Chapter 9 Borrowing Grain to Feed Soldiers

  The heavenly soldiers all descended and were integrated, which was a joyful event for both sides.

  That evening after dinner, Lei Meng lifted the seal on Roger Cheng in the conference hall. Roger Cheng circulated his internal energy throughout his body and felt the sensation of being full of power again, he couldn't help but smile and said thanks before finding an empty space to practice his moves.

  Meng Fan watched as the familiar technique in Lei Meng's hands easily lifted the seal, and he couldn't help but feel puzzled. Why couldn't he do it himself? He had clearly struck the same acupoints. Not one to leave questions hanging overnight, he asked Lei Meng, "General Lei, what technique did you use to lift the seal? I've tried using a similar sequence of strikes on Jie Cheng's acupoints, but saw no effect whatsoever."

  "Oh? There's actually something like this?" Lei Meng heard the surprise, and then muttered, "I thought it was because of my face that I didn't untie it, but it turns out I couldn't untie it."

  Meng Fan's ears shook slightly, and he listened to these words without missing a single one. His face was slightly red, but he still nodded and said: "Yes. I don't know if General Lei can teach me, so that after Meng Fan captures the enemy in the future, he won't have to worry about being rescued."

  Lei Meng rubbed his head, thought for a moment, and said: "Alright then. But you must not casually pass on this skill to others, it requires my or Yang Tian's agreement, otherwise I will cripple your martial arts!"

  Then, Lei Meng taught him the trick of sealing and unsealing acupoints. When sealing, one's internal energy should be concentrated and not dispersed, striking into the opponent's body to block their meridian channels. To unseal, simply withdraw the internal energy that was struck in.

  Meng Fan was stunned, it was the first time he had heard that the hole could be solved in this way. He and his masters were used to dispersing the Qi by striking it out. But even if you don't absorb it, shouldn't it still be possible to disperse it? Unbelievable! Meng Fan furrowed his brow and asked studiously: "General Lei, according to reason, I shouldn't have absorbed that Qi, and dispersing it should also work, why couldn't I disperse it no matter how hard I struck?"

  "I'm not sure about this either, my master just taught me like that." Lei Meng was delighted to hear that his first attempt at using the acupoint technique was so effective, but at the same time, he also felt puzzled by the miraculous effect of his acupoint technique. Why couldn't he open it with the usual method?

  Meng Fan racked his brains, but couldn't figure it out. At this time, Lei Ming muttered to himself: "If it can't be dispersed, logically speaking, either that point is extremely solid, or that point can absorb external forces... Could it be..." He had a faint guess in his mind.

  A burst of insight, and Meng Fan's heart was illuminated. He realized that General Lei must have entered the realm of Xiantian! His thoughts poured out: "Has General Lei entered the realm of Xiantian? That's why the acupoints he sealed can't be opened!"

  "What is this ' Innate Boundary'?" Lei Meng was stunned, "What is this 'Innate Boundary'?"

  "Huh? General... don't know?" Meng Fan was even more surprised, the First Heaven Realm is a bit mysterious for ordinary warriors, but for someone as extraordinary as Lei Ming and Yang Tian, it should be familiar territory. Could it be that the two of them sneaked out?

  "Tell me about it." Lei Meng didn't show any embarrassment and asked directly.

  Meng Fan heard Lei Meng's answer and was already 60% sure that the two were just playing around, so he explained in detail: "The pre-heavenly state refers to the situation where the meridians are unblocked. After opening up the Ren and Du meridians, if the internal energy can flow freely without any obstacles, it is considered a small pre-heavenly state; if one can open up all the meridians in the body and drive the entire body's vital energy at will, it is considered a great pre-heavenly state. Below that, it's hard to distinguish because different schools have different specialties and practice different meridians. Moreover, those who enter the small pre-heavenly state are usually old men and women who have practiced internal skills for 50 or 60 years." He paused for a moment, thinking that Lei Meng and Yang Tian were two little monsters, and also letting Lei Meng digest the information he had just heard.

