Decaying World

Chapter 101 101 Peaceful One
Getting married will only slow down the speed at which you draw your sword.

Lin Hui decisively rejected his older sister Liu Xiao's offer to introduce him to other girls. He insisted that his private life was chaotic and that taking too many aphrodisiacs might have a negative impact on the girls.

Liu Xiao was speechless. She gave him some more instructions about things to do after he returned, and then reluctantly let Lin Hui leave.

Judging from her appearance, she seemed to be enjoying the wonderful feeling of having a younger brother to take care of her.

His face was cold, but he kept muttering and nagging.

After finally leaving Amamiya, Liu Xiao sent a girl with short red hair to give him a big bag of Amamiya souvenirs to hang on his body.

"The master said that we shouldn't use other people's permits anymore. The permits from Amamiya are of better quality, and one can be used for two hours." The red-haired girl was also a Summoner, but she was very polite to Lin Hui.

"Thank you, I understand." Lin Hui stood in front of the Rain Palace gate, looked up past the other person, and looked at the palace behind him.

It was a complex palace-like building, resembling a small mountain, and looked like a pointed church made of countless white building blocks.

But from a distance, you can actually see that each of the building blocks has a glass window.

That means that these building blocks are actually rooms of different sizes.

This modular, interconnected house structure, resembling a bunch of grapes, made Lin Hui suspect that the structural materials of this inner city might be more advanced than those of his previous life on Earth.

He picked up the sturdy bag made of pigskin, glanced at the sky, and saw it was pitch black.

There was no moon, no starlight, only boundless darkness.

He waved goodbye to the red-haired girl and walked a few miles on the street outside the palace.

Emerging from the Rain Palace, without a map or phone navigation, Lin Hui looked at the rows of similar-looking white buildings and felt somewhat bewildered.

These buildings all look pretty much the same in shape and color; you can only tell what their function or purpose is by looking at the signs hanging on the outside.

Wow.
Fine raindrops began to fall, hitting the ground and splashing up a thin layer of ash.

Raindrops gradually dampened the signs on the horizontal bars outside the building, turning some of the wooden signs a darker color, with the brown background and red lettering standing out starkly in the rain.

Lin Hui walked briskly along the eaves of the house.

Lighting stones occasionally flashed overhead. These pale yellow and white lights hanging under the eaves of the shops were used to illuminate their signs, but at this moment they also kept the street shrouded in a soft glow.

At this time, there were fewer pedestrians and vehicles coming and going, and only occasionally people like Lin Hui would hurry past, avoiding the rain.

Boom.

Thunder roared, and the rain intensified.

Lin Hui sighed, glanced at his already soaked robe, and simply took it off, tied it around his waist, leaving only his trousers, and plunged into the rain.

Braving the cold, wet rain, he wandered around the streets several times but couldn't find the direction of South Gate 9.

After careful observation, Lin Hui discovered that there was a black metal pole at each street intersection and corner, with a detachable wooden directional sign attached to it.

After searching two street corners, he finally found the sign for South Gate 9.

Standing at the crossroads, Lin Hui looked up at the cross-shaped sign on the black pole.

On the white-painted wooden sign, different characters were written in black ink.

'East - South Ninth Gate, South Ninth Street'

'South—Amamiya, Flower Street'

'North - Farmers Market, Yuhubao'

'West - Jinxiu Tianzhuang, Cemetery No. 1'

Lin Hui breathed a sigh of relief, finally finding his way. He glanced back at the road he had come from. On the dark street, a few scattered pedestrians jogged along and quickly disappeared from sight.

Occasionally, a blurry figure would flash across the rooftop, moving with incredible speed. The figure seemed to be invisible, only semi-transparent.

"Strange place" To be honest, after entering the inner city alone for the second time, Lin Hui no longer had the same strong urge to move here as last time.

To him, this place was like another world, a place much, much larger than the outer city.

Unfamiliar, mysterious, novel, but not something I yearn for.
Perhaps I haven't yet encountered the truly alluring aspects of the inner city, or perhaps my status in the outer city means I no longer need to enter the inner city to avoid danger.

Having figured this out, Lin Hui no longer hesitated, his figure suddenly accelerating as he sped off toward the signpost.

*
*
*
Two weeks later.
Qingfeng Temple Headquarters.

Lin Hui frowned, holding two long swords, occasionally demonstrating the moves of the Gale Sword Technique. With his inner strength surging, subtle air currents would occasionally ripple around him.

But these air currents quickly faded and disappeared.

In the inner courtyard of the mansion, he once again checked the progress of the bloodstain below his line of sight.

'Typhoon Sword Technique - Remaining Time: 9 year and 3 months.'

These days, with the extensive use of medication and the reduction in time, the Typhoon Sword Technique has finally been shortened to just 9 years.

His success rate in refining elixirs was also much higher than before. It was purely due to the sheer amount of practice he had accumulated.

Qingfeng Temple is now on the right track and doesn't need his maintenance anymore. Xue Meng and the two newly joined internal energy martial artists are enough to stabilize the entire martial arts school.

Lin Hui then devoted himself entirely to studying the body tempering process.

At dawn, a gentle breeze blew, causing the leaves of a large locust tree in the yard to fall like raindrops.

