Chapter 37 - New Sword Arts

“Sword arts…” Yaan mumbled, an excited gleam lingered in his eyes as he stared down at the five sword arts in his possession.

Whilst these sword arts weren’t as good as the Agile Sword Arts, this was to be expected. The Agile Sword Arts was one of the prized arts of the Heavenly Path Sect, it would instead be strange if Ghu Nadda could find something superior to this so easily. He may be a Ghu Clansmen, but he was only at the Qi Temple realm after all, his reach was limited.

Of the five sword arts, three were purely based upon the air element and one was a surprisingly good water element sword art. The fifth and final art was by far the most valuable, incorporating aspects of air and water together to create a much more complex sword art.

Yaan started with the simplest looking air element sword art, the Falling Leaf Strike. This sword art was much more direct compared to the Agile Sword Arts. The Agile Sword Arts had room for user interpretation, it was a vague outline of how one should move, when they should strike, how they should generate different types of strikes and how to control the flow of battle.

The Falling Leaf Strike was split into five stages, but this didn’t mean it was better than the three stage Agile Sword Art. The Falling Leaf Strike required the user to imagine themselves as a falling leaf, falling towards their opponent gently and without haste. The leaf fell forwards calmly and lacked intent in its movement, until, at the last second, the sword pierced forwards at an impossible speed, creating a jet of air around the blade and tearing a hole through the target.

Yaan spent a few hours reading through the book, which consisted of two of the five stages. As Nadda had explained before, he couldn’t get Yaan the complete sword arts on such short notice and without significant funds.

For now, Yaan focussed on the first stage. The first stage put more emphasis on the gentle yet purposeful movement towards the opponent, whilst the second stage explained the power behind the sudden strike.

Compared to the cheap arts he tried before, this was much more enjoyable and clearly designed by a master. Even if it wasn’t as good as the Agile Sword Arts, it was still interesting and helped Yaan to understand how the air element could be better utilised with the sword.

Sword arts could be used with or without Yuan Qi, but of course, Yaan could not use Yuan Qi. He made up for his weaknesses with his nimble and flexible body to perform the movements fluidly, and with his extreme physical strength to increase the power behind every strike.

CHI!

A blast of wind seemed to eject from the sword, leaving a small mark on the wooden dummy ten feet away. Although this sort of damage was nothing, Yaan’s eyes still widened in amazement.

He actually achieved such a feat without even using Yuan Qi!

Perhaps this shock made him forget that he ended up mastering the first 2 stages of this art in less than a month. This was a shocking feat, though Yaan didn’t yet understand just how absurd this rate of comprehension truly was.

He didn’t continue with this sword art since he had mastered the two stages in his possession already, instead turning to the next art. Another air element sword art, this time with nine stages, whereby the nine stages were split into three groups of three, of which Yaan had access to the first group of three stages. This art, Synchronised Pierce, focussed on the idea of attacking with such incredible speed that multiple strikes would overlap and land on the target simultaneously.

Yaan actually found this concept quite simple to reproduce. He had no problem with mastering the first stage of this purely offensive art, creating three strikes in one go and having them land on the target at the exact same time.

CHI!

There was only a single sound, but three stab marks appeared on the wooden dummy’s head in almost the exact same location.

The second stage increased to six strikes, the third to nine strikes. After reaching this point after months of arduous training, Yaan moved on to the last purely air elemental sword art called Air Blade Shield.

This art was again very different, a purely defensive sword art! A sword art that placed its focus entirely on defence was very unusual, after all, the sword was an offensive weapon designed to kill!

Air Blade Shield was a more complex art and required a longer period of time to master the first stage, two months in fact. By the end of this period of training, Yaan somewhat understood this art and its purpose.

To turn the sword into a shield, a shield that protected from all six directions! He was only able to maintain this illusory shield for 20 seconds at most, at which point his mind would feel totally drained. There were four stages to this art of which he had two, but he stopped after mastering the first.

Next, the water element sword art. Yaan held some anticipation towards this art. He enjoyed casting the water element spell ‘Water-drop Slash’, but he was unsure how a water element sword art would function, and if he would feel the same sense of joy when learning such a technique.

