Quietude

Zhao Cheng's own experience had only involved concepts like spacetime and dimensions during the process of his transmigration.

Transmigration surely involved a process. The distance between one world and another was so vast that it surpassed the limits of human comprehension.

Zhao Cheng guessed that perhaps the process of traveling through spacetime had caused him to discover some strange changes within himself.

These changes had given birth to a trait called "???"—a strange and powerful trait, so powerful that even Zhao Cheng himself could not glimpse its full nature. As a result, only some of its effects had manifested.

As for the rest, it was still a pile of question marks.

The parts he knew about were already extraordinary enough. The first effect, Heaven Rewards Diligence, was simple and direct: as long as he worked hard, he would gain something. Even if the gains were small, they would always be there. After all, in reality, one of the cruelest things was that no matter how hard you worked, you might gain nothing at all. The appearance of this ability had undoubtedly broken that rule.

The other part was the Panel Zhao Cheng had seen. Clearly, its core was not the digitized attributes, but the Source Point, Simulation Count, and Shop within it.

The core of these three sections was some kind of wondrous equivalent exchange. As for how exactly it worked, Zhao Cheng would have to explore that himself.

Everything displayed on the Panel changes according to my understanding. It's what I expect to exist, and that's why it has manifested. As long as I want, it can change in countless ways.

Zhao Cheng thought this, knowing he could freely modify each section on the Panel. But such modifications were meaningless, at most changing their names. They could not alter his own essence.

At the same time, Zhao Cheng had no intention of changing any of these sections. The ones before him were precisely what he most wanted to know about.

The method for obtaining Source Points is unknown for now. But since this section exists, there must be a way to obtain Source Points in this world.

Quietude is at 52% progress. That's not far off from my earlier estimate, though I hadn't been able to measure it so precisely.

I'm still a fair distance from becoming a Swordsman.

Zhao Cheng thought this as he began to study each section carefully.

His swordsmanship was at the Proficient level, but a swordsmanship level did not represent one's cultivation realm.

A high swordsmanship level did not necessarily mean one had a high realm, but one's realm would certainly improve extremely quickly. Conversely, someone with a high realm would undoubtedly have a high swordsmanship level. The two complemented each other, but there was a delay in the time it took to convert one into the other.

Swordsmanship was a tool for raising one's level of life, not the level of life itself. The two were distinct, with one taking precedence over the other.

In this world, cultivation began with a gradual process of purifying the mind and body.

As far as the Sword Dao was concerned, anyone below the Swordsman level could only be considered an apprentice. One could even say they had yet to enter the path of the sword.

There were many ways to purify the mind and body, but all of them were connected to the "sword." One could practice swordsmanship, comprehend the principles of the sword, or even learn from heaven and earth. In short, it was a matter of elevating the mind.

At the beginning of the Sword Dao, there had been countless explanations for this process. It was only when the modern era arrived, and the country organized the cultivation system and ushered in an age of cultivation for all, that a unified terminology emerged.

At the beginning of cultivation, the practice of purifying the mind was called Quietude. Once the mind and spirit had been purified to a certain point, the body would also begin to change. This was what was known as Refining the Body.

The pinnacle of Quietude was difficult to measure in terms of the mind. In the body, it manifested as three-tenths of one's strength being concentrated into a single point. Without any special techniques for exerting force, every movement of the hands and feet could focus three-tenths of one's strength into a single point and unleash it.

This was beyond the reach of ordinary people, because the difference wasn't one of technique, but of physical structure. Their innate endowments were already different.

At the pinnacle of Quietude, the mind grew powerful enough that the body began to evolve "adaptively." The first thing to evolve was the nervous system.

A stronger nervous system brought greater bursts of power, but it also required sufficiently powerful mental strength to control it. Otherwise, an overly powerful nervous system would inevitably turn on its owner.

From the articles Zhao Cheng had read online, he knew that some laboratories overseas had indeed tried using biotechnology to reproduce the nervous systems of Sword Dao experts, hoping to mass-produce "super soldiers."

In the end, the nervous system proved easy enough to replicate, but the test subjects' mental strength couldn't control it. Nearly all of them ended up with nervous system disorders. The "mind" in question referred to the subconscious.

Once one could concentrate three-tenths of one's strength, one stood at the threshold of becoming a Swordsman. Taking one more step forward meant entering Settlement—in other words, reaching the Swordsman level.

This step was a qualitative transformation of the mind. Before the transformation, powerful mental strength could at most make someone seem spirited, with eyes a little brighter than those of ordinary people.

But once someone took this step, their mental strength truly began to turn from the intangible to the tangible, becoming "concrete." Of course, this did not mean the mind could interfere with matter. Rather, it meant interfering with other minds and giving rise to one's own Momentum.

Wu Nian, Zhao Cheng's instructor, had an imposing presence as majestic as a mountain. It was an outward manifestation of his mental strength after it had become "concrete."

In history, some ancient Daoists were said to wield the art of thunder. With their fingers forming the Five-Thunder Sword Seal, they could kill a ferocious tiger with a single sword strike, leaving its exterior completely unharmed. This was undoubtedly some kind of application of mental strength.

The names of cultivation realms had not been chosen at random, either. Quietude referred to a person possessing inner calm; only by becoming calm could one become settled. Without calm, settlement was mere empty talk.

Calm was like a rootless duckweed, unable to withstand wind and rain. Only after settling down and putting down roots could one gain the strength to endure frost, wind, rain, and snow.

That was why, in ancient times, one had to reach the state of Settlement to count as having entered the Sword Dao. This was not an intentional raising of the bar; it was simply the way things were.

Only after settling down could one establish a "root." With a foundation in the Sword Dao, one could eventually grow into a towering tree. The process was like a seed sprouting.

Before entering Settlement, one was merely an unsprouted seed. No matter how large the seed, its future was limited.

But once it had taken root, everything was naturally different.

Once the mind had settled and taken root, giving rise to one's own Momentum, both physical ability and the strength one could concentrate would increase explosively in a short time.

This was especially true of concentrated strength. One could concentrate at least half of one's strength, while the most outstanding could manage six-tenths or even seven-tenths. And according to legend, some highly accomplished experts with deep foundations had even formed a Rudimentary Sword Heart in a short time after breaking through this barrier, reaching the pinnacle of the Swordsman level.

At the pinnacle of the Swordsman level, setting aside the mind, the most obvious physical characteristic was that the body had been completely "refined," made pure beyond pure. Every movement could muster ten-tenths of one's strength.