Many leaves brushed past Lin Hui, but were blown away by the air currents that occasionally surged around him.

"Wait!" Suddenly Lin Hui noticed something was wrong.

"I clearly didn't channel my energy in this direction just now. Why are the leaves flying that way?" A thought flashed through Lin Hui's mind. He channeled his inner energy again and carefully stared at the leaves falling beside him.

This time it was clearer; the leaf was indeed slightly crooked and flew in the direction where he hadn't used his internal energy to create the wind.

'Is this a result of my swordsmanship slipping away, or is there a problem with my control over my internal energy?'

Lin Hui began to carefully sense the flow of internal energy and his own sword-wielding movements.

To his surprise, the fallen leaves could clearly outline the external form of his internal energy.

He originally thought his internal energy covered his body in a spherical shape, but now, surrounded by fallen leaves, Lin Hui realized that his internal energy was not spherical, but an unknown irregular shape.

'I remember the key to the Gale Sword Technique is that the sword should move like the wind, with the airflow forming a spindle shape.'

'But the internal energy's external flow is constantly changing, and because it's transparent, it's impossible to observe.'

After thinking for a moment, Lin Hui quickly found a solution.

He flashed away, not heading towards the Wild Wind Plains, but instead rushing towards the original site of the Qingfeng Temple.

Not long after, behind the original site of Qingfeng Temple, in a bamboo forest.

Lin Hui drew his sword and assumed the starting stance of the Gale Sword Technique.

'wind!'

He gave a clear shout.

Suddenly, a strong wind arose, blowing and crashing through the surrounding bamboo forest, causing large patches of loose bamboo leaves to fall.

Countless yellow-green leaves fluttered down, falling like raindrops.

At this moment, Lin Hui could clearly see that his internal energy was constantly leaking out on its own, and the direction and location of the airflow being stirred up.

'Since the wind is formless and shapeless, why don't I just give it a tangible form?'

He began to carefully adjust his internal energy, rhythmically counteracting the flow of energy on his body surface.

This is a long and arduous task.

The fact that Lin Hui's internal energy could spontaneously generate airflow meant that he had a deficiency in controlling his internal energy and needed to improve it.

Time and again, little by little, as he continuously countered the self-pulsation of his internal energy, Lin Hui, with complete concentration, gradually felt the body tempering of the Gale Sword Technique loosening.
The standard for tempering the body in a raging wind is that internal force needs to be activated again after the internal force has already started to stir the airflow.

One more encouragement leads to a second-rank official. Three more encouragements lead to a fourth-rank official, and so on.

It's just a difficult point, because the Gale Sword Technique inherently stimulates the internal energy to circulate faster.

To make the internal force operating at ultra-high speed move continuously as if controlled by an arm, only extremely strong control is required.

Gradually, with continuous practice, Lin Hui keenly sensed progress. The tempering of the Gale Sword Technique seemed to involve more mental training.

This time, he felt he had found the right direction.

A week later.

The Gale Sword had reached the second rank of Body Tempering. The wind that Lin Hui could blow and create had become even stronger.

As a result, he gradually got used to practicing in the dense forest or on rainy days.

Because at that time, the pulsation and leap of internal energy will naturally manifest itself in the surging airflow.

The internal force stirs up the weaving net, transforming the external force into a wind that blows outward.

This is the principle behind the Gale Sword Technique, but the pulsation of internal energy itself, similar to a heartbeat, also affects the wind force.

Controlling this constant pulsation is the way to strengthen and temper the Gale Sword.

This tempering process not only refines the body, but also the mind.

Just as Lin Hui was basking in the joy of his improved body tempering, another year came to an end.

New Year's Eve.

After the family banquet at the Lin residence, Lin Shunhe, along with most of the others, went to tease Xiao Liu.

Lin Hui was led out of the Lin residence by the enthusiastic Liu Xiao and sat down in a private room at a teahouse diagonally opposite.

It was clear that Liu Xiao had dressed up carefully.

A light green long dress, a wide black belt with silver trim, and the belt hooks that looked like the rounded white fangs of some kind of creature.

She wasn't wearing a veil, revealing her cool and elegant face completely, and she wore light makeup.

These outfits were all fine, similar to the style of the outer city. The only thing that had a touch of the inner city style was her short top of the same color, which tightly accentuated her chest. Although it didn't reveal anything, it clearly outlined the curves of her body, which was not wearing anything underneath.

"Why did we come here for the New Year?" Lin Hui looked helplessly at Liu Xiao, who had a cold exterior but a warm heart. He wanted to go back to headquarters to continue his body tempering after the family banquet, but before he could leave, he was dragged here by this cheap older sister.

"I'll introduce you to someone from my hometown. I'm sure you'll like her. She's quite talented, and although she's not particularly beautiful, like you, she's a perfect match in every other way," Liu Xiao said earnestly.

"So this person really came to set him up on a blind date?"

Lin Hui was speechless.

"Sigh, what's her name? Since we're from the same hometown, we should at least know her name beforehand, right?"

"His surname is Yan, and his given name is Wanqiu. He's a kid I have high hopes for. He's here." Liu Xiao suddenly stood up and walked towards the door of the private room.

"This name sounds familiar," Lin Hui paused slightly, as if he had heard the name somewhere before.

(End of this chapter)