A Ping, let me tell you, this time I learned a set of fist techniques from Master He Minghai of the Zizai Hall. It really is much more powerful than those old-fashioned martial arts schools here. After just three days of training, I felt my whole body was different.”

The young woman called A Ping was quite youthful and pretty. Hearing the man’s words, she asked doubtfully, “Really? And wasn’t the master of Zizai Hall called He Zizai? How did it become He Minghai?”

“You don’t know this, do you? Master He Minghai is He Zizai’s second son. He inherited his father’s true teachings and came to Xinlu to open a branch.” The man spoke confidently. “Their training is different from the start. None of that old-fashioned stuff like horse stance or fixed postures.”

“They start by training your physique, emphasizing physical strength, with no flashy moves. Then they teach you how to strike, punch, and kick in a fight. I heard that training there for three months can make you beat someone who trained for three years in an ordinary martial arts school.”

Zuo Zhicheng, listening nearby, nodded silently. Clearly, Zizai Hall, knowing ordinary people lacked the Innate Primordial Breath, had found an alternative path, developing a training method similar to modern combat or sanda, focusing directly on training physical strength and then learning fighting applications.

These more modern methods were obviously more suitable for ordinary people without the Innate Primordial Breath. Compared to traditionally passed-down martial arts, they were likely more direct and effective.

Zuo Zhicheng thought that as martial arts continued to be passed down, perhaps in the future, the martial arts practiced by ordinary people would increasingly discard various stances and pursue pure speed, strength, and destructive power, just like on Earth in the past.

Just as Zuo Zhicheng was thinking this, the young man nearby seemed to notice him nodding and directly addressed him, “What’s your name, brother? I’m Lin Hongsheng. Do you also think what I said makes sense?”

Zuo Zhicheng said casually, “Abandoning fixed forms and focusing more on fighting techniques and training efficiency does make sense. However…” Before the young man could get happy, Zuo Zhicheng changed his tone and said, “But the martial arts passed down for so long also have their reasons for existing.”

Lin Hongsheng immediately expressed dissatisfaction, “What use are those old-fashioned things? Let me tell you, in a fight, it comes down to who has more strength, who reacts faster, who strikes more fiercely. All those messy, flashy moves are useless.”

As Lin Hongsheng went on talking, Zuo Zhicheng naturally didn’t bother arguing with such an outsider and just said a few words to brush him off.

Right then, the young man’s voice suddenly stopped. His eyes looked toward the other side of the deck. Several Westerners with blond hair and blue eyes were walking out of the cabin. There were three men and one woman, dressed in suits and a white dress.

The young man’s gaze lingered on the blond woman among them. She wore a white low-cut long dress, with most of her pale bosom exposed directly to the air, instantly attracting the attention of all the men around. The women gritted their teeth, silently cursing the blond woman.

Zuo Zhicheng also looked at these Westerners, but his focus wasn’t on the blond woman’s chest. These Westerners had prominent cheekbones, blond hair, and blue eyes, resembling the Europeans he had seen in his previous life. Naturally, he wasn’t as surprised as the other people from Great Qi around him.

What caught his attention was the strength of these four Westerners.

Purple Innate Primordial Breath covered their bodies entirely. They were all experts who had achieved Grand Completion of Qi Training. Among them, the strongest blond man even had streams of orange Innate Primordial Breath swirling around his heart area.

Three with over 90% purple, one with about 10% orange.

Although Zuo Zhicheng had considered that there might be experts with Innate Primordial Breath among Westerners, he hadn’t expected to encounter them so soon, and four at once.

Just as he was observing them, the four men and women seemed to sense something and also looked in his direction.