"If a craftsman would do his work well, he must first sharpen his tools." Qin Ming murmured.
What he meant to do was likely to stir up a storm across this whole region—even Redcloud City itself would be shaken—so it was imperative that he be fully prepared.
Besides lacking a fine blade, Qin Ming also needed to train one or two more Heaven Light Forces.
He already had a blade manual in hand, and with Old Liu having initially talked round one of those once-established but now fallen families, Qin Ming might thereby gain one more Heaven Light Force; aided by the three-colored flower, it would clearly raise his strength, so he naturally had to see it through to the end!
"Who is Qin Ming?"
At the village entrance, the people of Golden Ridge were calling out, and had even named Qin Ming directly.
"So they really have taken note of me." Qin Ming was rather surprised. Clearly, the two great brigands had given the matter particular order to their underlings.
Old Liu hurried over, fearful that after a Third New Life the young man would be too confident and hot-blooded, unwilling to humble himself—if he refused Golden Ridge, a bloody disaster would soon follow.
Though he himself had been grabbed by the collar by the great brigand and was much aggrieved, Old Liu knew that present circumstances out-ruled a man; he whispered: "Just go along with it for now."
"Rest easy—I'm not that rash." Qin Ming said. Very calmly he came to the fire spring and, beneath the Black-White Tree, nodded his assent to joining Golden Ridge, letting them register his name.
"That's a plump sheep you've got—fattened very well." A young man of Golden Ridge, catching sight of the black goat in Yang Yongqing's household at the village entrance, took a liking to it at once.
Then he truly did lead the goat away by the way, pulling out that strong old ram, nearly as tall as a man.
"Young master, this goat—I've grown attached to it, I can't let it go." Yang Yongqing hurried to block him. The black goat grew mightier and mightier, on the verge of mutation; he truly could not bear to part with it.
"To protect you villages so close to the mountains, Golden Ridge has suffered enormous losses this time—barely a ground-chicken is left. This black goat's not bad; it can serve as a mount." Said the young man.
Then he glanced again at Yang Yongqing. "Mm, and you're a New Lifer too. Why not sign up for Golden Ridge as well? You're the black sheep's master, after all, so it's fitting you should ride it. Were it someone else, it might not cooperate, and then it would certainly be killed and eaten for meat."
Yang Yongqing's face turned ugly; this was absurd. Not only would they lead the goat away by the way, they would lead away the goat's master too?
Qin Ming spoke up: "Our village is very small. Isn't it enough that I alone go?"
"Manpower is short right now; one more black-sheep rider doesn't hurt. Come, I'll register you." The young man was unmoved, and forcibly jotted down Yang Yongqing's name.
In the midst of this, Old Liu, who also lived at the village entrance, hurried home, kicked the great yellow dog into the kennel, and warned it not to show so much as a whisker.
The young man of Golden Ridge then rode off on a ground-chicken, and he was, in fact, a Second New Lifer; before leaving he told Qin Ming and Yang Yongqing to report to Golden Ridge in five days.
"The time's not exactly ample—I must hurry!" Qin Ming said to himself.
Xu Yueping patted Yang Yongqing on the shoulder. "Set your mind at ease. Golden Ridge's people may be awful sorts, but once you're there, the treatment shouldn't be too bad."
It was precisely for this reason that not everyone disliked their recruiting; some New Lifers from other villages had even volunteered, caring nothing for the bad repute.
"Didn't they say these lot were nearly wiped out in the Great Rift Gorge?" Yang Yongqing murmured.
Old Liu said: "Everyone knows that whoever got to stay behind guarding Golden Ridge after the bloodshed in the Great Rift Gorge must have their connections. Those are the worse lot—knock one down with a slash at random and you'd never kill the wrong man."
Qin Ming shot him a look. The old man's face was ruddy, in the midst of his Third New Life.
Thankfully the two great brigands of Golden Ridge were not here, or they would certainly have noticed something amiss about him.
Afterward, Qin Ming went to Old Liu's house and asked if the negotiation to borrow the secret manual was settled.
"They've agreed reluctantly, but their price may be very high. Let's go over together tomorrow." Chiefly because Old Liu's Third New Life had not yet run its course.
Qin Ming nodded. A New Life in the body was a process; by his reckoning, his own would last until about tomorrow.
"The likes of you won't do—your cheeks glow red. If some expert catches sight of you, he's sure to find something wrong." Qin Ming taught him "Blending With Dust," which was practical and easy to learn.
Should Old Liu be exposed, Qin Ming's own situation could not be hidden either.
"Good, that was just what I was worrying about—I dread running into those two great bastards of Golden Ridge again." Old Liu said.
Then he asked in a low voice: "Have you trained out a Heaven Light Force? They say the more one trains, the better, and that the forces truly famous under heaven are all born of fusion. I have one here, called the Wrapping-Silk Force; it was taught to me by an old mountain patrolman in my early years. Take it and try training it."
