'I need to take a few pills to strengthen my soul beyond my limits.'
He took out a translucent pill and played with it in his fingers. Of course, his fingers were coated with Qi to avoid spoiling the pill. It was the Soul Strengthening Pill, and he liked its beautiful appearance. It was made by extracting the essence of herbs that could affect the soul directly, thus its lack of color.
He spent the next month digesting and absorbing those pills. Although it was painful, it wasn't as bad as the cultivation of the soul. Each pill took him around 2 days to absorb, and only after fifteen of them, they finally lost their effect and couldn't strengthen his soul anymore.
'Now it's finally ti to learn how to fight. I already morized a few hundred techniques of the basic and sky ranks, it's ti to make so for myself.'
He spent two weeks ditating and preparing his new techniques by combining the data he collected from all the others. His database included techniques from the lower Basic level to the higher Sky level.
'First I should make a sword technique. If a sword is sharp enough, it will penetrate and cut through anything. There's no need to even move if my sword is too fast for my enemy to dodge, and too sharp for him to block it.'
"Mom, Dad, do you know of a good place where I can practice techniques? Preferably an open space without many people."
"Little Ken, it's better if you have one of us or even another elder to teach you. Learning from soone would spare you a lot of ti."
Haoran said worriedly to his son. He felt that Ken tried too much to do things by himself. He even made his own pills and only agreed to learn alchemy from i after she forced him to accept it as a condition to let him practice.
"Let him do whatever he wants. I'm convinced that he can manage without a teacher after teaching him alchemy. If you taught him sothing, you'd know what I an. He doesn't even use the techniques I've taught him anyway."
i let out a defeated sigh when she thought of how Ken changed every technique she showed him and improved it for the better.
"Okay… If you go 15 km south from here on the edge of the forest, you'll reach a forest clearing that is surrounded by cliffs and a large waterfall. I used to train there when I was a disciple, but you need to rember that it's very likely one of the top 300 disciples claid it as his training spot. Just leave if that's the case and show Mom's token if they try to harm you."
The top 100 disciples were considered the core disciples of the sect and had their own training grounds, so they didn't need to wander in the forest to find a place for themselves.
Ken thanked his father and waited for the next day to visit the waterfall. The next day, he left Sol and Aaron at ho and used a map his father left for him to find the place. When he reached it, the place was empty.
'I will call this art 'Flash Unwind'. It will be the art I open my battles with as I unsheathe my flexible sword.'
Although his sword could switch from flexible mode to rigid mode depending on the formation that he channeled his Qi into, he preferred to keep it in the flexible mode most of the ti.
Like most other flexible sword users, he coiled his sword around his waist, disguising it as an innocent belt. This way, he could have an extra surprise effect when he unsheathes his sword.
Although there were other flexible sword users, they were rare because of the sword's complexity. The way it moved and changed directions wasn't only difficult for the enemy to predict, but also difficult for the user himself, so people preferred using spears, swords, or just fighting with their bodies.
The sword's sheath was used as his actual belt, while the sword was hidden inside it with its black hilt near his left hand.
He closed his eyes as he stood in front of a tree and sent his right hand to the hilt. He saw in his mind the technique he developed based on dozens of unsheathing techniques ant for normal swords and a few for flexible swords as well.
*Wishhhh*
A strong whistle resounded, and he found his sword pressed against the tree in front of him when he opened his eyes.
'There is a hole but it's too small. Judging by what I've read each technique has a few stages of mastery, but I'm still not at the basic level.'
The basic level was achieved when the cultivator could perform the sword's movent perfectly as plainly explained in the manual. Since his sword's stab didn't achieve the penetration power he envisioned when he made his technique, he understood he still didn't master it.
'My arts are ant to kill, especially humans. It's too hard to understand the art quickly while attacking trees or inanimate objects. Even animals can't help like attacking a human would. Should I kill soone only for the sake of understanding my art?'
Ken struggled with the thought of taking a human's life for a relatively small benefit.
'Humans die anyway, and everyone here is a cultivator. Cultivators kill each other for resources all the ti, so why can't I do the sa for practice?'
In the end, he denied the idea of going to hunt others only for honing his techniques, and instead, he practiced in front of the tree.
He kept standing in front of the tree for three hours straight without leaving his spot. His technique included all his major ridians, all his minor ridians, and 36 collateral ridians.
Although he wanted to use all the collateral ones as well since he read it would make his technique in the Heaven rank, he didn't have any example of a technique that used more than 20 collateral ridians at once, so he was satisfied with a technique that used 36.
If he had to guess, he'd rank his technique at the higher Earth rank.
After three hours of training, the tree had a lot of holes around it. The newer they were, the deeper they went. He was all sweaty, half of his Qi was depleted, and he was hungry.
He sheathed his sword, sat down to take a break, and took out a piece of at he brought with him.
He planned to lay a basic Qi Gathering Formation to help him renew his Qi reserves before continuing. He stopped after depleting only half as he didn't want to stay in the forest completely out of Qi.
"Hey kid, what are you doing here?"
A young masculine voice ca from the forest's direction as a young man ca out of the woods. He looked around 20 years old, and Ken estimated he was around 25. Cultivators generally looked younger than they were due to their longer lifespans.
"Training, what are you doing here?"
"You can't train here; this is my training space. Scram."
The young man was around 176 cm tall, which was much taller than the 5-year-old Ken. He didn't take Ken's claim seriously as he thought a young kid like Ken couldn't train yet. He was sure it was just a peasant kid who got lost in the forest.
"Do you recognize this token?"
Ken took out his mom's token and showed it to the man in front of him.
"The sixth elder's token? Why do you have it?"
"I'm her son, and I'm training here. Got any problems?"
The man looked at him with confusion for a few seconds then forced a smile and bowed to Ken. However, despite the bow being in his direction, Ken could feel it wasn't ant for him.
"Sixth Elder, I didn't know your son was playing here. I hope you can forgive ; I will take my leave now."
The man turned around and left Ken alone in the area. Ken shrugged and didn't care about the man's misunderstanding, he just felt sothing click when he imagined attacking the man earlier.
He got up and stood in front of a new tree, unwilling to lose his sudden enlightennt. He exhaled and placed his hand on the sword's hilt.
*Wishhh!*
The familiar whistle resounded around him, and his sword stabbed the tree all the way to the hilt.
'I got it!'
He mastered the basic level of a higher Earth rank technique in only three hours, an unbelievable feat for anyone of his rank with no experience in similar techniques before!
'I still feel I can get it better.'
He understood this feeling stemd from his understanding of the sword art. He felt that if he kept training, he would still be able to improve his sword art, going to the next stage of mastery.
'Mastering a movent technique is more important. I can improve my mastery over Flash Unwind later.'
After eating and resting, he stood in an open space and closed his eyes. He had two techniques he planned to master - one for a straight dash, and the other for just being generally faster.
'Again, I need to face a human to do the last step. Dashing at the air feels pointless.'
It was the second day, and he still didn't get to the basic mastery level of his dashing technique. He created techniques ant to kill, and using them against air and trees was lacking the intent of the technique. Luckily, his training puppet arrived again.
"Kid, are you telling that Sixth Elder has enough free ti to take her son to a distant spot in the forest two days in a row? I don't believe it!"
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