บท 27: Tang Dynasty Royal Decree!
บรรณาธิการ: EndlessFantasy Translation
"Brother Zhen Guan. What do you think about my deduction? Does it make sense to you?" Zhen Zhi glared at the other warrior monks and turned to look at Su Qin hopefully.
"Umm…" Su Qin put that unofficial biography down and thought for a moment. He then said in a serious tone, "What you said makes a lot of sense."
"Brother Zhen Guan's the one who truly understands me!" laughed Zhen Zhi.
They continued to chat for a little while longer before Zhen Zhi left with the other warrior monks. After they left, Su Qin whispered under his breath, "The Master of the Meng Dynasty? Zhang Zhenren?"
Before Su Qin entered the Shaolin temple when he was still the Third Young Master of the Su family, he heard of these two names. At the time, Su Qin merely thought that they were extremely impressive people.
"The top of the world?" A smile appeared on Su Qin's face. Even though he was not sure if he was in the realm of being top of the world, he knew that he was far more powerful than a typical first-rank grandmaster with his current grasp of trump moves.
Su Qin had a feeling that once he trained to the limits of the Impenetrable Amor technique and the Yin Refinement technique, he would have been able to defeat a typical first-rank grandmaster with merely his physical body.
Ever since the Blood-Sucking Devil escaped from the Mystical Village Tower, the Shaolin temple was made aware of the fault in the tower and they started to restore it. Luckily, all the demons within the tower were consumed by the Blood-Sucking Devil. That saved the Shaolin temple a great deal of trouble.
In the blink of an eye, a full year had gone by. In the past year, Su Qin once again returned to his previous routine in life. During that period, Su Qin spent the rest of his energy on training in the Impenetrable Armor technique and the Yin Refinement technique apart from signing in.
'I've finally reached the limit!' Su Qin opened his eyes and softly sighed.
Ever since he discovered that training in both the Yin Refinement technique and the Impenetrable Armor technique transformed his body, Su Qin started training on that hill every night.
Until the point where the strands of faint gray aura formed from combining the Yin Refinement technique and the Impenetrable technique could no longer continue to improve his physical body.
'It seems that even with the balance of Yin and Yang, there's a limit on how much I can transform my physical body…' Su Qin wore an expression of slight disappointment.
'However, I can defeat a first-rank grandmaster with merely my physical body. In other words, if I stood solidly in a stance, even a first-rank grandmaster won't be able to break through my defenses now?' wondered Su Qin.
If he merely relied on the Impenetrable Armor technique and achieved mastery of it, he would have been able to defeat a typical martial artist in the Upper Realms. That meant he was a third-rank warrior.
However, since Su Qin used the Yin Refinement technique to balance the Impenetrable Armor technique, the physical body that he achieved through training leaped to the level where he could defeat a first-rank grandmaster!?
If abbot Hui Wen and the other temple court heads learned about it, their eyeballs may have popped out of their heads from the shock. To have been able to defeat a first-rank grandmaster with merely his physical body!?
What kind of terrifying body could do that? Even the Master of the Meng Dynasty who was said to possess the strength of a dragon might not have been at that level.
"What do I need to do to get to the Luohan status then?" muttered Su Qin to himself as he got up and looked at the fast-fading moon.
Over the past year, Su Qin took numerous Spirit Cultivation Pills to continuously cultivate 'Spirit'. Yet, he was still unable to break through the bottleneck of the Martial Arts Legend realm.
"There must be some other area that I haven't reached the peak of in my training."
Su Qin was not discouraged because ever since his physical body was pushed to the absolute limit, he faintly sensed that his lifespan increased. Normally, a typical first-rank grandmaster lived up to 200 years of age. Yet, Su Qin's lifespan doubled to reach 400 years.
400 years of life!
It was pretty incredible because even a true Luohan or a Martial Arts Legend's lifespan was around for 500 years. That was comparable to Su Qin's current lifespan.
'There's still a lot of time so I'm in no rush."
Su Qin suddenly recalled that first-rank grandmaster, the man who died in the Thousand Buddha Hall. Even though Serpentine Wanderer was the first-rank grandmaster, he died when he was about 160 years old.
A first-rank grandmaster had a lifespan of up to 200 years but those that could truly live up to the full 200 years were extremely few. Most of the first-rank grandmasters only lived up to about 150 years. They usually succumbed to their old injuries and died.
The next day, after Su Qin signed in, he walked past the Great Palace Hall. All of a sudden, a jade palanquin slowly drove toward him. The jade palanquin was extremely fancy and carved out of beautiful jade. Deep gold veins spread across the body of the jade.
"Huh?" Su Qin stopped in his steps and looked at the person standing next to the jade chariot. It was an old eunuch dressed in a red eunuch robe. The old eunuch had a hunchback and his aura was concealed. However, Su Qin could tell with just one look that he was a second-rank martial artist.
"Eunuch Hong, what brings you here?" Abbot Hui Wen and the temple court heads gathered there and stood looking at the old eunuch standing next to the jade chariot with solemn eyes.
The old eunuch who was called Eunuch Hong slowly stepped toward them and said with an ear-piercing voice, "Imperial Concubine Li's a follower of Buddha. She heard that the Shaolin temple's a sacred land of the world's Buddhist sects and would like to meditate here for a while."
As soon as Eunuch Hong finished speaking, abbot Hui Wen and the other temple court heads paled visibly.
Consort Li? The Tang Dynasty Emperor's favorite imperial consort?
Abbot Hui Wen's first reaction was that it was extremely burdensome. 'Why can't imperial consort Li focus on serving the emperor in the palace instead of coming to the Shaolin temple to meditate?' he thought.
"Eunuch Hong, the Shaolin temple restricts women from entering the temple. If the imperial consort Li truly has an interest in Buddhism, I can gift the royal lady a couple of Buddhist manuals…" responded abbot Hui Wen immediately.
Even though the Shaolin temple was one of the great martial arts sects in the world, he was still unwilling to incur the wrath of the imperial family. It was especially true of imperial consort Li because she had a close relationship with many noblemen within the palace.
The Tang Dynasty Emperor was currently advanced in age, and his reign was rocked with instability. Several of his princes were warring both openly and in secret. At that moment, for the Shaolin temple to have accepted Consort Li would be like willingly accepting a live grenade.
"Hmph!" Eunuch Hong chuckled coldly and said, "This is a royal decree. Is the Shaolin temple going to disobey it?"
As soon as Eunuch Hong finished speaking, he took out a golden decree and looked coldly at abbot Hui Wen.
"A royal decree?" Abbot Hui Wen went quiet.
If it had been imperial consort Li's own wish to meditate in the Shaolin temple for some time, abbot Hui Wen would have been able to refuse with the might of the entire Shaolin temple behind him. She may be the favored consort of the emperor but she was still only an imperial concubine.
However, if it was a royal decree, abbot Hui Wen had to be more cautious. That was because a royal decree represented the will of the Tang Dynasty Emperor. It did not bode well for the Shaolin temple that was situated in the Tang Dynasty.
After an extremely long pause, abbot Hui Wen forced out a smile and said, "Since this is the will of the emperor, please come in imperial consort Li…"
'Imperial consort Li?'
Su Qin examined that jade palanquin that was covered in deep golden veins with his Truth Seeing Eye and a strange expression flashed across his face.
-- ได้รับของขวัญแล้ว