Practicing the Sword

Jiang Ding sat cross-legged, drenched in sweat and pale-faced.

1st Branch Meridian of the Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian (100%)

10th Branch Meridian of the Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian (100%)

Inspecting his body inwardly, he found that the ten main branch meridians of the Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian had already been tempered to completion. They were clear and luminous, with pale white inner qi flowing through them.

"Ten meridians in two days, and that's with a constant supply of Essence-Replenishing Qi-Boosting Pills." Jiang Ding calculated silently. "That's pretty fast. If I were cultivating the top-tier techniques used by martial artists like Gong Caiyu, with a thousand meridians, I could achieve a full inner qi state and begin attempting a breakthrough into the Innate Realm in two months at most."

"Ha, even super geniuses are nothing special."

He indulged in a private fantasy.

That was only natural.

The pills—the Ginseng Flower Qi-Regulating Pills—were utterly unremarkable, rated by the education system as "low-cost and barely usable." Yet if they were placed in Yue Kingdom's martial world, they would be heavenly pills that even the royal family would struggle to obtain.

Old ginseng, they had it. All sorts of medicinal herbs over a hundred years old, they had those too. But they could not enjoy pills of this grade.

The sort of service an Immortal Sect citizen could receive merely by sending a package contained immense labor value. Calling it turning stone into gold would not be an exaggeration.

The gap in cultivation techniques and teaching resources was even greater.

"What a pity. The Fledgling Eagle Takes Flight Sword Art has one hundred and eight thousand meridians!" After indulging in his fantasies for a moment, Jiang Ding's heart sank.

"Tempering and nourishing five a day means twenty-one thousand six hundred days!"

"Fifty-nine years!"

After roughly calculating the result, Jiang Ding was shaken and could no longer remain calm.

"I'm not slow at all."

"The minor mastery-level Fledgling Eagle Takes Flight Sword Art, Hundred Essences Transform Qi Pills refined from ninety-year-old ginseng—these are advantages ordinary students don't have. Even after accounting for my weaker aptitude, my cultivation speed should be at least twice that of an ordinary student!"

"Hiss..."

No wonder Li Junhao had so easily given up on cultivation. His academic scores were so good that he had long known these things. No wonder Jiang Chaoyang had struggled and schemed for most of his life, only to reach major mastery of Fledgling Eagle inner qi.

"To transform from mortal to immortal, one must be a genius."

Jiang Ding regained his composure and thought quickly.

"I can't belittle myself. Once the tempering and nourishing of the meridians reaches stages like the Minor Circulation, Lesser Circulation, and Greater Circulation, when the twelve regular meridians and eight extraordinary meridians form a complete loop, the progress of refining essence into qi will accelerate by leaps and bounds."

"It's not that difficult. There's no need for despair yet."

After closing his eyes to regulate his breathing for a moment, Jiang Ding stood and walked over to the equipment rack.

Compared to before, there was now a translucent camouflage uniform and a firearm over two meters long. The formation spirit had provided explanatory labels beside them.

Scout-1 Camouflage, high-grade special artifact. Woven with a first-grade Breath-Concealment Formation, it must be used in conjunction with the Minor Breath-Concealing Technique. Upon reaching minor mastery, it could block the spiritual sense scans of ninth-level Qi Refinement cultivators, as well as the scans of first-grade vehicle-mounted radar installed on tanks.

If a Qi Refinement cultivator had cultivated a spiritual sense scanning technique of the same grade, it could block spiritual sense detection secret arts one grade lower.

For martial artists below the Innate Realm, it was lowered by another grade.

In other words, if he used it now, even a major mastery-level Minor Breath-Concealing Technique combined with scout camouflage could only block the scans of his classmates' proficient-level spiritual sense secret arts.

Jiang Ding knew a little about this as well.

Immortal Sect Qi Refinement cultivators had never been interested in spells like Fireball Technique or Ice Arrow Technique, whose range was only a few dozen meters. Yet there was one spell that was compulsory.

Electromagnetic Induction Wave Technique.

It was the core of the Immortal Sect cultivators' combat system. It produced electromagnetic waves of specific frequencies through spellcraft for reconnaissance and scanning, with a range starting at a thousand meters—far beyond the hundred-meter limit of a Qi Refinement cultivator's spiritual sense.

