"An Orange-Grade Skill? This Sword Nurturing Art is actually orange?" Lu Xun froze for a moment.
Skill grades were the same as equipment grades, divided into five colors: gray, yellow, blue, purple, and orange.
Orange was the highest grade of skill.
Mao Nanbei had rushed in so frantically, and he had done nothing himself. He merely closed his eyes, and an Orange-Grade Skill had arrived?
It felt like an Orange-Grade Skill was chasing after him, begging him to learn it...
It reminded him of something Audrey Hepburn had once said: "I'm not going to try to fly to the moon. I'm going to make the moon come to me!"
Even in his previous life, when he had played that level-sixty staff-wielding main account, he had only learned a Purple-Grade staff technique—and that had been an incomplete version.
Even so, one swing of his staff could make people unable to close their legs as they howled in agony.
With one line of "Eat my stick!", he had struck fear into countless male players and left countless female players in awe!
Yet now, the skill before him was actually the highest-grade Orange-Grade Skill!
Lu Xun checked the basic information on the Sword Nurturing Art. To his surprise, it had been created by his First Senior Brother, Yan Li, who was currently in Secluded Life-or-Death Cultivation.
To create an Orange-Grade Skill, just how strong is First Senior Brother? Lu Xun marveled inwardly.
But what shocked him even more was that the basic information clearly stated that First Senior Brother had entered Secluded Life-or-Death Cultivation because he had suffered cultivation deviation while practicing this Sword Nurturing Art!
I level up through Experience Points, so I shouldn't have to worry about cultivation deviation, right? Lu Xun thought.
So, without hesitation, he chose yes on the option asking whether he wished to learn it.
Then another cold notification popped up.
Learning requires 10,000 Experience Points. Continue?
Lu Xun hesitated for a moment.
It was not that he was short-sighted or reluctant to part with those ten thousand Experience Points.
Rather, ten thousand Experience Points were no small amount in the early stages. They could do a great many things and were truly precious.
As for the Sword Nurturing Art, it was not urgent for him to learn it now. Once he had enough Experience Points saved up later, couldn't he simply ask Mao Nanbei to teach it to him again?
But the Orange-Grade Skill had him itching with temptation...
How many players could resist the urge to learn it immediately?
Besides, he had never learned an Orange-Grade Skill before and had no idea how powerful it was. What if it was insanely strong the moment he got started?
But those ten thousand Experience Points really hurt to spend...
Still, that made sense. An Orange-Grade Skill was never something meant to appear in the early game. By the middle and late stages, ten thousand Experience Points would be entirely bearable.
"Go big or go home!" Lu Xun gritted his teeth and chose to continue learning.
Learning successful. Current progress: Sword Nurturing Art, Level 0. Experience Points: 2150/1500. Can level up.
He had already spent ten thousand Experience Points, so he did not care about another fifteen hundred.
He took note that the Sword Nurturing Art had ten levels in total, which meant it was a complete skill.
The staff technique he had learned before had only gone up to Level 8 because it was incomplete. Once it reached Level 8, no matter how many Experience Points he had, he could not raise it any further.
Yet the Purple-Grade staff technique had only required 500 Experience Points to reach Level 1, while this Sword Nurturing Art required three times as much right from the start!
After all, the Experience Points required for later upgrades would multiply several times over. Starting from 500 versus starting from 1,500 would create an increasingly enormous gap!
Forget it. He had already learned it. If he did not raise it to Level 1 first, wouldn't those ten thousand Experience Points have been spent for nothing?
Lu Xun decisively chose to level it up.
The change occurred at that very moment.
Small Study, inside Lu Xun's room.
After passing the Sword Nurturing Art on to Lu Xun, Mao Nanbei did not leave right away.
Seeing that Lu Xun was still sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, she guessed that he was still digesting and comprehending it.
Mao Nanbei sat in a chair opposite Lu Xun and muttered, "Little Martial Brother doesn't even have a sword yet. What's the point of Second Senior Sister telling me to teach him the Sword Nurturing Art? He doesn't have a sword to nurture at all!"
"But the Sword Nurturing Art is far too profound and obscure. Little Martial Brother will probably need quite some time before he can fully learn it. Second Senior Sister must have wanted him to learn the Sword Nurturing Art while digesting the Sword Intent she left behind, so the two can complement each other."
"Hehe, that must be it! Mao Nanbei, you're so smart!" The little girl swung her tiny feet in the air, her cat ears twitching slightly with pride.
She had indeed guessed Second Senior Sister's intentions. The Sword Nurturing Art required comprehension; it was not something one could learn all at once.
If Lu Xun used Second Senior Sister's Sword Intent to comprehend it, his progress would be much faster and yield twice the result with half the effort.
—Second Senior Sister had long since arranged everything perfectly!
However, the change occurred at that very moment.
The surrounding Spiritual Energy began converging on Lu Xun like it had gone mad. He was like a candle in the night, while the Spiritual Energy became moths drawn to the flame!
The disturbance in the Spiritual Energy startled Mao Nanbei. Even Second Senior Sister, who had been meditating with her eyes closed in the Bamboo Forest, suddenly opened her eyes, her expression grave.
"How could this happen?!" Mao Nanbei jumped from her chair, panic written across her face.
"How could Little Martial Brother have learned the Sword Nurturing Art so quickly?! And judging from the way he looks, he's already cultivating it!" Mao Nanbei could not help but panic.
Just as she had said before, Lu Xun was a Swordless One. He did not even have a sword. What was he going to nurture with the Sword Nurturing Art?
The essence of the Sword Nurturing Art was to nurture one's own sword, day after day, year after year.
And once successfully cultivated, it could unleash tremendous power!
Without exaggeration, if a sword initially had a power of 10, then once your Sword Nurturing Art reached Level 1, that sword's power could reach 20!
In game terms, the Sword Nurturing Art was more like a passive skill.
Unlike active skills that only displayed their power when used, as long as you wielded the sword you had nurtured, every move, every strike, every instance of damage you dealt... would be doubled!
Simply put—it was a guaranteed critical hit!
Yes, a guaranteed critical hit!
And as the Sword Nurturing Art rose in level, its critical effect could continue increasing, such as going from double damage on a critical hit to triple damage!
It was undoubtedly a divine skill, but the major prerequisite was that you needed a sword!
A large amount of Spiritual Energy was drawn over and surged into Lu Xun's body.
Following the usual process, after circulating through Lu Xun's body once, it should have passed through his hands and transferred into the sword.
But he had no sword. So the Spiritual Energy circled and circled, getting lost inside his body.
Logically, he should have exploded to death next, like a balloon filled with too much air.
But since the Experience Points had been spent, he could naturally level up.
Thus, as if drawn by some invisible force, the Spiritual Energy began gathering toward the Sword Heart within Lu Xun's body!
Slowly, a solid streak of golden light appeared within the Sword Heart.
It was extremely thin, like a needle.
But in truth, it was an incredibly tiny sword.
A Sword of the Heart!
Brother Xun's path as a sword cultivator will be a little different. I think it's quite interesting, and I'll explain it bit by bit later~
Before you continue