Forging the Sword

After sending away the noisy bookboy, Su Che finally found complete peace.

The experiences he had endured all the way from Jiankang to Shanyin County had truly been exhausting.

With the medicinal power of the Daoist School's spiritual pills, his old injuries remained in a relatively stable condition.

Moreover, alongside the hardships and experiences of the journey, his physical condition had gradually improved.

To make an analogy—

His body was a longsword already on the verge of snapping, while the hardships of this journey were like a blazing furnace, enough to turn that sword into iron slag. Yet the medicinal power of the Daoist School's spiritual pills was like a hammer.

Through trial after trial and hardship after hardship, it silently forged his nearly shattered flesh ever stronger.

Just like reforging a broken sword.

Su Che had always loved reading. He had once told his friends that he had three great hobbies.

Admiring beauties, reading the Book of Han, and drinking Fenyang Wine.

While in Jiankang, he had also read some books from this world and had once been moved by a certain passage.

The world was a vast sea of suffering; only by crossing this sea could all living beings attain longevity.

And to cross that sea of suffering, one needed to find the faculty that would carry oneself across it.

Heaven and earth formed one great natural world, while the human body was a small heaven and earth.

Cultivation itself was a process of strengthening oneself.

Thus, regardless of whether they belonged to Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, demons, yao, or ghosts, the overwhelming majority of sects and lineages first took their innate fleshly bodies as the foundation of cultivation.

Su Che knew very well that his previous ordeal had, in essence, nearly severed his path of cultivation.

Even if damaged foundations could be repaired later, they were like a vehicle barely made drivable after major repairs following a crash—it could never return to its former condition.

According to the script, he ought to have been a genius the Duling Su Clan saw once in a century. Someone had plotted against him and ruined his foundation, after which his fiancée, born of a prestigious family, should have abandoned him.

Then the discarded son of the Su Clan, the ultimate scum, the former genius, would die in bitter resentment and depression. At that point, a man from another world would transmigrate into him, encounter a wisp of a peerless expert's remnant soul by chance, and swiftly rise to power.

I inherit your body and take on your karma. In the end, he would defeat the great enemy hidden behind the curtain. As for the fiancée who had once cast him aside, her ending would differ depending on the website where the story was published.

Sadly, none of that existed.

However, the sages of this world had long since forged another path.

It was called Sword Cultivation.

This world had always had tales of sword-wielding heroes. But if one examined their roots closely, they either belonged to the martial Confucian line or were accomplished practitioners of the Daoist School. A few had also, through twists of fate, cultivated Buddhist, yao, or demonic arts.

As for their defining traits, they were probably chivalry and righteousness, along with carrying a treasured sword. Swords were used throughout every major cultivation system.

Or rather, sword-wielding heroes were a camp, a profession—not a system capable of reaching the highest vault of the Dao.

Everyone merely used swords.

But many years ago, in a distant land, there had been a young and brilliant ruler. He took a pair of twin beauties as his queens, studied under the martial Confucian line, and became the subject of a fine tale.

Yet the affairs of the world were impossible to predict. A neighboring nation raised an army to attack, and its commanding marshal was none other than the senior brother he regarded as his own brother.

What followed was only natural. The young ruler suffered defeat, his nation was destroyed, and his people became cattle, sheep, and fruit trees beneath the enemy's blades.

All his cultivation was utterly destroyed. He wandered the streets in misery, reduced to a beggar, barely clinging to life beneath relentless pursuit.

His pair of twin beauties became playthings for the neighboring ruler, while that senior brother used his merit to seize control of the neighboring state's government and was honored as Grand Preceptor.

He reflected upon the whole affair and was shocked to discover that his most respected master and senior brother had begun plotting against him many years ago. The entire conspiracy had even begun when he first became a disciple.

The cultivation art he had learned had long contained flaws meticulously designed by them. The unparalleled ultimate art of which he had been so proud had likewise been deliberately taught to him, already riddled with countless losing moves.

How could he not suffer a crushing defeat?

How hateful that he awakened too late. Of his five limbs, three had been severed, leaving only his left arm and right leg usable.

With life brought to such a state, he should have been utterly disheartened, either dragging out a wretched existence while telling himself to see all things lightly, or unable to bear such great humiliation and drawing the blade for one swift release.