When this spell was paired with Immortal Sect Spirit-Particle Radar, both its search range and accuracy would increase dramatically.

When facing Immortal Sect Qi Refinement cultivators, cultivators of the same level from beyond the realm often could not even see their enemies before they were drowned in artillery fire and bullets from unknown directions.

Jiang Ding briefly looked over the Minor Breath-Concealing Technique provided by the formation spirit and found it obscure and difficult to understand. Its difficulty matched its effect, not the least bit inferior to the Electromagnetic Induction Wave Technique.

He looked at the next piece of equipment.

Type 03 Anti-Materiel Sniper Rifle, high-grade special artifact. Caliber: 12.7×108 millimeters. Length: 2,124 millimeters. Weight: 89 kilograms. The barrel was inscribed with a first-grade Breath-Concealment Invisibility Formation and a first-grade Spell-Breaking Formation. A hit could break through the defensive artifacts of a ninth-level Qi Refinement cultivator and consume some of a Foundation Establishment cultivator's spiritual power (5%–10%).

Note: An Innate martial artist must supply internal force for three minutes, while an inner qi realm martial artist must supply inner qi for over ten minutes to fire a single shot, or else it could not be activated.

Two high-grade special artifacts!

Jiang Ding held his breath.

Unlike the mass-producible semi-artifacts such as the heavy machine guns he had practiced with before, artifacts had to consume various spirit-mineral alloys in their manufacture, and only Qi Refinement cultivators could use industrial machinery to produce them.

Every artifact cost more than a hundred times as much as an ordinary weapon. They were also military supplies, unavailable for purchase by anyone who had not served in the military.

These two artifacts alone made reconnaissance infantry worth far more than ordinary infantry.

Yet even so, not one of the dozen or so inner qi realm students in their grade had chosen the reconnaissance infantry path. There had to be some obstacle that could not be overcome.

The third and fourth periods were for the Chinese exam.

Sitting near the back, Jiang Ding held a pen and racked his brains. Only after a long time did he write down an answer with some trepidation, completely unlike the high spirits he had displayed in moral education class.

Chinese mainly tested the principles of cultivation techniques, talismans, and the use of spirit script, which was better suited to conveying cultivation information.

Even so, compared to before, after gaining the Rusty Sword Tip's boost to his comprehension and having inner qi as a concrete reference, he had still improved greatly during this period.

Ring, ring!

"Time is up. Candidates, please hand in your papers."

Two hours passed in a flash. Jiang Ding had barely finished the spirit-script composition. Looking at the two major questions that were still blank, he sighed and let the teacher take away his exam paper.

"Sigh, I really messed up this time..."

Following the crowd out of the classroom, Jiang Ding glanced at Li Junhao beside him, whose face was full of bitterness.

"Heh."

Half an hour for eating, half an hour for sleeping.

Jiang Ding opened his eyes, sat at the edge of the bed, and closed his eyes to regulate his breathing.

His next cultivation goal was to achieve the "Minor Loop." Therefore, the next thing he needed to cultivate was the ten main meridians in the second of the three Hand Yin Meridians, the Hand Jueyin Pericardium Meridian.

After each of the twelve regular meridians had ten main meridians opened, nourished, and connected according to the formation diagram provided in the Fledgling Eagle Takes Flight Sword Art, they would stabilize and form a complete loop.

Only then could the inner qi meridians be considered initially stable, and cultivation speed would rise greatly.

Internal force emerged from the Hand Taiyin Lung Meridian and poured into the starting node of the adjacent Hand Jueyin Pericardium Meridian, spreading toward its ten main meridians.

There was a faint pricking pain. The internal force entered only a little before being withdrawn.

More than ten minutes later, Jiang Ding once again controlled the internal force to enter the meridian he had previously nourished, repairing and advancing, expanding it bit by bit without pause.

The math exam was in the afternoon.

Tomorrow would be the science and humanities comprehensive exams, followed by the cold weapon and firearms assessment, and finally, practical combat.

Practical combat took various forms. Some involved one-on-one duels, where students wore full equipment and underwent live combat assessment using reduced powder charges under a teacher's supervision.

Others took the form of squads, generally requiring them to complete some objective, such as infiltration or assassination.

The last was a campaign-style exercise, usually involving students from multiple classes and grades working together to form a regiment that besieged a Foundation Establishment cultivator employing the tactics of cultivators from beyond the realm.

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