"Fencing is never just about swinging a sword in a rigid, by-the-numbers fashion. No matter how exquisite the technique, training like that will only ever lead to mediocrity. You must pour your spirit into it, give it your undivided attention, and focus on observing and feeling every movement—from the individual parts to the changes in the whole. Immerse yourself in it. Then, even a single sword stroke can be an excellent technique!"
"There must be spirit in swordsmanship. Only then is it truly a sword. Otherwise, it's just a scrap of rusty iron, utterly useless!"
The instructor's voice rang out.
In the practice hall, Zhao Cheng and the others had already begun swinging their swords.
The wooden swords moved through one form after another, not very quickly, and without much explosive force.
But if you watched closely, you could sense a certain steadiness.
The essence of this sword technique lay in steadiness. It wasn't meant to unleash explosive power, but to train one's control over the sword.
Trying to pursue explosive force when you couldn't even keep your sword steady was like trying to run before you'd learned to walk. It did no good at all.
The steadier the sword's path became with this method, the deeper one's mastery. It was said that if you surpassed the Extreme Realm, then as long as you held a sword, you couldn't be knocked down.
Of course, ordinary people could never reach such a realm.
As Zhao Cheng swung his wooden sword, the instructor's voice resounded beside him, but it didn't distract him in the slightest. He poured his spirit, energy, and vitality into every movement.
Whether you infused a sword form with your spirit, energy, and vitality was something an ordinary person might not be able to see without a keen eye. But though you could fool others, you couldn't fool yourself.
Once he did so, every movement gave Zhao Cheng the sensation that pulling one thread moved the whole body. His entire body was like a precision machine: every motion stirred the rest, harmonious and unified.
If he hadn't spent nearly twenty minutes practicing breathing and visualization beforehand, awakening his latent vitality, he would never have felt this sense of harmony simply by swinging a sword.
During the process, Zhao Cheng could sense faint traces being branded into his body, remembered by his body and engraved into his spirit, where they would be preserved.
These traces were faint and few, but small gains added up. Given enough time, they would one day pile up like sand into a tower and gather like trickles into a river, revealing an extraordinary result.
In this state, Zhao Cheng's sense of time grew blurry. It wasn't that time stretched endlessly, making a day feel like a year. Instead, it was like playing an engrossing game, with time seeming to shrink away.
It felt as though only a moment had passed, even though a long time had gone by in reality.
By then, the instructor had taken a wooden sword and begun moving through the crowd. From time to time, he would flick it out, cutting through the air and clashing with the wooden swords in the students' hands.
At the instant of impact, force traveled through the wood. The student whose sword had been struck would jolt, adjust the flow of force, and suddenly find that the previously awkward, disconnected movements of their form now flowed smoothly.
To have this kind of insight and skill, one had to be at least a Swordsman—and not a newly advanced one. They needed to have spent a while at that level, made some progress, and refined their spirit to a certain degree before they could use this method to correct someone else's sword forms.
This teaching method was truly hands-on. With so many students, the instructor couldn't address every detail, but they could work those out themselves, searching for the right feeling. The most important thing was that he corrected their basic form, ensuring they wouldn't practice incorrectly.
After who knew how long, Zhao Cheng suddenly felt waves of exhaustion wash over him. The clarity he'd felt moments earlier vanished, and his awareness of his body grew hazy, as though it were obscured by a veil.
Zhao Cheng knew at once that he had reached his limit.
So he didn't push himself to do more. He slowly lowered his sword.
He looked around and saw that all his classmates were resting. He was the last one.
Even this small detail showed the difference in their swordsmanship.
"Zhao Cheng, your swordsmanship has improved quickly over the past six months. Your forms are now mastered. You're the only one in Class Seven who's reached this level. It's clear you've put in a great deal of hard work."
The instructor spoke.
He hadn't paid much attention to Zhao Cheng before. Back then, Zhao Cheng's swordsmanship had been middle of the pack—not especially good or bad, and nothing remarkable.
But Zhao Cheng was still a teenager, with no one to guide him personally. It was perfectly normal for him to be unable to settle his mind. And without a focused mind, his swordsmanship was unlikely to improve much.
Then, half a year ago, Zhao Cheng's swordsmanship had suddenly begun to improve by leaps and bounds. In just six months, he had gone from barely a beginner to mastery.
The instructor didn't find this strange.
Such things had happened often throughout history.
A person's resolve could come suddenly. After experiencing something, some people would make up their minds and seem like a different person, achieving impressive results in a short time.
Of course, others would make up their minds, only to fall back into their old ways after a few days.
Zhao Cheng had clearly persevered and achieved results.
The instructor didn't know what Zhao Cheng had experienced to bring about this change, nor was he interested in finding out. Everyone had their own encounters and fortunes.
It was a good thing that Zhao Cheng was striving forward.
"Mastery. His swordsmanship really has reached the mastery stage. I said it just now—if he could keep swinging his sword for that long, he must have broken through the bottleneck."
"There can't be many second-year students with swordsmanship at this level. There should be more in the third year, but not that many."
"..."
When the students nearby heard the instructor's words, they began murmuring among themselves.
Swordsmanship was generally divided into five stages: beginner, mastery, proficiency, grandmaster, and supreme master. Those were the modern terms. In ancient times, the names were more roundabout: "newly begun," "practice makes perfect," "transcendent mastery," "returning to simplicity," and "beyond all reckoning."
Though mastery was only the second stage and might not seem like much, it was already an impressive achievement among high school students.
Zhao Cheng's classmates were all still beginners, with a considerable distance to go before reaching mastery.
Beginner level meant that one could use the forms skillfully, performing each movement precisely and without mistakes, while also infusing one's spirit, energy, and vitality into the sword forms.
Without spirit, energy, and vitality, even the most intricate and exquisite sword forms were the work of an amateur, unable to withstand a single blow. They didn't even count as beginner-level swordsmanship.
At many high schools with weaker teaching staff, some students couldn't even reach the beginner level.
The fact that every student in Zhao Cheng's class had reached beginner level was thanks to Qingyuan's educational environment.
As for mastery, more precisely, it meant becoming skilled and then refining that skill. Once someone had practiced to a certain level, their technique gradually became more refined.
This refinement referred to the purity of the sword forms and the unimpeded flow of force. It was also a refinement of the spirit, like forging iron: hammering it over and over, striking away the impurities.