Sinking slowly into a pond, Hua Yan relaxed his taut muscles. He’d gotten too much blood on himself earlier.

He wouldn’t be allowed into the city in such a state, so he decided to take a dip into a pond for a bit.

Sure, it was cold, but it would be much better than being denied access into the city.

Hua Yan looked at the broken blade of the bandit that he had picked up earlier.

The metal on it was undoubtedly of a higher grade than the one on his own knife, yet it still took quite the beating, to the extent that it was only a few swings away from becoming completely useless.

By this point, Hua Yan was no longer surprised at such an outcome. The reason was because he knew that there was something special in his usage of his dagger.

After using it for so many years, with grit, determination, unwavering will and a lot of luck, he managed to reach a realm of proficiency that few others could match.

It was precisely this skill that let him defeat his opponent from earlier, despite having the weaker weapon.

Though he had never practised any fancy martial arts before, he did know the saying; “Fear not the man who has practised a thousand kicks once, but he who has practised one kick a thousand times.”

In a nutshell, he was this person to be feared.

He extracted essence from the trees because his life depended on it. And, through constant trial and error, he had learnt something that many experts could only dream of attaining in their lifetimes.

Though he had no true control over that spark of light from earlier, he could guess what it was and understand what it signified.

It was an early manifestation of Sword Intent!

One who could form such a frightening intent was definitely not an ordinary person. Such a figure was rare.

And Hua Yan, who had mastered this intent unintentionally, without even having the slightest bit of martial knowledge, was nothing short of a monster. A demon in disguise as a human!

But, even if this was true, Hua Yan wouldn’t really be able to do much with his skill.

He didn’t have the power for that.

He was an exploitable asset in his clan. Nothing short of a pawn. His parents held no great status, so his life was essentially worthless.

If those old fogies in the clan discovered his talent, it would not necessarily be a good thing for him.

They would greatly restrict his freedom and confine him to the clan.

Hua Yan did not want this. He wanted to leave this crummy city as soon as possible, for he had no memories of home here.

He wanted to start another life, and in order to do that, he needed to attract the least amount of attention as possible.

Hence, it made sense that the only ones who had seen his true knife skills were now nothing more than corpses.

He would never expose these skills unless he was forced to in a battle where life and death were both hanging on a delicate balance.

Rising from the cold pond after thoroughly cleaning his clothes, and getting rid of the scent of the blood with the help of some herbs, Hua Yan inspected the bag of the bandit.

The man was indeed desperate, and it made a lot of sense considering how little he had to his name.

In his bag was not much more than a few coppers, some morsels of meat, some oil for polishing his blade, and a woman’s wooden hairpin.

Hua Yan took all the items except for the hair pin.

He then tossed the bag over to the thief’s corpse and burnt the two together.

“I don’t know what sins you committed to die a dog’s death, but at least you’re free of them now. Enjoy yourself out there.”

Hua Yan carried his now heavier bag and made way to the city.

The city guards stared at him and his soggy appearance for a while, but they let him in nevertheless.

Even though he had no money or real influence, he was wearing clothes of the Hua clan. Regardless of anything else, this piece of identification alone was enough for him to get into the city without causing too much of a stir amongst the guards.

If it were someone else, the guards might have probably asked for a bribe. But none of them had the guts to mess with someone from the Hua Clan, even if that someone was a mere branch member.

Walking into the city, Hua Yan noticed that quite a few people were already going home to end their days. It was a bit past sunset, so the number of people he saw on the streets were fewer. While there were still others that were bustling about, with no thoughts of sleep on their minds, Hua Yan didn’t have the time to pay them any heed.

For these were the people that lived in a completely different world from him. They were people that were used to engaging in mortal pleasures come the night time. To him, who did not know the definition of the word pleasure, these people were not worth taking the time to even think about.

Besides, Hua Yan needed to hand over his jars for the day, get paid, and return home soon, lest his sleep schedule be affected for the next day’s work.

Navigating through the streets, he approached Hua Ding Manor.