18 - Banquet

This all happened so fast that Su Xue did not even have a chance to react before the man was dead. She only now understood just how terrifying Su Tao was, and she could not help herself from being happy that he was on her side for now.

He turned to face her at this moment. "This is the fate of all those who dare to get in my way. Don't get in my way or I will not hesitate to kill you too." He did not have a single bit of hesitation on his face as he said that, and the coldness of his voice was enough to scare her.

But the next moment all of that coldness vanished entirely and was replaced by nothing but warmth and comfort. His face changed into one of peace and tranquility and his whole demeanor changed to the exact opposite of what it had been not even a moment before. If before he was cold and merciless, then now he would be warm and kind.

Su Xue was taken aback by the sudden change, and she was also not expecting it in the slightest. It seemed like nothing could shake this boy in front of him, not even killing a man. She once again raised his position in her mind, and she regarded him with much more respect after seeing this. After all, she had killed people before, but she knew for a fact that she could not possibly do it with as little hesitation or care as he did.

This was shown when she was sent to assassinate him, as she had slightly hesitated. But she did not know that that single moment of hesitation was the only reason she was still alive. And she would never find out.

"As for all your questions about me, forget them now." He knew that she had questions, so he thought it better to shut her down before she even had a chance to ask.

After all, most people had already figured that the change to him was brought by the lightning since a few people had seen that he was the only one in the entire city that was struck by a green lightning bolt and therefore it was thought that his mother had used dark arts to give him powers that were not his own.

This was the most agreed upon answer by all people why his mother was killed and not him. Likely some higher ups were waiting for him to show his powers and use them to help the city, but they had to kill his mother to get the approval of the public that the culprit was dead. But the higher ups actually figured that he was a threat to the city, but they could do nothing because of the city master in reality.

Of course, Su Xue knew this better than most. She had investigated his background and sent people to find out what had happened to him specifically and directly ask the people who saw him get struck by the lightning.

Hearing her questions shut down before she even got to ask them, she was disappointed but she could not do anything about it since asking would only anger him. And the thing she wanted least right now was to anger such a terrifying person as him. He had already very clearly shown that he could beat her extremely easily and almost without any resistance and that he did not hesitate when killing.

Then, he looked over at the body and back at her. "The body needs to be taken care of. I recommend it be burned to save trouble. As for getting my help, you need to provide me with a few things to get it. Namely resources and techniques, as well as the ability to stay here under the protection of your name."

She was taken aback by his bluntness. She did not expect him to ask to stay in her house, but after she thought about it a bit more, she realized that what he said made sense. It had been a whole month that he had been here, and not only was he here in the first place, but by now, his payments on his house would have fallen behind and he would no longer have a home outside of this place.

For these two reasons, if she was to not let him stay here, then he would not have any place to stay and would likely be attacked by either the elders or Su Long and killed.

After thinking about it for a few seconds, weighing the pros and cons, she agreed. After all, she already had plenty of access to resources and techniques, and he had already been staying here in the first place.

Then, he looked at Su Xue expectantly. In a moment she realized that he was waiting for her to get him some techniques and resources. As such, she quickly left the room annoyed. He had not even done anything for her, yet he expected her to just offer him stuff on a silver platter. Su Tao, of course, noticed this.

She came back into the room with a couple books and a couple pills. Su Tao took them with a smile on his face, and once again spoke. "You may be annoyed with my behavior, but just know that I won't back out of a deal. You will get my full support as soon as I can offer it, which should be within the next couple months. You give me materials, and the more you give, the more help you will get, to the point where I will even help you after your problem is solved. So getting annoyed will do nothing for you and will instead hurt you."

She was taken aback, but it was then that she remembered that she felt like she could not hide anything from him, and it turned out to be true. But thinking about this, she suddenly remembered something. She knew that his gaze was powerful and domineering previously, but now it was soft and kind, just like the change in his personality.

After he took the materials, he opened all the books at the same time and lied them on the bed in front of him. Then, he stared at all of them at the same time and continually flipped the pages rapidly as fast as he could, only taking a moment on reading each page.

He had found that this was one of the benefits of his eyes, they could instantly memorize anything they saw, and his mental speed had improved tremendously allowing him to instantly read the entire pages all at the same time.

Su Xue was confused when she saw this, and within only about a minute, he was done flipping through all the pages of all the books. When he was done, he gave all the books back to Su Xue saying that he had memorized them, which stunned Su Xue, of course, but she ignored it.

Then, he asked what the pills were, which she answered. Then, he took one particular pill without hesitation and started to use one of the techniques listed in the technique manuals. Su Xue saw this and left the room, thinking that he no longer needed her help.

As Su Tao took the pill, he instantly felt a warm feeling spread through his body, strengthening it. He instantly started to use one of the techniques, which was to contract certain muscles in certain places to train without the physical challenge. He also used another technique which would use pressure points to allow the body to better accept medicine and its effect.

His training speed had already been unnaturally fast, about as fast as the city master's daughter, even without the help of the pills and techniques, but now it was much faster. He trained like this for five days, and he managed to reach the peak of the third bronze star. But the moment he reached this limit, he felt his body hit a peak, and for the first time in his life, he felt the existence of a bottleneck.

