The three stages of Qi Rushing to the Disease, the stages of Finding Disease and Flipping Illness, did not have a very obvious order.
If your Qi Blood Power was strong enough, you could completely break through all your disease foci during the Finding Disease stage, skip Flipping Illness, and directly reach the final stage, reducing the disease.
So theoretically speaking, the stronger the Qi Blood Power, the faster the progress of Qi Rushing to the Disease.
After three breakthroughs of Ba Duan Jin, Wang Sheng's Qi Blood Power undoubtedly became stronger. The disease foci that couldn't be broken through before might not be a problem now.
To quickly solve the Martial Artist Disease, Wang Sheng once again compressed his time except for sleeping, spending almost the entire day cultivating Ba Duan Jin and Inner Core Skill.
Time went by again for half a month.
His skills had improved considerably.
"Level: Qi Rushing to the Disease, Finding Disease 76.5% (First Grade Martial Artist)
Ba Duan Jin: Breakthrough +3 (20%)
Inner Core Skill (Hundred Days Foundation Establishment): Breakthrough +3 (12%)
Herb Recognition: Breakthrough +2 (75%)
Medicinal Plant Cultivation: Breakthrough +3 (40%)
Eight Extremes Fist: 6 (33%)"
Plum Flower Step: 6 (13%)"
Most were progressing steadily, with only the Eight Extremes Fist and Plum Flower Step showing little progress due to a lack of practice.
The greatest progress was in the Qi Rushing to the Disease, with the progress of the Finding Disease stage reaching 76.5%. At the current speed, Wang Sheng calculated that it would only take ten days for the Finding Disease process to complete.
*With such a high progress, the gains were naturally great. During this process, he broke through countless small and large disease foci, but most were "past diseases."*
*One wouldn't know until they tried, and when he tried, it shocked him.*
In this 76.5% progress, his Qi Blood Power had impacted disease foci 26 times, with 22 successful impacts, and the remaining four were stronger disease foci that couldn't be broken through with his Qi Blood Power at the time, so he had to bypass them.
But over this past half month, both his blood strength and Qi Blood Power had increased significantly compared to before.
Especially the Qi Blood Power, which was re-extracted after the blood strength enhanced, leading to a very high intensity.
If he turned back now to attack again, aside from the Martial Artist Disease focus, the other three major foci could definitely be broken through easily.
However, there was no need to turn back.
Following the progress of Qi Rushing to the Disease would be enough; he could afford to wait ten days.
Moreover, when entering the Flipping Illness stage in ten days, the Qi Blood Power would be even stronger, giving him a greater chance of breaking through the focus caused by Martial Artist Disease.
After all, impacting the foci wasn't without risk, as the symptoms of the foci would reappear in the body regardless of which focus was impacted.
If he wasn't confident enough and failed to break through the Martial Artist Disease focus, the effects of Martial Artist Disease would explode and cause his sudden death, which would be troublesome.
So the Qi Blood Power could still be improved.
This was also the reason why, despite Inner Core Skill being able to control one's "Qi," it still defined the Flipping Illness as a distinct stage.
This stage could still be deadly if one was not careful.
As he cultivated more, Wang Sheng's understanding deepened.
"So, I must enhance my Qi Blood Power!"
Ba Duan Jin was the foundation-laying technique for him, like a skyscraper starting from the ground up, and its importance was not much less than Inner Core Skill.
Because of Ba Duan Jin's existence, his strength had become immeasurable; he only knew it was very powerful since the elevation of his level brought about the elevation of his martial strength.
Wang Sheng greatly enjoyed the feeling of slowly becoming stronger and thus practiced Ba Duan Jin with more effort.
Originally, he thought the ten days would pass peacefully, entering the Flipping Illness stage.
But on the sixth day, Village Chief Zhou Zhengwen came to see him.
"Village Chief, please have a seat,"
Wang Sheng brought a chair over.
After sitting down, the village chief went straight to the point without beating around the bush, "Yun Sheng, the reason I'm here is to ask for your help."
"Please tell me, as long as I can do it."
Last time at Zhou Zhengwen's home, Wang Sheng noticed something. But since Zhou Zhengwen didn't bring it up, he didn't pay attention either. Unexpectedly, it took about 20 days for him to come.
"Don't worry, it won't trouble you. It's quite simple, actually, it's just about going into the mountains with the villagers and scouting the dangers around Qingshan Village."
"Scouting Qingshan Village?"
Qingshan Village used to be a stronghold for a group of bandits in the nearby mountains. Later, the bandits were eradicated by Great Zhou, leaving Qingshan Village abandoned.
But why did Zhou Zhengwen want to clear out Qingshan Village?
Zhou Zhengwen sighed and said, "Yun Sheng, you know, a few days ago, dozens of refugees arrived at Lijiang Town, coming from Jiangyuan City. It's said that Jiangyuan City has fallen under siege, and they escaped to save their lives."
Jiangyuan City was the closest big city to Qingshan Village, about a few hundred kilometers away, and was also the largest city along this stretch of the Yellow Dragon River, with great strategic importance.
The Martial Artist forces and city defenses there were extremely powerful, but now they were under siege, and the common people were beginning to flee. Had the war reached such a stage?
*Wang Sheng had been focusing intently on his progress and thus wasn't aware of this.*
He looked at Zhou Zhengwen and asked, "Village Chief, do you know what's going on?"
"Because King Jianghe and King Yong Nian have started fighting. King Jianghe is now retreating step by step, and it seems that Shuzhou is about to fall!"
King Jianghe Zhou Yuanqing, a member of the Great Zhou Imperial Family, had a fief around the Shuzhou area where Qingshan Village was located. King Yong Nian Zhou Wutong, another member of the Great Zhou Imperial Family, had territory adjacent to Zhou Yuanqing's.
Though no large-scale rebellions had occurred yet, everyone was waiting for Great Zhou to take its last breath. Meanwhile, these two imperial family members clashed first, which was indeed ironic.
But Zhou Yuanqing's continuous retreats were not without reason.
Zhou Wutong was one of the Nine Great Grandmasters in the world, and aside from the forces of the other eight Great Grandmasters, there were basically no forces that could stop him.
Previously, the imperial family suppressed him, but now the imperial family just wanted to protect itself and couldn't care about these matters.
"Village Chief, do you know the reason?"
"How could I know? For us common people, isn't war something that just suddenly arrives?"
*Wang Sheng was silent.*
*Indeed, it just arrived suddenly.*
*In this world, wars waged by those in power left ordinary people with no choice but to passively accept them.*
*Even though Wang Sheng had become a Martial Artist now, it was still the same.*
He came to his senses, stopped thinking about this, and asked, "What does this have to do with clearing out Qingshan Village?"
Zhou Zhengwen slowly uttered three heavy words, "Leave a route!"
"..."
"Yun Sheng, you are a Martial Artist, but let me tell you, even a Martial Artist, let alone a Master, would be crushed to pieces under an army. Only a Great Grandmaster can change the course of a war, and that's a well-known fact.
So if the Martial Artist is like this, what about ordinary people? Those homeless refugees in Lijiang Town might be what we face next, so we must prepare an escape route early.
Qingshan Village is a good place for that. It once supported thousands of bandits, and our village could fit in there completely, but the mountain there houses fierce beasts, so I wanted to ask you to join us to ensure safety!"
After hearing this, Wang Sheng pondered for a moment, then finally nodded, "Okay, Village Chief, just call me when the time comes!"