Acting Degenerates, Enlightened Truth, Condensing Myriad Peaks; Consuming Pills, Supporting Sword, Encountering Clarity

Zhao Cheng's eyes lit up. All that True Essence spent taking blows, all that acting weak before his enemy—it had finally paid off. He had comprehended this sword technique and its true meaning at last.

"The urgent matter is to first deduce the Sword Hut Inheritance True Meaning. That way, comprehending the other elders' ultimate arts afterward will yield twice the results with half the effort!"

Zhao Cheng lowered his eyes, still wearing an outward look of "barely holding on."

The thin layer of pale golden radiance around him trembled ever more violently. Even his shoulders seemed to sink slightly under the shock of Sword Qi, while his face was white as though steeped in snow, as if he might collapse the very next second.

Yet no one knew that the Golden Core within his Dantian was turning steadily. With only a casual thread of True Essence leaking out, it firmly stopped Green Bamboo Sword Urn's offensive half an inch away.

Green Bamboo Sword Urn below had long lost his earlier high spirits.

More than half of his hidden reserve of Essence-Replenishing Pills was already gone. Pinching his last jade vial between his fingers, he trembled as he poured out two pills and stuffed them into his mouth.

The pills dissolved upon entering his mouth, yet they only barely restored a fraction of his depleted breath.

He stared at Zhao Cheng's "tottering" golden light, his eyes bloodshot as he continued to grit his teeth and hold on.

He absolutely could not let his fellow disciples intervene. Otherwise, after cultivating for a hundred years as Green Bamboo, after even unleashing the sword intent he had accumulated for a century, the disgrace of still failing to defeat one arrogant junior would never be washed away in this lifetime.

The elders all held