The room was so quiet that a needle dropping could be heard, yet in this utterly silent environment, Qin Ming inexplicably heard whispering by his ear, as if it were right beside him.
He snatched up the Long-handled Black Gold Hammer, his body tightening like a leopard's. It was no illusion—he had even seen a blurry shadow just moments ago.
The night outside the window was deep. The Sun Stone in the room gradually dimmed, then flashed abruptly and went out completely, plunging everything into pitch-black dead silence.
Fortunately, the murmuring by Qin Ming's ear had also vanished.
After a moment, he touched the worn leather Sword Manual again, its pages curled and badly frayed. It was quiet. Nothing happened.
He picked up the Sword Manual. The room was too dark to make out the words on its pages, and no further abnormalities occurred. Had it really only been an illusion?
Qin Ming immediately went out to the Fire Spring by the village entrance, fished out several brilliantly glowing stones, and quickly returned home.
With the great hammer in one hand and the old Sword Manual in the other, he turned its pages. Everything remained calm, and no murmuring arose.
"Was I hearing things just now?"
Very soon, Qin Ming stopped letting his mind wander and focused once more on the leather pages steeped in ancient charm, carefully studying the crystallized lifeblood of those who had come before him.
"Alas..."
At that instant, Qin Ming's hair stood on end. Not only did he hear whispering amid the extreme silence, but a clear sigh also echoed by his ear.
Moreover, a white-haired old man appeared in the dim room. His tattered clothes were blotched with blood as he swayed before Qin Ming's eyes.
The temperature in the room seemed to have dropped by several degrees, and even the Sun Stones he had just brought back appeared to dim with it.
Qin Ming reacted with lightning speed and directly struck him with a hammer saber.
The sigh vanished, and so did the bloodstained elder in ragged clothes.
What was going on? The world had become different in Qin Ming's eyes. His expression turned grave. He had merely been studying a Sword Manual, yet things had become this bizarre.
Clutching the Long-handled Black Gold Hammer, he carefully examined the room. The Sun Stones were still bright, the temperature did not seem to have fallen at all, and everything had returned to normal.
"Is this some demonic book?" Qin Ming stared at the Sword Manual. It was bound in beast hide and clearly had some age to it; every page was worn.
"Or did absorbing that liquid make me too mentally energized, causing everything I see and hear to go wrong?" He pondered carefully.
In the end, he gritted his teeth and decided to risk it for now. He would meet stillness with stillness rather than strike first, and see exactly what kind of demons and monsters were at work.
Hammer in one hand and Sword Manual in the other, Qin Ming read on. Apart from the rustle of leather pages turning, the room held no other sound. Only when he became utterly absorbed in studying the various killing techniques did the whispers return, along with a bloodstained elder with disheveled hair standing not far ahead.
"There is not much time left. I should leave behind a Sword Manual. Alas, what a pity. My path of the blade cannot be fully described; some parts are destined to be lost. What a pity for the lifeblood of half my life." The old man sighed.
Then Qin Ming saw him bend over a desk and write. One blade light after another appeared, seemingly ready to tear apart the night curtain.
Each time the elder set down his brush and completed a blade technique, scenes of him practicing the blade in his youth emerged before him, along with all manner of emotions, insights, and understanding of the forms.
Qin Ming immediately realized just how profound and important this was for him. After absorbing the liquid from the "scraps," the world he saw had completely changed.
When his mind was intensely focused, he could use this ancient book to experience the writer's emotions, resonate with him emotionally, and gain an understanding of the blade techniques beyond what the book itself recorded.
Qin Ming considered his comprehension quite high. He learned everything quickly, and when he had previously read the Sword Manual in the mountains, he had not found its techniques difficult to practice. He had quickly grasped their essentials.
But this was no longer a matter of comprehension. He could witness how the Sword Manual had come into being and resonate with the old man's state of mind while practicing the blade. This involved experience, realization, and the most fundamental understanding of this blade art.
"This Sword Manual bears the lifeblood of half an old man's life. Resonating with it, I have recreated all those real scenes from back then..."
Qin Ming's attention drifted briefly, and he withdrew from that vivid scene.
Then he tossed aside the Black Gold Hammer, sat before the copper basin holding the Sun Stones, and began carefully studying the Sword Manual from the beginning, throwing his entire mind into it.
