[Half a day later, you finally left the Songshan Sect.]
[During that half-day, you beat up all Thirteen Guardians of the Songshan Sect, as well as its leader, Zuo Lengchan.]
[Unfortunately, only seven of the Songshan Sect's Thirteen Guardians were inside the sect at the time.
They were Vice Leader Tang Ying'e, Great Yin-Yang Hand Le Hou, Nine-Twist Sword Zhong Zhen, Divine Whip Deng Bagong, Brocade-Furred Lion Gao Kexin, and Ding Mian and Lu Bai, whose hand tendons you had severed earlier.
At this moment, the hand tendons in Ding Mian and Lu Bai's hands had somehow already been reattached.
However, their newly reattached tendons were severed by you once again.
The same went for the other Guardians who had remained in the sect.]
[The one who suffered the worst, however, was Zuo Lengchan, the sect leader.
At some point, he had actually broken through to the Xiantian Realm. Although he was only at the early stage, combined with the Cold Ice True Qi and Cold Ice Divine Palm he had created himself, he could still put up a fight even against someone in the mid-stage Xiantian Realm.
In the original story, he had relied on his Cold Ice True Qi to fight Ren Woxing, who was at the mid-stage Xiantian Realm, to mutual destruction.
Unfortunately, you were not Ren Woxing. With the Purple Cloud Divine Skill protecting you, you were completely unafraid of Cold Ice True Qi.]
[Therefore, when Zuo Lengchan went all out to kill you, his fate had already been decided.
In the end, you not only severed the tendons in Zuo Lengchan's hands and feet, but also used your already moderately accomplished Star Absorbing Great Method to devour and refine all the true qi in his body.
This caused the Ren Du Meridian Channels and Twelve Meridian Channels he had already opened to wither and rupture completely, turning him into a cripple.
As for why you did not kill him, that was intentional.
First, you wanted to obtain the Xiantian-level martial arts he had created himself: Cold Ice True Qi and Cold Ice Divine Palm.
Second, you wanted to use his exposure of your possession of the Star Absorbing Great Method to present yourself as Ren Woxing's heir, thereby attracting more people to challenge you.
At the same time, you were building your reputation and laying the groundwork for ascending Black Wood Cliff to challenge Dongfang Bubai.]
[It was worth mentioning that your Purple Cloud Divine Skill and Star Absorbing Great Method complemented each other perfectly. The Star Absorbing Great Method could devour other people's inner power and true qi for your own use, allowing your strength to rise extremely quickly. However, it could not resolve the conflicts between true qi of different attributes.
The Purple Cloud Divine Skill, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. Not only did it improve extremely slowly, but it was also exceptionally good at refining foreign true qi.
The two could truly be called a match made in heaven.
That's right. Innate True Qi, including inner power, possessed attributes.
Your Purple Cloud Divine Skill, for example, drew upon the first strand of purple qi from the rising sun during cultivation, so the true qi it produced had a yang attribute.
Zuo Lengchan's Cold Ice True Qi, meanwhile, had an ice attribute.
As for the Star Absorbing Great Method, it was an exception. It had no attribute of its own. Whatever attribute it absorbed became its attribute, making it like a hodgepodge.]
[After several months of experimentation, you had already begun merging the Purple Cloud Divine Skill, Star Absorbing Great Method, and the true-qi section of the Evil Warding Sword Manual into one, and had achieved some success in cultivating them.
This not only greatly increased the total amount of your true qi, but also improved its quality considerably. It also allowed you to use a moderately accomplished Star Absorbing Great Method without abolishing your martial arts.
Unfortunately, you did not know how to open the final Yin-Yang Meridian among your Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
Thus, even after refining all the Cold Ice True Qi in Zuo Lengchan's body, your cultivation realm continued to hover at the peak of the late-stage Xiantian Realm.]
[There had been more than just members of the Songshan Sect present during your battle with them. Numerous martial artists who had been keeping an eye on your movements had also been there.
Therefore, not long after you left the Songshan Sect, news about you spread throughout the martial world through various channels as swiftly as if it had grown wings.
There were two core points to the news. First, nearly the entire upper echelon of the Songshan Sect had been wiped out, greatly weakening its strength and leaving it incapable of remaining leader of the Five Great Sword Sects. Second, you, the Mysterious Sky Swordsman, actually knew the Star Absorbing Great Method and were suspected of being the heir of Ren Woxing, the former leader of the Sun Moon Holy Cult.]
[You naturally heard about this news as well, but since you were in seclusion digesting your insights, you had no intention of coming forward to clarify anything, nor did you plan to explain yourself.
At the same time, you learned that many people were frantically searching for you everywhere.
The ones you knew about alone included the Sun Moon Holy Cult, Xiang Wentian, Ren Yingying, and the Left Path Cultists under her command.
You also knew why these people were looking for you: they wanted to learn about Ren Woxing.]
[Half a month later, you successfully digested what you had gained from your trip to the Songshan Sect, and your Dugu Nine Swords had become even more refined and profound.
You also looked through Zuo Lengchan's Cold Ice True Qi, but unfortunately, it was only a low-grade Xiantian-level cultivation method and held little value for you.]
[As soon as you emerged from seclusion, all sorts of strange characters immediately came looking for you.
Elders of the Sun Moon Holy Cult, the Five Poisons Sect, the Six Immortals of Peach Valley...
When facing these people, if they spoke politely, you did not make things difficult for them and simply sent them back where they came from, such as Lan Fenghuang of the Five Poisons Sect and her subordinates.
If they were unreasonable and courting death, you naturally did not mind giving them a sword strike, such as the elders of the Sun Moon Holy Cult and the not-too-bright Six Immortals of Peach Valley.
These people were all first-rate experts in the martial world. Although not one of them had reached the Xiantian Realm, several were half a step into Xiantian, while the rest had uniformly reached at least the late-stage Houtian Realm.
Most importantly, all of their martial arts had their own distinctive characteristics, which greatly helped you improve your Dugu Nine Swords.]
[Thus, you followed your whims as you traveled, challenging various factions and accepting challenges from others along the way.
Hengshan, Taishan, Huashan, Wudang...
To avoid attracting attention, you even climbed Mount Hua and challenged your master, Yue Buqun, as well as several of your senior and junior fellow disciples.
Of course, you went while your eldest senior brother, Linghu Chong, that carefree wanderer, was away. Otherwise, you might have given yourself away.]
[It was worth mentioning that because of your interference, your eldest senior brother Linghu Chong had not been punished by your master for the Five Great Sword Sects' carvings in the cave on Siguo Cliff.
He also had nothing to do with the Evil Warding Sword Manual, had not learned the Star Absorbing Great Method, and had not even had time to befriend the Left Path Cultists under Ren Yingying.
Without all those chaotic events, your master, Yue Buqun, had already passed the complete Purple Cloud Divine Skill on to your eldest senior brother Linghu Chong. This helped him refine the multiple strands of foreign true qi in his body, greatly increasing his strength and allowing him to leap to the peak of the Houtian Realm.
Your seventh junior brother, Lu Dayou, also did not die because of the Purple Cloud Divine Skill manual, with Lau Der-no framing your eldest senior brother Linghu Chong for the murder.
The only thing that remained the same was that your junior sister, Yue Lingshan, and your junior brother, Lin Pingzhi, grew increasingly close, while your eldest senior brother Linghu Chong grew increasingly close to Ren Yingying.
As for how things would ultimately develop, even you, who knew the original story's plot, no longer knew where they would lead.]