Sword Sealing Platform.
The ancestral grounds of the Hengshan Sect.
Legend had it that the first patriarch observed the changes in Hengshan's clouds and mist, drew upon the qi of heaven and earth, and became a grandmaster of his generation.
From then on, he sealed his sword away, having reached the realm where all things between heaven and earth could become swords.
Before Zhou Yi stood an old man over ninety years of age. He was Mo Wentian, the former head of the Hengshan Sect, known throughout the martial world as the Thousand Illusions Senluo Sword.
"Talented people arise generation after generation. I never thought that in my twilight years, I would see another peerless genius! One who may even surpass that man."
"Who does Senior mean? The Blade God?"
After two years of traveling the martial world, Zhou Yi was no longer the ignorant novice he had once been. He knew of all the renowned experts in the jianghu.
Over the past century, the foremost figure had been the Demon Cult Leader. Over the past fifty years, the most famous had been Yue Shan, the Mountain River Blade Tyrant.
Mo Wentian shook his head. "Yue Shan is of my generation. His talent is merely ordinary, and he only mastered martial arts and shook the world with his fame after turning forty. But talent has its limits; whether he can attain Dao and become a grandmaster remains uncertain."
"The man I speak of was about your age back then. He too came to the Sword Sealing Platform to exchange pointers with me. I had just become the head of Hengshan then, full of youthful spirit, yet I was defeated by his blade."
Zhou Yi's gaze sharpened. At twenty, without the Origin's cheat-like aid, someone had actually defeated the head of Hengshan with blade techniques. Could he have been a cultivator of the immortal path?
Yan Chixia had mentioned matters of the immortal path to Zhou Yi. Its practitioners began by sitting in meditation and refining qi, and the Mana they cultivated was comparable in quality to the sword qi condensed through the Purple Sun Sword Qi Scripture.
Martial cultivation began with tempering the body, then refining Internal Qi. Internal Qi was continuously condensed through secret methods into blade qi or sword qi. Yet to immortal-path cultivators, that was merely the first step through the door.
"Senior Mo, may I ask who that person was?"
"I only know that his surname was Song. From his speech, he seemed to be from Lingnan. His blade techniques were profound, with intent and spirit as one, like an immortal riding the wind. They were more exquisite than my Hengshan swordsmanship by far."
The Hengshan Sect disciples watching the ceremony erupted in commotion. Today, not only had they witnessed a clash between supreme experts, they had also heard a secret personally revealed by their former sect head.
Rumor had it that Zhou Yi was a peerless genius unseen in five hundred years. Yet there had been one fifty years ago as well—why had they never heard of him in the martial world?
"Thank you for your guidance, Senior Mo. The world is vast and filled with extraordinary people. One must maintain a courageous, striving heart while acting as though treading on thin ice."
Of course, Zhou Yi knew that the waters of the world of A Chinese Ghost Story ran deep. Those of the martial world were merely worldly folk. There were also Daoist True Men secluded in the mountains, Buddhist arhats, and Demonic Monsters and Ghosts that ravaged entire regions. Even the current imperial court would one day be controlled by a demon.
Still, Mo Wentian meant well. Rather than deliberately lecturing him or concealing his own defeat, he recounted it to warn the younger generation.
"You are teachable! My sword is far sharper than it was in my youth."
Mo Wentian flicked his hand, and an emerald green fine sword fell into his grasp. It measured three feet and three inches long and resembled a willow branch. It was the divine weapon passed down by the founder of Hengshan.
Zhou Yi remained barehanded and did not draw a weapon.
The Hengshan Sect disciples all retreated, yet none commented on Zhou Yi fighting empty-handed. They knew he was not disrespecting his senior.
When Zhou Yi came to challenge Mo Wentian, the Hengshan Sect had swiftly gathered information on every one of his matches and everything he had revealed in them.
They discovered that although Zhou Yi called himself a swordsman, he was also proficient in blade techniques, palm techniques, and fist techniques, while his lightness skill was likewise supreme. Apart from being excessively ruthless at the beginning, crippling opponents' martial arts at the slightest provocation, he had become much more restrained after Vajra Chan Master and rarely took lives.
In the challenges of the last half-year, only two people had forced Zhou Yi to draw his sword: Dongting Old Fisherman and East Sea Whale Rider.
The rest could not even withstand his palm or fist techniques.
"Please instruct me, Senior!"
As he spoke, strength surged from Zhou Yi's feet to his legs and waist. His spine was like a great dragon as he drove out a punch.
"What tremendous strength! What sturdy sinews and bones!"
