"Hahaha, you don't have to be so alarmed. The God of Pestilence is not as scary as it sounds!" the village chief laughed upon seeing Lu Tianzi expression. "As long as we offer it a certain portion of our harvests, it will not do anything to harm us."

"What exactly is this God of Pestilence?" Lu Tianzi continued to probe.

"Well, you have probably guessed it by now. It is a powerful beast that rules this land, so strong that even all our warriors combined would not be able to stand against it," the village chief let out a helpless sigh. "In order to remain safe, we can only resort to appeasing it with our offerings."

Lu Tianzi tried to ask more questions about this God of Pestilence, but it seemed that even the village chief was unsure of the details. All he knew was that the village had always been offering a portion of their food to this God of Pestilence.

The previous village chief had once sternly warned him against abolishing this tradition, saying that if they were to stop with their offerings, the Xian Village would suffer greatly from that decision.

Thus, even during times when they had a bad harvest, the villagers would rather go hungry so that they could offer the same amount of food to the God of Pestilence.

Lu Tianzi and Nanlan Qianxue listened intently. But in the end, they left the village chief's house without having learnt much at all.

After the duo left the house, the village chief's warm smile instantly faded from his face, revealing a solemn expression.

"How is it?" the village chief asked.

"I can't sense any aura from them."

A voice came from the back of the house as a man stepped out.

He looked to be in his late fifties, and had shaven his head bald. He was wearing a loose shirt similar to that of the village chief, and had a sword hanging by his waist.

This was Bo Xie, one of the two people in the village who possessed a cultivation level at the Peak Essence Building realm. At the same time, he was also the leader and trainer of Xian Village's warriors.

"Not even you are able to detect any aura from them?" the village chief pondered deeply.

"They either do not practice martial arts, or they are even stronger than myself," Bo Xie continued. "If it is the former, there is no harm letting them stay. And if it is the latter, we won't be able to chase them away even if we wanted to. In fact, attempting to do so might only serve to anger them. Is that why Chief chose to take an accommodating approach towards the end?"

"Indeed," the village chief nodded. "Whether this is the right choice or not, only time will tell.."

Before Lu Tianzi and Nanlan Qianxue left, the village chief had pointed them to Ye's house, and that was exactly where they headed.

In the end, Ye prepared a room for the two of them.

Thankfully, it was big enough to accommodate a spare bed. Otherwise, things might have become slightly awkward for the duo.

At Ye's house, Lu Tianzi learnt that the offering to the God of Pestilence was quite a big thing in Xian Village. Every household had to contribute a small portion of food, and that was the reason why Ye and Rui had been going fishing in recent days.

"What do you think of this?"

Lu Tianzi asked Nanlan Qianxue when they were finally alone in the room.

"In my honest opinion, I don't think there is anything impressive about this village. The people are weak, the culture is poor, and they are wary of us as well," Nanlan Qianxue commented, her last point referring to how Bo Xie had spied on them while they were at the village chief's house.

As Essence Condensation realm martial artists, they had naturally sensed Bo Xie hiding in the back of the house.

"But one thing I have to admit is that the World Origin Energy is quite dense in this area," Nanlan Qianxue continued. "It would be a good hiding place for us to recover before returning."

"I noticed that point as well," Lu Tianzi nodded. "But other than that, I am also interested in this God of Pestilence."

"Are you thinking of taming it?" Nanlan Qianxue eyed him suspiciously.

"I'm certainly not discounting that possibility, but it is easier said than done," Lu Tianzi sighed. "Unfortunately, Nanqing Haowen is not here to lend us his expertise."

"What will be, will be," Nanlan Qianxue smiled. "We'll just have to see how it goes."

The duo spent the night in meditation, still trying to recover from their fight with Chiren.

Lu Tianzi's condition was slightly worse than Nanlan Qianxue's, but it was nothing especially serious either. Most of his problems came from completely expending his Essence energy reserves, which slowed down his recovery speed.

What's more, Lu Tianzi was a skilled herbalist as well, and knew the basic fundamentals on how to treat injuries.

His current injuries were naturally not too big of an issue to him.

After a good night's rest, both of them might not have returned to their peak states, but they had at least made huge progress in their recovery.

The next day, Ye and Rui had to go fishing again, so it was up to Ye's wife to take on the role of a guide, bringing Lu Tianzi and Nanlan Qianxue along to take a look around the village.

It was not a large village though.

By afternoon, they were already done touring the village.

During this time, many curious villagers took the initiative to approach and strike up a conversation with them. Because of that, Lu Tianzi and Nanlan Qianxue managed to gain a much better understanding of Xian Village.

In fact, Lu Tianzi even ended up enjoying a relaxing cup of tea at one of the villagers' house.

Nanlan Qianxue, on the other hand, was not feeling too sociable. She returned to the room in Ye's house, spending her time in meditation.

Lu Tianzi was not doing it all for leisure though. He was trying to build rapport with the villagers, so that it would be easier for him to find out more secretive information.

Or more specifically, Lu Tianzi wanted to know more about their cultivation techniques.

Even after obtaining the many cultivation technique manuals from the Ivory Rock Martial Academy, it was taking Lu Tianzi quite some time to assimilate the information and improve on the Undulated Currents Breathing Technique.

