The food you eat—if it’s good food—will naturally be absorbed quickly; if it’s bad, of course it’ll be slow, and might even upset your stomach. As for spiritual energy, it’s a bit better. He had searched through all the ancient texts at the time and hadn’t found anything saying that spiritual energy could poison someone.

The faster the fusion, the more time you have to do other things, like practicing martial arts.

As a martial artist, it’s not enough to just absorb spiritual energy.

The air in front of Mike Sullivan split open for just an instant before closing up again. No matter how you looked, you couldn’t tell that a crack had ever appeared here.

The immortal energy leaking from this fissure wasn’t much, and Mike Sullivan quickly absorbed it all.

Suppressing the urge to immediately tell his sister and share this news with her, he got up from the ground and threw a punch in the room.

Although he had never absorbed spiritual energy from the outside world before, he knew that after absorbing it, you had to immediately practice a set of martial arts forms.

The spiritual energy from outside, once it entered the body, didn’t just increase the amount of energy inside—it could also continuously transform the skin, flesh, bones, and tendons within a person.

Every martial artist, no matter their level, is always strengthening their skin, flesh, bones, and tendons. After absorbing spiritual energy, it’s the best time to reinforce these, and practicing martial arts is the best way to train them.

During his six years at Shuiyao Sect, Mike Sullivan hadn’t become a true martial artist, but he had learned martial arts forms.

Now that he had spiritual energy in his body, Mike Sullivan felt that every punch he threw stirred up a fierce wind. He even felt that he could smash those thick wooden stakes outside the door with a single punch.

After finishing a set of forms, Mike Sullivan dashed out the door and ran toward his home—he wanted to share the news that he could become a martial artist with his sister.

He had never seen his parents!

From as far back as he could remember, it had always been just him and his sister, relying on each other to get by.

To Mike Sullivan, his sister was the closest person to him in this world!

Leaving the shop, Mike Sullivan ran all the way home. As soon as he opened the courtyard gate, he heard an anxious voice from inside the house: “Village chief, no, you can’t marry him!”

Mike Sullivan was stunned. Village chief—his sister was the village chief, and she was going to get married? How did he not know anything about this?

He hurried over, and before he could enter the house, he heard his sister’s familiar voice: “If I don’t marry him, what then? Taoli Village upstream has cut off our water supply, and our village’s crops have been without water for half a month. If this goes on, this year’s harvest will be cut by more than half. With so little yield, we won’t even get to rent the land. If we lose the land, how will the elders and folks of our whole village survive?”

Everyone in the house fell silent.

The people in the village basically lived off farming, but the village didn’t actually own any land. The land they farmed now was rented—it belonged to John Carter in the city.

The village farmed the land, and at harvest, the split was seventy-thirty: John Carter took seventy percent, and the village kept thirty.

But now, with no water for the fields, if things continued, there would definitely be a huge drop in production this year. If the yield dropped, John Carter’s income would also decrease, and then he definitely wouldn’t continue renting the land to the village.

“Marrying Edward Carter is the only way. Edward Carter is John Carter’s only son. Only if I marry him can we keep the land for our village, so everyone can survive.”

“Grace Sullivan village chief, you can’t marry him!”

Hearing his sister’s words, an old farmer in the village grew anxious: “Chief, who in our village doesn’t know what kind of person Edward Carter is? He’s a complete scoundrel—there must be over a hundred girls he’s ruined.”

“That’s right. He relies on his family’s wealth. Any girl he sets his eyes on, not a single one can escape his clutches. He just barges in and takes them, not caring whether they’re willing or not.”

“That Edward Carter really learned all his father’s tricks. Back then, his father always stole other people’s brides. In the end, people were forced to hold weddings in the middle of the night, sneaking the bride in just to avoid having her stolen by him. Now, it’s his turn to snatch women, to steal other people’s brides.”

“That Edward Carter is nothing but a beast! None of the women he’s taken have had a good ending. If he gets bored of them, he gives them to his underlings, or sells them off to the city… Someone that despicable, village chief, even if our whole village starves, we can’t let you marry him!”

“That’s right! We men of Nanlin Village can’t let the village chief marry Edward Carter either!”

“I think this time, Taoli Village cutting off our water supply is probably because Edward Carter pressured them.”

Outside the house, Mike Sullivan listened to the villagers’ impassioned voices and felt deeply moved.

The villagers were the most honest and sincere people. As for Edward Carter…

A cold smile appeared at the corner of Mike Sullivan’s mouth. He would never let his sister marry someone like that. As for Edward Carter, in the half year since he’d returned, even though he hadn’t heard much about him lately, before that, he’d heard this person’s name countless times.