Mo Wentian's sword edge swept across his arm, slicing through a layer of clothing to reveal bronze-colored muscle beneath. It left only a red mark.
Zhou Yi's fist wind surged mightily, the Gale Blade Technique already fused into his fist techniques.
The raging wind atop the mountain elevated Zhou Yi's speed and strength to another level.
Relying on his horizontally tempered sinews and bones and his open, overwhelming strength, he forced Mo Wentian to evade in every direction.
Mo Wentian's eyes narrowed as his swordsmanship suddenly changed drastically.
Hundred Illusions Thousand Changes Sword!
Countless sword shadows descended. In an instant, more than a dozen Mo Wentians appeared upon the Sword Sealing Platform.
"An illusion technique? No, sword intent!"
Zhou Yi's expression turned solemn. His fist techniques shifted into palm techniques, guarding his entire body.
The perfected Great Tablet Breaking Hand possessed unparalleled defensive force. Combined with the agility and speed of the perfected Falling Flowers Palm, his hands sealed and blocked as if not even water could penetrate.
Sword intent!
Zhou Yi had never managed to comprehend it. In two years, aside from Mo Wentian, he had encountered only two martial masters: one whose fist intent was as tangible as substance, and another whose blade intent was like a gale.
Though he had won both matches, the victories had been exceedingly difficult.
Yet after defeating them, both his fist and blade techniques had advanced further, and he had gained deeper insights into his other martial arts as well.
Fusing the Gale Blade Technique into fist techniques and combining the Great Tablet Breaking Hand with the Falling Flowers Palm were methods Zhou Yi had gradually explored for himself.
Now, he had finally encountered a master proficient in sword intent.
Zhou Yi's many martial arts could only be considered second-rate in the martial world. Yet with their perfected realms and his body overflowing with essence and qi, their power did not lose out to a sect's secret inheritances.
Only one of his sword techniques was supreme even in the martial world, and it contained a method for cultivating sword intent.
With a thought from Zhou Yi, the longsword on his back flew from its sheath and landed in his hand.
Purple Lightning Sword!
Xiahou Sword Scripture!
The instant Zhou Yi unleashed it, his style changed completely.
Fist and palm techniques focused on using force to break skill.
Swordsmanship became a matter of nothing being unbreakable before speed!
"Eh! The Purple Lightning Sword? You are actually that brat Xiahou's successor?"
Mo Wentian cried out in surprise. At over ninety years old, he truly could call Xiahou the Swordsman a brat.
"This junior was fortunate enough to inherit Senior Xiahou's legacy."
Zhou Yi's sword flashed like wind and lightning. In an instant, he thrust out hundreds of strikes, each aimed at one of the dozen or so phantoms.
Ordinary swift swords lacked power as their greatest weakness, but Zhou Yi was an aberration.
The sword borrowed the wind's momentum, and the wind lent strength to the sword!
No matter how many duplicates you conjure, I will break them all with one sword!
One phantom after another shattered, yet Mo Wentian's true body remained impossible to find.
On the Sword Sealing Platform, only dozens of illusory figures remained, arrayed like an army formation. Amid them, a streak of sword light whirled at high speed, charging left and right.
Ji Taizhen, the eldest of the Hengshan Three Swords and the current sect head, sighed. "What formidable swordsmanship. As expected of Guo Bei Sword Saint Zhou Yi. Perhaps he can become the confirmed Innate Grandmaster of the past century!"
Over the last hundred years, neither the Demon Cult Leader nor the Blade God had been seen again, and neither had been confirmed to have become a grandmaster.
Light gleamed in Lu Taiqiu's eyes. In his mind, streak after streak of sword light overlapped until they finally formed a volume of sword scripture—the Xiahou Sword Scripture.
As time slowly passed, after the Xiahou Sword Scripture came volume after volume of fist techniques, palm techniques, and movement techniques. Though they were manuals widely circulated throughout the martial world, they contained every kind of profound mystery.
The Hengshan Sect revered Daoism, and many Daoist texts had been organized by Lu Taiqiu. Having immersed himself in the Daoist canon for decades, he had long developed the ability to remember everything at a glance.
His ability to reverse martial arts moves and trace them back to their origin had been discovered five years earlier.
At that time, an elder expert of the Huashan Sword Sect had exchanged sword techniques with his master. Lu Taiqiu had traced them back to their origin and deduced the Huashan swordsmanship.
Lu Taiqiu muttered, "What is truly terrifying about this boy is that he is flawless. How can there be such a genius in this world?"
"With such comprehension, he is surely beyond the scope of an Innate Grandmaster. Could he be the reincarnation of some Mortal Immortal?"
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