The Hundred Years of the Sword

"Hoo!"

"Haa!"

"Hoo!"

"..."

Following the sound, everyone sitting cross-legged in the quiet room adjusted their breathing frequency accordingly.

When using the Breathing Visualization Method to cultivate and refine the spirit, the visualization is important, but the breathing is even more so.

The rhythm of breathing is not set in stone; it must be adjusted according to each person's constitution. There is no such thing as everyone having the exact same rhythm.

However, although there is no such thing as an identical rhythm, the human body is not a machine that requires precision down to the micron. A slight difference in rhythm will not cause any lasting harm; at most, the effect will be slightly diminished.

The Swordsman's eye for detail and mastery of the sword are undoubtedly formidable, allowing him to guide Zhao Cheng and the others through this fundamental breathing technique.

Even though the breathing rhythm is an average, the effect, while not as good as one-on-one instruction, is far more effective than fumbling through it alone or following audio and video clips found online.

There is a reason why private lessons from a Swordsman are expensive.

Of course, Qingyuan is not without wealthy students who look down on the school's public swordsmanship classes, choosing instead to pay for one-on-one guidance after school.

But for the average student, the school's large swordsmanship class is the best teaching resource available.

This is the reason behind the online discourse claiming it is unfair to other students in Xiangnan.

Being guided during practice not only yields better results, but more importantly, it allows for the correction of poor breathing habits based on that guidance.

In the short term, the effects might not be visible, but if you extend the timeline to five, ten, or twenty years, the cumulative difference becomes massive.

Zhao Cheng breathed in time with the guidance, his hands resting on the wooden sword across his legs, visualizing in his mind and emptying his body.

The faint fragrance in the air cleared his mind, allowing him to focus even more deeply.

The source of the scent was an incense burner in the quiet room. This type of incense has the effect of calming the spirit and settling the thoughts; it is quite expensive and not something the average person can afford.

Although his breathing rhythm was guided by the sound, Zhao Cheng was not following it perfectly. Over the course of a breathing cycle, there was about a five percent difference in timing—sometimes a bit faster, sometimes slower—but overall, it did not deviate much from the guided rhythm.

Zhao Cheng's body was adapting, or rather, naturally assimilating the breathing technique to make it better suited to himself.

As long as one practices, there is progress, even if that progress is infinitesimally small.

This is undoubtedly a capability akin to an "ability."

Of course, there is naturally a gap between the progress made through self-exploration and the progress made through the guidance of a teacher.

If there were some futuristic technological instrument at this moment monitoring Zhao Cheng's body, the changes would likely be displayed as: Breathing Technique Proficiency +1, +1, +1.

It was not until nearly twenty minutes later that the voice suddenly commanded: "Stop!"

Instantly, everyone's breathing hitched. The rhythm was broken, the state of visualization was shattered, and their minds snapped back to reality.

"Cultivation lies in the balance of tension and relaxation. Blindly visualizing is not a good thing. 'Ten thousand kalpas of yin spirits struggle to enter the path of the sage'; a fragile body cannot support a powerful spirit, and it will only deplete the origin of life."

"Everyone up, gather at District 3 outside!"

The voice abruptly shifted from gentle to stern.

In the room, after nearly twenty minutes of practicing the Breathing Visualization Method, everyone had become invigorated, with no trace of the fatigue from a full day of classes.

This is the function of the Breathing Visualization Method: to cultivate and refine the spirit!

Among these, cultivation outweighs refinement.

To truly unleash the effects of cultivation and refinement, one must also practice Dynamic Practice.

Through the combination of stillness and movement, both the physique and the spirit can be effectively tempered.

However, there is a time limit to the practice of the Breathing Visualization Method, at least for someone like Zhao Cheng.

It is not the case that one can practice Static Practice to rest and recuperate, then practice Dynamic Practice until exhausted, and then rely on Static Practice to recover again.

This is because the "cultivation" of the breathing method is not true rest, but rather a form of excavation and stimulation of potential and the origin of life.

Practicing the breathing method once in a short period excavates potential; practicing it twice depletes the origin of life. Instead of refreshing the spirit, it leads to even greater fatigue.

Forcing oneself will lead to premature aging in the short term, and sudden death if continued for too long.

When he first regained his memories, Zhao Cheng had studied this aspect extensively in order to find the most efficient way to practice.

District 3 is a corner inside the venue. Within the facility, the enclosed rooms consist only of the quiet room and the changing rooms; all other areas are divided into sections by lines.

When practicing Static Practice, the space must be small to make it easier to enter Quietude, whereas when practicing Dynamic Practice, the scene must be open; only with a wide field of vision can the spirit reach its full potential.

Walking on the way to District 3, Zhao Cheng's gaze lingered on the instructor walking at the front.

This instructor was a middle-aged man who looked to be in his thirties but was actually nearly fifty. He had broad palms and a tall, sturdy frame.

What was most striking, however, was his spine, which remained perpetually upright like a thousand-fathom mountain, exuding a powerful Momentum.

Zhao Cheng knew this was one of the characteristics of the Swordsman rank. After the spirit becomes pure and solid to a certain degree, one develops their own Momentum.

However, compared to the spirit, a Swordsman's greatest asset is their physical body.

If one reaches the pinnacle of the Swordsman realm, where the spirit is purified to the extreme and the physical body is tempered to its limit, every movement can condense the full force of the entire body into a single point within a square inch.

Ordinary people only utilize twenty percent of their strength, and that is assuming they have mastered proper force-exertion techniques; otherwise, it is even lower.

This is not a matter of skill, but a difference in human anatomy.

According to scientific research, the nervous system of a Swordsman is far more developed than that of an ordinary person.

This is a form of spontaneous evolution, or rather adaptation, of the physical body triggered by the purification of the spirit.

Using the mind to drive the body, forcing it to evolve—this is the key to the cultivation system of this world.

Upon arriving at District 3, the group did not need instructions from their mentor; they spontaneously formed ranks, then dispersed to maintain distance. Following the command to begin, they each took up their wooden swords and began to practice, move by move.

This is Dynamic Practice!

Combined with the preceding Static Practice, this form of Dynamic Practice constitutes the complete 17th Basic Swordsmanship 6th Revised Edition.

The original version of this swordsmanship originated a century ago. At the behest of the top leadership, the state gathered a large number of martial arts masters. After five years of exhaustive research and countless revisions, the first draft of the basic swordsmanship was finally produced.

Over the following century, this swordsmanship has continued to evolve.

To this day, while this swordsmanship may not be the fastest-acting, the most effective, or necessarily the one that builds the most profound foundation, it is absolutely the most stable, the lowest in difficulty, and the most suitable for ordinary people.