In the middle of the village, there was an open area where village events were commonly held. It was in this village center that Jia Yuan stood with HiRyu in his hand.

Meanwhile, Guo Huo had made his way over to the center by deftly hopping from one roof to the next. In this manner, he made his way over to the roof of a house by the village center and sat on it. He tapped his necklace and drew out a bag of apples and began to munch on one while observing Jia Yuan.

“This should be a good show…”

In the village center, Jia Yuan lifted up his sword and shouted, “Zhao family! Today, your evil deeds come to an end! If you have the guts to do so, come fight me to the death! I will take you all on!”

Even though the village center had many other people walking through it, and had been pretty loud, as soon as Jia Yuan provoked the Zhao family, the entire village center quieted to the point that a pin drop could be heard.

After Jia Yuan finished, the town center’s silent pressure grew.

Then the rest of those within the village center stampeded away. After all, they didn’t want to get caught up in what was about to happen.

After everyone had escaped to safety, they cautiously peered back toward Jia Yuan, and whispered to each other..

“What the hell is Jia Yuan doing?? He’s just a kid, but he wants to challenge the Zhao family?”

“Ahh, what a waste. He was such a good boy too, if a little simple.”

“I wonder what the Zhao family will do to him…”

Meanwhile, a middle-aged man ran into the Zhao family quarters. Inside sat an elderly man.

The elderly man spoke. “What is it, my son?”

“The orphan boy, Jia Yuan, has issued a verbal challenge to our family!”

“Oh? Interesting… It seems we will be able to use him to teach the rest of the villagers a lesson. Gather all of the family members and servants. Equip them all, and lead them toward the village center. Today, the Zhao family will formally take control of the village!”

The middle-aged man was Zhao Hai, the only son of the Patriarch, Zhao Yue. Zhao Hai was at the 5th level of Absorption, while Zhao Yue was the village-famed family head at the 7th level of

Absorption.

They had wanted to officially take control of the village for the last few years, but they needed a reason to be able to do so. After all, if they had simply attacked the village, one of the neighboring cities could hear about it and send some troops out to deal with the Zhao family. At that point, the Zhao family would be regarded not as the leaders of a village, but a bandit group.

However, if the Zhao family were provoked in any way, they could spin a story to make them seem like the rightful leaders of the village.

This, along with robbing the villagers of their goods, was the main reason why they had been so daring in aggravating the villagers.

In fact, they had even discussed the possibility of bribing one of the villagers to pretend to provoke the Zhao family.

But now, that stupid boy had come out and issued a challenge! It was perfect!

After about five minutes, everyone in the Zhao family had been informed of the challenge and was making their way toward the village center. Slowly, the members of the Zhao family began to flood the village center, forming a circle around Jia Yuan, who stood in the middle.

This was a situation most similar to when Jia Yuan had been surrounded by the bandits. However, there were only about 70 members of the Zhao family, including the servants, and overall, they were weaker than the bandits.

Jia Yuan had full confidence in himself.

Of course, the other villagers didn’t have such confidence.

“Ahh, the Zhao family is really looking to make an example of him. He’s finished.”

“Why would the Zhao family bring out such a strong force for a kid?”

At this moment, all of the villagers quieted down, because the patriarch of the Zhao family had arrived at the village center. Burning around him was the aura of the 7th level of Absorption. He looked around the village center, noting the villagers who were watching from inside the nearby houses.

Seeing this, he smirked and spoke to Jia Yuan. “You, kid. You are the one who dares challenge my Zhao family?”

“Hmph. Yes, I am the one who issued the challenge. Today, your Zhao family will be wiped off of the Continent of the Five Elements!”

“BWHAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA. Son, you’ve got guts! Very well. Everyone, take him down!”

After giving the order, Zhao Yue and leisurely jumped onto the rooftop of a neighboring house to watch the upcoming scene. Coincidentally, it was the house next to the one Guo Huo was sitting on. Of course, after arriving at the rooftop of the house, Zhao Yue saw Guo Huo, and his eyes narrowed.

Of course, Zhao Yue saw Guo Huo’s fiery outfit and the giant axe on his back. He had a bad feeling about this old man… But he didn’t have any time to dwell on it, for the fight in the village center had started.

Jia Yuan saw the mass of people charging towards him from every side. At the same time, those with a Song activated their auras.

Perfect.

Jia Yuan started his own Song, as usual, with the beat of a drum, and he settled into the first stance. However, he didn’t move into the second stance he usually took. Instead, he moved in the same way Guo Huo had to decimate the bandits.

