Last night, the east wind rose from Gusu, the clouds were dense, the Qionghua pressed the tree, and the ancient road was not pressed by the three times.

This morning, the snow is even the road, the rivers and mountains are picturesque, the buildings are like jade, and the silver is wrapped in everything overnight.

Gusu City, one of the nine major cities of Qingyun Country, the prosperity of the city needless to say, even though the snow is falling, the city is still in an endless stream of travelers, and the river is endless.

In the early morning, two strange people walked outside the quaint and majestic Gusu City.

Walking in front was a fifteen-year-old boy, he was tall, his long hair was scattered, and he carried a strange big iron knife behind him.

Behind the boy was followed by a thin thirteen-year-old girl, in contrast to the boy, whose face was surprisingly pale despite being covered in a thick and worn layer of cotton wool.

The two of them are from Xiaoshan County, one of the twelve counties of Gusu City, the young man is called Ye Fan, and the little girl is called Wang Yuting.

Ye Fan's memories before the age of twelve are difficult to remember, but it was on a snowy night three years ago, in a war, when he almost froze to death on the street, he was rescued by Wang Yuting's father Wang Yaofeng.

Wang Yaofeng is a martial artist who practices swords, after Ye Fan was rescued, he slowly came into contact with cultivation and swordsmanship, and his amazing swordsmanship talent soon became famous in Xiaoshan County.

But the good times didn't last long, a year had passed since Ye Fan was taken in, and Ye Fan was unable to enter the martial arts realm because of the dantian problem, and at this time, Wang Yuting's body was also in a big condition, and she was getting weaker and weaker.

As a last resort, Wang Yaofeng could only go to some dangerous places to find elixir for Wang Yuting, but fortunately, at this time, Ye Fan already had a certain strength, so Wang Yaofeng was relieved to hand over Wang Yuting to Ye Fan to take care of.

"Uncle Wang, don't worry, as long as I haven't fallen yet, I won't let Yuting die in front of me. ”

Ye Fan glanced at Wang Yuting behind him, remembered his promise to Uncle Wang, and said secretly: "Yuting, you can rest assured that I will definitely become the leader in this year's City Genius Battle, and the first place will reward the treasure medicine Tiger Grass, which can alleviate your condition." ”

The City Genius Battle, held once a year, can be participated in by martial artists under the age of twenty-five, and is the main way for Qingyun Kingdom to select young talents.

The top ten in the Genius Battle can not only be accepted as disciples by the strongest five major sects in the Qingyun Kingdom, but the city lord will also give some rewards to the top ten talents and the county where they are located.

Because the number of talents is one of the bases for judging the performance of the county city lords, the city lords of each county will do their best to cultivate some young talents, Ye Fan's Xiaoshan County is the bottom of the twelve counties in Gusu City, and there have been no talents in the top ten for ten years.

Now there are less than three months left before the city genius battle, due to Ye Fan's talent in swordsmanship, plus he is the most promising teenager in Xiaoshan County in recent years, so the county lord of Xiaoshan County organized a charity, and scraped together enough silver taels for Ye Fan to let him go to Gusu City in advance to adapt to the environment.

After entering the gate of Gusu City, Wang Yuting was already drowsy, and Ye Fan directly carried her to the Black Wind Mountain Range in the north of the city, where she found a dilapidated inn to live in.

The small inn is called Qingyang Inn, as the county lord of Xiaoshan County said, Qingyang Inn is located in the interior of the Black Wind Mountains, and there are often fierce beasts infested, so few people will live here, and naturally the accommodation cost will be much less.

Of course, Ye Fan was not worried about the treacherous environment of the mountain range, as early as two years ago, he began to cultivate in the mountains, and honed his combat skills by hunting and killing some fierce beasts, and was very familiar with life in the mountains.

After completing the simple formalities, Ye Fan opened the room and gently put Wang Yuting on the bed, then he made some hot water, gently put a towel on her forehead, and then wiped her body to ward off the cold.

After everything was done, Ye Fan stood in front of the bed and looked at Wang Yuting, and after a while, Wang Yuting woke up, turned her head sideways to look at Ye Fan, and a smile appeared on the corner of the girl's mouth.

"Did I fall asleep again?" the girl asked with a smile, but before Ye Fan could answer, the girl straightened her head, stared at Fang Liang and said alone: "Actually, I don't have any regrets about myself, but I can't bear my father." ”

The girl paused, then quickly smiled: "Of course there are you, haha!"

Looking at the girl on the bed whose smile gradually widened and her eyebrows frowned slightly, she was obviously in pain but came to comfort herself, Ye Fan didn't say anything, and laughed along, her long shirt was slightly raised, like a beautiful scholar who was very fond of laughing.

Sitting on the side of the girl's bed, Ye Fan looked at Wang Yuting, who was drowsy but trying hard to stay awake, and felt very painful and self-blamed.

In front of her was her savior, the person her father had entrusted to her before he left, but she couldn't do anything when she was suffering.

