บท 50: 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 his Agile Sword Arts, this was to be expected. The Agile Sword Art 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 Art. 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 Art was split into five stages, but this didn't mean that it was better than the three stage Agile Sword Arts. The Falling Leaf Strike Art 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 any 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 which he had 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 Innate Qi, but of course, Yaan could not use Innate Qi. He made up for his weaknesses with his nimble reflexes and flexible body to perform the movements fluidly. He was also able to use 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 Innate Qi!
Perhaps this shock made him forget that he ended up mastering the first two stages of this art in under one month. This was a shocking feat, though Yaan was yet to truly understands just how shocking this rate of comprehension really was.
He didn't continue with this sword art since he had mastered the two stages in his possession already
Instead, he moved onto the next art.
The next art was 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, called the Synchronised Pierce Art , 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 the Air Blade Shield Art.
This art was again very different, it was 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. In fact, Yaan spent two months just on this. By the end of this period of training, he 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 came the water element sword art, called the Flowing River Blade 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 after mastering 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 unfortunately, he didn't possess the complete third stage. Still, he continued practising the third stage, working his way towards mastery. However, he eventually realised that without the complete third stage, 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 cultivate his Vital Energy using various energy dense pills. He also didn't neglect his job in the least, since his cultivation had an endless need for money.
Yaan enjoyed the Flowing River Blade Art. The practitioner needed to 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 principles 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 though, because this sword art only existed as a single stage. It was extremely simple, yet also quite incredible and difficult to comprehend.
Like the Falling Leaf Strike Art, the body needed to move gently, seemingly without intent, yet with clear purpose at the same time. Like the Synchronised Pierce Art, the blade needed to strike in multiple places, even multiple directions, all at once. As with the Air Blade Shield Art, this sword art covered the user in a sort of defensive layer, a typhoon formed only by the sword itself, a sword which moved like a scythe in the violent wind.
The typhoon was a natural disaster of wind and rain at sea. It was 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 cultivators flocked from far and wide.
Everyone had different reasons for visiting North Ghu City in this period of time. Some just wanted to watch this mysterious place open, others intended to test their luck by diving into the inheritance, whilst there were many sects and elders who wanted to send in their juniors as a tempering experience.
Now that they only had one year remaining to prepare for the expedition, 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, he also wanted to focus on his training during this year. His current quota of deliveries was still earning him a good sum of money, so he was able to maintain his training's high expenditure.
Well, the amount that 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 shop as an assistant, then meeting Ghu Nadda and connecting over their shared demonic race difficulties, then it would have been impossible to increase his 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.
He decided that it would be best to take that jump soon.
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