《Sword God》2. Eight-move Swordsmanship
Advertisement
Late at night, a full moon hanged on the sky with its soft light scattering to the ground, hoarfrost flowing just like the drifting snow.
The small lake was calm without any ripple as if it was a bright mirror, reflecting a round moon in it. The lake which was covered by the quietly soft light just like hid another world.
Chen Zong, who was lying alongside the lake with his hands behind his head, was bathing under the moonlight and staring at the moon, feeling at loss.
Having worked so hard but always got a little, he felt more or less unsatisfied.
But learning martial arts needed not only hard-working, but also needed outside support. If not, he would get hurt and finally destroyed. Just like Chen Zhigang, who could eat the meat of fierce beasts every meal to strengthen his body and could also take more energy pills to help himself cultivate. It was said that the siblings of the big families who lived in Fengwu city could eat energy pills very often.
If father's cultivation still existed, it would be easy for Chen Zong to eat the beast meat or take one energy pill every once in a while. But there was no "if", fact always was the fact. The giving out of energy pills in Chen family every three months was the most exciting moment to Chen Zong, but today it was ruined.
Sometimes, when thinking of this, Chen Zong felt at a loss.
His qi and blood deficiency was inborn, unless there was a proper panacea which could cure him, or else he would be eaten up with diseases and this would seriously slow him down which would make his dreams and aims farther and farther.
But panacea, how difficult to find it! Even his dad who ever had the seventh level of Qi-Blood Realm couldn't find it.
Having thought this for a while, Chen Zong suddenly found today's moon was extremely bright.
"No! Something seemed to be falling." Chen Zong tried his best to open his eyes as big as he could, only to find a flame which seemed brighter than the moonlight was falling swiftly. "It is on my direction," he said.
"No!" Chen Zong finally came to life when that sword-like flame came right towards him. When he hurried to duck away, that sword-like flame, just like knowing his intention, fell down a hundred times quicker, shot straight between Chen' eyebrows just as quickly as stars crossed the sky, and vanished.
As if being shot through the head, he felt extremely painful, the sense of pain attacking him from top to bottom like an erupted volcano, which made him in comma immediately.
……
"Where am I?" Chen Zong looked around, only to find a dark void. When he lowered his head, he couldn't see his body, but only to feel his existence, which was so weird.
Streams of silvery light floated from the distance, Chen Zong was attracted to follow them by flying. No idea how far he had fled, Chen Zong finally saw the light source, a roll of silvery glow floating at the center of the dark void. Getting closer and closer, Chen was more and more shocked.
It seemed the silvery glow was formed by countless silver dragons and every dragon seemed to be from the void which connected not only the heaven and earth but also the past and future, containing unfathomable mysteries.
Advertisement
At the center of the glow weaved by countless silver dragons floated a piece of fragment in the shape of the point of a sword. The fragment was silvery white, emanating ancient and profound waves.
Getting closer, finally Chen Zong' awareness floated into the glow weaved by countless silver dragons. And when he got touch with the tip of the sword, something seemed to burst and impact powerfully everywhere, which made Chen totally lose his consciousness.
Suddenly, the glow between his eyebrows kept flicking, emitting a dazzling aura that eclipsed the moonlight.
Layers of light spread like water waves, suffusing every part of Chen Zong' body, as if something were constantly being squeezed out from his body.
After the midnight the moon began to verge to the west and the flowing light around Chen's body flowed back to the point between his eyebrows, constricting its glaring brilliance. Chen Zong's fingers moved automatically and eyelids twitched open. He firstly felt blank, later nauseated. Because something smelly was coming into his nose, and that stench was just like rotten rats which had died for a long time, which kept him retching continuously.
"What happened?" Chen Zong exclaimed at the sticky filth over his hands and body. Moreover, his eyesight got shaper than before, as he could still distinguish the black-red filth, the resource of the stench.
Chen Zong took off his clothes, jumped hurriedly into the lake, and tried his best to wash himself. It was not until he scrubbed more than ten times that he finally got rid of the black-red filth After that, Chen was surprised to find that his skin had become as fair and ruddy as the baby's, and all those scars from practicing martial arts and paleness from qi-blood deficiency didn't exist anymore.
His body was so light as if he could fly to the sky only by one simple leap. His heart beat forcefully and he was full of energy. He had never felt like this before, which made Chen Zong laughed so loud out of ecstasy that even started waves in the lake.
……
Chen Zong didn't sleep the whole night, but he was still energetic.
"Great, not only is my deficiency of qi and blood cured and I am not weaker anymore, but my cultivation also break through to the second level of the Qi Blood Realm." sitting along the lake, Chen couldn't help being happy and excited.
"It is said that some old panacea could help refine the vessels and wash the marrows. Is it like what happened to me??"
