Cultivating Swordplay

Siguo Cliff.

When Wang Ming came, he brought a large amount of medicinal herbs. He was currently the manager of Mount Hua, so naturally no one managed him.

He stayed on Siguo Cliff for half a month, and the herbs were almost exhausted, but the gratifying thing was that the Primal Chaos Technique had already reached Great Accomplishment.

The Indestructible Vajra Body had also been cultivated to the sixth layer.

Although the Indestructible Vajra Body was only at the sixth layer, Wang Ming found that it was even more formidable than the Primal Chaos Technique at Great Accomplishment.

This was not surprising; the name of the Primal Chaos Technique sounded very impressive, but in this era it was actually quite mediocre.

Anyone who purely cultivated the Primal Chaos Technique to the realm of Great Accomplishment was simply courting death if they provoked any sect leader of the Five Peaks Swordplay.

This era was definitely not the era of Yuan Chengzhi; even the Purple Haze Divine Skill, which was much more powerful than the Primal Chaos Technique, could not reign supreme in this world.

Let alone a mere Primal Chaos Technique?

The reason the Indestructible Vajra Body could be cultivated so quickly was thanks to the fact that the meridians and acupoints of the two martial arts overlapped in part, which also saved Wang Ming a lot of effort.

This realm was actually largely the same, both involving the unblocking of certain meridians in the body.

Wang Ming got up from the stone platform and walked to the side, found a stone weighing more than three hundred catties, and hoisted it up in one fell motion.

Sure enough, the Primal Chaos Technique can enhance some human physical strength.

Wang Ming put down the stone, clearly feeling that carrying it was much easier than before.

The Primal Chaos Technique had reached Great Accomplishment, and Wang Ming wanted to continue cultivating the Indestructible Vajra Body.

Unfortunately,

after the sixth layer, half a month of cultivation yielded zero progress.

Instead, the medicinal herbs had been completely consumed.

Although there were still herbs in the Mount Hua medicine storehouse, judging from the progress of this martial art, emptying the entire Mount Hua storehouse would not be enough to break through to the next layer of cultivation.

Thud!

Thud!

Clang clang!!

Wang Ming was practicing swordplay inside the cave on Siguo Cliff, sword qi continuously radiating from the body of his sword.

The sword qi blasted against the stone wall, leaving a shallow mark before dissipating into nothingness.

Actually, Wang Ming was not practicing swordplay, but rather searching for the tunnel excavated by that Sun Moon Divine Cult elder.

Crack!

A blast of sword qi struck a very thin stone wall and instantly penetrated straight through it.

A look of puzzlement immediately appeared on Wang Ming's face, and then, as if he genuinely did not know there was something inside, he walked over, used his hand to widen the opening, and went to light a torch, preparing to enter.

All of this was done very slowly and calmly, without the slightest trace of urgency.

Because...

Wang Ming had not actually come for the sword moves inside the cave, but for the Nine Swords of Dugu.

Everything he did was simply to lure out the old man.

After lingering for a long time without seeing the ethereal, white-browed and white-bearded senior who bestowed martial arts appear, Wang Ming had no choice but to enter the cave.

Inside the cave, besides sword techniques, there were also various engraved curses calling the Five Peaks Swordplay despicable and shameless.

Are they out of their minds? With so many people, instead of exerting full effort to hack away at the stone wall, they spent a massive amount of energy deducing the Five Peaks Swordplay. With that kind of effort, they could have gotten out long ago, Wang Ming could not help muttering to himself.

It was clearly visible that only a single person using an axe had been hacking at the mountain wall, while the other nine had simply given up and lazed around.

On the stone wall, it was clearly engraved that so-and-so broke such-and-such mountain swordplay right here, and a skeleton lay on the ground below.

Could it be that he wanted to write his own epitaph before he died?

Wang Ming did not delve further into the matter, turning his head to look at the sword moves on the wall to memorize them with his heart.

The Smiling, Proud Wanderer World.

