Two cultivators, a man and a woman, appeared in the air. They were Yan Chihuo and Snow Fairy. That earlier Sword Light Differentiation had been Yan Chihuo's doing.
Snow Fairy was also a sword cultivator. Seeing Yan Chihuo's sword art, she mused to herself, "With this Sword Light Differentiation, Chihuo did not use Three Heads and Six Arms at all. In truth, it only means his mana is deeper; it is entirely a technique of the Origin Core Stage. This is precisely the realm spoken of in sword arts: breaking a surface with a single point, defeating clumsiness with ingenuity. Only upon reaching this can a sword cultivator roam the world unchallenged once their sword arts are perfected."
The more she thought, the more admiration she felt. "If my opponent's sword arts had reached this level and their cultivation matched mine, I would fall into a disadvantage under this one sword strike. If I could not flee within three moves, I would either die or be wounded. Though Chihuo's cultivation has advanced swiftly, his sword-art cultivation has truly proceeded steadily and surely. He refuses to advance to Refining Sword into Silk no matter what. That takes immense resolve and great wisdom."
What Snow Fairy did not know was that Yan Chihuo's resolve and wisdom were not quite as she imagined. The reason his sword arts had yet to reach the level of Refining Sword into Silk was that he had had no time to practice swordsmanship in the Netherworld, not because he had been laying a firm foundation.
Yan Chihuo smiled faintly. "Master Qi, have you been well since we last met?"
When Qi Yuan first saw Yan Chihuo, he only found him familiar and could not recognize him at once. Hearing this, he could not help saying, "Fellow Daoist,