"I am more powerful, much faster, more agile and more astute. I am a different man."
Saying that, he posed Tiger Squat, his heart beating quickly, his blood surging, and more powerful strength floating in his limbs and bones. The tip of the sword in the middle of his eyebrows fluttered, the silver dragons danced, which made Chen Zong forget everything except the fist position.
He swung a punch!
Tiger Rush!
It seemed that the punch had broken the air, stirring a wind.
Tiger Turn!
Tiger Leap!
Tiger Rage!
The last punch rumbled the air.
"Haha, the second level of Qi Blood Realm is indeed much powerful than the first level!" Chen Zong put his fist back and stood there, laughing in excitement.
The first level of practicing martial art was the Qi Blood Realm, consisting of 9 sub-levels.
Advertisement
Level one to level three were to strengthen the body and enrich the blood which were the basic. So the people who were in these three levels were martial apprentice.
When in the first level, each arm owned 25kg to 50kg of power.
When in the second level, each arm owned 100kg to 150kg of power.
When in the third level, each arm owned 200kg to 250kg of power.
This was the standard. However, someone born with strong power would exceed the standard. As in Chen Zhigang's case, he was in the third level while his arm owned 300kg of power.
Chen Zong's arm owned less than 50kg of power before, but now he owned 100kg to 150kg of power. It was totally a saltant improvement. Due to his added level, both his power and speed were strengthened and improved, so did the power of his Tiger Fist.
"Practice again!" Chen Zong constituted the Tiger Squat after a shout.
In the past, he always felt weak and tired after keeping practice for three or four times due to his lack of energy. But now he still felt vigorous after five times of practice.
Again and again, he felt carefree. His clear mind made it easier to understand the Tiger Fist. He fully grasped the details that he used to ignore. By the tenth time, he jumped like a tiger and gave a punch as an attacking tiger. The punch had torn the air and the sound it made was just like a fierce tiger howling in the distance.
"I just achieved Great Accomplishment of the Tiger Fist." Chen Zong was astonished. The day before, he had been worried about how long he would take to fully master the Tiger Fist. While one day passed, he made it. That was amazing.
"That must be relevant to what happened last night." Chen Zong said silently and excitedly. He took a breath to calm down and kept on practicing in this trend so that he could make further progress.
After another ten times of practice, each punch of Chen Zong could bring out a strong howling wind just like a fierce tiger howling in front of him.
"It's the peak of Great Accomplishment!" Chen gasped in shock. Even though he had already known the power, he was still astonished. All the blood surged in his body, then it became bigger and bigger just like the water of the Yangtze River, which made his tiredness disappear suddenly.
"I have practiced the Tiger Fist Great Accomplishment, exercising 50% of my body. It's much better than Little Accomplishment. The effect of my practice is much obvious now." Chen Zong was very glad. However, he soon frowned, "It's only 29 days from the battle of familial martial artist. Even though my Tiger Fist has advanced to Great Accomplishment, I can't improve my power to the third level of Qi Blood Realm in such a short time. So it'll be difficult for me to reach the top 3 in the competition."
The battle of martial artist would be held once a year and the top 3 would get the opportunity to practice in the Chen's clan hall in the Fengwu town. There were more superior martial arts to learn and more resources for cultivation. All the juniors in the tribe were looking forward to this opportunity and they regarded it as the chance to become famous. But there was a limit that only the family children who were less than 15 years old could join it. Chen Zong would be 15 in three months, so it was the last chance for him.
To practice in the clan hall and become stronger and powerful, then searching for the precious medicine to cure his father and to regain his power. These were the goals and wishes of Chen Zong all the time.
"If I can own basic martial arts better than Tiger Fist, I would be faster in my practicing speed." He said to himself. He himself knew it was impossible. However, it seemed that the sword cusp in the middle of his eyebrows understood what he had said. The cusp quivered and then a silver dragon rushed out and disappeared in Chen Zong's brain.
Chen Zong trembled and kept standing there like a statue, as if he was struck by thunder.
Half an hour passed, Chen Zong woke up and started to laugh. He thought it might be the reward of the god for his former rough time.
In half an hour, Chen Zong got the basic martial arts, which was much better than Tiger Fist – Eight-move Swordsmanship. "The Eight-move Swordsmanship require the unity of footwork, body and sword. 60 percent of the body could be exercised once in Rudiment, 70 percent in Little Accomplishment, 80 percent in Great Accomplishment and 100 percent in the Completion." Chen Zong murmured and was a little dazzled.
Just now, he was still worrying about his slow speed in practicing Tiger Fist. And then, there appeared a much better martial art, especially a rare one on weapons.
"Can I get everything I required?" He doubted, "Two energy pills?"
Nothing happened. He thought it was mainly because he required too much. So he begged for one pill this time. Nothing happened again. He gave up and turned his attention to the Eight-move Swordsmanship.