Sword techniques and moves could be said to have reached their peak; this was a world of deformed development.

In this realm, cultivating internal energy was many times more difficult than in The First Under Heaven World, and very few people were able to project their internal energy outside their bodies.

Anyone capable of externalizing their internal energy was an expert, and the majority of them were sect leaders.

Because internal energy cultivation was difficult, everyone spent a great deal of energy studying moves.

Furthermore, this world possessed a supreme martial art consisting purely of sword moves—the Nine Swords of Dugu.

Linghu Chong was able to pierce the eyes of first-rate experts even without internal energy, which showed its formidable power.

The sword techniques of the various Five Peaks sects were not entirely useless either; they could deepen Wang Ming's martial arts accumulation and foundation.

Anyone who jumped straight to defeating form with form was just setting a trap; everything had a process.

If Linghu Chong had not witnessed these sword techniques and the Nine Swords of Dugu, his formless state would not have been of much use either.

Realms required things to accumulate; otherwise, they were empty.

Modern people all knew Dugu Qiubai's epitaph, but who could actually execute it?

Wang Ming practiced the Five Peaks Swordplay on the platform in front of the cave on Siguo Cliff, gradually understanding the characteristics of these sword techniques.

The Mount Song Swordplay had sword qi as solemn as a thousand armies galloping forward, carrying long spears, great halberds, and a thousand miles of yellow sand.

The Mount Heng Swordplay was meticulous and rigorous, excelling at defense, yet often erupting with a killing move at the most unexpected moments. It was rich in meticulousness but lacking in ferocity, making it a martial art precisely suited for women to wield.

The Mount Tai Swordplay was heavy, steady, strict, and disciplined. The Mount Tai "Eighteen Bends" grew higher the further one went, and more perilous the further one walked; this set of sword moves also grew increasingly ruthless as they spun faster.

The Mount Hengshan Swordplay was agile, unfathomable, and shifted like a phantom. Watching the sequence of sword moves transform endlessly, if one had not seen it with their own eyes, they truly would not believe there could be such bizarrely changing sword moves in this world.

Mount Hua Sect truly deserved its reputation in the past as the sect from which the Sword Sect branched off, possessing a considerable variety of sword techniques. Moreover, each sword technique had its own distinct characteristics.

The Morning Sun Qi Sword was grand and upright, using Qi to suppress people; the Nurture My Swordplay was round on the outside and square on the inside, combining both offense and defense; the Xiyi Swordplay was silent and soundless, inflicting bizarre and insidious harm.

As for the decoded moves left by the Cult elder, Wang Ming only practiced them simply; as long as they were usable, he left it at that. Those moves were all scattered and lacked a system; apart from dealing with the Five Peaks Swordplay, they did not have much utility. The moves lacked continuity and transformation, making them similar to calisthenics.

These sword techniques could be considered treasures of this world, vastly enriching Wang Ming's knowledge base. In Wang Ming's view, the learning process of swordplay should go from simple to complex, and then from complex to simple.

Having acquired these five sword techniques, Wang Ming could be considered to have progressed from simple to complex. Once he integrated the Five Peaks Swordplay into a single sword technique one day, his mastery of the sword path would truly have entered the threshold.

Wang Ming stopped his cultivation and looked at the distant clouds and rosy mists drifting with the wind.

Ever since he discovered the secret cave containing the Five Peaks Swordplay, two months had passed, and he had practiced swordsmanship on this mountain every single day.

The footprints left on the fine ash scattered at the cave entrance were most likely left by Feng Qingyang; I imagine he also saw the sword moves inside the cave, Wang Ming thought to himself as he looked at the fine iron sword in his hand.

Wang Ming shook his head and sighed inwardly: It seems my plan to deliberately practice swordsmanship here for half a month to lure out Feng Qingyang and freeload a top-tier sword manual has failed.

Having been on Mount Hua for so many years, he had only now come up to search for the sword techniques left by these Cult elders.

