Sword Maniac

The clamor of Donghu City was cast far behind him. The trees lining the official road gradually thinned, revealing the rolling silhouettes of mountains in the distance.

Yun Hu's pace was neither hurried nor slow, every step steady and firm.

The brief yet perilous battle from earlier replayed continuously in his mind.

The angles of his sword strikes, the circulation of True Qi, his opponent's openings—each one appeared with perfect clarity.

He could feel that, after this battle, the Pure Yang True Qi within him had grown several degrees more condensed. His swordsmanship also seemed to have touched upon a new realm.

Battle truly was the best means of tempering swordsmanship.

He recalled the instructions his eldest brother, Yun Long, had given him before his first departure for Donghu City.

"This trip uses the Qi Nourishing Pill as bait to test the Lu Family. There will surely be danger lurking on all sides."

Entering danger alone had been Yun Hu's own choice.

Once word spread that the Yun Clan could refine Qi Nourishing Pills, even if the Lu Family did not act, the other families would sell them, whether for their own use or to target the Lu Family.

Wanfang Lake was now rife with undercurrents. The forces of every side were tangled together like roots and vines, and no one knew when a storm that would sweep everyone up might erupt.

Yun Hu's thoughts drifted back to the conversation he had shared with Yun Long in the secret chamber several months ago.

"A-Hu, in the court's household registry, I registered your third sister as possessing a Spiritual Root. You, on the other hand, do not."

"Therefore, before your third sister reaches the Qi Refining Stage, she should not show herself in public. Among the three of us siblings, only you are suited to travel outside."

"With your talent for Martial Dao cultivation, your slow cultivation speed now seems to be a good thing for the Lineage instead."

"Didn't you dream of becoming a sword immortal ever since you were young? The Qingcheng Swordplay passed down to you by our ancestor is no ordinary art. From this day onward, you shall be the Yun Clan's 'Sword Maniac.' Let the world know that you, Yun Hu, seek to use a mortal sword to knock upon the immortal gate!"

At that thought, Yun Hu's usual unruly liveliness quietly vanished, and a profound smile curled across his lips.

"Big Brother, I am the Sword Maniac."

He murmured softly, his tone resolute.

"Unless I cultivate Sword Qi, I, Yun Hu, swear never to enter the Qi Refining Stage! Beginning with our generation, the Yun Clan shall have a true sword cultivator!"

Of the three Yun siblings, his cultivation speed was indeed the slowest, and the matter of him lacking a Spiritual Root had become a well-known "fact."

If, after breaking through to the innate realm, he relied on pills to forcibly rise to the Qi Refining Stage, it would instead arouse suspicion and leave flaws everywhere.

On the surface, his eldest brother's arrangement was to conceal him, but in truth, it was to make his foundation incomparably solid.

With the Yun Clan's profound heritage and legacy, entering the Qi Refining Stage was merely a matter of time for him.

As for the so-called sword cultivators and Sword Qi mentioned in the Classics sent by the Ning Family, they had initially been nothing more than words his eldest brother used to confuse outsiders.

Yet Yun Long had never expected that those words would become a spark that utterly ignited Yun Hu's deepest, most intense yearning for the sword.

"From now on, I, Yun Hu, shall be the Yun Clan's Sword Maniac."

To become a true sword cultivator, to reach that legendary realm where one sword could split mountains, sever rivers, and pluck stars from the sky—even if he had to tread through mountains of corpses and seas of blood, what was there to fear?

A grim, resolute glint flashed through Yun Hu's eyes, and even the air around him seemed to turn several degrees colder.

The afterglow of the setting sun dyed the bluestone streets a warm yellow.

Yun Hu stepped upon the shadow cast by the sunset, passed familiar street corners, and turned into his household estate.

The front courtyard was silent.

His eldest brother, Yun Long, was not meditating before the ancestral hall as usual. Instead, he stood in the courtyard with his hands behind his back, his figure stretched long by the setting sun, as though he had been waiting specifically for him.

Warmth suddenly rose in Yun Hu's heart, and his steps quickened.

Yun Long turned around and looked Yun Hu over from head to toe. Only when he saw that his clothes were neat and his breath steady did the tension at the corners of his mouth ease slightly.