A sword was a must to learn the swordsmanship.
"Every family children could get a weapon for free once reaching the first level of the Qi Blood Realm." Chen Zong said, walking straight to the clan weapon house and thinking about the Eight-move Swordsmanship.
Eight-move Swordsmanship contained eight sword skills. They were Crouching Sword, Pulling Sword, Rushing Sword, Looping Sword, Cutting Sword, Free Sword, Dashing Sword and Exploding Sword.
The states of body were standing, crouching, leaping, turning and rotating.
The states of footwork were rushing, slipping, tapping, moving, jumping and turning.
The eight types could be used together and separately. Each move should be matched with relevant body state and footwork to wield its mightiest power. The detailed instructions of every move and change were clearly printed in his mind."It's of great difficulties to combine the sword, body and footwork together when in rudiment."
"But once in rudiment, I would be more powerful with it than I'm with the Tiger Fist."
Suddenly, Chen Zong was high spirited.
Advertisement
- In Serial8 Chapters
Entangled Fates Book 1 - Quantum Beginnings
“By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.” —Eliezer Yudkowsky Hey all, we're moving over to book 2. This content is in a state of transition. The book is now availble on Amazon (includes extra chapters): https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B07W1534R8 Artificial intelligence was nearly mankind’s last invention. AI took off like a rocket, then when it racked up an impressive death toll, it crashed before it could blossom and took most high-tech industries with it. Resistance and fears became deep-set. Two decades after the infamous Rev. 4.6 incidents, humanity hasn’t quit dreaming of the wealth and power that could be at their fingertips. A new generation of mega-corporations rose from the ashes. When one melds a quantum computer to a barely functional mental patient as a PR move, there are those who seek to profit, those who want to destroy it, and Alex. Alex Sage is a typical college student trying to keep up his grades and maybe find a meaningful connection with the fairer sex. Then, an automated semi crashes into his home, killing his family and turning his head into a pin cushion in the process. Alex awakens to find most of his memories gone and an illegal AI hidden in his brain implant. Now the pet project of a tech billionaire and heavily in debt, Alex struggles to stay valuable enough to be kept online. Still grappling with the repercussions of his injuries, and threats from a dangerous anti-augmentation political movement, there are no easy answers and threats loom around every corner. Alex must use whatever resources he can to escape from under the thumb of a ruthless corporation, while keeping those he comes to love safe. Chapters will stay up on RRL until Aug 10. It'll go up on Kindle Unlimited after that. How do you get those extra chapters I didn't have planned for RR? If you want them, they'll be in the published book. Book 2 will still make sense without them - I made sure of that. But... isn't $3 a lot for extra chapters? Think of it as tipping me for a good job and you'd also be getting my eternal thanks. If you enjoyed it so much that the idea of missing out a few chapters haunts you, I did my job as an author and made an engaging story. What's in those extra chapters? Resolving a few issues, set up for the cybernetic revolution, a rather intense sex scene with a new partner, revelations of who's really pulling strings, and a bit of set up for book 2. Complaints that people missed out on it when it was published here won't help (sorry!). I posted this for the folks who helped me shape the book, which is you all! (Again, yay!) But... Why! Why not keep it all on RR forever? My editor likes being paid for one. For two, I'd like the ability to get broader readership. If I break even on editor costs, I'll be incredibly happy. What about book 2? Drafts for Book 2 will go up around Sept 10. My draft of Book 2 is done, and it will be handed to the editor once Book 1 is published. Feedback has been even more positive. Beta readers devoured it and wanted more. I'll add a link to Book 2 once it's up on RR. I'm more or less, using you all for Beta Readers, so you get it before it's "canon" and edited. I invite active and meaningful feedback during this process. In return, you get early access to chapters. That does mean that the book content or plot might be adjusted before it gets published as I refine it. Sex Y/N? Yes. I heard the feedback, 90% wanted it explicit. You all will get the "full" experience. Will I dump all of book 2 here? Honestly, I'm not sure yet. At a minimum, it'll be up to the 75% mark as we collect feedback, much like what I did with book 1. It really depends on how good the feedback is and how nice people are. Lots of support + meaningful feedback to make it better = higher likelihood you get all the book. Will be it up here indefinitely? No, it'll probably go up on KU at some point, but I'll make sure there's enough time for a large readership to grab it here. Then we move to book 3 which already is around 60K words already. What about other adventures in the same universe/characters? Yep. Absolutely. Nothing ready to share yet though. I plan to keep those side chapters and more slice of life stories as RR exclusive. Since I'm carving this off in book-sized segments, I'll have to figure out where those disconnected story arcs belong. I'm open to suggestions.
