In the study, Lin Zhennan sat at the desk, holding the proposal Wang Jingyuan had just put together and reading it carefully. Whenever he came across something he couldn't understand, he asked Wang Jingyuan, who did his best to explain it in language Lin Zhennan could follow.
After a long while, they finally finished going through the proposal. Lin Zhennan still hadn't grasped many of the details, but he understood the general idea of their collaboration.
Lin Zhennan let out a soft breath, then took a small booklet from his robe and handed it to Wang Jingyuan. Four large characters were written on its cover: "Bixie Swordplay."
A casual flip through the pages confirmed that the opening didn't contain the swordplay's most famous line.
Lin Zhennan wore a complicated expression. "This is the seventy-two forms of my Lin family's hereditary Bixie Swordplay. Although there are some... But since the Mount Hua Sect has already shielded my family from those coveting it, as Young Hero Wang suggested, I'll offer this manual to the Mount Hua Sect as tuition."
Wang Jingyuan flipped through the manual and discovered several prescriptions at the very end. They were probably the recipes for the potent medicines used alongside Bixie Swordplay.
Wang Jingyuan nodded with satisfaction. In his opinion, these prescriptions were probably worth more than the sword manual itself. After all, certain needs of men had remained unchanged since time immemorial. The prescriptions alone could give the Mount Hua Sect's treasury a healthy boost.
Some of the medicinal ingredients listed in the prescriptions, however, weren't mentioned in the Mount Hua Sect's medical texts. Wang Jingyuan took the prescriptions and asked Lin Zhennan about them.
Lin Zhennan explained them one by one, but before he could get more than a few words out, Wang Jingyuan received a notification:
[Lin Zhennan is teaching you Bixie Swordplay]
[Learn: Yes/No]
Huh?!
In the end, curiosity got the better of Wang Jingyuan, and he selected [Yes].
Having learned the skill, he now knew every detail of Bixie Swordplay by heart. He returned the booklet, and Lin Zhennan gave him a puzzled look. "What's this?"
"I've memorized it all."
Lin Zhennan nodded and put the booklet away. He'd heard of people who could memorize something at a glance, though he'd never met one. But a disciple who had entered the sect only a few months ago and could already take his master's place in recruiting disciples down the mountain clearly had extraordinary abilities. This was hardly unexpected.
Back in his room, Wang Jingyuan could barely contain himself. He drew his long sword and began practicing Bixie Swordplay. Unlike Mount Hua Sword Technique, its moves weren't particularly refined; in fact, they seemed rather crude.
But once paired with its astonishing speed, that hardly mattered.
The sword moves flashed out with incredible speed. In no time, he'd practiced all seventy-two forms. As expected, he received a notification:
[Bixie Swordplay proficiency +1]
But that didn't mean he could use his game system to practice Bixie Swordplay without paying a price.
Wang Jingyuan lowered his head and looked at the tent pitched high beneath his clothes, feeling rather helpless. His body was burning with heat, and waves of desire flooded his mind. Along with them came a trace of hot, virile Internal Energy.
He was only able to learn Bixie Swordplay directly because of the system. Anyone else would have gone berserk before even reaching the beginner stage if they tried to practice without castrating themselves.
Wang Jingyuan thought about it. He couldn't keep suffering like this, so he took off his trousers, then turned his sword upside down and aimed.
He knew there was a Harmony Mode. He wasn't sure whether it censored explicit scenes themselves or just the cutscenes, but either way, he wouldn't need the thing anymore. He might as well cut it off in exchange for more power. He'd played female characters before, after all. Compared with strength, playing a eunuch was nothing.
Snick!
Not a scratch.
Damn it. So the system prevented not only friendly fire but self-inflicted damage, too?
Wang Jingyuan tried charging at the sword himself with his own "Indian Fish-Killing Technique." Even after several attempts, he remained completely unharmed. Apparently, the system had ruled out self-injury from every angle.
Wang Jingyuan pulled up his trousers, went next door, and knocked on the door.
Bang, bang, bang! Junior Disciple Sister?
Bang, bang, bang! Junior Disciple Sister?
Bang, bang, bang! Junior Disciple Sister?
"What...? Ah! You pervert! Get lost!" Yue Lingshan had just opened the door. The moment she saw the unmistakable tent, she slammed it shut.
"Hey! I need you to help me with something. Open the door!" Wang Jingyuan kept pounding on it.
"It's late. Behave yourself, Junior Brother!"
Wang Jingyuan pounded on the door a few more times. Once he was sure he wouldn't trick Yue Lingshan into opening it that night, he sulked back to his room. He called a servant to bring him a tub and some cold water, then climbed in.
Only after a good while did he start to feel a little better. Wang Jingyuan got out of the tub and couldn't be bothered to get dressed. He practiced a few more moves, and as soon as he felt the familiar symptoms returning, he stopped and soaked himself in cold water again.
After testing it repeatedly, Wang Jingyuan worked out that as long as he used only two or three moves, there wouldn't be any consequences.
If he didn't stop at that point, desire would surge through him and disrupt the flow of his Internal Energy. Not only would the energy from Bixie Swordplay go haywire; even the Mount Hua Sect's Internal Energy would start running wild.
Wang Jingyuan's cultivation was still shallow. If his internal cultivation had been more advanced, he probably would have been coughing up blood during these experiments.
Now he knew where he stood. He could use two or three moves against an opponent, while the Internal Energy of Bixie Swordplay was still catching up, without any trouble. But if he used it continuously, he'd go berserk.
In the short term, he could treat it as a deadly move with a cooldown. As for training it further, he had to complete all seventy-two forms of Bixie Swordplay to gain a single point of proficiency.
Wang Jingyuan reckoned he could practice it at most once a day. Any more than that, and he'd have to stop. Fortunately, the game system's proficiency gains were rigid: killing someone always increased proficiency, and it didn't decrease even if he stopped practicing for a long time. Once earned, a point was his forever.
He could push the limits of practice only because of the game mechanics. For someone else to reach the point where they could practice without castrating themselves, they'd have to master it in a single session, then practice only occasionally—like fishing for three days and drying the nets for two—while still ensuring their swordsmanship improved rather than regressed.
Just how much talent would that take? And if someone had that kind of talent, did they really need to practice Bixie Swordplay?
Over the next few days, Wang Jingyuan and Yue Lingshan rested at the Fuwei Escort Agency. Wang Jingyuan was so comfortable there that he almost forgot to leave. The reason was simple: someone else did his laundry.
During the day, when they had nothing else to do, he and Yue Lingshan trained together intensely. At night, he practiced Bixie Swordplay once, then soaked in a cold bath.
Ever since that night, Yue Lingshan had seemed a little evasive around Wang Jingyuan. Still, she never turned down his requests to spar.
Yue Lingshan's swordsmanship was ultimately limited. By this point, Wang Jingyuan had caught up to her. She could only hold her own thanks to her deeper reserves of Internal Energy.
In their most recent spar, Wang Jingyuan had knocked the sword from Yue Lingshan's hands with a single move. After that, it all started to feel rather pointless.
Of course, it wasn't that Wang Jingyuan disliked beating up weaker opponents. It was just that once Yue Lingshan became easy to defeat, beating her no longer earned him any proficiency. No one wanted to grind enemies without getting anything out of it, unless they were testing their damage against a training dummy.
So Wang Jingyuan simply sent her off to spar with Lin Pingzhi.
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