High Martial Arts: Slay enemies to become stronger, forge invincibility from billions of corpses.

When Li Xiuying pulled Zhou Wangyue to sit down, Song Zhengye was still standing in the living room, unsure of what to do with his hands.

Zhou Wangyue didn't stand on ceremony. He sat down at the table and glanced at the dishes on it: braised pork, sweet and sour pork ribs, stir-fried seasonal vegetables, and a large bowl of seaweed and egg drop soup.

They were all home-style dishes, served on white porcelain plates that had been used for who knows how many years.

Li Xiuying went back into the kitchen, and after five minutes of sizzling sounds, she brought out a plate of golden-yellow scrambled eggs.

She placed the plate in front of Zhou Wangyue and wiped her hands on her apron.

"Principal Zhou, please try some."

Zhou Wangyue picked up his chopsticks, took a piece of scrambled egg, put it in his mouth, chewed it, and swallowed it.

"tasty."

Li Xiuying's face lit up immediately. She turned to Song Zhengye and shouted, "Old Song, bring out that bottle of wine, the one at the very back of the cabinet!"

Soon, Song Zhengye pulled out an unopened bottle of liquor from deep inside the cabinet, with a thin layer of dust on the bottle.

He opened the packaging, poured a glass for Zhou Wangyue, then poured a glass for Song Chen, and finally poured half a glass for himself.

The three of them clinked glasses. Li Xiuying, who doesn't drink alcohol, also clinked glasses with her teacup.

At the dinner table, Li Xiuying kept talking.

She talked about how heartbroken she felt for Song Chen, who got up at four o'clock every day to run, and how she cried on the day of the college entrance examination when it was broadcast live throughout the city.

Zhou Wangyue listened, nodding occasionally, his chopsticks never stopping.

I ate most of the braised pork, but the bones from the sweet and sour pork ribs piled up in a small heap around the edge of the bowl.

Song Chen sat next to him, engrossed in his meal.

He had heard everything his mother said countless times, but with Zhou Wangyue present, he couldn't interrupt.

Halfway through the meal, Li Xiuying suddenly put down her chopsticks and looked at Zhou Wangyue.

"Principal Zhou, Song Chen at Tianhai University, has he caused you any trouble?"

Zhou Wangyue also put down his chopsticks: "He is my disciple."

Song Zhengye picked up his wine glass and stood up.

"Principal Zhou, let me toast you."

"Song Chen has never been a talkative child. He keeps everything to himself. Xiuying and I are just ordinary people. We can't help him get to where he is today. Thank you."

He drank it all in one gulp.

Zhou Wangyue stood up and did the same.

When Song Chen returned from his first trip out of the city, he said he had found a teacher, and the elderly couple believed that he had become a disciple of Zhou Wangyue.

After the meal, Li Xiuying cleared the dishes, and Song Zhengye brewed a pot of tea.

Zhou Wangyue sat in the living room for fifteen minutes, drank two cups of tea, and then got up to say goodbye.

Song Zhengye and Li Xiuying saw him to the door. Zhou Wangyue turned around and said to Li Xiuying, "The food is very good," and to Song Zhengye, "The wine is also good."

Li Xiuying was smiling very happily.

Song Chen escorted Zhou Wangyue downstairs.

Downstairs, Zhou Wangyue stopped: "Your parents are doing well."

Song Chen nodded.

Zhou Wangyue turned around and looked at him.

"In a month, powerful figures from all countries will gather in the capital. You will come then."

Song Chen's eyes flickered: "How many people will come?"

"It should be around a thousand, in elite mode, starting from Tier 4, with Tier 6 leading the team."

No more than one thousand people, starting from level four.

Song Chen's current strength is at the mid-stage of the fourth tier, which is enough to contend with the peak of the fifth tier.

With a paper rank of mid-fourth tier participating in this battle, his actual combat strength would be roughly in the upper-middle range of the team.

However, if the opponent is a sixth-tier peak Sirius King, mid-to-upper tier is not enough.

"understood."

Then she asked, "Teacher, I want to continue with practical experience. Where would be a good place to go?"

Zhou Wangyue glanced at him: "You're already an honorary councilor."

"It's your decision."