He understood quickly. Very quickly, in fact.

This was a six stage sword art. He mastered the first stage in three days, the second in one month, then made good progress on the third stage over a period of four months. Yaan wanted to continue training this sword art, but he unfortunately did not have the complete third stage. Still, he continued putting effort into the third stage, working his way towards mastery. He eventually realised that without the complete third stage, though, it would be very difficult to master in a short period of time.

Whilst most of his focus was placed on training in sword arts, during this period of training, Yaan continued to refine more vital energy using various highly energy dense pills. He also didn’t neglect his job in the least, since he had an endless need for money to buy more resources.

Yaan enjoyed this new sword art, this art called the ‘Flowing River Blade’. It required that the practitioner picture their sword not as a metal blade, but as a blade of water. Only after fully immersing yourself in this mental illusion and truly believing that your sword was in fact water, could the second stage be mastered. As for the third stage, Yaan’s copy of this stage was still incomplete, so he couldn’t fully understand the principals behind this stage.

At this point, Yaan’s Flowing River Blade proficiency was no less than his Agile Sword Arts. These two arts were quite different, yet he felt like they were also very similar.

Thinking this, he finally began to practise the final, most valuable and difficult sword art; Cutting Typhoon.

There was actually just a single stage to this sword art. It wasn’t incomplete, but simply only existed as a single stage. It was extremely simple, yet also quite incredible and difficult to comprehend.

Like Falling Leaf Strike, his body needed to move gently, seemingly without intent, yet with clear purpose at the same time. Like Synchronised Pierce, the blade needed to strike in multiple places, even multiple directions, at once. As with Air Blade Shield, this art covered the user in a sort of defensive layer, a typhoon formed only from the sword, a sword which moved like a scythe in the violent wind.

The typhoon, a natural disaster of wind and rain at sea. A destructive force of epic proportions, yet something entirely natural.

There was only one year remaining until the inheritance site opened again. North Ghu City became much more crowded and boisterous compared to normal times as Qi masters flocked from far and wide, whether to watch this mysterious place open, to test their luck and dive into the inheritance, or to send in their juniors as a tempering experience.

Now that they only had one year remaining to prepare, Ghu Nadda reduced his operations by two thirds. He only continued with the VIP clients and high profit deals, resulting in just three or four deliveries each week on Yaan’s part.

Yaan didn’t mind it as he also wanted to focus on his training more diligently in this year. The deliveries he did make all earned him a good sum of money, so he was able to maintain his training’s high expenditure.

Well, the amount he was earning nowadays was something that he could have never imagined in the past. Sometimes, he felt like he was way too lucky. Were it not for him joining the old fatty’s shop as an assistant, then meeting Ghu Nadda and connecting over their mutual demonic race problems, then he definitely would not have been able to increase his cultivation realm so rapidly.

Yaan was now infinitely close to the Peak 2-Star realm. After struggling to reach the peak over the past few months, he realised that he would need to take drastic action for this final step, and decided that it would be best to take that jump soon.

His vital energy was now at 98.9% maximum capacity. It was just a tenth of a percentage away from the peak, but forcing the body to absorb even a slither of energy was extremely difficult for Yaan right now. All of the resources he used simply went to waste, so he realised that he needed to change his approach.

The only way to succeed in reaching the peak was to devour a massive amount of energy in a single push. Only then, when his body was beyond overloaded with energy, would the pressure be great enough for his vital energy to reach its maximum.

Luckily, there were many spirit beasts kept by Qi masters that also required similar resources, either to reach the peak of a realm or to ascend through a minor stage. After looking around and again relying on Ghu Nadda’s contacts, Yaan finally found what he needed.

Rank 3 burst of vitality pill.

A pill designed to help large bodied Rank 3 beasts overcome small bottlenecks. For instance, the giant grey spotted electric leopard often found itself stuck at the peak of mid Rank 3, unable to take that jump to the late stage of Rank 3. This exact issue was unique to this beast, but many spirit beasts had similar problems, for which the Rank 3 burst of vitality pill was optimal.