He nodded without saying anything, then turned and walked back toward the ancestral hall. Sitting cross-legged, he continued the cultivation he had left unfinished.

Yun Hu smiled silently and crossed the front courtyard toward the rear.

Before he even stepped through the moon gate into the back courtyard, he heard Yun He's crisp laughter and Shi Chen's somewhat honest-sounding agreement.

"Second Brother is back!"

Yun He had sharp eyes and was the first to spot him. She skipped over, with Shi Chen following behind her, his face equally full of anticipation.

"Second Brother, did you bring back anything good today?" Yun He raised her little face, her eyes brimming with mischief.

She still did not know of the dangers Yun Hu had encountered in the city today and assumed he had merely gone out as usual.

Yun Hu took two strings of candied hawthorns wrapped in crystalline sugar coating from his robes. The bright red hawthorns looked especially vivid beneath the evening light.

"Here. I bought them on the road."

He handed the candied hawthorns to Yun He and Shi Chen, watching them accept them joyfully and begin chewing with satisfied sounds.

After playing with them for a while and telling them some amusing stories from the streets, Yun Hu finally managed to slip away and return to his own secluded little courtyard.

Several yellowed sword manuals lay spread across the stone table in the courtyard.

These were the precious Classics he had traded from the Ning Family with Qi Nourishing Pills.

He first sat quietly, focused his mind, and carefully read the diagrams and text in the sword manuals. His fingers unconsciously traced the paths of sword moves across the stone table.

After a long while, he rose and drew his sword.

Sword light flickered through the courtyard as dusk deepened, sometimes light and nimble, sometimes heavy and profound.

Pure Yang True Qi flowed through his meridians and poured into the blade, producing a faint hum.

He practiced the newly learned sword forms over and over, sensing the force and transformations behind every stance and move.

Sweat soaked through his clothes, yet he remained wholly unaware, completely immersed in the world of swordsmanship.

The night gradually deepened, and stars filled the sky.

After an unknown amount of time, an overwhelming wave of exhaustion struck him.

Yun Hu braced himself on his sword. His body swayed, and he followed the motion to sit down on a stone stool in the courtyard. His head tilted to one side, and he unexpectedly fell into a deep sleep.

The night wind was slightly cool, stirring the hair before his forehead.

A figure appeared soundlessly at the entrance to the little courtyard.

Yun Ji looked at his sleeping son on the stone stool, his brows drawing together slightly.

He walked over lightly and gently draped the soft, thin blanket in his hands over Yun Hu.

Yun Ji stood to one side, gazing at Yun Hu's exhausted sleeping face for a long time before letting out a deep sigh.

Yun Long had grown up and could share the Lineage's burdens.

Yun Hu had grown up as well, taking on the weight that belonged to him.

But this growth had come too quickly, and it was too heavy.

Yun Ji quietly sat beside Yun Hu.

He raised his head and looked toward the boundless night sky. The stars shone brilliantly, yet they could not illuminate the gloom within his heart.

An indescribable bitterness and self-reproach quietly engulfed him like a rising tide.

This burden, this burden that should never have belonged to a youth, should have been borne by him.

A-Hu, his A-Hu, had only just turned eighteen this year.

Yun Ji's fists suddenly clenched tight, every knuckle turning white from the sheer force, as though he wished to crush something in his palms.

In the end, it was all because he was too weak!

If only he could successfully break through and step into that longed-for Qi Refining Stage...

At his age, with his experience, representing the Yun Clan outside and handling the clan's affairs would have been the safest and most suitable course.

Yet reality had delivered him a resounding slap across the face.

Even now, he had still failed to fully comprehend the deepest mysteries contained within the Wudang Xiantian Gong.

With the pills carefully refined by He'er assisting him, accumulating True Qi was indeed not an insurmountable obstacle for him.

In fact, the True Qi within his body had already swelled to its utmost limit, reaching a saturated state.

There was no longer even the slightest possibility or hope of further growth.

That invisible threshold, that barrier separating the innate realm from the Qi Refining Stage, lay before him like an uncrossable chasm.

If only he could cross it, if only he could pierce that barrier!

He would immediately break through, leap like a fish over the dragon gate, and achieve the Qi Refining Stage!