Practicing the Sword

Jiang Ding sat cross-legged, his body covered in sweat, his face pale.

Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian First Branch (100%)

Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian Tenth Branch (100%)

He looked inward at his body. The ten main branches of the Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian were already tempered and luminous, with pale white Inner Qi flowing through them.

"Ten meridians, it took two days, and that was with constant use of the Essence Replenishing and Qi Boosting Pills," Jiang Ding calculated silently. "That's quite fast. If it were the top-tier cultivation techniques practiced by those martial artists like Gong Caiyu, with their thousands of meridians, I could reach Inner Qi Perfection in two months at most and start working on breaking through to the Innate realm."

"Heh, even super prodigies are nothing more than this."

He daydreamed.

This was only natural.

The pill, the Ginseng Flower Qi Stabilizing Pill, was unremarkable, rated by the education system as 'cheap and barely usable.' But if it were placed in the martial arts world of the Yue Kingdom, it would be a heavenly elixir that even the royal family would struggle to obtain.

Old Ginseng and the others had them, and they had various medicinal herbs over a hundred years old, but they couldn't enjoy pills of this caliber.

The services that Immortal Sect citizens could obtain with a casual express delivery contained extremely high labor value. Relatively speaking, calling it turning stone into gold wouldn't be an exaggeration.

The gap in cultivation techniques and instructors was even greater.

"What a pity, the Eagle's Takeoff Sword Art, with its 108,000 meridians!" After a brief daydream, Jiang Ding's heart sank.

"Warming and tempering five meridians a day requires 21,600 days!"

"Fifty-nine years!"

After a quick calculation, Jiang Ding was shaken and could no longer remain calm.

"I'm not even slow."

"The Eagle's Takeoff Sword Art at the Minor Accomplishment level, and the Hundred Essence Qi Transforming Pill refined by a ninety-year-old ginseng... these are advantages that ordinary students don't have. Combined, even with reduced aptitude, my cultivation speed is at least twice that of an ordinary student!"

"Hiss~"

No wonder Li Junhao gave up so easily. With his excellent academic performance, he must have known all this long ago. No wonder Jiang Chaoyang spent half his life scheming and only reached Inner Qi Great Accomplishment in the Eagle's Takeoff technique.

"To ascend from mortal to immortal, only a prodigy can achieve it."

Jiang Ding calmed himself and thought quickly.

"I shouldn't underestimate myself. Once the tempering and warming of meridians reach the Micro Heavenly Cycle, Minor Heavenly Cycle, and Major Heavenly Cycle stages, when the twelve main meridians and the eight extraordinary meridians form a complete cycle, the speed of refining essence into qi will increase exponentially."

"It's not that difficult, not yet a cause for despair."

He closed his eyes and meditated for a moment before standing up and walking to the equipment rack.

Compared to before, a semi-transparent camouflage uniform and a firearm over two meters long had appeared on the rack. The array spirit beside them provided annotations.

Scout-1 Camouflage, a high-grade special magic tool, woven and inscribed with a Tier 1 Breath Concealment Array. It requires the use of the Minor Breath Concealment Technique. When mastered to Minor Accomplishment, it can conceal the spiritual sense scan of a Ninth Level Qi Refining cultivator, as well as the Tier 1 vehicle-mounted radar of a tank.

If a Qi Refining realm cultivator practices a spiritual sense scan spell of the same level, it can conceal a spiritual sense detection secret technique of one level lower.

For martial artists below the Innate realm, it's one level lower.

This means that if used now, the Minor Breath Concealment Technique at the Great Accomplishment level, combined with the Scout-1 Camouflage, can only conceal the spiritual sense secret technique scan of a classmate at the proficient level.

Jiang Ding had some understanding of this.

Immortal Sect Qi Refining cultivators were never interested in spells like Fireball or Ice Arrow with ranges of tens of meters. However, there was one spell they all had to learn: Electromagnetic Induction Wave Technique.

It was the core of the Immortal Sect cultivator combat system. It used spells to generate electromagnetic waves of specific frequencies for detection and scanning, with a range starting from kilometers, far exceeding the hundred-meter spiritual sense limit of Qi Refining cultivators.

When this spell was combined with the Immortal Sect's Spirit Particle Radar, the search range and accuracy would be greatly enhanced.

