This was the Tidal Force Sword Art, which had slain countless high-grade Wraiths and made its name famous across the True Spirit Continent. Just because it required one to remain chaste in order to practice it, she refused to learn it?
Chuyan finally understood. This was a man even more lustful than her late father and brothers who had died in court ladies' beds!
Back in their youth, her father and brothers had also been upright gentlemen single-mindedly pursuing the Dao and guarding their chastity. Later, realizing they simply lacked that talent, coupled with poor governance during the Dharma Ending Era, their ideals ultimately collapsed, leading them to indulge in sensual pleasures and die in women's beds.
This fellow possessed peerless talent and an invincible physique, yet simply because he lusted after women's bodies, he actually rejected the legendary Tidal Force Sword Art...
Chuyan's eye twitched slightly, her forehead traced with dark lines.
She always had the feeling that her chastity would sooner or later be lost to this bastard.
Heh, greedy for wealth and lustful, lacking in skill and learning, just wait for Grandmaster to scold you to death!
However, Lingzhou Yue did not scold anyone.
She merely shook her head with a gentle smile, her sword-like eyes holding a glimmer as she cast a faint look at Xiao Ran, then tilted her head back to take a gulp of wine and turned toward the sword bamboo grove.
"You'd better not regret this."
Xiao Ran was not truly lustful; it was simply that the Tidal Force Sword Art did not suit him, and Master's remark had merely been her teasing him on purpose.
Women are made of water—you could tell just from the name. The Tidal Force Sword Art could only be practiced by women, and if a man practiced it, he would surely suffer from kidney deficiency.
In fact, Xiao Ran had just taken a look, and the system shop did contain an entry for the Tidal Force Sword Art, though it remained in a sealed state and could not be purchased.
Its brief description only mentioned that this sword art required women with a special physique to practice, but placed no restrictions on whether the practitioner remained chaste.
His master was truly crafty! At the same time, Xiao Ran realized that his master was by no means some kaleidoscope of the sword arts who knew every single sword technique—especially low-tier cultivation methods, of which she didn't know a single one.
Coupled with her excessively high talent and lack of detailed practical experience in learning, she could hardly be considered a good teacher, which explained why she had taken on no disciples for so many years.
Fortunately, as far as Xiao Ran was concerned, he didn't need his master to teach him anything; as long as she could produce wool for him to shear, that was enough.
Xiao Ran flipped through the system shop. A dazzling array of sword arts met his eye, but as long as they reached the Yellow-tier, their prices were all calculated in thousands of Filial Piety Points.
Profound-tier and Heaven Tier sword arts were entirely sealed.
Anything he could actually afford was utter trash.
What was a lifebound sword art?
It required the swordsman's physique, temperament, sword, and sword art to share the exact same rhythm, achieving the realm of a four-in-one unity of man and sword.
What was Xiao Ran's physique? A balanced five-elements endowment, the constitution of a heavenly cripple.
Immortal cultivation was a heterodox, heaven-defying endeavor.
Among the five elemental affinities of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, one had to be particularly prominent in order to siphon and draw in spiritual power through it, thereby constructing the Qi sea and Dantian.
To give an example.
Suppose a person's total talent score was identical (though in reality they weren't entirely uniform, the gap among humans was relatively small), valued at 100 points.
If a single one of the five elements reached 60 points, one could practice Qi and become a cultivator. Even if the remaining four elements combined added up to only 40 points, it didn't matter; after Qi Refining, one could use spiritual energy to nourish the body in reverse and maintain physical balance.
Xiao Ran's balanced five-elements endowment meant all five elements stood at 20 points, far below the passing line. As far as immortal cultivation went, this was considered the constitution of a heavenly cripple.
Yet being crippled to the extreme could also count as a form of talent.
A perfect balanced five-elements endowment granted a profound comprehension of the Dao following nature, the harmony of all things, and the blending of Yin and Yang, making one's Dao heart exceptionally clear and steadfast.
At the same time, the physical limit for body-tempering was extremely robust. Especially when defending, he could evenly distribute any attack across all five elements, granting his physical body and Dantian extremely high resistance.
This was why Xiao Ran had been able to withstand Ye Fan's Underworld Fist head-on with a mortal body combined with Resonance Power, remaining completely unharmed.
This extended beyond mere defense. In Xiao Ran's view, the balanced five-elements endowment was equivalent to having a large radar surface area and a wide frequency spectrum. Coupled with the Art of Resonance, it allowed him to listen to the myriad things, subsequently modulating spiritual pressures of various spiritual frequencies to resonate with all creation and unleash stacked critical strikes.
Thinking of this, Xiao Ran suddenly realized that when his master said on the first day that she possessed the cultivation method best suited for practicing the balanced five-elements endowment...
It had actually been true! Was she truly possessing great wisdom under a foolish exterior? Or was there an arrangement of providence in the dark?
His master's Tidal Force drew upon the spiritual power and gravitational pull of the moon, pushing this heterodox path to its ultimate limit.
And according to legends on the True Spirit Continent, the moon was where immortals dwelt.
The Tidal Physique could be considered a certain kind of Immortal Body.
Meanwhile, the Resonance Power of the perfect balanced endowment listened to all things and peered into the laws of the Great Dao, treading the path toward divinity.
Theoretically, Resonance Power was of an even higher tier!
This meant he had no need to search for any other more suitable sword art.
Such was his physique.
Next came temperament.
Xiao Ran disliked the sneaky, turtling persona of those hiding in the shadows to grow strong; instead, he relied on the system, actively engaging with the world and taking the initiative to strike.