Sure enough, the more focused and concentrated he became, the clearer those voices, those images, and that resonance of emotion and spirit grew.
For a time, he saw the elder gazing up at the night sky. After contemplating his blade art, he pierced the darkness with dazzling blade radiance.
Then the scene shifted again. Lightning flashed and thunder roared as rain poured down in sheets. The elder gained a new realization and stood amid the torrential rain with a wooden blade, drawing a soul-stirring slash. It seemed to hold the intent to sever heaven itself; the radiance bursting from the wooden blade appeared to overwhelm the lightning in the night sky and split apart the darkness.
Qin Ming was so excited that his mind trembled. This form was not recorded in the Sword Manual at all. It was a wondrous move that could only be understood through intuition, never taught in words—a slash only the sublimation of the soul could reveal.
Such a profoundly mysterious feeling was difficult to put into writing. That was why the elder had sighed: some essence of his blade art was destined to be lost.
But now Qin Ming had witnessed it, and through the resonance of emotion and spirit, he had completely grasped the essence of that slash.
In the blade techniques that followed, the elder cultivated bitterly in the depths of the mountains and slew giant beasts.
Then he traveled alone through wind and snow, fighting many powerful enemies. He lost an arm, fled far away after suffering grave wounds, and buried a broken blade in his old age.
Afterward, he lived alone to heal, rarely venturing out. Five years later, he dug up that broken blade. When he drew it again, the resplendent blade light that could seem to sever heaven on that rainy night became even more domineering—if mountains blocked its path, it split mountains; if seas stood in its way, it leveled seas.
The older he became, the fiercer his spirit grew. He did not pursue a blade intent of returning to simplicity and merging with nature. Instead, he sang all the way upward, until that terrifying blade light was about to burn away his withered, thin body and he could bear it no longer.
After traveling far once more, the elder swept aside every opponent with his broken blade. At last, he returned to the place where he had sat still for five years. He buried his blade, left behind his book, and reached the final moment of his life.
"What a pity. I am trapped in this remote place, with no secret method to efficiently elevate the essence of life. Though my understanding of the blade is deep, and I am confident my comprehension is inferior to none, my body has held me back. Nor have I been able to see texts from higher realms. My life can only end here."
The elder did not have much time left. He wrote quickly, and with every stroke of his brush, blade light flashed. But when it came to Heavenly Light, the scenes became blurry, while the later pages became impossible to see entirely.
Qin Ming understood. It was probably because he had yet to cultivate Heavenly Light; he could not resonate emotionally or spiritually with it, so he could not see it for now.
He closed the Sword Manual and shut his eyes. Everything he had seen and heard, every scene, surfaced in his mind. Those experiences, realizations, and entirely new understandings of blade techniques felt like his own lived experiences.
He picked up the Long-handled Black Gold Hammer and went into the courtyard, performing blade techniques that had never been recorded in the Sword Manual. For a moment, lightning seemed to flash beneath the night sky.
The great hammer in Qin Ming's hand continuously swept through the night. Its head carried a dark gold gleam as it moved faster and faster, leaving behind all kinds of terrifying trails that wove through the courtyard and gradually tangled together, as though countless horrifying blade lights had erupted.
He lowered his hammer and stood still, deeply shaken, because he had recreated those blade techniques.
Qin Ming was very confident that if he were given the complete blade art, he would certainly master it after spending enough time.
But now, through spiritual resonance, he had mastered in one night blade techniques that surpassed the Sword Manual itself, as though he had practiced them for decades.
Very soon, Qin Ming calmed down. This applied only to technique, experience, and understanding of blade arts. As for elevating the essence of his own life, he still needed to cultivate.
Yet even this was astonishing enough to shake the world!
He pondered what exactly the liquid inside that stone had been. How could it allow his spirit to resonate with the mysterious emotions borne by this book?
Qin Ming realized that the mysterious substance within the "scraps" might not be inferior to the things born from the fusion of ten pillars of light and Five-Colored Haze. If word of this got out, it would likely trigger an immeasurable storm.
He even suspected that the origins of these "scraps" might be greater still.
Qin Ming's thoughts rose and fell as he thought of many things.