Soon after, Wang Yuting's body became more and more unable to hold on. Have a good rest, Ye Fan put her right hand on Wang Yuting's eyes, and soon she fell into a deep sleep.

After the girl slept, Ye Fan took a deep breath and walked to the door.

Seeing the mountain range, Ye Fan's steps did not stop, he went straight to the periphery of the Black Wind Mountain Range, threw the big iron knife behind his back, and inserted it directly into the peak of the small mountain.

Under the snow, the naked young man stood tall and his long hair was scattered, and then he jumped over the mountain, and the five-foot machete in front of him was straight into the mountain, meditating and cultivating, the wind was not restless, and it was as quiet as a rock.

Since Ye Fan was rescued three years ago, he realized that if he wanted to survive in the war, he must first have a strong enough force so that he could protect himself and the people he wanted to protect.

It was in this way that he began to understand the state of cultivation in this world.

This is a world that is so big that it is almost boundless, and no one knows how many people there are in this world, and no one knows how many demon beasts there are in this world. But one thing is certain, in this world, it is a world dominated by sects and dynasties, and warriors are the most fundamental members of this world's power.

The power of some national dynasties is greater than the power of the sect, and in some places, the sect dominates the rise and fall of the entire dynasty, and the balance point is the number and cultivation of peak martial artists, and it is precisely because of this that the cultivation of the entire continent is very popular.

Qingyun Country is naturally also a country with a prosperous cultivation, dominated by the royal family of Qingyun Country and the forces of the five major sects, ruling the entire territory of Qingyun Country to compete for resources, and the most important resource is the genius martial artist.

From low to high, the realm of martial artists can be divided into the Qi Refining Realm, the Ning Dan Realm, the Earth Evil Realm, and so on.

If you want to become a martial artist, you first need to cultivate an internal strength heart method, which is used to temper your true qi with your dantian and lay the foundation for the later Ning Dan Realm.

Ye Fan also tried to cultivate at the beginning, but he didn't know why his dantian seemed to be a black hole, no matter how hard he tried to cultivate his dantian, he didn't react at all.

By chance, he discovered that there was a strange book of internal strength in his dantian.

What is Internal Strength?

The internal strength method is also similar to the realm of martial arts, which is divided into four kinds of exercises: mortal level, Xuan level, earth level, and heaven level, corresponding to the Qi Refining Realm, the Ning Dan Realm, the Earth Demon Realm and the Tiangang Realm.

The internal strength of different realms can be practiced to the corresponding martial arts realm, such as the exercises of the Qi Refining Realm, which can be cultivated to the tenth level of the Qi Refining Realm, and the cultivation methods of different grades represent the basic limit of the growth of the martial artist.

It can be said that on this continent, there are two things that are most important for martial artists, one is martial arts, and the other is exercises.

The grades of the exercises can be divided into low-level, middle-level, high-level, and top-level, generally speaking, every time the exercises practiced by a martial artist are improved, the total amount of internal qi cultivated can be increased by three percent.

To put it simply, if there are two martial artists, one of the martial artists is practicing mortal-level low-level exercises, and the other is practicing mortal-level middle-level exercises, then even if it is the same realm, the total amount of internal qi of a middle-level martial artist will exceed one-third of that of a mortal-level low-level martial artist.

And not only that, the grade improvement is not only a matter of the total amount, but also the quality of the true qi.

If the true qi of the low-grade exercises represents wood, then the exercises of the top-grade grades are similar to stainless steel, and how wood can fight with stainless steel is not at the same level at all.

Therefore, this exercise is the foundation of a martial artist, which is why many martial artists will fight for a book of exercises.

To be precise, he didn't know what grade this exercise in Ye Fan's body was, but because of the strange dantian, Ye Fan practiced this exercise with the attitude of trying, but he didn't expect this weird exercise to solve the problem of dantian operation.

However, because Ye Fan had difficulty understanding the last sentence of the exercises, he had never stepped into the realm of a martial artist in the Qi Refining Realm.

"From extinction to birth, from nothing to existence, from existence to nothing, from non-extinction to non-existence. ”

"Again, this sentence always appears at the end of every cultivation stage, disturbing my cultivation. ”

Ye Fan opened his eyes and felt his empty dantian, very helpless, like a heavy steel bombardment on the soft cotton, coming with great momentum, leaving without a trace.

"Over the past few years, through the cultivation of this nameless exercise, my physical meridians have been growing, and my physical fitness has also been greatly improved, but there has been no chance of breakthrough, if I don't understand this sentence, I'm afraid it will be difficult to enter the martial arts realm in this life. ”

Sighing, Ye Fan got up and picked up the big iron knife in front of him, thinking about the deep meaning of that sentence while preparing to practice his sword technique.

Ye Fan knew that he couldn't relax now, the city genius battle was imminent, Wang Yuting's situation was getting worse day by day, and the burden on his shoulders was getting heavier and heavier.