Master Rong Teaches Well!

Facing Huang Rong's thrusting sword, Lu Chen reacted without hesitation, his wooden sword shooting out as he used the defensive stance of Maiden of Yue Swordplay to block and intercept.

Huang Rong's elbow dipped slightly, her delicate wrist trembling as the sword tip whistled, instantly shifting to stab at his chest. Lu Chen responded with ease, first parrying her wooden sword aside, then countering with a thrust toward her chest and abdomen.

Huang Rong sidestepped with quick, broken steps, evading Lu Chen's sword momentum, then suddenly circled to his flank and stabbed at his ribs.

Lu Chen shifted his feet, turned his body, and spun his wooden sword, twisting it against Huang Rong's blade to knock it away, then smoothly slashed at her wrist.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh...

Amid the sound of wooden swords cutting through air, the two exchanged blows back and forth, trading sword techniques nonstop. Huang Rong's swordplay was light and agile, her transitions lightning-fast, her footwork and body movements as graceful as a startled swan.

Lu Chen's footwork was no slouch either. Though his body movement and agility were far inferior to Huang Rong's, he still managed to steadily keep up with her rhythm of dodging and weaving, unswayed by her elusive technique that seemed to be ahead one moment and behind the next.

His wooden sword was steady and solid, his defense watertight, and every so often he would counter with a thrust that forced Huang Rong to dodge or withdraw her blade to block.

In their previous sparring sessions, even when Huang Rong only used the Maiden of Yue Swordplay she had recently learned, she could easily send Lu Chen into a flustered mess, defeating him in just a few moves. Even when she deliberately held back, Lu Chen had never lasted more than ten exchanges.

But today, Huang Rong initially used only three to five parts of her skill. Yet after ten moves, she found herself completely unable to do anything to Lu Chen.

Huang Rong gradually grew serious. Though she still only used Maiden of Yue Swordplay, she now employed her full mastery of it. Even so, after twenty exchanges, she still couldn't take him down.

Not only did Lu Chen show no signs of losing, but his sword technique was rapidly improving. Occasionally, like a flash of inspiration, he would execute a brilliant move that left Huang Rong unsure which Maiden of Yue technique could counter it, forcing her to rely on her Movement Technique to evade by sheer force.

By the time they passed thirty exchanges, the once-ordinary Maiden of Yue Swordplay in Lu Chen's hands had gradually taken on a strange vitality, bursting forth with astonishing life.

His swordplay grew increasingly disciplined yet spirited, taking on an air of unrestrained freedom and effortless grace.

At this point, Huang Rong could no longer win using only Maiden of Yue Swordplay.

After another bout of fighting, seeing Lu Chen grow bolder and stronger with each clash, Huang Rong pouted her pink lips, gave a light snort, and suddenly changed her sword technique. Her sword momentum abruptly accelerated severalfold, her moves alternating between three feints and one real strike, or five feints and one real, the interplay shifting at will. The swordplay became even more light and ethereal, as if a great wind had risen, sweeping up a flurry of falling blossoms dancing in the breeze.

Lu Chen had never seen her use this sword technique before. Caught off guard by her unpredictable, ever-changing style, he was thrown into disarray. Within a few moves, she found an opening. Her wooden sword stuck to the spine of his with a strange "sticky" force, then transmitted a vibrating energy to the hilt, numbing Lu Chen's fingers and sending his wooden sword flying from his hand.

Having successfully disarmed Lu Chen, Huang Rong stepped forward and thrust her wooden sword with a whoosh, stopping the tip just a hair's breadth from his throat.

One hand holding the sword, the other behind her back, she struck the imposing pose of a grandmaster, standing as steady as a mountain, and said leisurely:

"How about that?"

Lu Chen composed his expression, cupped his hands, and said solemnly:

"Master Rong's sword technique is unmatched. Lu Chen admires it."

Huang Rong's lips curled upward, her chin slightly raised, and she said with a straight face:

"Your swordplay has improved greatly, but you're still too inexperienced. In the future, you must guard against arrogance and impatience, and keep forging ahead."

Lu Chen put on a look of complete conviction:

"I humbly accept Master Rong's teachings."

Huang Rong nodded slightly:

"Mm, the pupil is teachable, the wood is carvable."

In her pride, she felt a little ashamed inside:

With her talent and martial foundation, she couldn't even take down Lu Chen using only Maiden of Yue Swordplay.

In the end, she had to resort to the "Falling Blossom Swordplay"—the predecessor of her father's "Falling Blossom Divine Sword Palm"—and even used the "Sticky" technique from "Jade Flute Swordplay" to disarm him and save face as "Master Rong."

And that was only because he had never seen Falling Blossom Swordplay or Jade Flute Swordplay before, catching him off guard.

Given his talent for sword techniques, once he grew a bit more, she feared she might not be his match.

She had to keep sparring with him while she could still suppress him. When he reached a certain level, she would stop in time and never practice with him again.

That way, she, Master Rong, could maintain her undefeated record against Lu Chen!

With this plan in mind, Huang Rong still offered a few words of encouragement, told him to continue practicing, and went to the kitchen to cook him a celebratory feast—

It had to be celebrated. With how fast Lu Chen's swordplay was advancing, as his sword technique mentor and guide, she, Master Rong, would surely become famous throughout the land, revered by the entire Martial Arts World.

