Flawless Circle

What exactly was Ling Wuyuan doing?

Answer: practicing swordsmanship, while also training his footwork.

So was he really cultivating by fighting opponents simulated within his mind, just as those two had imagined before?

Answer: no.

He had his own targets for striking and dodging.

It was just that...

The targets were far too small.

From dozens of meters apart, the two of them simply could not see them.

They were... vast numbers of tiny mosquitoes.

Unlike those two, who would be covered head to toe in mosquito bites after staying for an hour.

Ling Wuyuan had already spent several hours in the bamboo grove, yet not a single mosquito had bitten him thus far.

The sharp sword he wielded.

With every swing of his sword, it acted like the sharpest harvesting tool, taking away one or several mosquitoes approaching Ling Wuyuan.

Likewise, the reason he dodged was to avoid the mosquitoes constantly drawing near.

Swordsmanship, much like fist techniques.

At its most fundamental, pursued speed, precision, ruthlessness, and stability.

Nearly all martial techniques and weapons were like this.

To train his [Precision].

Earlier, when Ling Wuyuan had practiced swordsmanship, he had tried repeatedly attacking the same target.

For example, he would continuously thrust his longsword, ensuring that its tip struck a red dot marked on a tree trunk, roughly one centimeter in diameter.

Then, once Ling Wuyuan could perfectly hit the target for a thousand consecutive strikes, he would reduce the red dot's diameter to roughly eight millimeters, six millimeters, four millimeters... In the end, after nearly two months, he could draw his sword and, without any unnecessary thought, casually strike an object roughly the size of an ant.

Then he began training [Stability].

First, he tied two iron blocks to the tip of his sword.

Then, he extended one arm and raised the longsword in his hand straight ahead.

Making his arm and sword form a straight line [-].

At that moment.

Because iron blocks were tied to the tip, their weight naturally dragged the sword tip—and even the entire blade—downward, turning the horizontal line into a falling stroke.

After that, Ling Wuyuan would continuously shake the blade, causing the sword tip with the iron blocks attached to bob up and down without pause.

Ultimately, by constantly adjusting his force and frequency, he would attempt to keep the sword tip fixed at a certain point even as the blade continued shaking, like a wave whose end remained stable [~~], while accurately stabbing a red dot roughly one centimeter in diameter under his control.

In this regard.

Ling Wuyuan felt that once he could retain two-thirds of his unweighted precision while the sword tip was burdened with weight, his training in [Stability] would officially be considered satisfactory.

Of course.

For the time being, he could not do that.

His error rate was still between fifty and sixty percent.

As for why he had come deep into the bamboo grove now, using mosquitoes flying everywhere as targets for his sword practice, it was merely because he had grown somewhat weary of fixed targets.

Compared with red dots fixed in one place without moving.

Mosquitoes that could fly about randomly and, when a sharp sword approached, sense changes in the airflow and adjust their flight paths to a certain extent were clearly far more difficult targets...

They were moving targets, far harder to hit than fixed ones.

In the beginning.

Even with talent exceptional enough to be called abnormal.

Ling Wuyuan had still been bitten hard enough in the bamboo grove to raise quite a few welts.

But he had his earlier training as a foundation.

So although those moving targets were far more difficult to strike than fixed targets, once he gradually adapted to the new process and gained a certain understanding of the mosquitoes' flight paths and reaction abilities, he naturally managed to achieve the current result.

However.

He was not particularly satisfied.

Ling Wuyuan knew that the main reason he could perform as he did now was because he had doubled both his thinking speed and reaction speed. Otherwise, faced with swarms of mosquitoes converging from all directions, even he would have trouble reacting in time.

Besides that.

His outward-extending perception had also contributed enormously.

Ever since he had awakened [Inner Vision], an [Internal Perception Ability], through meditation three months ago.

He had formally named the [External Perception Ability] that allowed him, when concentrating, to sense every movement within a two-meter radius around himself in all three hundred and sixty degrees—[Flawless Circle]. Through unremitting training, he had reached the point where he could still activate it successfully even while diverting part of his attention to other matters.

Although after diverting part of his attention, the actual range of [Flawless Circle] could only maintain roughly one-third of its effect when he was fully focused, that was still sufficient for Ling Wuyuan, whose [Flawless Circle] had reached a diameter of three meters.

A distance of around one meter.

For a mosquito in flight, usually required around one second.

And that not particularly long period was entirely enough for Ling Wuyuan to swing his sharp sword and cut it down, or shift his steps and shake it off.

In short, Ling Wuyuan felt that only when he could easily deal with the mosquitoes constantly flying at him without using his talent ability to grant himself any additional acceleration could his grand mosquito-extermination undertaking truly be considered to have passed its current stage...

As things stood now.

He felt that his skill was not quite there yet.

He would probably need another ten days to accomplish such a thing...

After training for a while longer.

Feeling that it was about time, and knowing that he still needed to return to his room to cultivate the [Tiger Bone Body Strengthening Technique], Ling Wuyuan finally stopped moving and swinging his sword.

Instead, he gazed at the moonlight overhead, silently calculating roughly how much longer he could cultivate tonight.

However.

Once he stopped moving, the mosquitoes around him continued converging on him.

As insects with no intelligence to speak of, they could not make any reasonable judgment about the current situation.

Ling Wuyuan did not have many thoughts about that.

He merely waited until the many mosquitoes had completely gathered around him, then expressionlessly swung the sharp sword in his hand once more.

At an extreme speed unlike before, when he had left himself ample reserves...

At this moment.

He used roughly seventy to eighty percent of his strength in relative earnest.

Moreover.

In that instant.

His talent ability no longer merely accelerated his thinking speed and reaction speed; it also enhanced the speed of his physical body.

The degree of acceleration was—sixfold!

In that instant.

After continuously cultivating the [Tiger Bone Body Strengthening Technique], Ling Wuyuan's one-armed strength had already reached over 2,700 jin, with each arm nearing 3,000 jin of force. The terrifying sword shadow that had already reached one hundred meters per second directly climbed to a horrifying speed of nearly seven hundred meters per second, becoming genuine sword light...

In a flash of lightning and spark of flint.

A violent gale howled forth with the ferocity of wailing ghosts!!

Surging airwaves immediately swept through dozens of meters around him!!

The wind was so powerful that the surrounding bamboo stalks began swaying violently!!

That sharp blade forged from Hundred Refined Fine Iron merely sliced through the air in the simplest manner, yet through its high-speed collision and friction with the air, it forcefully generated intense heat and imparted that heat to the surrounding airflow it churned up...

Though the temperature was not especially high, only a little over one hundred degrees.

To mosquitoes, however, it was heavenly punishment!

When that streak of Extreme Speed sword light swept in carrying the heat wave.

In an instant.

The countless mosquitoes' exceedingly fragile bodies were burned black on the spot...

After eradicating a swarm of hundreds or thousands of mosquitoes in one strike, the airwave Ling Wuyuan had unleashed continued onward for dozens, even hundreds, of meters, blowing away all the dense white mist around him...

"Truly a pack of stupid things that don't know whether they're dead or alive..."

Taking a light sniff of the charred stench left behind by the burned mosquitoes, Ling Wuyuan casually sheathed the metal blade still hot in his hand and slowly headed toward his residence...