Yet that ruler was a genius favored by heaven. He finally turned the impossible into possible, tempering himself amid the encirclement and pursuit of countless enemies, opening a new path with his crippled, ruined body.

This was Sword Cultivation.

A reforged sword surpassed even its former self.

He cared not for good or evil, for good and evil could no longer measure his hatred.

He asked not about karma, for karma could no longer bear the weight of his past.

This sword existed only to cut down people.

People of the enemy nation, whether the old, the weak, women, or children, or famed ministers and great generals—before it, all were equal, all became ghosts beneath the sword.

Thus passed thirteen years.

At last, not one household in ten remained in the enemy nation.

In the end, he arranged a battle atop the imperial palace of the enemy nation with his master and senior brother, both on the brink of collapse.

His senior brother bared his heart, explaining the pain of his past and the ideals he had once pursued with the one he loved.

All his schemes had been for the sake of establishing an ideal nation where all living beings were equal. How such a grand and beautiful future had been reduced to nothing beneath that mad sword.

His master pointed directly to the root of it all, explaining that everything was tied to a greater conspiracy, one concerning the rise and fall of humanity and the fortunes of the world. If he turned back from the lost path now, perhaps there would still be a chance to mend everything.

He merely laughed.

His senior brother's flesh and blood were ground into powder, divided into thirteen portions, and fed to thirteen different dogs.

His master's head was hung high upon the city gate of his former nation, to console the people who had become slaves and servants beneath the neighboring nation's burning, killing, plundering, and ravaging.

One man, one sword—settling all gratitude and hatred, asking nothing of karma.

From then on, the world gained a system called Sword Cultivation.

That ruler never reached the end of this system, but those who came after carried the flame onward.

The path of Sword Cultivation began in the tiny crevice of a snail's horn and reached its pinnacle upon the Eastern Sea. The East Sea Sword Palace was one of the four great sectarian clans of this world. Countless sword cultivators roamed the four seas and eight wildernesses, upholding chivalry and righteousness, living freely and boldly.

Su Che laid the Sword Case across the table, his fingers lightly tracing the inscriptions upon the Sword Case.

No national hatred or family vendetta, no desire to uphold chivalry and righteousness—there should still be a chance to cultivate, shouldn't there?

Sword Cultivation was one of the few systems with no requirements whatsoever for one's physical foundation at the very beginning.

And in terms of killing power alone, it sat firmly at the head of all major systems.

This was precisely the path Su Che had chosen for himself.

Su Che gently opened a hidden compartment within the Sword Case, took out a bamboo slip, and lightly held it across his palm.

There was nothing else on the bamboo slip, only the four words "Heaven-Supporting Jun Sword."

It was the secret tome Su Che had asked an elder to retrieve from the palace shortly before leaving Jiankang. By a fortuitous twist of fate, Great Liang had obtained a sword canon from the Eastern Sea.

The item had originally been acquired by an envoy dispatched by Great Liang to the Eastern Sea in search of rare treasures. Seeing at a glance that it was extraordinary, the envoy had tucked it away.

Afterward, it had been sealed within the treasury, ignored by all.

That elder of the Su Clan in the palace had risen to prominence from the library within the imperial inner court and had also cultivated a formidable art. He had long taken an interest in this item, and after several rounds of deduction and verification, confirmed that it had been created by a swordsmanship master skilled in calligraphy.

The four words "Heaven-Supporting Jun Sword" on the bamboo slip contained that master's pure sword intent. As long as later learners followed its guidance, they could inherit this supreme art.

The item had always remained hidden in the treasury. When Su Che sought an introductory Sword Cultivation text, that elder pondered it from every angle and decided this was the most suitable one. He then used his means to send it out.

Su Che slowly exhaled, calming his mind and steadying his breath. His left hand gripped the bamboo slip while his right hand rested lightly upon the Sword Case.

His spiritual platform was clear, and the spiritual weapon within the Sword Case stirred with delight.

A strand of Sword Qi slowly flowed through his arm and entered his body, finally vanishing at the space between his brows.

The four words "Heaven-Supporting Jun Sword" also seemed to solidify in the deepest reaches of Su Che's sea of consciousness.