Seeing this, Guo Huo’s eyes twinkled. “Oh? Is he already able to manipulate his Song to such a degree?”

However, what happened was quite a letdown. Instead of releasing a ring of fire, Jia Yuan instead released a flickering blade of flame less than a foot wide. It hit a single slave of the Zhao family, who quickly dropped to the ground and began rolling to stop the flames.

Guo Huo grimaced, cringing.. “This kid…”

On the other house, Zhao Yue started laughing. “Bwhahahaha. Such a weak kid dares to challenge my Zhao family? Bwhahahaha!”

As of right now, Jia Yuan was in grave danger. After all, being surrounded by 70 armed people who want to kill you, is not the best situation to be in.

Crap.

At that moment, the members of the Zhao family who owned Songs released violent bursts of fire toward Jia Yuan in an attempt to burn Jia Yuan to a crisp before they even reached him.

And so Jia Yuan’s first conquest began.

The night before, Jia Yuan had been thinking about the task in front of him. He had expected the Zhao family to retaliate to his challenge heavily, and had therefore spent the night thinking about what he would do against human wave tactics.

As such, he came up with a rather preposterous idea.

As the bursts of flame were about to reach him, Jia Yuan sent a strand of his soul into his ring and drew out all of the pots from within. He drew these pots so that they formed a sphere around him.

Rather bizarrely, Jia Yuan was able to time the release of the pots so that the pots were able to block the flames before falling to the ground due to gravity.

As the wave of fire subsided, Jia Yuan once again drew the pots back into his ring.

At the same time, his Song began yet again in earnest as he quickly shifted back into his starting stance.

The reason why the Absorption level is named so is because of what happens to the cultivator during this phase. During his battle at the neighboring village against the bandits, Jia Yuan had been at the 1st level of cultivation. Although he had managed to let his Song play, it was only

filled with drum beats.

However, as a cultivator progresses through the Absorption level, they "absorb" more of the Song into their minds, allowing them to “hear” more of the Song. This, in turn, meant that their Song would provide greater assistance during a fight. 

At this point, while the start point was still that of a drum, Jia Yuan also heard some tones that filled him with a sense of grandeur and pride.

With his Song playing in full force, Jia Yuan was able to establish a zone of control with about a 5 meter radius. He did his best to control the flames coming from his body to establish this zone of control.

Jia Yuan used the flames surrounding him to fight. With slashes of HiRyu, he cut the flames surrounding him into blades of fire which flew out and hit those surrounding him. To those watching, it looked as if Jia Yuan was surrounded by a giant wall of fire, and was cutting out sections of this wall of fire into blades that he then directed at the Zhao family.

To be fair, this was fairly close to what happened. What Jia Yuan actually did was quite interesting. First off, the flames around him, as usual, were unbridled and wild. Knowing this, he coated his sword in a thicker fiery aura than the flames around him. This way, every time he slashed his sword toward the wall of flame surrounding him, the thick fiery aura coating HiRyu violently pushed away the section of the wall that was cut.

In this manner, individual blades of fire flew out from the wall of fire.

With each slash of HiRyu, a fire blade of about two feet in length flew out. With each slash, two or three of those closest to Jia Yuan fell, never to move again.

However, most of these were the servants of the Zhao family. The actual members of the Zhao family were careful and didn’t want to die. To keep themselves safer, they had rather despicably forced the servants to approach Jia Yuan first.

This also meant that the ones Jia Yuan had killed, were the weakest.

After only five seconds of this, Jia Yuan had made about twenty cuts and all of the servants surrounding him had died.

High above, Guo Huo smiled. “Looks like that brat has finally begun to understand the art of manipulating his Song. Interesting...”

As for Zhao Yue, he was irate. The ‘fifty-or-so servants that had just died weren’t as important to him as his family members, but they’d cost his family a great deal of fire shards.

Furthermore, he saw that Jia Yuan’s strength was not that simple after all. Even he didn't have such control over his Song. After all, cultivators were generally unable to manipulate their Song to a large degree until the Manipulation Stage.

With these observations, he grabbed his axe from the rooftop and jumped down, preparing to end the battle once and for all.

His family had already lost enough face, letting all of their servants die to a mere child. Furthermore, Jia Yuan seemed to be abnormally skillful. Only by quickly defeating Jia Yuan could they keep what was left of their pride and negate any risks involved.

Guo Huo saw the head of the Zhao family jump down, but still didn’t move.