“Yaan, are you sure about this…?” Ghu Nadda held the bright green and red spotted pill in his hand, hesitating before he passed it across to Yaan. The cost was quite high at 65 Rank 3 recovery pills, but that wasn’t the problem here…

“Mm, it’s my best option to finally reach the peak stage. I’ve improved gradually as much as possible, but I need this to overcome the bottleneck.”

“But a Rank 3 pill with an effect like this…won’t your body just explode…?” The young ghoul still wasn’t convinced. After all, Rank 3 pills were designed to be used by Rank 3 beings like Rank 3 beasts, 3-Star demons and Qi Temple realm Qi masters.

It was bad enough that Yaan sometimes used Rank 3 recovery pills to balance the damaging effect of body tempering medicines, but the Rank 3 burst of vitality pill would be an order of magnitude more dangerous than something like that!

Yaan smiled and shook his head.

“It’s exactly because this pill is excessive that I need it. There’s no Rank 2 pill that can pressure my body enough to reach the realm peak. There’s always danger when cultivating as a demon, I’m sure you know this as well as myself, Nadda.”

After getting to know one another over the past couple years, they called each other by their given name and spoke casually, despite their difference in cultivation level. Well, Yaan only ever told people his given name anyway, though, keeping his old mortal family name to himself.

Usually, a Qi Palace realm demon would disdain a mere 2-Star demon, but Ghu Nadda had seen Yaan’s rapid improvement with his own eyes. He had watched over Yaan’s determination and honestly, he admired Yaan. Whether it was his perception, strong will or his potential, all of these things made him worthy enough to be treated as an equal in the young ghoul’s eyes.

“Fine, just try not to die…” He shook his head and sighed in the end, tossing the pill across to Yaan helplessly. He also knew that for the demonic races, ‘safe cultivation’ was simply a fallacy. To defy your fate and to surpass your talent, it was inevitable that a demon’s path would be fraught with danger and uncertainty. This was the life of a demon, there was simply no other way around it, the only option was to brave the dangers and keep moving forwards.

Yaan sat down at the side of the cool morgue. Since this really was a bit dangerous this time, he wanted Ghu Nadda to watch over him incase he entered a bad state and needed assistance.

Gulp!

Yaan swallowed the pill immediately, before he even had time to overthink it and work up any anxiety and doubt.

This pill was intended for beasts, Rank 3 beasts. Simply put, it was beyond Yaan’s capability to handle. If he couldn’t harness the energy to reach the peak 2-Star realm, there was no doubt that he would die within seconds. However, at this point, it really was his only option if he wanted to continue cultivating.

BOOM!

Ghu Nadda’s pale face became a shade paler. His eyes widened in shock and he couldn’t help but step back as Yaan’s stomach inflated to twice, no, thrice its original size!

Yaan grit his teeth and showed a fierce expression. The violent explosion of energy erupted in his stomach and threatened to rip his body in half. He forced his internal vital energy to exert pressure inwards towards the explosive force, then directed the chaotic energy to spread out evenly throughout his body.

Nadda paled even further, something he previously didn’t believe to be possible.

Yaan’s stomach shrunk by 20%, but every other part of his body instantly doubled in size! His whole body looked extremely swollen, like he was a human shaped balloon which had been overfilled with gas!

Yaan’s eyes shot open, showing his blood shot eyes and his terrifying gaze. He could feel the scythe of death lingering over him, but he felt only a ferocious unwillingness!

He used every ounce of willpower he could muster to control his internal vital energy, compressing his body back down as much as possible. As a 2-Star demon, controlling his vital energy was extremely difficult, but with this life and death crisis lingering over him, Yaan managed to surpass his own abilities!

When Yaan felt that he was running low on energy, Ghu Nadda seemed to notice and quickly tossed a handful of Rank 3 vital recovery pills into his mouth. Yaan paused for a moment, but didn’t continue shrinking back to his usual size. Black sludge flooded out from his pores and blood continually streamed from his eyes.

Ghu Nadda was baffled that multiple Rank 3 vital recovery pills did only this much. He narrowed his eyes, then waved his hands and sent a stream of more such pills into Yaan’s mouth, before forcing them down his swollen throat and into his stomach.

