The peaceful days always flew by.
After becoming a constable in Peace Town, Lin Hanzhou's life became more structured than ever before.
By day, he stayed inside his little courtyard, devoting himself to cultivation.
By night, he put on his constable's uniform, took up his waist saber, and patrolled the quiet streets at an unhurried pace.
Meanwhile, his blue-grade talent—Martial Arts Prodigy—finally began to unleash its terrifying power.
Back on Blue Star, held back by his D-grade talent, he had found every step forward in cultivating the Luo Heaven Art an uphill struggle.
But now, cultivating that same Luo Heaven Art, Lin Hanzhou found his thoughts clearer than ever.
His spiritual power flowed without the slightest hint of stagnation.
The thin spiritual energy in the air seemed to be drawn by some strange force, gathering of its own accord inside him.
An hour of cultivation now yielded nearly as much as several days had before.
Compared to his previous pace, it was practically like riding a rocket.
That was the terrifying power of the Martial Arts Prodigy talent's cultivation-speed boost.
After becoming a constable, Lin Hanzhou had needed only one year for his cultivation to surge to the third level of the second tier.
He was very satisfied with this pace; it had far exceeded his expectations.
Originally, he had planned to lie low for fifty years and see if he could break through to the third-tier Qi Sea Realm.
But at his current rate, he was confident he could reach the peak of the second-tier Qi Gathering Realm in about five years.
This rate of cultivation was simply astounding.
After all, in the Great Sui world, it had taken him over a hundred years to cultivate from the third level of the first tier to the first level of the second.
Granted, the thin spiritual energy had played a part, but the difference was still like heaven and earth.
If he'd had this talent in the Great Sui world, it would never have taken him over a hundred years to break through to the second tier.
"Just what you'd expect from a talent provided by the system. It's incredible."
Lin Hanzhou marveled inwardly.
Besides improving his cultivation, he had also made sure to study those two techniques over the past year.
Both had been generously provided by Zhou Fengyu, and both were famous martial arts of the Cloud Glow Sect.
He had only skimmed through the Cloud Glow Heart Method once before tossing it aside.
This heart method was of no use to him.
Though ordinary martial artists would have considered it a rare treasure, its spiritual-power circulation route and cultivation limit were both far inferior to the Luo Heaven Art he was currently cultivating.
The Flowing Cloud Sword Technique, on the other hand, had been a pleasant surprise.
To his astonishment, it was a high-grade sword technique.
He didn't know exactly how this world ranked martial arts, but based on the Yellow-tier sword techniques he knew, its intricacy would have put it at no lower than the Profound tier on Blue Star.
A Profound-tier sword technique was already quite impressive.
As it happened, he had been looking to replace his current sword technique.
At the Blue Star Martial Arts Academy, he had only learned the basic swordplay taught to all students.
That technique was merely low-grade Yellow tier, among the lowest ranks.
It could handle a few low-tier martial artists, but against anyone above the third tier, it was woefully inadequate.
Even after Lin Hanzhou had mastered the technique, it still wasn't enough.
Now that he had the Profound-tier Flowing Cloud Sword Technique, he naturally meant to replace it.
As for his martial skill and movement technique, he was still using Yellow-tier ones.
Unfortunately, Zhou Fengyu hadn't dropped either of those, so he would have to make do with them until he got the chance to replace them.
And so, in the days that followed, Lin Hanzhou began devoting some of his energy to cultivating the Flowing Cloud Sword Technique.
At that moment, the Martial Arts Prodigy talent once again revealed its heaven-defying side.
The instant he opened the manual and tried the first move, a feeling like an enlightened master had poured wisdom straight into his mind surged through him.
The illustrations and explanations of the moves, which had once seemed obscure and difficult to understand, suddenly became clearer than ever.
He could even spot their key principles at a glance, draw inferences from them, and make subtle adjustments to the technique.
On the first day, he mastered the first three forms of the Flowing Cloud Sword Technique.
By the third day, he could perform the entire set of moves in one smooth sequence.
On the seventh day, at dawn,
he was practicing his sword in the courtyard when a casual thrust sent a wisp of Sword Qi drifting from his sword tip like a flowing cloud.
The Sword Qi was incredibly fast. In the blink of an eye, it sliced a slab of bluestone in front of him cleanly in two.
This was the sign that the Flowing Cloud Sword Technique had reached the introductory level: Sword Qi that flowed like clouds.
"I... mastered a Profound-tier sword technique in just one week?"
Even Lin Hanzhou himself was astonished.
He knew exactly what this meant.
Even the geniuses with A-grade talents on Blue Star couldn't manage this.
It took at least one or two months to reach the introductory level in a Profound-tier sword technique.
He had done it in just one week. It was practically against all reason.
More importantly, he had also noticed that his Flowing Cloud Sword Technique seemed stronger than the original.
That was right: Lin Hanzhou hadn't just mastered the technique; he had even improved it.
His adjustments made the Flowing Cloud Sword Technique faster to execute and more powerful than the original.
The old him would never have been able to do this.
But with the Martial Arts Prodigy talent supporting him, he found that he understood martial arts far more thoroughly.
He could analyze every move and every route of spiritual-power circulation.
That was how he had managed to improve the Flowing Cloud Sword Technique.
Based on his estimate, the Flowing Cloud Sword Technique should now be high-grade Profound tier.
He hadn't just improved it; he had raised the sword technique's grade outright.
If the Cloud Glow Sect's upper echelon learned of this, they would probably invite Lin Hanzhou to become their sect master.
After all, this Flowing Cloud Sword Technique had been created by the Cloud Glow Sect's founding patriarch. It was the sect's supreme technique, the very cornerstone of the Cloud Glow Sect.
The sect's grandmasters throughout the generations had all tried to improve it. One grandmaster had even spent a century studying it, only to fail.
That showed just how difficult it was to improve the Flowing Cloud Sword Technique.
As the story went, the Cloud Glow Sect's founding patriarch had spent a full century creating it.
That patriarch could never have imagined that someone would be so heaven-defying as to improve his sword technique right after mastering it.
This was like a little cow riding a plane—so freaking incredible it had soared to the heavens.
"Who would've thought? This blue talent is already so incredible. It really does make me a Martial Arts Prodigy."
"I can hardly imagine how heaven-defying the purple, gold, or even red talents above it must be."
Lin Hanzhou couldn't help exclaiming. He tightened his grip on the longsword, his eyes blazing with radiant light.
If he mastered all these techniques to their limits, could he change this chaotic world?
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