"Good!" Qin Ming naturally would not refuse; the silk tome itself had emphasized it—"melt" was the way!
"Shall I teach you a Heaven Light Force?" Qin Ming asked, ready to return kindness for kindness.
"Forget it. I can tell what you practice is no simple thing. You're not from around here; you must have some background, and I'd rather not entangle myself in it. In the realm of the Third New Life, one Wrapping-Silk Force is enough for me to train. Tomorrow I can share in the good fortune and take a look at that family's secret manual."
"Good!" Qin Ming nodded. Outsiders could surely never train what the silk tome recorded, and that blade manual was genuinely hard to bring into the light just now.
He returned to his own little courtyard and set first to comprehending the Heaven Light Force he had trained out, and only after mastering it thoroughly would he prepare to study the rest.
With a swish, no sooner did his fingertip touch the hammer's handle than he brought it swiftly into his hand.
Even the back of his hand—when he touched with it and the Heaven Light Force rippled—could coil that long-handled hammer into his grasp. This was a "clinging" property.
Were this used against an enemy, the moment his hand so much as brushed the other, he could cling to and tear off the other's flesh and blood.
Qin Ming tried gathering his strength; Heaven Light Force burst forth, and he "clung" off the edge of the millstone.
What was more, this Heaven Light Force's penetrating power was very strong too—when his fingers shone, stone chips flew in all directions and his fingertips stabbed into the millstone.
Studying it, Qin Ming found that this Heaven Light Force of his touched on every direction, and above all it was overwhelmingly practical.
Before long he began to practice Old Liu's Wrapping-Silk Force. Its contents were few and easy to take up, yet it had its own subtlety; when this force went out it wavered like a silken thread, the key being the word "wrapping"—it prized using skill to break brute force, the weak to strike the strong.
"This should be a force studied and refined by generations of old mountain patrolmen in battle against the great beasts of the mountains, shouldn't it?" Qin Ming had a flash of insight.
It was not a complicated Heaven Light Force art, but in real combat it was quite useful.
Qin Ming studied it seriously, and a good part of the day later he had it in hand—not to say mastered, but he could use it.
"My endowment isn't half bad, it seems."
If he were now to meet Huang Jingde again, and that old Third New Lifer of Golden Ridge, Qin Ming reckoned that without even drawing on his great strength, he could take both of them at once and beat them bloody on the ground with the Wrapping-Silk Force alone.
"Oh?!" What surprised him especially was that the Wrapping-Silk Force fitted his own Heaven Light Force perfectly, fusing directly into his "Clinging Force."
The very first time he fused another force, he succeeded—which delighted him greatly.
Qin Ming tried it out; the fused Heaven Light Force was even stronger!
"Barely trained out a little Wrapping-Silk Force and the Heaven Light was already quickly fused away. That won't do. I should train it separately first, and only after taking the three-colored flower thoroughly perfect the Wrapping-Silk Force, then fuse it into my original Heaven Light Force."
Qin Ming sat on the stone millstone in the courtyard to rest, meaning to study the force arts in the blade manual in a while.
At this moment he felt the joy of gain. Gazing at the night, his gaze seemed already to see, far across the endless pitch-dark land, splendid and towering cities rising one after another.
He wished to journey far, hoping to harvest more Heaven Light Force arts and see for himself what the thriving, prosperous places were like, treasures of the land and wonders of man.
Suddenly, Qin Ming's pupils contracted—but soon he made himself relax, keeping calm, as if nothing had happened.
Yet his heart was far from at peace; waves had risen within it, for he had seen a blot of black mist, moving like a spirit-snake, coming from afar and circling above the village.
In the end it descended, and should have come down to the ground.
Qin Ming's heart had been brimming with joy a moment before, only to run into such a thing at the last.
What in the world was that? Waves surged in his heart, and yet he had to pretend composure, acting as if nothing at all had happened.
The others could not see the black mist drifting through the sky at all; last time, at the Great Rift Gorge, even Old Liu, after his Second New Life, had felt nothing of it.
Qin Ming forced himself to stay calm. He must show nothing abnormal now—after all, his mutton-fat jade iron had yet to be forged into a weapon, and he could not yet deal with those special things.
Without changing his expression, he returned to his room and began to leaf through that blade manual with its damaged pages. At first he could not concentrate, but slowly he threw himself into it.
This ancient book bore the distilled effort of the predecessors, and Qin Ming could resonate with that lingering emotion, could perceive secrets that transcended the book itself.
Therefore, Qin Ming awaited the force arts of the blade manual with boundless expectation.
"Hm?"
Today really was full of surprises. As he leafed through the section on force arts, he sensed two powerful emotions.
One had, without doubt, been left by the old man who wrote the blade manual; the other came from reading notes left by a man of a later generation.
"To think one could only wish one could train out the Rulai Force!" That emotion came passing through these very words.
Qin Ming's heart leapt at once. Could that one have truly come into contact with it?!