8 143 - In Serial36 Chapters
BASE Status: Online [An Unlikely Hero's Journey]
2042-04-02 The Next Generation VRMMORPG will be released: Helheim Fallen!Sign up NOW and win the chance to be a beta-tester! Willow's life hasn't been easy. She was diagnosed as autistic at a young age and she's been on the 'enough to survive' track for all her life. The only place she feels normal is when she plays VRMMORPGs on the BASE platform with her guild and close friends.That is, until her best friend Violet gets a beta-invite for the new VRMMORPG Helheim Fallen and suddenly disappears.Now, Willow has to follow the clues Violet left behind to find her and save her. Willow has to face her biggest fears and struggles and accidentally stumbles into a dark side of the BASE platform that she never realised existed.Can she save Violet before more people go missing?
8 164 - In Serial9 Chapters
Interface
Welcome to the World-City of Thousel, the sixth iteration of life on the planet. These are the recordings of the people of Thousel. Thousel is believed to be the second longest iteration of life, and the overall most prosperous compared to what we know about the past five iterations. Medicine and technology have all progressed abundantly, and the world itself has been turned into one great city, governed and managed by the Governmental-Company Alliance, or the GCA.These particular recordings concern the discovery of a peculiar machine. When two very different people find themselves bound by the fate of one mysterious bot, life in the World-City begins to change… Interface is a cyberpunk webnovel set in an ecumenopolis world where people evolved with electro-sensory abilities. These senses shape the face of modern technology and life in a world where the three largest corporations run what has effectively become the government. Each of these three companies control various aspects of life in the city, and they all constantly vie for domain and power over one another.The world stands at the precipice of biological, technological, and historical breakthrough. After decades of study into microbiology, archaeology, and geology, it has been discovered that sentient life has lived on the planet multiple times over. These past peoples are referred to as the “prior iterations of life,” and it is believed that five great civilizations were constructed before the rise of the modern world. No one can be sure for certain what caused these peoples’ extinction long ago, and the theories range from simply dying off over time to massive tectonic fractures in the face of the planet. Advanced technology, far more complicated than anything the people possess today, has been uncovered in multiple locations. This has lead scholars to speculate on exactly how long each iteration of life survived and how far they progressed as a society. None of the companies have been able to find a way to make this ancient technology work for their own profit. It is as though they are each missing the final key needed to unlock these centuries old secrets. What could this knowledge reveal about the nature of life across every iteration? What power could it give to the one who wields it?Far from the investigation into the origin of life, two kids unlock a new mystery – one that ties their fates to the discovery of an old, mysterious robot. Suddenly, eyes begin to turn towards them as life in the city of Thousel changes wherever they go…
8 111 - In Serial21 Chapters
Draconic Transcendence: Cinders and Ashes
In the world of Aesir, there lies magic and beasts, gods and heroes. A world amongst many. In a particular era of prosperity, there lies the Apollyn Empire, a large Empire stretching across most of the western continent, and the most powerful nation in the world. It is during an age where Humanity turns away from the Gods, turning from Faith to Science. From this viewpoint, magitech exists, miraculous inventions that make life easier than before. But the world is vast, and filled with myths. Legends point to a select few individuals, who throughout history are born from magic alone, and gifted with immense power. All are destined for tragedy, however, and to wreak chaos. With power surpassing that of the Gods and Dragons, it is they who have been behind nearly all the major calamities of the world; these are beings known as "Harbingers". In the slums of Harlup, Capital of Apollyn, a young girl is found in the ashes of a burnt building, and adopted by a homeless woman searching for something of value. Raised from the ground up, and evemtually finding her way to the Gran Sars, an organization of magicians dedicated to war magic, she will rise through the ranks with her partner, and eventually discover that she too, is destined for tragedy. Her path forced by the Gods, she must fight to save the ones she loves, and at the same time face her destiny, and surpass it. Because if she does not, the world will burn, and all she knows and loves will crumble to cinders and ashes.
8 167 - In Serial31 Chapters
Out of Place
TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE, SELF HARM, AND VIOLENCEHave you ever been out of place?Well, what happens when you spend your whole life trying to get back in place, only to realize that you don't even know where your place is anymore? Do you find a new place? Or continue searching for your original place forever?And what happens if you have no place at all? What then?Contains DimentioXMr.LSome characters and ideas belong to @LuigiDaisy2 and @SilverStarWarrior
8 225 - In Serial18 Chapters
I'm in Lesbians with You (momoJiro)
Jiro is a raging homo, everyone knows and are all accepting of her. She always knew she had some sort of feeling for her black haired friend, but she realizes just how bad it is when her crush cuts contact over a stupid boy. ••••••Momo is a lesbian, nobody knows and she plans to keep it that way. When she realizes herself falling for her purple haired friend she scrambles to distract herself. Her real feelings come rushing out when she finds her best friend hurt and finds out why.
8 148

