An Nanjing didn’t go. As for the reason, she didn’t mention it. She just stayed behind while Yang Ye didn’t pursue an answer. In any case, it was a good thing.

After he experienced the battle with Xiahou Xuan and Unseeing, Yang Ye gained a clear understanding of what he lacked, and there were many aspects to it. For example, combat experience, a lack of sword techniques, insufficient physical strength, and so on and so forth.

In short, he was still too weak.

In the southern territory, he really was invincible unless Monarch Realm experts acted against him. But if it was in terms of the Hallowed Grounds, then he would have definitely lost to Xiahou Xuan if it weren’t for the Primordial Pagoda. On the other hand, if he were to have fought Unseeing, then his chances of winning against Unseeing’s terrifying strength was very slim as well….

If he encountered Nether Maiden in battle, then he might not even have a chance at victory….

Weak!Too weak!I’m too weak!

That was what Yang Ye felt right now. He was very well aware that the world was very big, and it was big to the point it was beyond his imagination. Moreover, there was clearly a world outside of this world he knew, and that world would have countless geniuses as well. How terrifying would those geniuses be?

Even if he disregarded all of them for now, just the little girl within the tiny vortex was younger to him in age, but her strength was something beyond his reach!

When it came to geniuses, there wasn’t a best one, and there were only better ones. Similarly, there wasn’t a strongest existence because there was always someone stronger.

He started cultivating! He started cultivating like a madman!

For some unknown reason, the Hallowed Grounds stopped dispatching its forces to the continent after Nether Maiden took Unseeing with her. This gave Yang Ye free time to cultivate madly with An Nanjing.

As for the matters of the southern territory, he left all of it to Ding Shaoyao. He wasn’t worried at all when he had Ding Shaoyao to deal with it for him, and all he had to do was ceaselessly improve his strength.

His cultivation was at the ninth rank of the Exalt Realm. So, if he didn’t obtain any special fortuitous encounters, then it would be extraordinarily difficult for him to rely solely on cultivating to advance into the Monarch Realm. So, he didn’t try to improve his realm of cultivation during this period of time. He used all his time to cultivate the Critical Strike technique, temper his Sword Intent, and practice Heavenrend!

Critical Strike was divided into 3 stages. The first stage instantly doubled the strength of his Sword Intent, the 2nd stage could provide 2 times more strength to his Sword Intent, and the 3rd stage could provide 5 times more strength to it!

His Sword Intent was at the 12th level now. If he were able to improve the Critical Strike technique to the 3rd stage, then the might of his Sword Intent when it was instantly improved by 5 times…. Yang Ye was confident that just an intent sword which was condensed into form from his Sword Intent would be sufficient to kill a Monarch Realm expert! Of course, it would be an ordinary Monarch Realm expert!

Perhaps it was difficult for other sword cultivators to attain the 3rd stage of Critical Strike, but it was quite easy for Yang Ye. It wasn’t because of his natural talent, and it was because he possessed 2nd level Heaven Realm Sword Intent. The greater one’s attainments in Sword Intent was, the easier it would be to cultivate the Critical Strike technique!

Especially when he frequently engaged in discussions with An Nanjing. So, he only used a mere month to cultivate Critical Strike to the 2nd stage. He felt that his speed was very quick, but An Nanjing still felt that it was too slow…. Yang Ye had nothing to say when An Nanjing proclaimed that he was slow because only after he started cultivating with her had he realized exactly how terrifying her natural talent was!

An Nanjing had merely utilized a single month to improve all 6 of her Intents to the 12th level. Most importantly, she could utilize them on their own or merge all of them together….

Yang Ye had no choice but to admit that if it was a comparison of natural talent alone, the An Nanjing far surpassed him.

Besides cultivating Critical Strike, Yang Ye spent a huge amount of time on Heavenrend, every single day! Heavenrend was his strongest technique. Perhaps a single strike of it was sufficient to decide the outcome of a battle against an ordinary genius, but its flaws and deficiencies were instantly exposed when it was utilized against geniuses like Unseeing and Xiahou Xuan!

Even though the Heavenrend he executed now wasn’t its true form, its strength was beyond any doubt! Because it could even be overlapped! However, he hadn’t perfected his technique of overlapping them. So, its strength was much weaker than it could be!

According to An Nanjing, it was best if the sword energy from his Heavenrend Drawing Techniques were overlapped and not one after the other. The difference in strength between 10 Heavenrends that were overlapped and 10 Heavenrends in a row was huge! Overlapped Heavenrends were equivalent to countless strings that were tied together, so the strength they possessed would be enormous!

On the other hand, if they were in a row, then while the strength they possessed would still be formidable, it wouldn’t be as strong as if they were overlapped. After all, if his opponent was fast enough, then that opponent could destroy his attacks in succession!

Yang Ye understood all of that, so he’d always wanted to truly overlap the sword energy from the Heavenrend Drawing Technique. However, he realized after a few tries that it was far more difficult than he’d imagined.

He had to be fast if he wanted to overlap the sword energy that was released from it. He had to be fast to the point that his draws were practically completed at the same time…. Only then could they be truly overlapped!

Needless to say, that was very difficult. It was extremely difficult. After all, he would be drawing in succession. So, if he wanted them to overlap, then it meant that he had to complete the 2nd draw, 3rd draw, 4th draw, and so on and so forth in the same instant that he’d executed the 1st draw….

It was so difficult that it was beyond his imagination. However, he didn’t give up because of that. After a month of painstaking hard work and An Nanjing’s help, he was barely able to overlap 2 beams of sword energy.

Yang Ye was pleasantly surprised to realize that the might of 2 overlapped Heavenrends was actually comparable to the might of 4 Heavenrends that struck in succession! In other words, overlapping 2 beams of sword energy from Heavenrend had forcefully improved its by two times at least!

What if he could instantly overlap 10 Heavenrends….

While the amount of profound energy and strength he exhausted would be the same, its might would multiply! So, Yang Ye had no reason not to train like a madman!

This period of cultivation went on for a few months….

Where there was hard work, there naturally were results. He’s cultivated Critical Strike to the 3rd stage, and he was able to overlap 4 beams of sword energy from Heavenrend. Besides that, he’d tempered his Sword Intent to an even more condensed state. In short, the improvements both An Nanjing and he had gained throughout this period was quite huge!

Ding Shaoyao prohibited everyone from disturbing Yang Ye during this period, and she personally dealt with everything. But it wasn’t long before something she couldn’t deal with came up.

“Internal strife has broken out in the demon race. The four divine beast clans launched a sudden assault against the Spatial Mink Clan….” These were Ding Shaoyao’s first words when she saw Yang Ye.