After breaking through to the 5th Stage of the Thunder Blade, Yulian’s room was a mess. As he waited for Stella to clean it up, Yulian sat on a sofa, scrolling through the digital Tablet computer in his hand. He was reading a post on a Warlord fighter thread about the Nine Stage Thunder Blade.

[Topic Title: Nine Stage Thunder Blade is a shit technique, do not buy! – anonymous]

[The Nine Stage Thunder Blade created by Thunder Lord and the Destroyer Spear created by Hong are the two publicly distributed Legendary-grade secret techniques!

The Nine Stage Thunder Blade is apparently ‘superior’ in being well rounded: blade technique, body refinement, footwork and force multiplication are all top grade! Only its body refining technique is any good though. The Nine Stage Thunder Blade is extremely in depth and comparatively cheap as well! However, it is only popular among Warriors and Warlords who only buy the first few stages. There are no Wargods who display much interest in it.

While Destroyer Spear is famous for one and only one reason: its ultimate technique! The Destroyer Spear is rather vague, expensive yet popular among Wargods and Existences above Wargods!

Why is this happening? This is due to one simple reason: difficulty in comprehension! The Nine Stage Thunder Blade can be trained to the 4th Stage by a genius Warlord. A Wargod could reach the 6th stage, but his progress would end there. There were people who had reached the 7th or 8th stage in either the blade or footwork techniques, but they did not reach further stages in the other techniques.

On the other hand, the Destroyer Spear is extremely difficult for Warriors and Warlords to grasp but most Wargods can master it. Existences above Wargod can master this technique in short time!...]

‘A storm would brew up if it was found out that a Warrior had reached the 5th Stage in the Thunder Blade body refining technique… I should keep this fact as secret as possible.’ Yulian couldn’t help but think this as he read the thread filled with curses at the Thunder Lord for scamming everyone. In reality though, the thread was just exaggerating things.

The Nine Stage Thunder Blade’s blade and body techniques past the 3rd Stage required reaching the Perfect level in blade technique and movement technique. And to reach the Perfect level, one had to modify the techniques used to allow truly perfect movement and attacks. This realm surpassed the intermediate realm in many ways: to reach the intermediate realm in blade technique and movement skills, one needed to simply perfect muscle control. This allowed one to have inhuman flexibility.

However, to reach the Perfect level, one needed to develop a 6th sense! Yes, this was the only reasonable explanation that Yulian understood from reading the novel! In the ‘Swallowed Star’ novel, after reaching the ‘Perfect’ level, the MC was capable of understanding the total amount of enemies being faced, taking in the surroundings and using them effectively and creating special battle tactics to effectively fight every foe!

Understanding the 4th Stage of the Thunder Blade required such inhuman skill and technique!

Of course, this did not end here. At this stage, you could only ‘understand’ the techniques written down in the Nine Stage Thunder Blade. ‘Using them in battle’ was a different matter. To use the techniques in battle, a fighter needed to use the understanding to create a technique usable by him and him alone!

So, the anonymous users of the forum were probably frustrated after failing to comprehend the techniques written in the manual. And everyone shitposting together to bash on the Thunder Dojo was a way to deal with the frustration!

To complete his breakthrough to the 4th Stage of the Thunder Blade, he needed to first reach the Perfect stage in blade technique and movement technique. After this, he needed to understand the ‘aspect’ and ‘intent’ that Thunder Lord had written down into the blade technique. And finally, he needed to fuse both these understandings to create a technique unique to him alone!

…

Yulian needed to reach the 4th Stage of the Thunder Blade to advance in his cultivation technique as well.

He could only reach the stage of having understood the 5th Stage of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade body refining technique due to the miraculous power of the first stage of the cultivation technique he had inherited, Five Colored Stones. However, he had deviated in that technique. Now, cultivating that technique had become more difficult! There was already the need to accumulate comprehension and energy from the world. There was also the problem of the energy circulation paths being vague in his memories: only the circulation paths for Fire and Metal were clear!