At the same time, he held out both hands and formed a wall of black gas. The gas gradually solidified, before shooting towards Yaan and enclosing him within a pitch black sphere. The sphere rapidly shrunk until it covered Yaan’s body, creating the image of a bloated shadow giant. Ghu Nadda didn’t stop there, but grit his teeth and forcefully pushed his hands together.

He managed to shrink Yaan’s body by 10%, but the resistance was far greater than he anticipated. He didn’t hesitated to take out a paper talisman, throwing it onto the black figure’s forehead and produced a vibrating sound that echoed throughout the morgue.

The talisman was extremely effective and allowed the shadow wall to continue compressing Yaan’s body down, until it finally returned to its normal size. Ghu Nadda was sweating heavily and panting for breath, but he stared forwards at Yaan and showed no signs of stopping his actions.

He looked beyond the black shield and frowned. He hesitated, but then sighed and threw out a Rank 4 vital recovery pill. The pill was absorbed into the talisman, then the pill’s effect was slowly poured into every part of Yaan’s body over a period of two minutes. If Yaan were to consume this pill directly, he would without a doubt die, but the talisman allowed him to gradually absorb the medicinal energy.

Finally, the young ghoul could no longer hold out. He tried his best, but he had thoroughly exhausted himself. He dropped to his knees and forced his tired neck to look up, uncertainty in his eyes. On seeing Yaan sitting there calmly with his eyes closed, drenched in blood, black sludge and burned chunks of skin, he heaved a sigh of relief. Yaan was heavily injured, but he was at least alive and recovering.

Ghu Nadda sat down to recover and swallowed a Rank 3 vital recovery and Qi recovery pill. A few minutes later, he opened his eyes, and was surprised to see that Yaan was standing up, seemingly completely fine!

“Thank you, Nadda.” Yaan turned to him and said honestly. The flesh eating ghoul smiled eerily and laughed.

“It was nothing…but you owe me ten 4 Star recovery pills…Haha…”

Yaan laughed too, but promised that he would pay him back. It was only fair, Ghu Nadda used up that valuable talisman and a Rank 4 vital recovery pill to assist him. Were it not for that assistance, Yaan was unsure whether or not he would have survived. At the very least, he would have been severely injured.

“So…did it work?” Nadda finally asked curiously after standing up and looking at Yaan. The difference in vital energy was too small, there was no way to tell from a glance.

“Mm, I reached the Peak 2-Star realm, thanks to your help.” Yaan grinned, unable to hide his mixture of relief and excitement.

When he first arrived at North Ghu City 2 years ago, he never imagined that he would reach this stage so quickly! In his initial estimation, he would not have reached the late stage yet, if he had continued to train using only normal materials.

He also realised that what Rui told him in the past was true…as the demonic body improved, it became increasingly difficult to improve further. Choosing body cultivation as the main path was basically just a terrible choice…considering the level of expenditure he had endured just to rise from the Mid 2-Star realm to the Peak 2-Star realm, Yaan began to wonder how he would manage to progress at all once he reached the 3-Star realm…

No matter what though, he needed to gain the 4-Star demonic body. Only by increasing his cultivation to this point could he restore his dantian and then use Rui’s unknown method to switch back to the Qi refining path! Of course, he also needed to find a way to restore Rui’s strength and awake her from her slumber…he was a bit lost when it came to this matter though, no matter what he tried, he was unable to interact with the black stone ring at all.

Yaan had no delusions of sticking with body cultivation after developing his vital core. If each realm increase really was more ridiculous than the last, then reaching the 5-Star realm would just be impossible without some all powerful senior funding his expenses. Relying on such a dream scenario was too stupid, so he would definitely switch back to Qi refining as soon as he became able to do so. At that point, his body would be stuck at the peak of the 3-Star realm, but he would continue to benefit from his other physical enhancement methods, like his progressive bones constitution and his possible organs constitution.

For now though, there was only one pill that he needed, the only pill he knew of that could help him to cross the boundary into the 3-Star realm.

The Rank 3 boundary ascension pill!

“Yaan…”

“Hmm?” Yaan was pulled from his thoughts and turned to this person, or rather this ghoul, who was slowly becoming someone that he might one day consider a friend. Yaan knew that Nadda’s main motivation in helping him was to develop an ally with someone who he believed to possess a bright future. The fact was though, that Nadda stepped in and potentially saved his life just now, even receiving some backlash and using up a precious talisman of his. Yaan would definitely pay this debt back with interest as soon as he was able to do so.

