Zhao Cheng's swordsmanship wasn't elegant, nor did it have many variations. It wasn't because he'd reached a state where he'd returned to simplicity. That was simply the nature of the swordsmanship he practiced.
Steady! Steady! And still more steady!
The 17th Basic Swordsmanship 6th Revised Edition had taken the word "steady" to the utmost extreme.
And that was enough.
For beginners, breadth could never beat mastery. Trying to learn everything meant mastering nothing. Only by focusing on one thing could they achieve anything.
From simple to complex, then from complex back to simple: this was the path every swordmaster had to take.
Swordsmanship had endless variations. For now, Zhao Cheng had the advantage of steadiness. Every movement he made was as solid as a rock.
And a sword already had an edge of its own. Combine that edge with the steadfastness of a rock, and its killing power was naturally formidable.
The real world had a thousand years of swordsmanship behind it. A hundred years ago, the entire nation had poured its strength into creating sword techniques, refining them ever since. They were no ordinary techniques.
One detail said it all: the Panel didn't even display a quality rating for this swordsmanship. That alone showed how formidable it was.
That was because this swordsmanship was extraordinary in the hands of the strong, but utterly useless in the hands of the weak.
Its quality changed according to the practitioner's skill!
And with Zhao Cheng's swordsmanship at lv8, the technique had already begun to show its edge.
Clang!
Zhao Cheng's blade collided with the Gray Man's fist, ringing like steel striking steel. Its fist felt nothing like flesh and blood; it was more like it had been forged from iron.
This level of toughness was beyond anything Zhao Cheng had expected. He'd thought that since the other had bare fists while he wielded a sword, he would naturally have the advantage. He hadn't imagined that its fists would be so sturdy.
But even as things took an unexpected turn, Zhao Cheng's mind remained as clear as a flat lake. The sword hanging above it had silently cut away every thought unrelated to the fight.
Single-minded and wholly focused!
The effects of the method for cultivating the mind were still manifesting.
Even if only temporarily, it could let someone bring out twelve-tenths of their fighting strength in battle.
At the same time, Zhao Cheng felt the tremendous force coming from the other's fist. It was powerful enough to shatter stone and split monuments. If Zhao Cheng's swordsmanship were still only lv4, that single blow would likely have knocked his weapon away. The next punch would have killed him.
Zhao Cheng had to accept the truth: at the beginning, even Grunts had killed him in an instant.
Now, his strength hadn't increased in the slightest, but his improved swordsmanship let him channel the force through the tremors in his bones and muscles, transmitting it down into his feet in an instant.
The "steadiness" in his swordsmanship lay in how he carried the force.
The frame formed by his flesh, bones, and sinews was like a roly-poly toy. Naturally, he stood as firm as Mount Tai!
That was the true meaning of steadiness.
Even so, Zhao Cheng felt a numbing ache in his bones and muscles. Fortunately, it didn't interfere with his swordsmanship.
After that one blow, the Gray Man immediately changed its moves. Its fists shifted, then came curling toward Zhao Cheng with the relentless force of chasing wind and moon.
From that change alone, Zhao Cheng could tell that the Gray Man had an exceptionally keen battle instinct.
Its behavior earlier had been somewhat like a minor enemy in a game, but this was definitely not a game.
Its moves couldn't be as stiff as those of a game monster. It possessed a powerful battle instinct.
Zhao Cheng had no experience fighting a boxing expert. Strictly speaking, across both his lives, the only fights he'd ever had were the pathetic scuffles with classmates at school in this life.
That he could now fight the Gray Man calmly without making mistakes was thanks to the wonders of the Breathing Visualization Method that came with his swordsmanship.
But his earlier "studying the moves" hadn't been useless. He'd considered the strengths and weaknesses of both himself and his enemy. His advantages were that a longer weapon had greater reach, and that his sword was sharp.
The second advantage was now gone, but he still had the advantage of reach.
His weakness was his lack of skill in close combat. Beyond two paces, a longer weapon had greater reach. Within two paces, once his enemy got close, he could no longer properly use his sword. It was as if his martial arts had been "crippled."
The Gray Man hadn't shown the slightest sign of Wisdom, but its battle instinct was astonishingly nimble.
With just one move, it had already closed in on Zhao Cheng, trying to get close and limit the reach of his weapon.
If the Gray Man got right up against him, Zhao Cheng would likely end up in a story where he was beaten like Zheng Guanxi. Naturally, he'd be the one getting beaten.
As the Gray Man "coiled" around him, its iron-tower of a body surged forward. The pressure of that charge made a feeling of dread well up in Zhao Cheng against his will.
Without the support of the Breathing Visualization Method, his hands would probably be shaking with fear by now. He'd be lucky to bring out even three-tenths of his swordsmanship.
No one was truly strong enough to fear nothing. Zhao Cheng was no exception; he could feel fear, too.
Those who didn't know fear weren't strong. True strength was knowing what fear was and still being able to overcome it.
The dread the Gray Man inspired made the sword above Zhao Cheng's mind waver. He'd nearly lost his composure.
Fortunately, Zhao Cheng steadied himself in time. His body moved without hesitation, retreating at once to open up some distance.
His thoughts shifted in the blink of an eye, and his body moved with equal speed and agility.
The Gray Man's joints weren't flexible enough. Otherwise, with that momentary disturbance in Zhao Cheng's thoughts, it would have "coiled" him to death.
Humans were both strong and fragile. Someone of Zhao Cheng's level could easily kill a fellow human, yet one wrong move could just as easily get him killed by one.
No matter how keen and steadfast a sword was, it couldn't change the fact that the body was fragile flesh and blood.
Clang!
They clashed again. The sword rang and quivered, and a white mark appeared on the other's fist. Clearly, it wasn't truly indestructible.
After that strike, Zhao Cheng began to grow accustomed to the fight, displaying a powerful capacity to adapt.
In any first battle, the enemy's first counterattack was undoubtedly the most oppressive. Later counterattacks, at least on a psychological level, exerted far less pressure.
At that moment, Zhao Cheng had taken his first step from practice into real combat!
Changes in the mind should have been subtle, even hard to notice over a short span of time. Growth was usually gradual, only becoming clear when someone looked back one day and suddenly realized how far they'd come.
But thanks to the Breathing Visualization Method, and in part to Zhao Cheng's extraordinary talent for swordsmanship, the moment he crossed that psychological barrier, the sword above his mind grew a little more solid.
As for the Panel:
Log: Spirit +0.1, Quietude Proficiency +3%, 17th Basic Swordsmanship 6th Revised Edition Proficiency +10
His changes, his growth—they were immediately visible.
Even if only a little!
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