‘I was originally supposed to create a sea of golden lightning in the dantian on reaching the Metal Stone realm in the cultivation technique… however I ended up creating a golden stone at the bottom of my sea of energy. It seems that the only way to reach the next stage in the Five Colored Stones, Wood Stone, is by increasing my understanding of lightning.’ As Yulian was thinking about his cultivation, Stella appeared.

“Young master, your room has been cleaned up. You can return there.” She looked at him, wanting to speak more, but finally turned away.

Without speaking a word, Yulian got up to return to his room. Stella wanted to ask how he got so much dust into the room, and he didn’t have any way to answer her. Simply staying quiet was the best option.

He sat on the bed with the VR helmet on his head. Upon starting up the VR game, he was quickly greeted by a message.

[You have broken through to Lv.2 Student]

[You have ascended from Area 1: Hilly Forest]

[Area completion rate - 100%]

[Unlocked: +2 Trait slots]

[Area 2: Rainforest]

[Stat Restrictions on monsters have been released]

[Stats will scale with increase in user’s power]

[AI Restrictions on monsters have been released]

[AI - Collaboration Works v.9890 will be used]

Yulian ignored the notices for a moment before looking at ‘Area 2’ with his eyes. He appeared outside a small cottage. This was his spawn point. Some distance away from his cottage was a rainforest. In the middle of the rainforest, thunder boomed and lightning struck down.

Yulian smiled at the sight. The Nine Stage Thunder Blade relied on comprehension of lightning while the Wooden Crushing Blade relied on comprehension of wood. Coincidentally, both of these elements were present in abundance in this area. This was no coincidence; as a training simulator, this VR world understood the requirements for training his abilities and actively created areas optimal for his training.

Just then, Yulian realized that he hadn’t read the notices yet. After he read through the notices, Yulian’s smile disappeared. As it turned out, Area 1 was a tutorial and the real game started now. Since the difficulty had risen, clearing it would be harder…

At this moment, Yulian realized that he had actually wanted to clear this Area. From the beginning, this was a training area for him, he didn’t play this game for fun! Surprisingly, he had gotten hooked on…

Well, it was a characteristic of his previous life as a 19 year old so it wasn’t too abnormal. However, Yulian had already decided that this would be a training area for himself. He was no longer a college gaming enthusiast, but a fighter. The only reason he wanted to clear this game was to have a chance of getting top tier techniques and skills.

Yulian immediately opened the Trait Exchange to select two traits:

[Lv.5 (Max) - Deathless

Highly reduces all penalties for death. No cooldown for returning to game after death.]

[Lv.5 (Max) - Mapmaker

Creates a map of the area. Highlights enemies and gives area completion rate.]

He had gained a large amount of star points by killing the Hidden [BOSS]. Utilizing the star points to buy these traits used nearly half of the points. The difficulty had increased by a large margin, after all. He wanted to fight with all his might, but he would probably die many times before he got fully used to the new Area. There was a penalty reduction with Deathless Trait and thus he wouldn’t wind up losing too much money.

Yulian began his hunt.

…

Slash! Slash! Slash!

Yulian was ineffectively attacking a small weasel that was fiercely clawing his foot with countless slashes. The leather boots that he was wearing had been slashed through in short time. His armor set was lowest grade basic armor. It might have been an effective barricade for an entire horde in Area 1, but it was already slashed apart like paper by the powerful blows of a weasel in Area 2!

The rabid beast was now chewing through his foot like a chicken leg… Yulian was using his footwork to dance about on the forest ground. Sometimes running straight and back, sometimes running in zigzag paths and even jumping around and rolling. All movement techniques of the Nine Stage Thunder Blade comprehended by him were used to move about in a haphazard manner, to dislodge this crazed beast from his foot. He was able to dance even when the entire left foot was eaten and the beast was gnawing on the calf. Unfortunately, everything was useless.

Yulian’s blade was 7 foot and it did not excel at slashing down at such a close distance. He couldn’t chop his foot apart, he would simply die after losing balance and the 7 foot blade wasn’t too useful in cutting down in such close combat. So, he could only wildly move and try to shake the weasel off. However, the weasel was too tenacious!

“Die, die, die, get the fuck away, leave me alone!”

