Chapter 15

"Today, I practiced the Wave Slash Double Strike hundreds of times and finally managed to successfully perform it once. With the first success, I can definitely do it a second and third time! I will keep working hard these days to master the Double Strike!"

Ye Mo waved the green sword in his hand, overjoyed.

Suddenly, he caught a whiff of a faint burnt medicinal smell and was taken aback. He quickly turned his head to look at the cave.

"Ah!"

Ye Mo rushed into the cave as if his eyebrows were on fire, hurriedly lifting the stone bowl off the fire with a wooden stick and scolded, "Mo Ling, I told you to watch the stone bowl, but you were distracted. Fortunately, it hasn't been ruined, or else the snake gall and bitter root would have been wasted!"

"Ah, I forgot!"

Mo Ling was still in shock, her face full of remorse.

She had been so engrossed in watching Ye Mo practice the rare peak martial technique, the Double Strike, that she was completely stunned and forgot about the healing herbs simmering in the stone bowl.

"After the stone bowl cools down, you can drink it. Make sure to drink it while it's still warm, don't wait until it's cold. I'll rest for a while and then go reinforce the camp's spirit wood fence."

Ye Mo took the stone bowl off the fire and instructed Mo Ling to take her medicine.

He then found a place in the cave to sit in meditation, recovering the energy he had expended during his intense practice.

Seeing Ye Mo's diligent training, Mo Ling felt somewhat inferior.

She had always thought she was working very hard, even hoping to reach the late-stage Martial Artist level before her twenties. Among the young nobles of Donglai, she was considered one of the top martial artists, though not the best.

Mo Ling had always been proud of her hard work and didn't look up to many of her peers.

But compared to Ye Mo, a commoner martial artist, she was far from being noteworthy.

The intensity of Ye Mo's training was many times greater than hers.

In the early morning, when she woke up, Ye Mo had already completed his daily hour of martial technique practice, picked fruit for her, and gone out to gather herbs.

When she started her meditation practice, Ye Mo had already returned with the herbs and begun to temper his body, strengthening his constitution.

By the time she finished her internal cultivation meditation, he had completed the body tempering, broken through to the seventh level of the Body Tempering stage, and miraculously mastered the Double Strike of the low-level martial technique, the Wave Slash, significantly increasing its lethality.

Finally, when she had just recovered from her shock, Ye Mo began to meditate to recover his strength, preparing to rest and then reinforce the camp.

"He's a commoner martial artist, but he's working too hard!"

Mo Ling's thoughts were complex.

She hadn't even noticed that her pride as the Princess of Donglai had been completely shattered.

...

"Huh, what's that sound?"

Ye Mo was resting and recovering his strength when he suddenly heard a faint noise from outside the camp. He opened his eyes.

Since breaking through to the late-stage Martial Artist, his senses seemed much sharper. He could hear even the smallest sounds from over twenty yards away.

"You stay here, I'll go check it out. There's something outside."

Ye Mo took the green sword, left a warning for Mo Ling, and leaped out of the cave like a mountain cat, moving silently.

...

Outside the cave camp, about twenty yards away.

Two young martial artists, covered in blood, were staggering through the forest, supporting each other. Drops of blood fell from their clothes to the ground.

"Friend Di, you go on ahead. If they catch up, I, Brother Hu, can still hold them off for a while."

A gray-clothed youth, about twenty years old, with a deathly pale face, gasped for breath as he spoke to the blue-clothed young martial artist beside him.

"No!"

The blue-clothed young martial artist gritted his teeth, struggling to take steps, his clothes soaked in blood, supporting the gray-clothed youth. The blue-clothed martial artist was less injured. He seemed not to have heard Brother Hu's words, continuing to struggle forward and constantly checking the surroundings.

"Let go of me, you go on ahead. If they catch up, we'll both be caught!"

Tears streamed down Brother Hu's face. He felt that having such a good brother was worth it.

"Brother Hu, don't talk. There's a fence and the light of a campfire ahead! It looks like someone is there, I'll ask them to save you." The blue-clothed martial artist saw the spirit wood fence in the distance and was filled with hope. Using his last bit of strength, he slowly supported the young martial artist toward it.

As they approached the fence, he felt an overwhelming fatigue and his legs seemed to lose all strength.

"Have I reached my limit?"

Before he could call for help, the blue-clothed young martial artist lost consciousness, his head spinning, and he collapsed to the ground.

The gray-clothed martial artist also fell to the ground.

Ye Mo came out from behind the spirit wood fence and saw the two blood-covered men lying about twenty yards away from the fence, frowning.

He walked up to them and found that both were unconscious due to severe injuries and excessive blood loss.

"Save my brother...!"

The gray-clothed martial artist, with a pleading look, used his last bit of strength to say this before fainting.

"Two severely injured martial artists? I wonder who they offended to be hurt so badly!"

Ye Mo examined their injuries, hesitating. The injuries were not from wild beasts but from human-inflicted sword, spear, and knife wounds.

This gave Ye Mo a headache.

"They're unconscious, so I can't ask them anything."

"I don't have much healing medicine! Mo Ling is already an injured person, and adding these two will be a heavy burden on the camp... But this island is full of dangers, and dealing with the sea monsters during the monthly tide is a big problem!"

"What I lack most is manpower. Two more martial artists mean two more helpers, and they can help reinforce the cave camp."

"But, with their injuries, they might be more of a burden than a help! Just eating without working will be a drag."

Ye Mo hesitated for a moment.

He wasn't a heartless person who would leave the dying unaided, nor would he save anyone without knowing their background.

But the gray-clothed youth's last words before fainting moved Ye Mo. Despite his severe injuries, he still begged for his brother's life. These two were not heartless people.

"Leaving them outside the camp, they might die at any moment! Fine, I'll save them first. If they just eat and don't work, I'll kick them out later."

Ye Mo carried the two men on his shoulders, opened the spirit wood fence, and brought them back to the cave.

Mo Ling was startled when she saw Ye Mo carrying two severely injured men into the cave. "Ye Mo, who are these two?"

"I don't know. They were unconscious outside the camp, with serious injuries. Did you finish the healing medicine? If not, give each of them a sip."

Ye Mo gently laid the two men down, and the cave filled with a faint smell of blood.

"Not yet, there's still a little left."

Mo Ling found the snake gall and bitter root medicine too bitter and drank it slowly. Now, seeing that two people would help her drink it, she felt relieved, though she didn't show it.

She was afraid that her thoughts would draw Ye Mo's complaints.

While thinking, her hands didn't stop.

Mo Ling fed the remaining healing medicine to the two men.

Ye Mo found a few medium-grade healing herbs in the pile of herbs he had stored, all for treating external injuries.

He crushed them with a stone pestle and applied them to the men's wounds.

After doing this, Ye Mo felt a headache. The healing herbs he had gathered were running low. This isolated island was severely lacking in herbs, and they were clearly not enough.

(End of the page)