On the night when the great fire swallowed the entire village, the Feather Robe Youth had appeared ethereal and detached from the mundane world. Holding the Purple Bamboo Staff, he looked transcendent at a glance, clearly someone of immense origin. His strength had to be unfathomable, and the power behind him was likely even more terrifying.
Now, Qin Ming possessed a greater measure of calm and confidence. In the future, he could travel to Moonfall City and face that bloody past head-on.
At the same time, the two women who had appeared at the village entrance clearly walked a different path from his own. They seemed able to look down upon those who followed the New Life Method.
Now Qin Ming believed that his own path might not necessarily be weaker than any other. So long as he advanced quickly enough, he could smash through any path.
After calming down, he began assessing his own strength.
His two arms now possessed more than two thousand jin of force, perhaps even approaching twenty-two hundred jin. Added to that was the essence of blade techniques not even recorded in the Sword Manual, making his actual combat ability somewhat terrifying.
"Can I test myself against those old fellows who have cultivated Heavenly Light Force?" Qin Ming mused.
He silently calculated. Even if those old fellows could lift a six-hundred-jin cauldron at First New Life, using that as a base, by Third New Life they would have around eighteen hundred jin of strength—still less than him.
This was the fundamental reason everyone placed such immense importance on First New Life and wanted to establish a Golden Foundation. Every subsequent New Life was layered atop that foundation.
Qin Ming believed that the most terrifying thing about people of Third New Life was that they had cultivated Heavenly Light Force. If they truly got close enough to entangle him in combat, he would surely die.
This was because that special force could even pierce and tear apart the scales and armor of giant beasts. Its killing power was immensely terrifying. This was the fundamental reason humans, despite their disadvantage in size, could contend with other species.
However, within the New Life Realm, Heavenly Light Force could only be spread over the body's surface and extend a little beyond fists and feet; it could not yet be extended into weapons.
Qin Ming muttered, "In that case, as long as I do not let those old Third New Life fellows get close, and keep a suitable distance, I can still fight them."
The premise was that he needed a suitable weapon. Swords would definitely not do; they would most likely be torn apart and snapped by Heavenly Light Force. The Long-handled Black Gold Hammer, however, was about right. With pure strength alone, he refused to believe he could not smash them to death.
"Sure enough, another sleepless night."
Qin Ming felt helpless. His mind was still full of energy, and only in the latter half of the night did he briefly doze off. He reckoned he would not need to sleep for the next several days.
During the second half of the night, he studied the blade art, thoroughly breaking down the elder's experience, realizations, and understanding before wielding them in his own way, adding the wondrous forms and insights that flashed through his mind.
The next day, Cao Long, Mu Qing, and Wei Zhirou told Qin Ming and the others that if they found nothing special and gained nothing more in the next few days, they would return.
That day, they brought out an Intermediate Willpower Skill and gave it to Qin Ming, Old Man Liu, and the others as compensation, allowing them to pass it on to those around them.
The people of Double Tree Village were naturally extremely grateful. It was their first time coming into contact with a New Life Method of this level.
The main reason was that they had indeed helped the three teams a great deal. For example, Fire Bat Cave had brought Mu Qing, Cao Long, and the others considerable gains.
That night, Qin Ming studied the Intermediate Willpower Skill and felt that it was inferior to the method in the Silk Scripture he cultivated. Moreover, this was only a temporary copy, with none of the intense emotions borne upon it, so spiritual resonance was impossible.
"It seems it has to be crystallized lifeblood left behind by those who came before." He gained a new realization.
That evening, when Qin Ming delivered the Intermediate Willpower Skill to Old Man Liu, he asked, "Old sir, you are not going to tell the three teams from Red Haze City about every place containing Spiritual Matter just to repay their kindness, are you?"
"Don't worry. This old man knows what he is doing. Once I recover from my injuries, and once you reach Second New Life, after the mountains have completely quieted down, the two of us will enter the mountains together and search for Spiritual Matter that can take us to Third New Life. I have kept the best places in reserve!" Old Man Liu said, patting his chest.
Then Qin Ming asked, "Old sir, are there any households in our region with a notable history that have already fallen completely into decline?"
"Why are you asking that? What are you planning?" Old Man Liu asked suspiciously.
Qin Ming said, "I want to borrow books from them. Don't worry, I will definitely offer Night Silver that they will find impossible to refuse!"
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