Just thinking about it made her a little excited.

As for the "Immortal Realm Journey"...

No rush for now. Lu Chen had already shown his talent, and this was the time for diligent training and rapid progress. He couldn't afford to be delayed by sightseeing.

At some point, Lu Chen's martial cultivation had risen to the top priority in Huang Rong's heart.

Her own long-cherished "Immortal Realm Journey," which she had been fixated on since meeting Lu Chen, had instead taken a back seat.

Huang Rong hummed a cheerful tune in the kitchen as she cooked.

Lu Chen, meanwhile, continued practicing his sword in the courtyard.

This time, he wasn't practicing Maiden of Yue Swordplay, but "Sword One."

Sword One could be unleashed but not restrained. Once he struck, his entire body would be drained of strength. Even with his extraordinary recovery ability and the medicinal broth to supplement him, it would take at least half an hour to regain full stamina. Naturally, he couldn't use Sword One for training.

So Lu Chen's method was to only activate half a move of Sword One, channeling the force without releasing it.

He stood beneath the tree, savoring the feeling of executing Sword One earlier. After silently building up for a while, he suddenly stamped his foot, and an explosive force surged from the sole, flowing back like a tidal wave through his knees, thighs, waist, and spine, layering up through his shoulders and arms, converging in his fingers and palm.

In a normal rhythm, the next instant would be to fully release the force and thrust the sword.

But this time, Lu Chen used the method he had grasped from comprehending the "Sword Intent Imprint," forcibly suppressing the eruption of power. With a special breathing rhythm and rapid exhalation, he forced all the energy that should have been expelled in one go back into his body.

Then the violent, surging force reversed direction from his fingers and palm, sweeping back to disperse through his chest, abdomen, and limbs.

As the force flowed back and forth, Lu Chen's skin instantly turned bright red, and steam rose from his head, as if he had been practicing the Maiden of Yue Swordplay repeatedly without pause from start to finish. And as the force scattered throughout his body, a thread of heat also emerged from within, circulating through his chest, abdomen, and limbs.

This was the Internal Energy cultivated through "Sword One."

Though the amount of this Internal Energy was small—only a single thread—in terms of purity and refinement, it had already far surpassed the Internal Energy Lu Chen had cultivated through the Maiden of Yue Swordplay. Its "sense of qi and texture" was far stronger, and it could already be called "True Energy."

After cultivating this thread of True Energy, Lu Chen's stamina had also been depleted by nearly half—though he hadn't fully unleashed the force, forcibly halting it and forcing it to reverse was also a tremendous drain.

Lu Chen rested for a while, then continued training. He practiced twice more, condensing two more threads of True Energy, until his stamina was finally exhausted. Though he wasn't so drained as to collapse, he had to stop training and rest to recover.

"Since I'm not completely exhausted, even without drinking the medicinal broth, I can recover in half an hour. Following this pattern, each full stamina bar allows three rounds of training, then I need at least half an hour of rest. In a day, I can train up to sixty or seventy times at most. The efficiency of accumulating True Energy shouldn't be too low..."

Of course, the efficiency wasn't that high either. After all, each round only condensed a single thread of True Energy, and who knew when those threads would gather into a trickling stream, then transform into a surging river, and finally converge into a vast ocean.

But there was no helping it.

In the Condor Heroes World, cultivating Internal Energy was never easy.

Without miraculous encounters like the Medicine Snake or the Bosiqu Snake to greatly supplement one's cultivation, one could only rely on grinding time and accumulating years of effort. For ordinary martial artists to make a name for themselves with Internal Energy, they'd have to endure until at least forty or fifty years old.

Even with divine arts like the Nine Yin Manual or the Nine Yang Manual, success couldn't be achieved overnight.

Take Zhang Wuji, for example. His temperament perfectly matched the Nine Yang Divine Skill, and he ate rare spiritual fruits every day, yet after years in the mountains, he still hadn't mastered the Nine Yang. It was only through a fortuitous encounter inside the Cloth Sack Monk's special sack that he fully achieved the Nine Yang, becoming a young Internal Energy master who stood at the pinnacle of his era.

As for other martial artists, unless they possessed extraordinary talent or encountered a stroke of luck, most had to endure until their sixties or seventies before cultivating a decent amount of Internal Energy.

"Speaking of fortuitous encounters, I could try looking for the Bosiqu Snake near Xiangyang. I could also ask the Divine Condor to help me train my swordplay..."

Just as he was pondering, Huang Rong's voice came from the kitchen:

"Lu Chen, starting tomorrow, we won't just be training on our own. We'll also need to find different opponents for real combat experience."

Lu Chen: "Huh?"

Huang Rong poked her head out from the kitchen door and flashed him a sweet smile:

"Starting tomorrow, we'll challenge the martial arts schools in Shaoxing Prefecture City. After we finish with the city's schools, we'll go elsewhere and challenge them one by one. If there are any famous experts in the area, we can also visit them for a challenge. That way, you can sharpen your real combat skills, accumulate experience, and broaden your horizons. Otherwise, with too little experience and too narrow a perspective, the moment you encounter a new move you've never seen before, you'll be thrown into chaos again."

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