Otto had to be acknowledged as truly formidable. Karen had not been wrong to call him a great inventor. He possessed not only remarkable talent in technology, but also profound research into martial arts manuals.
The establishment of the Valkyries had not merely come from artificial Stigmata. In the beginning, it had actually originated with Fu Hua's Tai Xu Sword Qi. As long as something benefited the fight against Honkai, Fu Hua would never refuse it. Otto had probably used that excuse to obtain the cultivation method for Tai Xu Sword Qi from her back then.
However, the threshold for cultivating Tai Xu Sword Qi was somewhat high. Otto had his own solution: he combined it with other cultivation secrets and simplified the Mind Core among the Five Core Aspects of Tai Xu Sword Qi, turning it into the foundational training used to cultivate Valkyries today.
The Five Core Aspects of Tai Xu Sword Qi were not cultivation realms that increased one after another, but methods with different abilities. For example, the Mind Core was the method of cultivating Honkai energy into true qi, while the Form Core consisted of combat techniques—the application of true qi.
Still Water, Dustless, Clear Mirror, and Tai Xu were the progressively advancing realms. Cheng Lixue had remained stuck at Dustless because of her inner demon. Had it not been for that inner demon, given enough time, Cheng Lixue's strength should not have fallen below Li Sushang's. Reaching the Tai Xu realm would not have been a problem.
Durandal and Rita had both cultivated Tai Xu Sword Qi as well. It was simply because of their respective experiences that they had not chosen to follow Fu Hua's path.
Durandal in particular had taken a path of gathering the strengths of many schools and fusing them