After Elder Han He left.
"Elder Shang Wu, do you have any plans for Li Mo these next few days?"
Ying Bing asked.
Elder Shang Wu narrowed her almond-shaped eyes slightly and thought it over.
"Other than cooking, there's nothing particularly important."
"Then I'd like to borrow him for three days."
"I want him to learn swordsmanship with me for three days."
Ying Bing said softly.
After all, she wasn't Li Mo's master.
If she wanted to teach him something, she still had to ask the 'rightful owner' first.
"Little Bing, I trust your swordsmanship, but three days... won't teach him much, will it?"
Elder Shang Wu nodded in agreement, but couldn't help feeling curious.
"I have this."
Ying Bing took something from her sleeve.
Three sticks of pale azure incense.
"Spirit Rhinoceros Incense? The Sect Master even gave you this? How generous..."
Elder Shang Wu's almond-shaped eyes widened slightly. She clearly knew how valuable it was.
This wasn't produced in the Eastern Wasteland Domain.
It came from the Central Divine Province. It was made by grinding a rare treasure called Spirit Rhinoceros Wood into powder, then refining it with other precious materials.
Lighting it while studying martial arts could greatly enhance one's intelligence.
However, Spirit Rhinoceros Wood grew slowly, taking three hundred years to grow a single inch, so its yield was extremely scarce.
The sect probably didn't have much left. It had been passed down from the founding patriarch, with successive sect leaders pinching every last bit of it away.
Giving Ying Bing three sticks at once showed just how much they valued her.
Elder Shang Wu scratched her head, feeling somewhat embarrassed.
It seemed she'd done little for her disciple besides give him two martial manuals and mooch food and drink off him...
"Wait, you mean you're going to use the Spirit Rhinoceros Incense on Little Mo?"
Elder Shang Wu came to her senses.
"Mm. It's no use to me."
Ying Bing nodded.
"All right, then I'll leave him in your hands."
"Heh... that kid's pretty lucky."
Elder Shang Wu nodded with a smile.
It was all the same if she couldn't use the good stuff herself and her disciple got to use it instead.
"You're going to teach me swordsmanship?"
Li Mo had just opened up another meridian.
With eleven meridians, his Small World had expanded by a few more zhang.
Then he saw Ying Bing push open the door and enter.
"Mm. Come downstairs with me."
Ying Bing's expression was placid. After speaking, she turned and headed downstairs.
"What's gotten into her all of a sudden..."
Li Mo scratched his head, seeming to understand.
Ice Block wasn't the sort who was good with words.
She hadn't said anything about what happened beneath Clear Abyss, but she'd surely kept it in her heart.
That was fine, too.
With Ice Block around, he could save himself quite a bit of martial insight.
He knew he wasn't cut out for swordsmanship, but Little Li had no intention of giving it up completely.
Besides, he didn't have any other martial arts to practice right now.
The open space at Autumn Water Pavilion.
Green smoke curled up from the bronze censer.
The moment Li Mo smelled the incense, his mind seemed to clear and his thoughts grow more nimble.
He knew this was a good thing.
"Going from great mastery to perfection means you've truly made the martial art your own, no longer bound by its forms."
"You may not even need to rely on sword moves anymore."
"Likewise, every sword move approaches the true meaning of a certain sword path. Understand one, and you understand a hundred."
Ying Bing brought her fingers together and lightly brushed them across the bamboo beside her.
The mark of a crane feather appeared on it at once, but it wasn't fiery red—it was ice blue.
Li Mo's eyes widened slightly, and he couldn't help marveling.
'Fire Crane Thousand Feathers' had actually been turned into 'Ice Crane Thousand Feathers' by Ice Block.
That meant she'd fully understood and mastered this high-grade sword art.
He hadn't even seen her practice it.
"The perfected state of your sword art should let you freely control the timing, number, and position of each burst of force."
"You can even turn a thousand feathers into one, focusing everything on a single point, like water dripping through stone."
As soon as she finished speaking—
Pop—
One of the crane feathers suddenly exploded, its power ten times greater than if it had burst on its own.
"What you need to do now is forget the 'moves.'"
"Pick up your sword."
"Okay."
Li Mo took out the Green Steel Sword, its blade riddled with notches.
Just as he was about to move, a small, cool, soft hand closed around his. The girl's delicate fragrance swept over him.
Ying Bing gripped his hand tightly.
Li Mo: "!"
This felt different from when they'd jumped into Clear Abyss.
Back then, they'd been in free fall, and his mind had gone blank. He hadn't had a chance to think about anything else.
But now...
"Don't get distracted. I'll guide you through it once."
Her clear, cool voice sounded by his ear.
She really was teaching him hand over hand.
Even among her disciples in her previous life, there had been no shortage of prodigies, yet she'd never done more than offer them a few pointers.
Ying Bing had never taught anyone so earnestly before.
"Okay."
Li Mo gathered his thoughts and began learning in earnest.
A quarter of an hour later.
Ying Bing released his hand and silently stepped aside.
A ruler had appeared in her hand from who knew where. She watched him placidly and parted her vermilion lips.