During this time, Su Xue had come out a few times to check on him, but he ignored her every time and did not respond to her presence. But every time she went out, she felt like his aura was stronger, even though it was still at the third bronze star.

She had also gotten him a shirt and some robes a long time ago, but she did not put them on him because she constantly had to change his gauze and medicine to heal him, and it would not be worth the effort of putting it on and taking it off every time. But obviously, she left his pants on. She had given him the shirt and robes when they had gone out to catch the guy who was watching her.

As Su Tao reached the bottleneck, he finally was forced to use Qi to cultivate, something he had never had to do before. As he sensed the Qi in the environment, a few golden specks appeared in front of him and started to float towards him. Then, more and more formed, forming a small but constant stream of Qi going into his body.

He then directed the Qi around his body according to one of the cultivation manuals that Su Xue had given to him. The Qi spread evenly through his body and warmed it up entirely. He felt the Qi trying to corrode the bottleneck in his body, but it was extremely sturdy. He made no progress at all even after a few hours with constant Qi trying to corrode the bottleneck.

Su Xue had come out of her room to check on him again, and when she saw him cultivating, she was completely astonished. He had been at the third bronze star for less than a week but he was already trying to break through to the silver rank. She was also completely baffled with his speed at summoning Qi.

The speeds of summoning Qi determined your talent, and within the Su family, Su Xue was considered a prodigy, but compared to Su Tao she was nothing. She was able to summon a drop of Qi every five seconds, but he actually had a constant stream, which was comparable to the top geniuses of the top two families.

She was once again super happy that he was on her side and was going to help her.

She decided not to bother him any more at all and was about to go back into her room, but there was a sudden knock on the door. She went to answer it, but there was no one there. She looked around, but there was no one there. But then she looked down, only to see an invitation on the ground.

Su Tao had opened his eyes, and he instantly saw the invitation on the ground. It was a elegantly decorated invitation stating a simple message. "Banquet in three days in celebration of the city master's daughter breaking through to the second silver star at only sixteen years old."

Seeing this, Su Tao spoke. "Wow, she sure broke through quick. What else does it say?"

"It says that everyone at the third rank of the martial path and above is invited. There will be a celebration and activities. There will even be a combat ring." She was not bothered by his seeing the invitation because everyone at the third bronze star and above would be able to see it from where he was sitting, and they would be able to read it as well.

On top of that, she knew that his vision was extremely extraordinary based on the fact that he could find the man watching her in only a moment when she could not find him in almost a month.

They then talked a bit and decided that they would both go. No one would dare to attack Su Tao at the city master's residence anyway, so there was no reason for him to not go.

Three days passed very quickly, and Su Tao's broken ribs had fully healed, leaving him completely healed with no problems. But what confused him was that he made absolutely no progress on his bottleneck even though he had so much Qi available to him and the techniques to break through.

He also had pills to help break through faster, but he made no progress whatsoever, and it was not that he just couldn't see the progress, it was actually no progress at all.

As night fell, it was time to go to the banquet. The streets were lively and there was music in the air. There was a general joy in the atmosphere and the smell of delicious food permeated the air. The banquet was being held at the city master's massive residence, which was more than enough to situate tens of thousands of people all at the same time. Only a few people at the third bronze star came, and most of the people there were at the silver rank.

Su Tao had never seen such a big celebration, but he did not care. He was here for only a couple reasons, to see the city master's daughter, the young master, and to fight in the fighting ring. He stood out quite a bit with his pure white hair, but not too much with the chaos happening at the moment.

He had left Su Xue's side long before they had gotten there to not attract unnecessary attention. As such, he went directly to the fighting ring because that was his first goal since the city master's children would not be coming out until later.

When he got there he was greeted with the sound of cheering as two people fought in the middle of the ring. They were two people at the third bronze star, and they were engaged in a brutal battle, with both of them having several cuts and bruises on their bodies.

After a couple minutes, one man won but only barely. He won with several cuts on his body and a severe bruise on his arm. The men fought bare chested to avoid the inconvenience of the robes, while the women wore short robes that would not inconvenience them.

Su Tao then went over to the registering area where he would sign up to fight. He was then quickly admitted into the fighting ring, and after a couple more fights, he was called up by someone who had won a previous fight. When people heard his name, they were excited. At this point there were very few people who did not know his name due to his feat of half defeating two highly trained silver ranks at the same time.

As he went out to the middle of the fighting ring, with all eyes on him. Then, his opponent was called out, but no one cared about him because of Su Tao.

Then, the fight began. The other man did not bother with saying anything since all attention was on Su Tao anyway. As such, he instantly launched himself towards Su Tao, who was about twenty feet away from him. He found Su Tao's tattoos weird because Su Tao had taken his shirt and robes off, leaving him in only pants, but he ignored it and continued to charge towards Su Tao.

But Su Tao did not move at all. The man took this opportunity and jumped towards Su Tao while swinging his fist towards Su Tao's chest. But Su Tao just continued to stand there standing at him. Then, Su Tao stepped to the side in perfect time, completely avoiding the man's punch before swinging out a punch of his own once again perfectly timed, hitting the side of the man and completely throwing him to the side almost another twenty feet unconscious.

The battle was won in only a single hit.