“I’m going to enter closed door cultivation until I reach the 4th layer Qi Palace realm….only with this level of strength will I be able to stand side to side with the strongest competitors in this inheritance…”

Yaan nodded slowly. Indeed, since Origin Soul realm powerhouses simply couldn’t enter, and Spirit and Demon Core realm Qi masters would suffer a loss that made most of them consider it to be not worth it, the strongest participants would be those Rank 3 beings; Qi Temple realm mostly, but also some demons at the Qi Palace realm like Nadda. It was unlikely that any 3-Star demons besides Yaan would enter, but it was of course a possibility.

The Qi Temple realm and Qi Palace realm were identical, just that the latter was the demon race’s equivalent wherein they formed a palace in their dantian rather than a temple.

It was possible to enter the Spirit Core realm after achieving the 3rd layer Qi Temple realm, but almost nobody would choose to do this. There were nine layers to the Qi Temple and Qi Palace realms, achieving a higher layer before taking the step into the Spirit Core realm would improve your foundation, increase your fighting strength at each realm, and even improve your potential, talent and future prospects.

Because of this, all people at the Qi Temple and Qi Palace realms would try to ascend to as high a layer as possible, only taking the final step to the Spirit Core realm once they became unable to step into a higher layer.

Ghu Nadda was of course no different. He would never choose to settle for a 3rd layer foundation, in his eyes, the 6th layer was the minimum and the 7th layer was the real goal.

There was a big difference between the 3rd and 4th, and the 6th and 7th layers. 3rd layer foundation Qi masters were average, whilst 4th layer wouldn’t have their future prospects be so limited. Each layer above that increased their talent and potential substantially, whilst a 7th layer foundation would be considered a true genius, heavily nurtured by any clan or sect without exception.

7th layer Qi masters were extremely rare, but not completely unheard of. It was very unlikely that such a person would show up to this inheritance though, and if they did, that was just everyone else’s bad luck.

That said, there would certainly be those at the 4th, 5th and probably 6th layers. If Ghu Nadda couldn’t even reach the 4th layer, he wouldn’t have the qualifications to compete against these people.

His combat ability, perception, intelligence, planning and foresight were also extremely good, so if others were only slightly stronger than him, he was confident that he could deal with them. That still relied on him possessing at least 4th layer strength though.

“When?” Yaan asked simply.

“One month from now…if there’s anything you need, say now…do you have enough money and resources for this year…? Since I won’t be doing deliveries from here on….if there’s anything that could help to increase your strength, then just say and I’ll lend it to you…I expect that we’ll strike it rich in the inheritance, so you can just pay it back then…” He grinned darkly.

“I just need a Rank 3 boundary ascension pill, along with some Rank 3 vital release pills so that I can improve my strength further during the breakthrough. Aside from that…I would like to compete in the arena before attempting the breakthrough.”

Nadda was nodding at first, but frowned at that last bit.

“Is that really necessary? Your identity is a bit sensitive, and the arena is dangerous, to do this right before the inheritance…”

“That’s exactly why I need to do it now!” Yaan smiled. “Battle helps my comprehension more than anything else, my breakthrough will have a greater chance of success this way. I also haven’t fought for some time, or at all with my current strength, so I need to practice before the inheritance opens.”

“Hmm…” Ghu Nadda seemed to ponder for some time. After a while, he nodded slowly.

“Compared to peak True Yuan Qi realm Qi masters, you should be stronger than at least 90% of them…nobody will complain if you start with those matches and the danger should be low too…as for your identity, I happen to possess a mysterious hat that creates an illusion, hiding your face and distorting your aura…so long as they aren’t at the Origin Soul realm, or at the Core realms and possessing a perceptive spell, then nobody will see through it…I’ll just monitor the audience this next month and make sure it all works out fine…”

He paused, the turned to Yaan and asked:

“When do you want to star...t?”

“Tomorrow morning.” Yaan didn’t hesitate at all. Tomorrow, he would step onto the stage of battle once again!