Longevity starts with inheriting a friend's legacy

Chapter 4: Zhiyuan Hall, Master Lu
Without staying in the land temple for too long, Fang Xu jumped off the stone statue holding the wooden box and quickly returned home under the cover of night.

On the bed, a wooden box containing one hundred taels of silver was placed aside. Fang Xu leaned over, lifted the wooden board under the bed, and took out a smaller wooden box from the secret compartment.

In the small wooden box was the money saved from years of frugality, twenty-four taels and thirteen coins.

Together with the one hundred taels of silver he had just acquired, the available wealth in his hands reached one hundred and twenty-four taels and thirteen coins.

The Dayu Dynasty was founded on military power and martial arts flourished. At the beginning of the country, the royal family passed down three basic body training methods to strengthen the body and bones.

Theoretically, all three body-refining methods can enable a person to cultivate to the level of a martial artist. Under such circumstances, the reason why martial artists in the dynasty are still so rare is ultimately due to two reasons.

Talent, money.

The poor are good at literature but the rich are good at martial arts. For ordinary people to rely on practice to reach the level of martial artist, talent is one aspect but resources are even more important.

To put it bluntly, if there are enough resources, even a pig can easily join the ranks of warriors and become a warrior.

In the case of resource shortages, the talent requirements for becoming a warrior are much higher.

The most fundamental reason why Wang Ergou's younger brother Wang Erhu was able to enter the realm of a martial artist and become a soldier of Huangzhou Prefecture was that he was quite talented. In addition, his father made a lot of money by reselling medicinal materials in Fenglin Town.

Even so, training a warrior like Wang Erhu consumed 99% of the Wang family's assets.

Fang Xu's family background is naturally not as good as the Wang family in its heyday, and the resources he has are only a little over one hundred taels of silver.

Good steel needs to be used on the blade.

He practiced "Panlong Jin", one of the three basic body-refining techniques handed down by the dynasty. Over the years, without the guidance of a master, he took a lot of detours and stumbled his way to the present. He could only barely reach the bone-refining stage. To reach the level of a martial artist, he still had to overcome the hurdle of refining his internal organs.

There is no record of the method of refining the internal organs in the three body-refining exercises.

Refining the internal organs is precisely the most important hurdle before becoming a warrior. Failure to refine the internal organs will directly affect the warrior's future achievements. But if they are over-refined, the internal organs will be damaged, causing serious injuries at the least and death at the worst.

"Ugh!"

After closing the wooden box, Fang Xu sighed.

There are three martial artists in Fenglin Town who can teach others how to refine their internal organs, but these three are not good men and women. If you want to get their guidance, you have to pay a price.

With the little money he had, he could hire a martial arts master for guidance, but if he wanted to buy more pills and food, it would be a bit stretched.

Money!

Stroking the two wooden boxes in front of him, Fang Xu thought for a moment and secretly made up his mind that the matter of the elixir could be put on hold for the time being. The system had already awakened, and in the future he just needed to make more friends, and he would not be short of money after all.

The most urgent task is to find a martial arts master to guide him and solve the matter of refining the internal organs as soon as possible. He does not want to be like that old man Liu's son, who figured out things on his own and turned himself into a cripple.

The next day, early in the morning, on the streets of Fenglin Town.

Because it is adjacent to the natural treasure trove of Tilan Mountain and it is the beginning of spring, many gold diggers who plan to go into the mountains to look for herbs and hunt ferocious beasts have arrived in Fenglin Town one after another. From the beginning of this season until the mountain is closed by heavy snow, Fenglin Town will be bustling with activity.

Walking through the streets, one can see gold-mining teams carrying machetes and spears everywhere. Most of these people, like Fang Xu, are in the bone refining realm and are employed by some powerful families to work for them.

Among the employed, some with outstanding talents have the opportunity to be valued by the master family and then absorbed as peripheral personnel. If they are lucky, they can be instructed by the masters of these forces, leap over the dragon gate, cross the realm of refining organs to become martial arts apprentices, be valued by the aristocratic family, and it is not impossible to marry a woman from the aristocratic family.