  "The degree of internal energy condensation is also divided into these three realms, but generally speaking, it's hard to tell because some people win with internal energy, some with techniques, and others with weapons." After finishing his sentence, he glanced at the Tang knife in Lei Ming's hand, having heard about it before.

  Lei Ming sank into contemplation, secretly operating his inner strength to see how many meridians he could open. First, the Ren and Du meridians flowed smoothly without obstruction, then the internal energy gradually surged into the other meridians throughout his body, all 12 of the extraordinary meridians were unblocked one after another, and there was even a tendency for the energy to surge into the even smaller meridians...

  Meng Fan saw Lei Meng closing his eyes and remaining silent for a long time, two meters away. He thought he was deep in thought and turned to leave. Suddenly, he felt a strong gust of wind coming from behind him, and he stumbled and almost fell to the ground. When he looked back, he only saw Lei Meng's clothes fluttering twice, his face turning red for a moment before returning to its normal color. It turned out that he was practicing his inner energy, and judging from the true energy that accidentally leaked out, his internal strength should have broken through the small prenatal stage.

  "Can you elaborate? I'm very interested in the classification of internal strength." Lei Ming opened his eyes and said, he was somewhat dissatisfied with the control of the internal energy that had just been released.

  "Hmm... anything more specific than that and it'll be unclear." Meng Fan replied.

  The thunder was disappointed and said, "Then you go, I'll stay here for a while." After finishing speaking, he closed his eyes again and stood still, trying to test where his limits were.

  Meng Fan quietly retreated and found Luo Jie Cheng, telling him about Lei Meng and Yang Tian's entry into the Small Prenatal Realm. However, they had not yet mastered its use. Luo Jie Cheng was startled and hastily went with Meng Fan to find a room to rest in, lest he be caught by Yang Tian and beaten up.

  Lei Meng tried it out and found that he had no problem driving the true energy to travel through the larger meridians, but the smaller ones were not up to par. He felt that the meridian was open, only that he couldn't divide the true energy finely enough, a large amount of which surged past, causing the meridian to swell and ache, while a small strand that managed to squeeze in seemed to have little effect. Perhaps it was because his smaller meridians had not fully developed yet, or perhaps it was because his true energy was not refined enough, but he didn't know how far this phenomenon was from the Great Innate.

  He tried it out and stopped, he was going to tell Yang Tian about the division of information, perhaps according to Meng Fan's implicit message, both his and Yang Tian's moves needed to be improved.

  The next day, Lei Meng arranged for Luoyang Tian, Qin Hao, Yang Tian, and Meng Fan to train the soldiers every day to increase mutual understanding and trust. Half a month passed in this way, with everything going smoothly, except that food began to run low.

  Lei Meng and Luoyang Tian discussed how to solve the food problem. Luoyang Tian suggested: "Why not move to the next city, eat one city after another, it's also a very cool thing! Haha..."

  Everyone looked at Luoyang Tian with gloomy faces. Luoyang Tian, seeing no one responding, stood alone in the quiet hall, laughing to himself, but immediately swallowed back the laughter that was about to escape his lips, and his face turned red as he stiffened his neck.

  Lei Meng ignored him directly and looked at Mr. Wen, asking: "I wonder what Mr. Wen's opinion is?"

  Mr. Wen stroked his white beard and said, "Perhaps it's better to ask General Meng, the landlord." After finishing speaking, he smiled and cast his eyes towards Meng Fan.

  Meng Fan secretly cursed in his heart: Old fox! I knew you'd cheat me! But on the surface, he remained calm and collected. After a moment of thought, he said, "The nearby city with the least soldiers is Yao City, so they probably have less grain too. The city with the most grain should undoubtedly be Tianyuan City. Flowery City to the east also has grain, but there are many soldiers stationed there. A hundred kilometers west is Longkou City, which is not far from the imperial capital of Tiandong."