Facing Immortal Sect Qi Refining cultivators, cultivators of the same level from outside the realm often couldn't even see their enemy before being overwhelmed by artillery fire and bullets from an unknown source.

Jiang Ding briefly flipped through the Minor Breath Concealment Technique provided by the array spirit, finding it obscure and difficult to understand. Its difficulty was equivalent to its effect, no less than the Electromagnetic Induction Wave Technique.

He looked at the next piece of equipment.

Type 03 Anti-Materiel Sniper Rifle, a high-grade special magic tool, caliber 12.7x108mm, length 2124mm, weight 89kg. The barrel was inscribed with a Tier 1 Breath Concealment and Stealth Array, and a Tier 1 Law Breaking Array. A hit could break the defensive magic tool of a Ninth Level Qi Refining cultivator and consume some (5%-10%) of a Foundation Establishment Cultivator's Magic Power.

Note: Innate martial artists need to input three minutes of Internal Force, and Inner Qi realm martial artists need to input ten minutes or more of Inner Qi to activate one shot, or they cannot activate it.

Two high-grade special magic tools!

Jiang Ding held his breath.

Unlike the heavy machine guns and other mass-producible semi-magic tools he had practiced with before, the creation of magic tools required various spiritual ores and alloys, and only Qi Refining realm cultivators could produce them using industrial machinery.

The price of each magic tool was more than a hundred times that of ordinary weapons, and they were military supplies that could not be purchased without prior military service.

These two magic tools alone made the reconnaissance infantry's value far exceed that of ordinary infantry.

Yet, even so, none of the dozen or so classmates in the Inner Qi realm had chosen the reconnaissance infantry direction. There must be some insurmountable obstacle.

The third and fourth periods were Chinese language exams.

Sitting in a rear seat, Jiang Ding held a pen and pondered deeply. After a long time, he hesitantly wrote down an answer, a stark contrast to the spirited demeanor he had shown during the Moral Education class.

Language, principles of examination, talismans, and the use of Spiritual Script to better express cultivation information, and so on.

Despite this, compared to before, after obtaining the Rusty Sword Tip to improve his comprehension and having Inner Qi as a concrete reference, he had made significant progress during this period.

Jingle jingle!

"Exam time is up, please submit your papers."

Two hours passed in a flash. Jiang Ding barely managed to finish the Spiritual Script writing. He glanced at the two major questions that remained unanswered and sighed, letting the teacher collect his test paper.

"Sigh, I messed up this exam..."

Flowing out of the classroom with the crowd, Jiang Ding caught sight of Li Junhao beside him, his face full of bitterness.

"Heh."

Thirty minutes for eating, thirty minutes for sleeping.

Jiang Ding opened his eyes, sat by the bedside, and closed them to regulate his breathing.

His next cultivation goal was to achieve 'microcirculation'. Therefore, he would now cultivate the second meridian of the Hand Three Yin Meridians, the Hand Jueyin Pericardium Meridian, specifically its ten most important channels.

Once all twelve primary meridians were opened and nourished for ten major channels, these channels would be connected by the formation diagram provided in the Eagle's Takeoff Sword Art, stabilizing them and forming a cyclical whole.

At this point, his Inner Qi could be considered initially stable, and his cultivation speed would increase significantly.

His Internal Force emerged from the Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian, surged into the starting node of the adjacent Hand Jueyin Pericardium Meridian, and diffused outwards to the ten major channels.

He felt a slight stinging sensation, and the Internal Force receded after a small influx.

After more than ten minutes, Jiang Ding once again controlled his Internal Force to flow into the previously nourished meridians, repairing, advancing, and expanding step by step without stopping.

In the afternoon, he had math.

Tomorrow would be the comprehensive science and humanities exams, followed by assessments on cold and hot weapons, and finally, practical combat.

The practical combat methods varied. Some were one-on-one duels where, under the supervision of a teacher and wearing full gear with reduced charges, candidates underwent combat assessment.

There were also team-based scenarios, generally involving completing a certain objective, stealth, assassination, and so on.

The final stage was campaign-style combat, which usually involved multiple classes and grades collaborating to form a corps and besiege a Foundation Establishment Cultivator employing extraterrestrial tactics.