Exam Experience

The heavy alloy door of the training room silently closed behind him, shutting out the noise outside.

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

The morning's mental exertion had been immense, but the physical fatigue was not particularly obvious. After regulating his breathing for a moment and resting for around ten minutes, he had basically recovered.

Snap!

His fingertip tapped lightly against the virtual control screen, and the holographic projection activated instantly.

Soft light gathered in the center of the room. The vivid image of the steady, capable Middle-Aged Man holding a longsword from yesterday afternoon appeared before Li Wen once more.

Review the old to learn the new.

Although the [Once Proven, Forever Proven] passive granted by the system allowed him to permanently remember the intricacies of techniques he had mastered and never forget them, if he wanted to truly integrate them and even refine them to perfection, he could only do so through thousands upon thousands of observations and practices.

Yesterday, he had merely swallowed the entire sequence of sixty-four forms whole, forming an initial overall impression. Today, he needed to break them down more carefully, understand them, and forge them into muscle memory.

He changed his approach. Rather than watching an entire set before practicing, he watched one move, paused, then imitated it several times, striving to comprehend every subtle movement in each form performed by the Middle-Aged Man, the paths along which force circulated, and that unique momentum, as though a long rainbow were piercing the sun.

Time quietly flowed away amid focused imitation and contemplation.

When the after-school bell rang in the afternoon, Li Wen had almost simultaneously completed the final few forms in his plan for the day.

Beads of sweat rolled down the sharp line of his jaw and dripped onto the composite floor, smooth as a mirror.

He walked over to the console and brought up the training settings panel.

He still needed to set aside around an hour that night to cultivate the Fracture Edge Gold Sha Method in an [Absolute Focus] state, so he had to compress the time he spent practicing blade techniques.

After a brief thought, he set a ninety-minute countdown reminder.

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

"Activate—[Absolute Focus]!"

The instant the command was issued, it was as though the world had been muted in an instant, yet also as though it had been thrown into a rapidly spinning kaleidoscope.

All irrelevant sensory information was stripped away and blocked out. The clarity of his thoughts and his information-processing ability rocketed violently upward.

Bzzzt—!

An indescribable rush of heat and chill erupted simultaneously from the depths of his mind. The thirty-percent boost to his comprehension activated at once.

Within his field of vision, only the standard alloy saber that had accompanied him for days remained. Every minute pattern along its blade and the cold, hard sheen of forged alloy became infinitely clear.

In his mind, the sixty-four-form breakdown of the Rainbow Light Blade Art seemed to have been slowed down, while also playing, analyzing, and comparing at high speed.

The unclear points and difficult parts from his earlier observations were now peeled apart thread by thread beneath his overclocked thoughts. Sparks of inspiration crackled and surged without end like an overloaded circuit.

The crucial points of force application, the subtle changes in his center of gravity when his movement techniques turned, the laws governing the pull of vital energy as the blade tore through the air... The practical essence hidden beneath the intricate diagrams of the forms now poured continuously into his understanding like a deciphered code.

When this intensely concentrated realization reached a certain threshold, every muscle in Li Wen's body moved in coordination, and his eyes abruptly locked onto an invisible "target" ahead.

First form—Long Rainbow!

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

Li Wen's right foot slammed down. His body shot forward like an arrow loosed from its bow, and his wrist suddenly exerted force as the blade light slashed diagonally from his waist like a bolt of silk.

Whoosh—! The heavy alloy saber sliced through the air at high speed, producing a deep, piercing howl.

Before the Blade Force had fully faded, the toes of his advancing foot had already touched the floor. His waist twisted like a bowstring drawn taut, then released in an instant.

Second form—Rainbow Shadow!

The blade moved with the body; the body advanced with the blade!

Li Wen's figure instantly became impossible to pin down within the spacious training room.

One second, the sharp blade was still pointed directly at the eastern corner; amid the shifting of his steps, a heart-chilling flash of blade light had already turned westward.

His footwork was no longer simple basic maneuvering. It incorporated the unique curved bursts and instantaneous changes of direction of the Rainbow Light Blade Art, making him astonishingly fast.

His angles of attack were even more tricky and bizarre. They seemed open and forceful, but actually contained multiple changing follow-up moves within them. Whether it was the speed of his strikes or the swiftness of his body's overall movement, both vastly surpassed the limits an Advanced Blade Technique at Perfection had once been capable of reaching.

This was the terrifying potential of a Peak Blade Art.

And this was merely a state of "not yet initiated," where he had not fully integrated it.

The fluidity Li Wen displayed at this moment was already separated from the true Initiation realm of the Rainbow Light Blade Art by only a thin layer of window paper.

Even if he could not completely pierce through it today, after the high-intensity comprehension and practice this afternoon, he believed that tomorrow it would naturally fall into place.

"Ring-ring-ring-ring!" The half-hour timer alarm he had set sounded its sharp, urgent buzz right on time.

The figure darting and flashing through the training room abruptly stopped. All of his overclocked thoughts and extreme perception receded rapidly like a tide.

Intense mental exhaustion crashed down upon Li Wen's mind and body like heavy blocks of lead.

"Phew—!!!"

He forcefully expelled a mouthful of turbid air carrying scorching heat, as though he wanted to purge every trace of residue left by the burning within him.

Leaning on his longsword, Li Wen panted slightly, sweat pouring down his forehead and neck like rain.

He immediately summoned his character panel, his gaze landing precisely on the [Skills] section:

[Skills: Blade Technique · Advanced (Perfection), Blade Technique · Peak (Not Initiated)]

"Phew..." Seeing those three words, Li Wen was not discouraged in the slightest. Instead, his eyes became even brighter and sharper.

"Only the last dozen or so forms remain! I already finished more than fifty of the earlier forms this afternoon. Tomorrow afternoon will be more than enough to completely absorb the essence of those remaining forms and link them all together!"

The standard for determining initiation into a Peak Blade Art was clear and straightforward:

Could one execute all sixty-four forms completely and smoothly in one go, without interruption or obvious errors, while understanding their core principles?

Today, he had already thoroughly absorbed the intricacies of the forms themselves in his overclocked state. What he lacked was only the seamless bodily continuity to completely integrate the final dozen or so relatively more difficult "variation moves" and explosive finishing forms.

One day? More than enough!

Li Wen walked toward the weapon rack beside him, his movements somewhat sluggish, yet carrying a satisfying resolve.

His sweat-soaked sportswear clung tightly to his back. The cool, clammy sensation instead gave him a feeling of relaxing exhilaration.

He carefully placed the saber that had fought alongside him for two days into its slot, then turned and left the training room that had witnessed countless practice sessions and breakthroughs.

At the end of the corridor, the afterglow of dusk streamed through the enormous floor-to-ceiling window, casting a long shadow across the floor.

Though the shadow looked somewhat weary, it contained the sense of power of a butterfly about to break free from its cocoon.

The pressure of the exam two days away had not crushed him. Instead, it was like a whetstone, making this newly forged "sharp blade" all the more eager to leave its sheath and test its edge.