  "According to General Meng's analysis, it is impossible to get grain around here." Huang Chu quickly made a conclusion and then asked: "Then how can we solve this food problem?"

  Yang Tian was dissatisfied with these people who only thought about complicated problems in their minds and hummed a sentence: "Just solve it as usual!"

  Meng Fan was puzzled and muttered to himself, "Usually when we don't have enough food, we just reach out to the Tianyuan City for help... Ah!..." Meng Fan suddenly realized that he could just stretch out his hand again to ask Tianyuan City for help.

  He glanced at the crowd and saw that they had been smiling at him for a long time, it turned out that these people had thought of it early on, but just let him go borrow grain in a roundabout way!

  "Alright, I'll go to Tianyuan City to get some food." Meng Fan was a bit discouraged, his original enthusiasm gradually disappearing.

  Yang Tian then selected 500 people from the elite camp to transport grain under Meng Fan's command, and Meng Fan also selected 500 people from the ordinary soldiers, totaling 1,000 people participating in the transportation. The team drove cattle carts to Tianyuan City.

  It took a whole day to rush to Tianyuan City, and the Jin Yuan army was shocked by the Tianyuan giant city again. Because Meng Fan carried the relevant seals, entering the city was smooth sailing.

  When handing over the grain to the fat officer, the fat officer saw Meng Fan and was shocked. How did the commander of Yaicheng, Meng Fan, come? He smiled and greeted him: "General Meng, why are you here to receive the grain personally?"

  "Alas, can't Meng come?" Meng Fan said with a turn of his eyes, "Isn't this Jin Yuanjun coming to harass us? Without Meng's suppression, wouldn't the loss of food be even greater?"

  Seeing the fat officer's eyes filled with doubt, he glared and raised his fist, saying: "Or else, I'll help you lose some weight?"

  "No need, no need!" The fat officer hastily waved his hand. "You've thought it through thoroughly and have done a great job with the grain transportation. I'll make sure to report your merits later!"

  "Hmm?" Meng Fan's eyes darted to the side, and the fat officer hastily retreated backwards. "Don't cause trouble for me! Scram!" The fat officer slunk away with a sullen expression, directing the warehouse soldiers to move the grain, trying to avoid getting into trouble.

  Meng Fan packed up the grain and hurried back to Yucheng overnight, fearing that the night was long and his dreams were many. The news of his arrival undoubtedly reached the ears of Wang Weilong, the guardian of Tianyuan, who was worried about not being able to find more than 10,000 Jin soldiers. He hastily waved his hand and said: "Go and do what you need to do! Meng Fan has always been like this, only caring about himself! If Yucheng is lost, he will be the one to blame!"

  In a dark room in one of the cities under Jin Yuan, Emperor Wang Ding and Wei Ming met again. Wei Ming said lightly: "The city of Wujicheng was defended, but that vanguard doesn't know where it went, fearing it has already been surrounded to death in Huatian."

  "Heh heh, it should still be alive, otherwise Huang Tian would have announced it loudly long ago." Wang Ding looked at the dark night with a very calm demeanor, as if he could see through the vast sky.

  "I heard that there are two incredibly powerful young masters in the Vanguard Army..." Wei Ming's eyebrows slightly furrowed, he was still very curious about the legendary duo and he was certain that they were still alive.

  "Are you kidding me?" Wang Ding turned around and stared at Wei Ming with both eyes.

  Wei Ming narrowed his eyes slightly and said, "I don't know, we've never fought before."

  "You're so calm, you've already stood on the ground of invincibility. Moreover, you've entered the innate realm, how many people can be stronger than you?" Wang Ding heard Wei Ming's words and felt interested and surprised, what kind of person could actually arouse Wei Ming's curiosity? So he couldn't help but flatter Wei Ming again, making him even more confident.

  "Hehe......" Wei Ming sneered to himself, but what he was sneering at, only he knew. His thoughts and origins were a mystery to outsiders.