[Three months later, you finally waited for Feng Qingyang at Siguo Cliff.
The moment he appeared, he drew his sword and attacked you. You immediately instinctively used Huashan Swordsmanship to block and counterattack.
But soon, you discovered that every one of his strikes attacked the weak points in your techniques, forcing you to change moves repeatedly. It was as disgusting as eating a fly.
This was the first time you had encountered such a strange sword art. Every move looked ordinary enough, yet it seemed specifically designed to counter you, making you extremely uncomfortable.]
"This should be the Dugu Nine Swords, which can defeat every technique under heaven, right?"
Looking at the words before him, Zheng Qian's expression tightened as he made a quiet guess.
Although it was a guess, his words were firm and decisive. He had already confirmed that Feng Qingyang was using the Dugu Nine Swords.
However, there were countless techniques in the world. How easy could it be to defeat them all?
He guessed that Feng Qingyang could repeatedly strike the weak points in his techniques because he had secretly observed him for a long time and was already thoroughly familiar with his sword moves.
Another reason was that Feng Qingyang's strength was also at the late stage of the Innate Realm, not much different from his own.
The Dugu Nine Swords, meanwhile, could allow one to fight above one's level. As long as the gap between the two opponents' realms was not too great, one would be countered by the Dugu Nine Swords.
But as the saying went: nothing could withstand speed, and nothing could break through firmness.
If the gap between the two opponents' strength was too great—for example, if someone in the Houtian Realm used the Dugu Nine Swords against someone in the Innate Realm—it would still be impossible to win.
In the original events of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, Linghu Chong had encountered exactly this situation. When he fought Ren Woxing in the prison beneath West Lake, Ren Woxing's Innate True Qi had directly knocked him unconscious, leaving him no chance to use the Dugu Nine Swords.
[You fought the suddenly appearing Feng Qingyang for only thirty-odd moves before he knocked the sword from your hand and defeated you.
Even so, your performance still shocked Feng Qingyang greatly.
After all, you were not yet twenty-two years old. You were simply too young.]
[Half a day later, after you and your senior brother Linghu Chong had discussed the Dao with Feng Qingyang for a long time, you successfully gained his recognition.
Afterward, feeling that he did not have much time left, Feng Qingyang decided to teach you the Dugu Nine Swords, but made you swear not to tell anyone that you had met him.
You and your senior brother Linghu Chong immediately agreed.]
[Beginning the next day, Feng Qingyang started teaching you and Linghu Chong the Dugu Nine Swords.
The Dugu Nine Swords consisted of nine forms: the General Principle Form, Sword Breaking Form, Blade Breaking Form, Spear Breaking Form, Whip Breaking Form, Rope Breaking Form, Palm Breaking Form, Arrow Breaking Form, and Qi Breaking Form.
The Sword Breaking Form could defeat every sword technique in the world, including long swords, short swords, heavy swords, soft swords, and everything else.
The Blade Breaking Form could defeat every saber technique in the world, including long sabers, paired sabers, ghost-head sabers, nine-ring sabers, and everything else.
The Spear Breaking Form could defeat every technique using long weapons in the world, including spears, lances, halberds, staves, clubs, staffs, shovels, and everything else.
The Whip Breaking Form could defeat every technique using short weapons in the world, including steel whips, daggers, axes, iron awls, short spikes, and everything else.
The Rope Breaking Form could defeat every technique using flexible weapons in the world, including long ropes, long whips, meteor hammers, three-section staffs, iron awls, and everything else.
The Palm Breaking Form could defeat every fist and kicking technique in the world, including fists, palms, fingers, claws, grappling techniques, leg techniques, and everything else.
The Arrow Breaking Form could defeat every concealed-weapon technique in the world, including flying knives, flying needles, throwing darts, flying arrows, and everything else. Apart from the General Principle Form and Qi Breaking Form, it was also the hardest of the nine forms of the Dugu Nine Swords to master.
The Qi Breaking Form was used to counter an opponent's true qi. Its essence lay in perception—in using the so-called sixth sense to find the weak points in the opponent's true qi. This mysterious and unfathomable ability relied entirely on talent. It was probably impossible to learn through effort alone later in life.
In any case, Feng Qingyang, who had cultivated the Dugu Nine Swords for decades, had not mastered it. He only knew a mysterious formula: "What is qi? The connection of the void, the root of creation. Its greatness has no outside, its subtlety has no inside... The origin of great qi, divine and clear, exists within a single mind."
You could not understand what this meant at all. Not only you—even your senior brother Linghu Chong was the same.
As for the final General Principle Form, it was the overarching principle of the Dugu Nine Swords. To cultivate it, one first had to master and integrate the previous eight forms, reaching the state where the nine swords became one before completely mastering the final General Principle Form.
Once the General Principle Form was mastered, it meant that the Dugu Nine Swords had reached the realm of great accomplishment and could almost defeat every technique and weapon in the world.
Of course, the General Principle Form did not necessarily require integrating all eight previous forms. Integrating seven, six, or even two or three forms could also count as the General Principle Form.
However, that would only be an incomplete General Principle Form, and its effects would naturally be greatly reduced.]
[Feng Qingyang taught you and Linghu Chong for only one night before leaving, never to appear again.
That night, relying on the powerful memory granted by the transformation of your body through Innate True Qi, you forcefully memorized all 360 variations of the Dugu Nine Swords.
Your senior brother Linghu Chong did not possess such excellent memory. He only remembered the General Principle Form, Sword Breaking Form, Blade Breaking Form, Spear Breaking Form, Whip Breaking Form, and Rope Breaking Form—six forms in total. But that was already formidable enough.
However, to avoid damaging his confidence, you lied and claimed that you had only remembered the first six forms as well.]
[As the saying went, a good memory was no substitute for writing things down.
The next day, you spent the entire day organizing everything about the Dugu Nine Swords that you had memorized the previous night into a book, which you carried with you.]
[On the third day, you officially began cultivating the Dugu Nine Swords.
As you cultivated, you discovered that the Dugu Nine Swords was not the high-grade Innate-level martial art you had guessed. Instead, it had no grade and grew stronger against stronger opponents!
In simple terms, the more techniques a cultivator had learned and witnessed, the stronger the Dugu Nine Swords they could use would become. Its strength had no limit.
Of course, the Dugu Nine Swords had no limit, but its cultivator did.
The highest realm in The Smiling, Proud Wanderer world was only the Xiantian Peak. Thus, in theory, the Dugu Nine Swords could only reach the high-grade Innate level here.
However, if you could bring it into other, stronger worlds, you could naturally raise it to even higher levels.]
[One month later, you successfully mastered the Sword Breaking Form, Blade Breaking Form, Spear Breaking Form, Whip Breaking Form, Rope Breaking Form, and Palm Breaking Form of the Dugu Nine Swords. Saying that you had mastered them was somewhat generous: aside from the Sword Breaking Form, which had reached the minor accomplishment stage, the rest had merely barely entered the introductory stage.
This was not because your talent was lacking. Rather, the cultivation method of the Dugu Nine Swords was simply too strange. Even the most skillful cook could not make a meal without ingredients.]
Before you continue