But after chatting with the villagers and even watching some of the warriors train for a while, Lu Tianzi realised that perhaps he had been too optimistic about the situation.

Looking at the state of the village's warriors, it was more than likely that Xian Village never possessed any manuals at the Essence Condensation rank.

To that, Lu Tianzi could only sigh in disappointment.

It was one thing to not have any suitable cultivation techniques.

But from the looks of it, they probably did not possess any high quality combat techniques either.

After battling Chiren, Lu Tianzi had come to realise the flaws in his combat style.

While his movement technique was great, there were too little variations to his offensive and defensive skills.

All he had to rely on were his basic mastery over his sword and sabre, the inscription skill of the Astral Way Inscription, the Eternal Wraith Sword Art which he had yet to master, and the Limitless Mirror Eye which he had also yet to master.

Other than that, he had the Thunderbolt Torrential Fists, the Rising Serpent Splitting the Heavens, and the Astral World Slash. But among these three, Lu Tianzi felt that the Thunderbolt Torrential Fists was losing its usefulness at his current level, and was quickly becoming irrelevant in fights.

The Rising Serpent Splitting the Heavens was nice and cool, but he had to admit that his mastery over the spear was still lacking. Thus, it was still too early for him to truly execute this technique in its fullest glory.

As for the Astral World Slash, the downside of it was that Lu Tianzi was still unable to control it fully. All he could do was expend all of his strength to produce one violent and uncontrollable strike, after which he would be completely helpless.

He had always been thinking of refining it further, but never truly got down to doing it.

Now, after seeing what Chiren was capable of, Lu Tianzi decided that it was high time to look into upgrading his skills arsenal.

First of all, he would look into his current comprehensions into the World Laws and think of ways to incorporate them into his combat style.

That was what Chiren did with his Law of Fire.

That was what Nanlan Qianxue did with her Law of Ice.

So Lu Tianzi naturally did not see any reason why he could not do so as well!

On the off chance that he really failed to think of anything, Lu Tianzi would just have to take a good look within the Pagoda of Wisdom after returning to the Nine Suns Sect.

With the number of manuals they had, surely there would be some that were water affiliated combat techniques?

Of course, it would be best if his master Xihuang Yuanfeng was willing to impart such a skill to him. But even without asking, Lu Tianzi could already foresee that stubborn old man telling him to master the Eternal Wraith Sword Art before asking for other skills again.

Lu Tianzi temporarily bidded farewell to the villagers, and headed out of the village on his own.

"Hey, let me accompany you! The woods are not safe!" a young man called out to him as he was about to leave.

"Thank you for the offer, but I will be fine on my own." Lu Tianzi smiled in response.

"No, no, I insist! You are a guest of Xian Village after all. If you really feel bad about it, you can just tell me about your travels!" the young man was adamant about accompanying Lu Tianzi.

Despite his cheerful disposition and looks that seemed to be not much older than Lu Tianzi, this young man was actually one of the only two Peak Essence Building realm martial artists in the village.

This young man was named Chen Meng.

He was dressed in black battle robes and possessed a very well trained body, with a sword hanging by his waist just like all other warriors in the village. His short black hair did nothing to hide his sharp eyes, allowing everyone to see the fire burning in his heart.

Unlike Bo Xie, who was already in his late fifties, Chen Meng had managed to reach this cultivation level in his late teens, which was actually an incredible achievement considering the state of Xian Village.

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When Lu Tianzi first saw Chen Meng, Lu Tianzi could not help but feel impressed by the latter's martial talent.

Unfortunately, a martial artist's growth was dictated not only by talent, but by fortune as well.

The moment Chen Meng was born into a place like Xian Village, his talent was already destined to be buried. That was, unless he met with some fortuitous encounter in the future.

Seeing how eager Chen Meng was, Lu Tianzi relented in the end, allowing Chen Meng to accompany him as they headed to the river where he had first met Ye.

On the way there, Chen Meng received a rude awakening.

The speed at which Lu Tianzi moved through the woods.. Chen Meng was struggling to even catch up!

"Don't fall behind," Lu Tianzi's words sounded out in Chen Meng's head.

It was at this moment that Chen Meng finally realised what was going on.

No wonder Lu Tianzi had been confident of travelling through the dangerous wilderness, so he was a martial artist.

Not just that, but he was at least at the Essence Condensation realm too!

Chen Meng had always thought of himself as being extremely talented in martial arts. Now that he came across someone younger than him yet possess a cultivation level higher than his, Chen Meng could not help but feel his heartbeat quicken as excitement quickly built up within him.

This was a glimpse of the outside world!

Compared to that, Chen Meng had finally realised just how small Xian Village truly was.

Out there in this world, just how many other more talented martial artists were there?

Once he became strong enough himself, he would surely be like Lu Tianzi, travelling to the outside world and seeing the world with his own two eyes!

But that was a matter to be left for the future.

As for now, there was a more pressing matter at hand.

Perhaps if he could convince Lu Tianzi to help out, they might just be able to resolve this problem for Xian Village, finally liberating them from their ancient shackles!