First, he did not lack martial arts to practice at all. Second, it was difficult to keep secret and could easily bring trouble to Mount Hua.

That was why he had delayed opening the cave until now.

To be honest,

although the sword moves of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer World had indeed developed to the pinnacle of Jin Yong's wuxia, Wang Ming did not hold the Five Peaks Swordplay in high regard.

Aside from enriching his own accumulation of swordsmanship, the utility of these sword techniques was basically zero.

To put it bluntly, once he cultivated the Indestructible Vajra Body, all the Five Peaks sects combined would be unable to do anything to him.

The moves of the Five Peaks Swordplay were indeed exquisitely peerless, and their utilization rate of internal energy was also extremely high, but they were not what Wang Ming pursued.

The martial arts of this era basically studied how to use less internal energy and how to accomplish more with the bare minimum of internal energy, which correspondingly lowered their destructive power.

It was like the two directions of pursuing low fuel efficiency in automobiles versus high performance in automobiles.

Wang Ming would not be confined to this world; he simply did not need to deliberately pursue the conservation of internal force.

This kind of martial art became utterly powerless when encountering someone with formidable internal energy.

The truly formidable sword techniques in this realm numbered only three: Tai Chi Swordplay, Evil Warding Swordplay, and the Nine Swords of Dugu.

The Tai Chi Swordplay was created by Zhang Sanfeng of Wudang; it was easy to learn but hard to master, and its deeper layers were tied to Daoist philosophy—fail to comprehend it, and it was merely an ordinary sword technique.

The Evil Warding Swordplay demanded a somewhat steep price, and most terrifyingly, it altered the cultivator's personality and willpower, which was horrifying. Guihai Yidao's Hegemon Under Heaven drove people to madness, and you could feel your own abnormality. The Bixie Sword Manual was a subtle, imperceptible change, making one become the exact opposite of their original personality while making them feel that this was even better.

The Nine Swords of Dugu was the one Wang Ming cared about in particular; it was simply the absolute ceiling of sword moves. Once one mastered this sword technique, the flaws in all moves could be perceived.

In Wang Ming's view, rather than calling the Nine Swords of Dugu a set of sword techniques, it was better to call it a formula. A formula used to calculate and analyze the attack trajectories and defensive flaws of various weapons.

The Nine Swords of Dugu itself contained no moves whatsoever; the martial art itself emphasized the realm of formlessness.

In The Smiling Wanderer world, aside from Yu Canghai, not many people actually cared about the Evil Warding Swordplay, but why did so many people fight over it later on?

It became a coveted treasure because of Linghu Chong!

Relying on the Nine Swords of Dugu, Linghu Chong fought across the pugilistic world without a single match, turning the gazes of the entire martial arts world toward him.

Yet...

to outsiders, the Nine Swords of Dugu looked like nothing more than simple, basic sword strokes that happened to strike right at the opponent's flaws.

Throughout the entire pugilistic world, only Chongxu recognized the Nine Swords of Dugu, while everyone else shouted, "Evil Warding Swordplay!"

One could well imagine the extraordinary nature of this sword technique.

Knowing his plan had failed, Wang Ming thought to himself: Come to think of it, Feng Qingyang and the Qi Sect were sworn enemies to begin with, and their philosophies did not align; how could he possibly come out so easily to teach me?

Linghu Chong's case was purely protagonist halo; otherwise, why would Feng Qingyang, who sat by and watched Mount Hua decline for decades without lifting a finger, suddenly emerge to teach swordplay to Linghu Chong, a disciple of the Qi Sect?

The cave on Siguo Cliff had already been restored to its original state by Wang Ming. He cast one final backward glance at the surrounding environment outside the cave, and still saw not a single trace of any person.

Indeed, if a person is born ugly, they shouldn't indulge in overly pretty fantasies.

With no further hesitation, he walked straight down Siguo Cliff.

Writing a book for the very first time, the favorites and recommendation tickets from all my brothers are my greatest encouragement. Thank you everyone.