Demon Sword Sect's Undercover-Chapter 764 - 763: The Dream of the Flying Sword

Hou Niao had not overlooked this point, he was just treating the idea as a last resort.

It wasn’t because he didn’t value the blind elder’s suggestion, but the blind elder had never pointed out a specific path for his cultivation. Whenever they met, the elder would only speak of high-sounding principles and enigmatic strategies. Though they sounded impressive, they were essentially intangible and of no practical significance.

Therefore, he subconsciously put it last because this approach was uncontrollable in terms of time.

The advice from Bai Niangzi came at a timely moment because he was currently trapped in a dilemma, encountering trouble in the re-forging of his flying sword.

The choice to destroy the flying sword was both a reluctant and deliberate one.

Reluctantly, because he was bound to be punished; relatively speaking, it was easier to recover lost cultivation, it was just a matter of time, an exercise of grinding water; for most other cultivators, this would probably be the chosen method.

But he particularly disliked this passive way of wasting time. He preferred to take the initiative and seek change. Considering he was dissatisfied with his own flying sword skill and after countless minor adjustments and patch-ups, he had realized there were systematic flaws in his sword skill that couldn’t be resolved by mere patchwork. Thus, he seized the opportunity to start afresh.

It wasn’t about reconstructing the system, but about re-building the flying sword from scratch.

Re-forging the flying sword was not an easy decision to make. Wu Ming had been with him for decades and had become part of him. How could he easily give it up? Not to mention he didn’t have a feasible plan; even if he did, it would have been incredibly difficult to overcome the emotional barrier.

Over the years, he had always been in such an anxious state, unable to make up his mind. Moreover, as the time when the Spiritual Green fell from outer space drew near, he found it even harder to start from scratch. There wasn’t enough time. Should he risk his own destruction?

When hesitation and time became intertwined, the only outcome was more hesitation until fate gave him a forced choice at the Shan Sect annual conference. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

Two factors compelled him to take the risk: the punishment he could not escape and the alternative way of manipulating the flying sword he observed in Duan Wuqian.

At this point, there was no room to back down. With his personality, he would never choose to live meekly. He could only burn bright and so Bai Niangzi was right, he had long placed himself in a do-or-die, cornered battle.

In the Sword Dao, he was not the sole prodigy. At least, Duan Wuqian was no worse than him. Whether there were others in the Shan Sect was hard to say, but one fact was clear—he was not the only one dissatisfied with the existing sword skill system. Many fellow practitioners were also striving quietly; they just hadn’t achieved any results yet.

His direction of change lay in the Body Sword Skill, while Duan Wuqian’s focus was on the depth of the Flying Sword Skill. That was the difference between them, complementary.

He envied Duan Wuqian’s breakthrough in the flying sword skill, and likewise, Duan Wuqian coveted his innovations in the body sword skill... In theory, becoming friends and together elevating the Quanzhen Sword Dao to a new level would have been the perfect outcome, but...

They both didn’t hesitate to wish to kill each other, then seize the other’s abilities for themselves!

The difference between ideal cultivation and the reality of cultivation was just that vast.

So, some things were actually predestined, for the essence of the sword is supremacy. The very first ’forward’ character in the Body Sword Technique spelled out this truth clearly to him.

Forward means there is no one to stand side-by-side!

Duan Wuqian had multiple flying swords, a fact that was limitedly circulated within a very small core circle of the Shan Sect. For instance, Li Chuping knew that he had three flying swords, which was not entirely accurate, as Duan Wuqian in fact had five.

Only when Hou Niao truly encountered this person did he realize that the so-called five flying swords were merely a deceptive illusion, seeming to be five but actually there was only one!

These were not five physical swords, rather they were Five Paths of Sword Qi.

To be precise, he was able to divide his Sword Light five times!

He didn’t know how this guy managed to do it or how he had kept it a secret, but this ability was one he coveted deeply.

If it was just a matter of brute strength, using a massive amount of resources to produce five Flying Swords, he wouldn’t envy that; but if he could perform Sword Light Division now, he would be immensely envious.

Because the essence had changed, and that was the transformation he most looked forward to.

When facing Sword Three in the Soul Realm, the opponent’s Sword Light Division caused him indescribable suffering, leaving him battered and bruised.

He had always been thinking, was Sword Light Division the exclusive privilege of Upper Cultivators in Great Cultivation? Why was the Sword Light Division by the Upper Cultivators in Great Cultivation of Quanzhen Sect completely different from Sword Three’s in the Soul Realm? It seemed like they were not even the same concept.

Within the Sect, he had also witnessed the Flying Sword Skill of Upper Cultivators with Golden Core strength, with Yu Zhengxing and Li Chuping being among the most reticent to demonstrate their swordsmanship in front of him.

Yu Zhengxing could divide his sword into six rays of Sword Light, while Li Chuping could divide into seven; he was uncertain if this was their limit, but even if they had reservations, it likely wouldn’t exceed ten; this was basically the peak for Golden Core Sword Cultivators.

They said that Masters undergoing Nascent Transformation could divide their Sword Light into many more rays, usually in the dozens. Among the current Nascent Transformation Masters of Quanzhen Sect, it seemed that Master Hai was the most accomplished; ten years ago during a sword demonstration, he achieved sixty-seven rays, with the separation and rejoining of the rays being incredibly sharp. Whether that was their limit or if they had more concealed abilities was another matter.

In the history of Quanzhen Sect, the highest recorded division of Sword Light by a Master undergoing Nascent Transformation was ninety-seven rays, and no one had yet surpassed one hundred layers. This was the peak, the ceiling of the Quanzhen Sword Skills in Shan Sect.

If he followed the same growth path as ordinary Sword Cultivators, such a future was worth looking forward to—from being unable to divide the sword in the three realms of Tongtian to dividing it into several rays in the Golden Core Realm and then to dividing into dozens of rays in the Nascent Transformation Realm. This represented the power progression of a Sword Cultivator, with the unfolding of a hundred rays of Sword Light being immensely powerful and alluring.

But the problem was that Sword Three, whom he had observed in the Soul Realm, could effortlessly perform Sword Light Division into thousands or even tens of thousands of rays, and it was obvious that because his opponent was insufficient, Sword Three had not even used all their abilities!

This was not just a difference in magnitude; it was a fundamental quality difference. It could only mean one thing: the practice of Sword Light Division by Quanzhen Sect and Sword Three were not even on the same wavelength.

They were two different things!

The very thought of a Sword Cultivator soaring into the sky, with tens or hundreds of thousands of rays of Sword Light bursting forth, filled him with such excitement he could hardly contain himself. Then, turning his gaze back to the path of Quanzhen Sect, he felt a sense of uselessness.

This was why, no matter how he arranged his Sword Skill System, he would never abandon the Flying Sword Skill!

His Sword Holding Skill had no issue, even when facing Sword Three in battle, it was not much inferior.

His Body Sword Skill was also without issue. It was true that he was not as skilled as Sword Three, but he was on the correct path—the difference was that his Sword Momentum was not yet fully realized, having mastered only three of the nine sets of Body Sword Technique, leaving him immense room for improvement.

But his Flying Sword Skill had real issues, not minor ones. Could it be that he was wrong from the start?

This was the reason he would rather destroy his sword and start all over again!

The Three Sword States had a fatal flaw when compared to the Flying Sword State. Perhaps this would not stand out in the Cultivation World of Jinxiu Continent, but what if faced with outsiders from Outer Space?

As a Sword Cultivator, he could not allow such a significant flaw in his Sword Skill System.