This sword strike.
It held the insights of a full two thousand years.
It seemed to carry only the frail aura of the Mortal World, yet it was vast and boundless, enough to make even a Nascent Soul Peak Stage cultivator blanch.
Li Chang'an sheathed his sword and stood atop the mountain, lost in thought for a long while.
He had a faint sense that, after creating this strike, he had set foot on a path different from every other cultivator's.
"This strike is still only a rough form. I can keep refining it."
As he envisioned it,
the true Return-to-Mortal Sword could cast immortals down into the mortal dust.
His current sword technique was far too immature, nowhere near the state he imagined.
"Once this is over, I'll send out a few Clones to walk the Mortal World and gain a deeper understanding of its aura."
Li Chang'an made his decision then and there.
Now that he had begun forging this path of his own, he could not let it end lightly.
He gathered his thoughts and headed to the Sword Study Hall to honor their thousand-year appointment.
Before long,
he reunited with Zhang Hongzheng and Kong Feilan at the Academy.
Over those thousand years, both had refined their paths and created a technique of their own.
Zhang Hongzheng said, "My technique concerns strength."
He told Li Chang'an that his method was to layer strength upon strength, carve a path by force, and ultimately rival Spells.
He had named this technique Mountain-Splitting Fist.
As for Kong Feilan,
her path resembled Zhang Hongzheng's, yet differed from it.
She, too, amassed strength, but pure force did not satisfy her. She drew in a hundred rivers like the sea, fused the Martial Dao of countless schools, and combined myriad forms of power