"With your current status, you can go wherever you want. Any base city, any military region, any forbidden zone within the Great Xia territory—just give your name and you can enter. You don't need to ask me."

Song Chen paused for a moment, then nodded.

From the moment he awakened the system until now, he has chosen every path he has taken.

Giving up Beijing Martial Arts University to choose Tianhai was my own choice; traversing thousands of kilometers of wilderness alone was my own choice; fighting my way back from the sea to the plateau was also my own choice.

Zhou Wangyue has never chosen for him, and he won't choose for him now.

What a sixth-tier grandmaster can give is not direction, but the qualification to go in any direction without being stopped.

Zhou Wangyue took one last look at the window.

"Your mom's braised pork is really good."

Then he disappeared from the spot.

Song Chen stood in the courtyard, looking in the direction Zhou Wangyue had left. After standing there for a while, she turned and went upstairs.

In the living room, Li Xiuying and Song Zhengye sat on the sofa, with two cups of tea on the coffee table.

Song Chen walked in, sat down opposite his parents, and then took things out of his tactical backpack.

The other half of the Snow Marrow Lingzhi was taken out.

The translucent, milky-white sesame flesh has snowflake-like patterns on its surface and emits a cool, refreshing aroma under the living room lights.

"Mom and Dad, this is Snow Marrow Ganoderma, an S-grade medicinal herb. It has mild medicinal properties and can be taken directly by ordinary people."

"One Ganoderma lucidum is enough for seven or eight people. This is half of it, which should be enough to push the two of you to the second level of martial arts."

Hearing the words in his ear, Song Zhengye's hand trembled slightly.

Then came the money transfer; Song Chen transferred 3 billion yuan.

"Mom and Dad, keep these for your retirement."

Looking at the text message on her phone, Li Xiuying's mouth opened and remained open for a long time.

Her eyes reddened, but she held back her tears.

She picked up the half of the Snow Marrow Ganoderma lucidum, examined it from all angles, and then put it down.

"Old Song."

"Um."

"Hasn't our son made something of himself?"

Song Zhengye didn't speak. He stood up, walked to the window, his back to the living room, and his shoulders trembled slightly.

……

Song Chen stayed at home for a day.

He didn't go out that day, not because he didn't want to, but because Li Xiuying wouldn't let him.

He sat on the bed, turned on the combat terminal, and pulled up the distribution map of the Great Xia Beasts.

After his Eye of Truth was upgraded to S-rank, the way he viewed maps also changed.

He was carefully looking at the data above.

The Great Xia Beast Distribution Map was jointly drawn by the Martial Arts Guild and the military, and is updated every three months.

The map marks all known areas where strange beasts gather within the Great Xia territory, using colors to distinguish the danger levels: green for low danger, yellow for medium danger, red for high danger, and black for absolute danger.

The territory of the Great Xia Dynasty is shaped like a rooster with its head held high.

Currently, humans control about one-third of the territory, mainly in the eastern and central regions, where base cities are densely populated and the population is concentrated.

The area outside the controlled zone is a buffer zone, a rotation area for martial arts teams and the military, with a moderate density of alien beasts, and small-scale extermination operations are carried out year-round.

Further out lies the out-of-control zone, where alien beasts hold an absolute advantage, and humans have only scattered outposts.

Song Chen's finger traced across the map.

The distribution of strange beasts in the Great Xia Dynasty has one characteristic: they do not form large, contiguous clusters.

The area where strange beasts gathered in the eastern sea was cut off by the coastal base city cluster.

The southern part is separated by the Hengduan Mountains and the cluster of base cities in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau.

The western region is fragmented by the base city chain on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

The northern part was blocked by the defenses of the Yinshan and Yanshan mountain ranges.

Each area where the alien beasts gathered was surrounded by human base cities, like chess pieces on a chessboard, each isolated.

This is the result of the Great Xia's continuous suppression over the past fifty years.

He pulled up the internal cleanup records.

The number of beasts of the fifth rank or above that are killed in the Great Xia territory is decreasing year by year, which is the result of large-scale hunting.

The remaining high-level alien beasts hide deep within the out-of-control zone. Unless there is a beast tide, they generally do not come out on their own initiative, and humans will not pay a huge price to thoroughly exterminate them.

Maintaining the status quo is the lowest-cost option for both parties.