Cultivating Immortality Begins with Acting as a Girl Chapter 009

The old man was stunned when he heard this, then shook his head and said,

“Guest, you must be joking. If it’s a complete third-rate martial art, it’s still possible to buy it if you have enough gold and silver. But a second-rate martial art… usually, as soon as it appears on the market, it will be taken by those major forces and treasured. How can ordinary people get it?”

“If you want it, you can only join them, hone yourself for a few years, and make significant contributions. Maybe then you’ll be granted one.”

After hearing the old man’s words, Song Ling pondered for a moment and understood the reason.

Forces like the Thousand Leaf Gang can be rulers precisely because of their martial power. If martial arts manuals and secret techniques were allowed to spread freely, then with the vast base of common people, even if only one in a hundred succeeded, the number of martial artists would not be small.

And once there was a force capable of resisting, those common people who had been oppressed for a long time would definitely not let them off easily.

At that time, their rule would inevitably be shaken.

Therefore, it is necessary to stifle the common people’s upward channels from the root, leaving only a narrow door. Only after passing their screening and observation, and being recognized as one of their own, can they obtain the qualification to continue climbing.

By then, even if they were originally from a common background, after a long period of “grinding,” their stance would no longer be on the side of the common people.

Song Ling frowned slightly. He didn’t have the patience to join a gang and be a lackey for several years.

“Is there no other way?” he asked.

If he couldn’t get a second-rate martial art, then he could only cultivate several more third-rate martial arts and use the panel to elevate all of them to the Breakthrough stage, then break through to the realm of a second-rate martial artist with accumulated internal energy.

However, doing so would be too cost-ineffective.

Not to mention wasting Profound Essence, the Breakthrough Form of a third-rate martial art would definitely be much weaker than the Breakthrough Form of a second-rate martial art, affecting his strength limit.

The straw-hat old man was about to answer when a voice suddenly drifted over from the stall next door:

“It’s not entirely impossible. I wonder if the young lady has ever heard of the Blood Wind Tower?”

Song Ling looked over at the sound and saw that the speaker was a middle-aged man with a scar on his face. His stall displayed some sharp, gleaming weapons.

Before Song Ling could answer, the straw-hat old man’s expression changed, and he scolded,

“Gan Xiong, shut up! Do you want to kill this girl?!”

The middle-aged man called Gan Xiong had a calm expression and leisurely said, “I’m just providing a solution to someone who’s perplexed. The choice is entirely up to her. How can you say I want to kill her?”

“You… you’re twisting words!”

The straw-hat old man was very angry and said to Song Ling,

“Girl, don’t listen to him. His method is too dangerous. You’ll lose your life if you’re not careful. You should consider joining a force. I heard that the Hundred Herbs Gang is recruiting female apprentices recently, and the treatment is very good. If you stay there for a few years, you should have a chance to get what you want.”

Song Ling pondered for two seconds, first thanking the straw-hat old man, then looking at Gan Xiong next to him:

“I haven’t heard of the Blood Wind Tower. How is that related to my desire for a second-rate martial art?”

Seeing that Song Ling wouldn’t listen to his advice, the straw-hat old man could only sigh deeply and stop talking.

In this day and age, saying a few extra words for a stranger was already the utmost benevolence from him. Good advice is hard to give to those who are destined to die. If the other party insisted on their own way, he could only let them seek their own blessings.

Gan Xiong saw that Song Ling was interested, a faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, and he extended an open hand towards Song Ling, saying:

“That’ll be one tael of silver.”

Song Ling raised an eyebrow. With the current prices in Suiyi City, one tael of silver was enough to feed a family of three for half a month. This Gan Xiong really dared to ask for such a price.

He pulled two pieces of broken silver from his waist pouch, weighed them in his hand, and tossed them to Gan Xiong.

“Your information had better be worth this price.”

Song Ling’s voice was cold.

Gan Xiong didn’t care. He pocketed the two pieces of broken silver with satisfaction and said confidently,

“Don’t worry, no one in this North Market knows more about the Blood Wind Tower than I do. I guarantee you’ll find it worth more than its price.”

With that, he pulled out a scroll of bamboo slips from the satchel beside him and threw it to Song Ling, saying, “Information about the Blood Wind Tower and how to obtain martial arts are all recorded on this. You can read it yourself.”

Song Ling opened the bamboo slips and read them carefully.

It turned out that this so-called Blood Wind Tower was actually an underground assassin organization.

Compared to other forces that required long tests to obtain martial arts manuals and secret techniques, the rules of the Blood Wind Tower were much simpler and purer. It had an internal (point) system. Each time a client’s mission was completed, one could choose between silver or .

As long as there were enough , they could be used to exchange for martial arts manuals and secret techniques, without any time limit for joining.

This seemed like a very tempting path, but there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Simpler missions naturally yielded fewer . Trying to accumulate the required through risk-free missions would probably take no less time than joining a normal gang or force.

And the higher the for a mission, the higher the danger, naturally.

According to the bamboo slips from Gan Xiong, the mortality rate for third-rate martial artists joining the Blood Wind Tower within the first month was over 60%, and then gradually stabilized until it reached 90% after one year.

In other words, most third-rate martial artists died within the first month of joining the Blood Wind Tower, and the remaining portion died successively in the following eleven months.

Only one-tenth survived for more than a year.

Song Ling looked at this shocking data, deep in thought.

Clearly, the Blood Wind Tower was using martial arts manuals and secret techniques to lure people.

Five hundred were needed to exchange for a second-rate martial art manual. Killing a third-rate martial artist as a target could yield a maximum of one hundred .

This meant that one would have to kill at least five people of the same realm to accumulate enough .

As the saying goes, if you often walk by the river, how can your shoes not get wet? This was probably why the mortality rate was so high in the first month.

In this way, there was a continuous stream of people who would undertake missions for martial arts manuals and secret techniques. Because of the choice of , the Blood Wind Tower could also keep all the silver submitted by the clients. And because of the extremely high mortality rate, many people accumulated but died before they could use them. The Blood Wind Tower essentially paid nothing.

“What a well-functioning system!” Song Ling couldn’t help but exclaim.

At the end of the bamboo slips, the location of the Blood Wind Tower’s outpost in Suiyi City and the contact signal were also recorded.

Song Ling decided to go with almost no hesitation.

With the power of his Breakthrough Form, “Wind Splendor Moon Slash,” few third-rate martial artists of the same realm would be able to withstand this move.

Accumulating five hundred was not that difficult.

…