This method is a way for ordinary people to cross classes. The Dayu Dynasty and the aristocratic warriors rule the world together. Becoming a relative of an aristocratic family is like stepping into the circle of upper society and breaking the class barriers.

Fang Xu, carrying more than 100 taels of silver and holding two jars of homemade wine in his hands, avoided the reckless hunting teams and soon arrived in front of a large courtyard.

"Fang boy, you're here again?" In front of the courtyard gate, a burly, bearded middle-aged man saw Fang Xu and said with a familiar smile.

"Brother Li." Fang Xu called out with a smile, but his eyes passed the middle-aged man and looked at the bright red figure that flashed in the yard.

The middle-aged man followed his gaze into the courtyard, a smile appeared on his face and he jokingly said, "Boy, are you still thinking about it?"

Fang Xu looked away awkwardly, scratched his head and said with a wry smile: "I'm here to pay my respects to Master Lu."

The "Master Lu" he mentioned is named Lu Zhiyuan, one of the three martial arts masters in Fenglin Town and the owner of Zhiyuan Hall. His realm has reached the third level of martial arts.

There are ten levels of martial arts apprentices. After crossing the ten levels, one can step into the realm of martial arts masters. A master is someone who teaches and resolves doubts.

Only those who become martial artists can be called accomplished ones. Also, only martial artists at the martial artist level or above are qualified to guide ordinary practitioners in the method of refining their internal organs. Ordinary martial artists do not have this ability.

"Greetings, Master Lu?" The middle-aged man looked at the two jars of wine in Fang Xu's hands and shook his head, saying, "Fang boy, you know Master Lu's rules. If you want to enter this door, you need fifty taels of silver. Your two jars of wine are not worth that price."

Unlike the other two martial artists, Lu Zhiyuan only moved to Fenglin Town a few years ago.

The sudden arrival of a martial artist naturally attracted the attention of the other two martial artists in Fenglin Town. The common people in Fenglin Town were also unclear about what agreement the martial artist of the Zhang family and the old patriarch of the Wu family had reached with Lu Zhiyuan to allow Lu Zhiyuan to stay in Fenglin Town.

After gaining a foothold in Fenglin Town, Lu Zhiyuan opened the Zhiyuan Hall and set a rule that he would not accept disciples or recruit people. Anyone who wanted to enter the Zhiyuan Hall for guidance, no matter who it was, had to pay an entrance fee of fifty taels of silver.

Compared with the other two martial artists, the cost of asking Lu Zhiyuan to teach the method of refining the internal organs is the lowest.

The middle-aged man in front of him, Li Yunshan, was the one who came to Fenglin Town with Lu Zhiyuan. When Zhiyuan Hall was first opened, Li Yunshan had asked Fang Xu's grandfather to make some furniture. After a few visits, he became quite familiar with Fang Xu.

"I've brought the money." Fang Xu said, and hurriedly took out fifty taels of silver from the package behind him and handed it to Li Yunshan.

Seeing that a lot of the silver he took out was small change, Li Yunshan was a little surprised and said, "Fang kid, you must have saved up this money for quite a while, right?"

Fang Xu smiled faintly: "Brother Li, is Master Lu in there?"

Li Yunshan quickly counted the silver and after confirming that everything was correct, he extended his hand and said, "Master Lu is here, go in."

Under his guidance, Fang Xu stepped into Zhiyuan Hall for the first time.

This is a large house with three courtyards. There is a small martial arts field in the front yard. There are many footprints of varying depths on the hard bluestone ground. There are two weapon racks on the left side of the martial arts field, and four scarred rocks on the right side.

Renshi is a very hard stone. It is difficult for an ordinary warrior of the Tenth Realm to break it even with a full-strength attack. Therefore, it is often used as a criterion for evaluating a warrior's strength.

Following Li Yunshan through the martial arts field and into the inner courtyard, Fang Xu saw that bright red figure again.

(End of this chapter)