Finally, Yulian entered a strange state due to desperation. His feet stepped on the ground in a strange motion. It was a type of a footwork that was strange and mysterious. However… it was still completely useless. The weasel simply ascended from his foot like climbing a tree and jumped on the precious spot between his waist!

Seeing this, Yulian’s face turned white with fear. There was no need to describe what would happen if the beast managed to get his claws on his precious part. Immediately, he no longer hesitated and pierced out with his blade!

Complete control and precision! Originally, the blade was 7 foot long and hard to maneuver in close combat. Even so, the blade pierced through the weasel’s small body, killing in a single blow! Originally, the weasel was extremely weak in defense, the only reason for it being able to bully Yulian was its extreme speed and evasion!

Yulian retracted his blade and unsheathed it on his back with a single motion. Even though he had broken through from the Intermediate level in his blade and footwork technique, he hadn’t entered the Perfect level yet. His speed, strength and technique with the blade had pierced through a bottleneck and hadn’t stabilized yet! At such a time, the best thing to do was to train himself in the Nine Stage Thunder Blade’s techniques and forms! Yulian immediately pulled out a silver ticket from his inventory and tore it apart.

‘Instant Log-out Ticket: Tearing it immediately logs out user!’

In a blink of an eye, he returned back to reality. Pulling off the VR Helmet off his head, he ran out of his room and rushed to the Training Room to meditate. After logging out from the VR system, Yulian would always meditate in the Training Room, isolating his stray thoughts and clearing his mind. He would spend his nights meditating in the Training Room, his window opened and bathed by the clear starlight. When dawn would arrive, he would take in the first ray of pure violet sunlight into his cultivation base, and switch his training.

This time, during the battle with the weasel, he had been dominated by it from the beginning. The only reason for his victory was his sudden breakthrough. Clearing his mind before training his blade technique would be essential.

As always, Yulian began his quiet meditation. Yulian’s spirit force began gathering into a whirlpool. Sitting cross legged atop his bed, he started turning the spiritual force in his consciousness into starlight. Suddenly, the speed of the spirit force being condensed suddenly increased, and spirit force began to be gathered from the entirety of his conscious realm! Unexpectedly, Yulian broke through a bottleneck in his 108 Star Diagrams cultivation technique, rapidly accelerating his progress!

Within his mind, eleven stars were formed into a constellation. Yulian’s spirit force training had been extremely fast, even faster than his genetic energy cultivation! The reason behind this was simple, the Five Colored Stones cultivation technique required too many insights and comprehension into the Five Elements. On the other hand, the 108 Stars Diagram did not require any insights or comprehension, and only consisted of gathering spirit force! Not only that, he had extremely huge potential in spirit force training and he had been through many battles in the VR game, tempering his willpower.

There was a large amount of spirit force in his consciousness, and Yulian simply had to refine it into starlight. Within his consciousness, a twelfth star began emerging. Bit by bit, spirit force turned into starlight and agglomerated into the star, until finally there was a constellation of twelve stars in Yulian’s consciousness!

Yulian had successfully cultivated the First Layer of the 108 Stars Diagram, condensing a constellation of 12 stars in his consciousness! The stars began to slowly revolve in the consciousness realm, scattering starlight in the void space. Yulian was mesmerized by this strange sight, carefully observing the stars dance.

Suddenly, the golden globe within Yulian’s consciousness flashed with a golden light! This golden globe contained Yulian’s potential in cultivating spirit force! As long as the golden globe spun in his mind, he would have amazing talent in cultivating both spirit force and genetic energy! Suddenly, the 12 stars gathered around the golden globe like the solar system around the sun, as if attracted by tremendous gravitational force!

As the 12 stars spun around the golden globe, starlight was diffused into the void space that was Yulian’s consciousness. The revolution of the 12 stars meant that Yulian had successfully perfected the First Layer of the 108 Stars Diagram. The capabilities of his brain had also expanded. His memory retention, thinking, understanding and comprehension abilities had also risen.

But more importantly, this meant that he was now as powerful as a Beginner Warlord level spirit reader, able to attack with the force of 8000 kg with a single attack!