Exam Experience

The heavy alloy door of the training room closed silently behind him, sealing off the clamor of the outside world.

The air inside was cool, carrying a faint mix of metal and sweat. Li Wen did a few simple stretches, loosening his slightly stiff joints.

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His morning had been mentally taxing, but the physical fatigue wasn't pronounced. He regulated his breath briefly, resting only about ten minutes before his state had largely recovered.

Snap!

His fingertip tapped lightly on the virtual control panel, and the holographic projection sprang to life instantly.

Soft light coalesced in the center of the room, and the image of that calm, capable middle-aged man wielding a long blade from yesterday afternoon reappeared vividly before Li Wen.

Review the old to know the new.

Though the system's [One Proof, Eternal Proof] passive kept him from ever forgetting the techniques he'd mastered, true integration—let alone refinement—could only come through countless repetitions of observation and practice.

Yesterday, he'd merely skimmed through the full set of sixty-four forms, forming a rough overall concept. Today, he needed to dissect and understand them more meticulously, embedding them into muscle memory.

He changed his approach. Instead of watching the whole set and then practicing, he watched one move, paused, then mimicked it several times, striving to grasp the subtle nuances of the middle-aged man's every motion, the trajectory of force, and that unique aura—like a rainbow piercing the sun.

Time flowed quietly amid focused imitation and contemplation.

When the afternoon dismissal bell rang, Li Wen had almost simultaneously completed the last few forms on his day's plan.

Sweat dripped from his sharply defined jawline, falling onto the mirror-smooth composite floor.

He walked to the console and pulled up the training settings panel.

He still needed to reserve about an hour in the evening to enter [Absolute Focus] and cultivate the Fracture Edge Gold Sha Method, so his blade practice time had to be compressed.

After a moment's thought, he set a one-and-a-half-hour countdown reminder.

"Hah..." Taking a deep breath, Li Wen stood steady in the center of the room, his gaze sharp as a blade's edge.

"Activate—[Absolute Focus]!"

The moment the command was issued, the world seemed to have its mute button pressed, or perhaps it was thrown into a wildly spinning kaleidoscope.

All irrelevant sensory information was stripped away and blocked. Clarity of thought and information-processing capacity rocketed upward like a spacecraft.

Hum—!

An indescribable surge of heat and cold simultaneously exploded from deep within his brain, the thirty-percent boost in comprehension instantly activating.

In his field of vision, only the standard-issue alloy quick-blade that had accompanied him for days remained. Every fine grain on the blade, the cold, hard luster of the forged alloy—all were infinitely clear now.

In his mind, the decomposed images of the sixty-four forms of Rainbow Light Blade Art seemed to hit slow-motion, simultaneously playing, analyzing, and comparing at high speed.

The blurry points and difficulties from his earlier observations were now unraveled thread by thread under his overclocked thinking. Sparks of inspiration crackled like an overloaded circuit, surging endlessly.

The key nodes of force application, the subtle shifts in center of gravity during stance transitions, the patterns of qi traction when the blade cut through air... The practical combat essence hidden beneath the exquisite form diagrams poured into his cognition like a deciphered code.

When this highly concentrated insight reached a critical threshold, Li Wen's entire body coordinated its force, his gaze locking onto an invisible "target" ahead.

First Form—Rainbow!

Clang—! The crisp ring of metal friction tore through the training room's silence.

Li Wen's right foot stomped hard against the ground, his body shooting forward like an arrow from a bowstring. His wrist exploded with power, and the blade light slashed diagonally from his waist like a bolt of silk.

Whoosh—! The heavy alloy quick-blade cut through the air at high speed, producing a low, sharp sound of breaking wind.

Before the blade's momentum faded, his forward-charging toe touched the ground, his waist twisting like a bowstring drawn taut and then instantly released.

Second Form—Rainbow Shadow!

Blade follows the body; body advances with the blade!

Li Wen's figure within the spacious training room became elusive in an instant.

One moment, the razor-sharp edge pointed straight at the eastern corner; the next, with a shift of his steps, a chilling blade light arced toward the west.

His footwork was no longer simple basic maneuvering but incorporated the unique curved dashes and instant direction changes of Rainbow Light Blade Art, astonishingly fast.

His blade angles were even more cunning and bizarre. They seemed broad and sweeping on the surface, but concealed multiple variations and follow-ups. Both the speed of his strikes and the agility of his overall movement far exceeded the limits of the advanced blade techniques he had once mastered to perfection.

Such was the terrifying potential of a top-tier blade art.

And this was still only the "not yet initiated" state, far from full integration.

The fluency Li Wen displayed now was separated from truly entering the initiation threshold of Rainbow Light Blade Art by only a thin layer of paper.

Even if he didn't fully break through today, after this afternoon's high-intensity comprehension and practice, he was confident that tomorrow would bring it about naturally.

Ring-ring-ring, ring-ring-ring—the half-hour timer he'd set let out a sharp, urgent buzz.

The figure flashing and shifting at high speed in the training room came to an abrupt halt. All the overclocked thinking and extreme perception receded like a tide.

An intense mental fatigue crashed down on Li Wen's mind and body like a heavy lead weight.

"Hah—!!!"

He forcefully expelled a breath of hot air, as if trying to purge all the burned residue from his body.

Leaning on his long blade, Li Wen panted slightly, sweat pouring from his forehead and neck like rain.

He immediately summoned his character panel, his gaze locking precisely onto the [Skills] section.

[Skill: Blade Technique (Mastered), Blade Technique (Not Yet Begun)]

"Phew..." Seeing those three words, Li Wen was not discouraged at all; instead, his gaze grew even sharper and keener.

"Just the last dozen or so forms left! I've already nailed the fifty-plus forms before this afternoon. Tomorrow afternoon will be enough to fully digest the essence of these last ones and link them all together!"

The criteria for entering the Peak Blade Technique were crystal clear:

Could he perform all sixty-four forms completely and smoothly, without interruption, without obvious mistakes, and while grasping their core essence?

Today, under overclocked focus, he had already thoroughly absorbed the intricacies of the forms themselves. What he lacked was only the continuity to fully integrate the last dozen or so "transitional moves" and "explosive finishing techniques"—which were slightly more difficult—into his body's muscle memory.

One day? More than enough.

Li Wen walked toward the weapon rack. His movements were a bit sluggish but carried a satisfied, resolute steadiness.

Sweat-soaked sportswear clung to his back, the cool touch instead bringing him a wave of relaxed relief.

He carefully placed the swift blade that had accompanied him through two days of "battles" securely into its slot, then turned and left the training room that had witnessed countless drills and breakthroughs.

At the end of the corridor, the twilight glow spilled through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, casting a long shadow across the floor.

The shadow looked a little weary, yet it held a power on the verge of breaking out of its cocoon.

The pressure of the exam two days later had not crushed him; instead, it was like a whetstone, making this newly forged "blade" all the more eager to leap from its sheath and test its edge.