The Decaying World-Chapter 106 - 101: Calm, Part 1

’Getting married? That would only slow down my sword.’

Lin Hui flatly rejected his newfound sister Liu Xiao’s attempt to set him up with a girl. He insisted his private life was a mess and that taking too many aphrodisiacs might have a bad effect on the young lady.

Liu Xiao was left speechless. She gave him a few more reminders about what to do after he returned before reluctantly letting him go.

From the looks of it, she seemed to be enjoying the novel feeling of having a younger brother to dote on.

Her expression was icy, but her words were a constant stream of nagging.

After finally managing to leave the Rain Palace, Liu Xiao sent a red-haired girl with a large bag of Rain Palace souvenirs for him to carry.

"My lady said you shouldn’t use permits from other houses to get in and out anymore. The Rain Palace permits are better quality; one is good for four hours." The red-haired girl was also a Summoner, but she was exceedingly polite to Lin Hui.

"Thank you, I understand." Lin Hui stood before the gates of the Rain Palace, his gaze lifting past the girl to the palace behind her.

It was a complex of palace buildings as massive as a small mountain, looking like a spired cathedral built from countless white blocks.

But from a distance, you could see that every single one of those blocks actually had glass windows.

That meant these "blocks" were, in fact, individual rooms of varying sizes.

This modular structure, with a massive cluster of rooms linked together like a bunch of grapes, made Lin Hui suspect that the building materials in this Inner City might be even more advanced than those on Earth in his past life.

Hefting the sturdy, pigskin bag, he glanced at the sky. It was pitch-black.

There was no moon, no starlight—just an endless expanse of darkness.

With a wave, he said goodbye to the red-haired girl and walked a short distance down the street outside the palace.

Coming out of the Rain Palace without a map or a phone for navigation, Lin Hui stared at the rows of nearly identical white buildings, a bit dumbfounded.

All the buildings had similar shapes and colors. Only the signs hanging outside revealed their function.

PITTER-PATTER...

A light drizzle began to fall, hitting the ground and kicking up a thin layer of fine dust.

The raindrops slowly soaked the signs hanging from the crossbars outside the buildings. Some wooden signs darkened, their red characters on a brown background looking particularly stark in the rain.

Lin Hui walked quickly along the street, staying under the eaves of the houses.

Illuminating stone lamps passed overhead from time to time. These pale yellow and white stones, hung by the shops under the eaves, were meant to light up their signs, but they also cast a faint glow over the street.

By now, there were fewer pedestrians and carriages on the road. Only the occasional person like Lin Hui hurried past, ducking out of the rain.

RUMBLE.

Thunder cracked, and the rain grew heavier.

Lin Hui sighed, glanced at his already soaked robe, and simply took it off. He tied it around his waist, leaving him in just his trousers, and plunged headfirst into the downpour.

Braving the cold, heavy rain, he wandered the streets for several loops but couldn’t find the way to the South Nine Gates.

After careful observation, Lin Hui discovered that at the corner of each intersection, there was a black metal pole with detachable wooden signs indicating directions.

After checking two consecutive intersections, he finally found a sign for the South Nine Gates.

Standing at a crossroads, Lin Hui looked up at the cross-shaped signpost on the black pole.

On the white-painted wooden planks, words were written in black ink in different scripts.

’East—South Nine Gates, South Ninth Street’

’South—Rain Palace, Flower Street’

’North—Farmers’ Market, Jade Lake Castle’

’West—Brocade Manor, Cemetery No. 1’

He let out a breath. He’d finally found his way. Lin Hui took one last look back the way he came. On the deep, dark street, a few scattered pedestrians jogged by and quickly disappeared from sight.

Occasionally, a blurry figure would flash across a rooftop, moving with extreme speed. The shape was almost invisible, merely translucent.

"What a strange place..." To be honest, after entering the Inner City alone for the second time, Lin Hui no longer felt the same intense urge to move here that he had before.

In his mind, this place felt like another world, one far, far larger than the Outer City.

It was unfamiliar, mysterious, and novel, but he didn’t long for it...

’Perhaps I just haven’t been exposed to the truly desirable parts of the Inner City yet. Or maybe my status in the Outer City is already high enough that I don’t need to enter the Inner City to avoid danger...’

Having figured this out, Lin Hui no longer hesitated. His figure blurred as he accelerated, speeding off in the direction indicated by the sign.

*

*

*

「Half a month later...」

「Qingfeng Temple Headquarters.」

Lin Hui’s brow was furrowed. He held two longswords, occasionally practicing the techniques of the Gale Swordsmanship. As his Inner Strength surged, faint currents of air would periodically stir around him.

But these air currents would quickly fade and disappear.

In the mansion’s inner courtyard, he once again checked the progress of the Blood Seal in his field of vision.

’Typhoon Swordsmanship—Time Remaining: 9 years, 3 months.’

By taking a large amount of medicine during this period to reduce the time, he had finally shortened the requirement for the Typhoon Swordsmanship to just nine years.

Meanwhile, his success rate in alchemy had also improved significantly compared to when he first started. It was purely a result of repeated practice.

Qingfeng Temple was now on the right track and no longer needed his constant attention. Xue Meng and the two newly joined Inner Power Martial Artists were enough to keep the entire martial hall stable.

Thus, Lin Hui devoted himself completely to researching Body Tempering.

In the early morning, a gentle breeze rustled the large locust tree in the courtyard, sending its leaves scattering like raindrops.

Many leaves fluttered past Lin Hui, only to be blown far away by the air currents that periodically surged from his body.

