The Perfect Path and the Immortal Seed

Hearing Sister Mengmeng's words, Shi Tiexin's heart tightened, though he also seemed to grasp something.

Sister Mengmeng looked Shi Tiexin straight in the eye and continued solemnly, "Any sword that has never seen blood is merely decoration, a toy. Only when blood unseals it does it become a true weapon. And this is, in fact, the most important rule."

"In the age before the Time-Space Sage emerged, martial artists fought with their lives on the line. At best, they would be left with torn flesh and bleeding wounds; at worst, severed limbs and crippling injuries; in the gravest cases, they died on the spot."

"Compared with today, martial artists of that era had relatively backward cultivation theories and insufficient understanding of the foundations and the chime of the Bell of Heaven. Yet their actual combat strength was formidable. Especially during the Sharp Will stage, a martial artist who had never rung the Bell of Heaven could even forcefully break through their limits with invincible Sharp Will, attain Ultimate Hardness, defy fate, and gain the qualifications to advance to higher realms."

"Though that generation was sparse in talent by sheer numbers, anyone who reached a certain height had walked there over bloody footprints, true battle-hardened killers. In duels between those of the same realm, modern martial artists would almost certainly be unable to defeat that generation."

"Because in a true fight to the death, both sides wagered everything on their martial arts. That feeling was something one could never fully experience in battles within secret realms."

"And precisely because this process is missing, although more and more people are ringing the Bell of Heaven now, those reaching seven rings or above are gradually becoming fewer. As for nine bell rings, Sharp Will with flaws could never achieve it no matter what.