"Are you crazy?! What do you mean you want cultivation manuals for a cripple?!" a harsh, gravelly voice echoed through the vast hall, bellowing in furious disbelief.Gao remained down on one knee before the towering figure, sweating profusely as the oppressive aura of an angry superior weighed down upon his shoulders."I do not acknowledge this absurd decision by the Gang Leader! Within just a few hours of this crippled brat being handed a rank out of nowhere, he now has the sheer audacity to demand resources?! Is this gang his mother’s personal backyard?!" the man roared, his face contorted in absolute rage as he gestured wildly at Gao."B-But... the rules of the gang, Hall Master Mushiro..." Gao stammered, his head bowed so low his forehead nearly touched the cold floorboards, his voice trembling as sweat dripped off his chin."To hell with the rules!" Mushiro barked, taking a menacing step forward. "The rules explicitly state that every single rank within this gang must be earned t

A day after Zareth fell unconscious...Zareth’s eyes slowly opened as he lay flat on his back upon the well-cushioned arhat bed. For a brief, disorienting instant, his blurred vision seemed to behold the rotting, water-logged roof of the shabby slum abode he had occupied for months. But within a heart's breath, the haze cleared, replacing the nightmare with the clean wooden ceiling and comfortable surroundings of his new room at the Divine Damsel Pleasure House.Zareth had been knocked out cold for more than twenty-four hours, from the morning of the previous day straight through to the noon of the next.As he stirred, he realized he was neatly covered with a clean blanket, his body thoroughly washed, and the foul stench of purged impurities completely erased from the room. With a deliberate, forceful effort, he turned his neck toward the desk by the open window. Sitting in the wooden chair was Gao, fast asleep and drowsing heavily. The brute's thick torso would slump forward as if

Zareth was dead curious about this. Even within the old Zareth's memories, the frail boy hadn't cared much about who was ranked what or how the hierarchy within the syndicate functioned. All the original Zareth had ever cared about was his own day-to-day survival in the filth of the slums by doing what was asked of him, so he possessed zero clues as to how these people actually climbed the ranks within the gang.However, to the current, it was an absolute law of the world that rank must strictly correspond to physical strength and martial cultivation. From everything he had been observing since his awakening, in terms of sheer raw power and combat capability, Gao was noticeably stronger than most low-level members. Thus, seeing the hulking brute stuck as a mere bottom-tier Hand didn't make a single grain of sense to his sharp mind.Furthermore, from his merged memories, Zareth had continuously seen Gao serving as the personal guard assigned to escort him to private audiences with t

"This is perfect... I can resonate with the world energy even faster in this position," Zareth thought as he settled deeper into his meditation. Sitting upright in a proper lotus pose allowed his internal channels to align naturally. He realized that he was able to condense the temporary raw Aether reservoir far more rapidly and guide it seamlessly to purge the stubborn, stagnant impurities trapped within his body.In each of his palms, he held a low-grade Aether Stone. As he drew upon his soul power, he began absorbing the pure energy directly from the stones at an astonishing rate. The spiritual energy flowing from the Aether Stones acted like a secondary reservoir, surging straight toward his clogged pathways to blast through the physical blockages. Meanwhile, the condensed sphere of Wind Aether Qi floating in his inner sea served as the primary, pressurized core that required his absolute focus and soul power to maintain. With both streams working in perfect tandem, the entir

"Mmmh, I see," Zareth said to Gao, nodding slowly as the brute explained the squad structures operating within the gang."And Squads Four through One are the units that handle the top-tier, high-risk trade escort missions outside Blackwater Town," Gao continued, crossing his arms. "I've crossed paths with a few of their members during routine trade escorts within the town limits, but I am certain none of them even know my name. To them, I was just some low-ranked Hand who didn't even deserve to stand on the same mission, assuming I was vastly weaker than everyone else in the formation.""Surely, it makes complete sense in that regard... yet he still managed to pull off a theft right under their watchful eyes," Zareth reflected silently, his mind analyzing the sheer audacity of the brute's past actions. "In Zareth Crow's memories, the boy had suggested trade escorts to require gang members at the Fourth Stage of the Body Tempering Realm at minimum, and now it turns out those operation