’Wait!’ Suddenly, Lin Hui noticed something was wrong.

’I clearly wasn’t channeling my power in that direction... so why did the leaf fly that way?’

An idea flashed through Lin Hui’s mind. He surged his Inner Strength again, carefully watching the leaves falling beside him.

This time it was clearer. The leaf did indeed veer off course, flying in a direction where he wasn’t intentionally projecting a gust of power.

’Is this just stray energy from the swordsmanship, or is there a problem with my Inner Strength control?’

Lin Hui began to carefully sense the flow of his Inner Strength and the motions of his sword swings.

He was surprised to find that the falling leaves could clearly outline the external shape of his Inner Strength.

He had originally thought the Inner Strength covering his body was spherical, but now, surrounded by the leaves, Lin Hui discovered that his Inner Strength was not a sphere, but some kind of unknown, irregular shape.

’I remember the key principle of the Gale Swordsmanship is for the sword to be like the wind, with the outer air current forming a spindle shape...’

’But the external air current from the Inner Strength is constantly changing and it’s transparent, making it impossible to observe...’

After a moment of thought, Lin Hui quickly found a solution.

His figure flickered. Instead of heading to the Gale Plain, he rushed toward the original site of Qingfeng Temple.

A short while later, within a bamboo forest behind the original site of Qingfeng Temple.

Lin Hui raised his sword, assuming the opening stance of the Gale Swordsmanship.

’Wind!’

he cried out softly.

In an instant, a gale whipped up, crashing into the surrounding bamboo forest and blowing off a large number of loose bamboo leaves.

Countless yellow and green leaves scattered, falling like rain.

Lin Hui could now clearly see the position and direction of the air currents stirred up by his Inner Strength as it continuously leaked out on its own.

’Since the wind is formless and shapeless, why don’t I just give it a form?’

He began to carefully adjust his Inner Strength, using it to rhythmically counteract the air currents on the surface of his body.

This was a slow, grinding process.

The fact that his Inner Strength spontaneously stirred up air currents meant that Lin Hui’s control over it was flawed and needed to be strengthened.

Time after time, bit by bit, he constantly counteracted the autonomous pulses of his Inner Strength. With his full concentration, Lin Hui gradually felt the bottleneck in the Gale Swordsmanship’s Body Tempering begin to loosen...

The standard for Body Tempering with the Gale Sword was to surge one’s Inner Strength a second time after the initial surge had already started stirring the air.

Being able to surge it one extra time was Second Grade. Three extra times was Fourth Grade, and so on.

This was a difficult point, however, because the Gale Swordsmanship itself already caused one’s Inner Strength to circulate at high speed.

To make Inner Strength that was already circulating at ultra-high speeds surge consecutively, as if it were an extension of one’s own limbs, required extreme control.

Gradually, with constant practice, Lin Hui keenly sensed his progress. The Body Tempering of the Gale Swordsmanship seemed to be more involved with the training of one’s Heart and Spirit.

This time, he felt he had found the right direction.

「One week later.」

His Gale Sword technique reached Second Grade Body Tempering. The force of the wind Lin Hui could now stir up was even greater.

To this end, he gradually grew accustomed to training in dense forests or on rainy days.

Because in those conditions, the autonomous pulses and leaps of his Inner Strength would naturally manifest in the stirred-up air currents.

The Inner Strength surges would weave a net, transforming external forces into an outward-blowing wind.

This was the principle behind the Gale Swordsmanship, but the inherent pulse of the Inner Strength itself, similar to a heartbeat, would also affect the force of the wind.

Controlling this ceaseless pulsation was how one strengthened the Body Tempering of the Gale Sword technique.

This Body Tempering refined not just the body, but also the Heart and Spirit.

And just as Lin Hui was basking in the joy of his improved Body Tempering, the end of another year arrived.

It was the New Year.

After the Lin Mansion’s family banquet, Lin Shunhe and most of the others went to play with Xiaoliu.

Lin Hui, however, was dragged out of the Lin Mansion by an enthusiastic Liu Xiao and taken to a private room in a teahouse just across the street.

It was clear that Liu Xiao had dressed up carefully.

She wore a light green long dress with a wide, black waistband edged in silver thread. The buckle seemed to be the polished white fang of some creature.

She wasn’t wearing a veil, either, fully revealing her coolly beautiful face, which was adorned with a touch of light makeup.

Her attire was mostly fine, similar to the style of the Outer City. The only touch of Inner City fashion was the matching short top she wore, which tightly accentuated her chest. Although nothing was exposed, the curves underneath were clearly defined, suggesting she wore nothing beneath it.

"Why are we coming here for the New Year?" Lin Hui asked, looking helplessly at the outwardly cold but inwardly warm Liu Xiao. He had wanted to go straight back to headquarters to continue his Body Tempering after the banquet, but he’d been nabbed by this newfound sister of his before he could leave.

"I’m introducing you to someone from your hometown this time. You’ll definitely like her. Her aptitude is good, and while her looks are average—just like you—she’s a good match in other aspects," Liu Xiao said earnestly.

’...’ ’So she really brought me here for a blind date?!’

Lin Hui was speechless.

"Sigh... what’s her name, then? Since she’s from my hometown, I should at least know her name beforehand, right?"

"Her surname is Yan, and her name is Wanqiu. She’s a girl I have high hopes for. Ah, she’s here." Liu Xiao suddenly stood up and walked toward the door of the private room.

"That name... sounds a little familiar..." Lin Hui paused, feeling as if he had heard it somewhere before.