A time-traveler knew no fear. Xiao Ran liked to omit all foreplay and drive the progress bar straight to the driving stage... never dragging his feet or missing a tactical window of opportunity.
For instance, on his very first day in the sect, the moment he acquired the system, he immediately ran experiments on his master rather than waiting a few days to get along and figure out her temperament before quietly practicing filial piety.
This was the Dharma Ending Era; everyone was busy and lacked the time to dawdle.
She was the one who chose you in the first place, not you choosing her—what was there to be timid about?
After unearthing his first pot of gold from his master, he didn't wait until the next day to continue his experiments, but instead ran off to the outer sect that very afternoon to engage in architectural design, rapidly rolling his money into more money.
On the second day, when Chuyan came knocking looking for trouble, he defended and counterattacked, utilizing her infatuation with his master to forcibly take her on as a tool apprentice, thereby increasing his efficiency at shearing wool in the future.
On the third day, the moment his master left, he immediately headed to the Main Peak Sword Terrace to accept disciple challenges, rather than waiting until he had developed absolute certainty of crushing the entire field.
The Dharma Ending Era was a turbulent epoch of surging winds and rising clouds where opportunities vanished in the blink of an eye. By the time you prepared yourself to a state of perfection, the opportunity would already have been snatched away by those bold enough to strike.
Zongzhi Mountain right now was a large greenhouse suited for development, but as the sect leader was about to undergo his heavenly tribulation, this state of affairs would not last much longer.
This was also why Xiao Ran resolutely refused to exchange for skills until the very last moment—opportunity was accompanied by danger, even mortal danger. Sufficient Filial Piety Points could be exchanged for blood bags, which served as his ultimate safeguard for preserving his life.
Xiao Ran felt that his personality did not actually suit practicing the Art of Resonance, but he didn't need it to suit him.
The system had allowed him to learn it with a single click!
Once learned, the Art of Resonance provided a second layer of safeguard outside the system regarding Xiao Ran's style of conduct.
It was precisely with the dual safeguards of the system and the Art of Resonance that Xiao Ran had been able to forcefully masquerade as an unfathomably aloof and cold-faced figure during the disciple challenges.
Then came the sword technique.
The Resonance Sword Art was merely Xiao Ran's term for it; its essence was the application of the Art of Resonance.
Using low spiritual power to resonate with all things, he layered acceleration and force, ultimately resonating with the enemy's very core to achieve the subtle force of deflecting a thousand catties with four ounces.
Once wielded with proficiency, there was nothing that could not be severed. It could well be considered a god-tier technique that surpassed realms, fully worthy of a time-traveler's cheat identity.
Finally, the sword.
To match the Resonance Sword Art, he needed a sword that appeared utterly unremarkable and mediocre in spiritual sharpness, yet possessed extremely high resilience and unyielding tenacity, blending naturally with the Dao.
Such swords should be few and far between, and whether the Sword Tomb contained one was anyone's guess.
Xiao Ran felt that before the Sword Inheritance Assembly, it was necessary to make a trip to Sword-Tempering Mountain and ask True Person Moxia whether the Sword Tomb possessed any similar ancient swords.
If there was no such sword, inheritance of the sword was out of the question! He would have to plot another path in advance.
Having determined the Resonance Sword Art, Xiao Ran checked his system panel.
Filial Piety Points: 88!
As for the target of the next stage—
Foundation Establishment Cultivation Package: 1000 Filial Piety Points!
A despair-inducing number.
It seemed that a balanced five-elements endowment truly was difficult to advance. Even with the system, it remained hard!
Xiao Ran momentarily lost his small goal until he once again pulled out the original fragmentary text of the Art of Resonance.
The system responded immediately! Detected Heaven Tier cultivation method—Fragment of Myriad Resonance. In view of the fact that the host has already learned the mortal version of this cultivation method and simultaneously stepped into the Qi Refining Realm, expending an additional 100 Filial Piety Points will allow an upgrade from the mortal version to the spiritual power version.
There was even a second-tier spiritual power version? Only then did Xiao Ran recall that the Art of Resonance he had purchased back then had merely been of mortal grade!
There was a second-tier resonance even more suited for practitioners!
There was even a third-tier, which required the host to reach the emergence state beyond Mahayana before it could be purchased. He reckoned that buying the third-tier resonance would mean slaughtering immortals and gods all the way...
Wuhu!
Xiao Ran thought to himself that without the fragmentary cultivation method given by his master, this thing would probably cost hundreds of millions of Filial Piety Points! Even without the system, a master like this was well worth sucking up to.
Xiao Ran's filial piety surged uncontrollably, and he grew eager to go perform some filial deeds.
nearby.
Chuyan, kneeling on the rush mat with her legs pressed together, saw that Xiao Ran had remained silent for a long time as if plotting some obscene matter, and could not help asking with revulsion:
"What kind of sword art is this Resonance Sword Art anyway?"
Xiao Ran snapped out of it and thought for a moment.
"That night, you experienced it."
Chuyan was dumbfounded, taking a long time to recover her wits.
"If you speak vulgarities, I'm going to go tell Grandmaster."
Xiao Ran said faintly, "That night the setting sun was like blood, and a certain young maiden was pressed to her knees on the ground by a single finger of mine. That single finger was the power of resonance... The so-called Resonance Sword Art is merely the expanded application of Resonance Power."
Only then did Chuyan unseal her memories, recalling the humiliation of that time as well as the conditions she had proposed back then.
Her pure pupils flashed with a trace of pleasure akin to the watery resonance she shared with Grandmaster.
"I want to learn it too!"
Xiao Ran stood up and patted her adorably styled, exquisite dog head.
"You aren't useless enough; you can't learn it."
Before you continue