"Practice."
Li Mo: "..."
Did Ice Block mean that if he got it wrong, she'd smack his palm with the ruler?
Five minutes later, Little Li got his answer.
It wasn't his palm.
"I'm a grown man! Why are you spanking me?"
Li Mo protested, covering his buttocks.
It didn't really hurt.
But it was humiliating!
"Ha ha ha ha!"
Elder Shang Wu laughed so hard she doubled over, rolling around on the reclining chair, tears flying from her eyes.
Ying Bing remained unmoved. Lowering her eyes, she said, "Forget the moves. You just used a sword move again. Force rises from the ground and flows through the meridians. You can do the same without using a sword move."
She didn't mention his butt at all.
There was, well, no room for negotiation.
Fine. Fine.
If I, Li, don't use my cheat just a little, they'll really think I'm not some kind of cheat, huh?
Martial insight, activate!
[Five years of martial insight successfully injected.]
[Year one: You received Ying Bing's guidance and gained inspiration. You began striving to understand the principles of swordsmanship and forget the existence of sword moves.]
[Year five: After practicing diligently, you forgot a small portion of the sword moves. The first three forms were no longer bound by their shapes.]
Good grief.
Even with Ice Block's guidance, five years of martial insight had only gotten him this far.
If he'd just slammed it in blindly on his own, who knew how long it would've taken?
"I've got it."
Li Mo picked up his sword and began practicing again.
"You really got it?"
Watching him swing his sword, Ying Bing's eyes showed a hint of surprise.
But after only a few swings, Li Mo stopped.
"Um... could you guide me through it once more?"
"...All right."
Ying Bing fell silent for a moment, then nodded.
And so, Ice Block's little swordsmanship class began again.
"Give me a moment..."
"I've got it! Guide me through it one more time."
This scene played out again and again.
Ying Bing felt a strange sort of confusion.
It was as if Li Mo was... both clever and slow-witted.
He was clumsy while she taught him, and she often had to adjust her guidance. He even made mistakes that she considered extremely basic.
But if she let him close his eyes and think on his own for a while, it was as if he'd suddenly grasped everything. All those mistakes and flaws would vanish.
Then, after a while, he'd ask her to teach him the next part all over again.
She had no idea that Little Li was conserving his martial insight.
Three days later.
Ice Block, who had just broken through to the twelfth meridian, dreamed again that night.
She dreamed of the time when she had been in charge of Cassia Palace, before she had ascended to Phoenix Heaven.
Back then, the righteous and demonic factions of Central Province were locked in fierce conflict.
The imperial court sat on the mountain and watched the tigers fight, stirring the flames from the sidelines and hoping the sects would cripple one another.
Cassia Palace was neither wholly righteous nor wholly evil and rarely interfered in the affairs of the martial world. Yet it gathered nearly half of the powerful female cultivators across the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths, so both sides did everything they could to win it over.
But the Great Yu Dynasty clearly didn't want Cassia Palace joining either side and upsetting the balance.
So the crown prince, who already held regency at the time, brought countless betrothal gifts—enough to make even the greatest powers turn red-eyed—and presented them to Cassia Palace.
"This crown prince wishes to join hands in marriage with the mistress of Cassia Palace and forge a bond that will last forever."
This wasn't the first time someone had come to propose, but it was certainly the grandest display yet.
The ending, however, was no different.
Her opponent hadn't even managed to withstand three sword strikes.
"This seat has no interest in the weak."
People kept coming to bother her. It was all so tiresome.
She truly had no interest in imperial ambitions, fighting, or anything of the sort.
Apart from remaining at the pinnacle of the martial path, there was nothing else she held in her heart.
So that was probably what she'd said at the time.
But later, as the story was passed from mouth to mouth,
it became:
"The Master of Cassia Palace likes men stronger than she is."
That rumor continued to circulate even after she became the Phoenix Heavenly Empress. It was just that no one dared challenge her anymore...
"Lately, I've often been dreaming..."
"Without reaching the Divine Observation Realm, one ultimately can't control one's own spirit."
Ying Bing rose and brushed the frost flowers from her shoulder.
The sound of sword dancing drifted in through the window, and she propped it open.
Beneath the sunlight, a boy danced with his sword.
The sword's shadow sometimes split into hundreds or thousands, then sometimes merged into one.
He wielded it with perfect ease, his movements smooth and unbroken, as though an immortal crane were unfolding its form.
Ying Bing watched in silence, the corners of her lips curling into an arc even she failed to notice.
She should still count as a fairly good teacher.
Of course, that also had something to do with Li Mo's talent.
Strange as it was,
with someone to teach him, he advanced by leaps and bounds; without anyone to teach him, he was utterly ordinary.
But in any case,
through fits and starts, he had actually brought this superior sword technique to the realm of mastery.
Ying Bing had originally thought that reaching perfection would already be quite good.
It could be said to have far exceeded her expectations.
Once the system ranked the geniuses within the Eastern Wasteland Domain half a month later, perhaps she really would be able to see him somewhere in the middle of the rankings.
Before you continue