Core Formation

Time lost all meaning in this void filled with thunderclouds.

Xu Changxing had no idea how long he had been there, or how many sword strikes he had unleashed.

All he knew was that each time he sent his flying sword slashing out, it bought him only a moment to catch his breath.

Before he knew it, the sword light he unleashed had grown several times more dazzling than at the start.

Yet his predicament had not changed in the slightest. The thunderclouds still closed in on him again and again.

And perhaps his sword light had angered them.

To his alarm, Xu Changxing discovered that the thunderclouds had begun brewing heavenly lightning.

Rumble!

With a muffled boom, the first bolt of heavenly lightning struck him squarely on the head.

Having yet to reach Core Formation, Xu Changxing had no way to withstand it and was knocked flat.

When the heavenly lightning struck him down, he almost thought he would die in the Secret Realm.

But he soon discovered that its power was far weaker than he had expected.

Rather than burning him to a crisp, the bolt merged into his illusory figure, coating him in a faint purple glow.

What is this supposed to mean? Can this stuff actually strengthen my soul?

After that silent quip, Xu Changxing raised his hand again and unleashed a streak of sword light.

The sword light swept past, cleaving a tiny gap through the thunderclouds just as they were about to close in.

And so the scene fell into a cycle once more.

Sword light slashed down again and again, forcibly carving out a sanctuary amid the thunderclouds.

Whenever that sanctuary expanded to a certain size, however, it provoked a counterattack from the clouds.

Heavenly lightning knocked Xu Changxing flat over and over, coating him in layer upon layer of lightning as it did.

Time flew by.

Xu Changxing was struck down by heavenly lightning again and again, and rose each time.

As he grew more adept with his sword light, the intervals between lightning strikes grew shorter, and he became increasingly familiar with them.

After being knocked down several hundred times, he finally anticipated a bolt's path and severed the lightning about to strike his head with a single slash.

At that moment, an indescribable exhilaration welled up from the depths of his heart.

This was how a sword cultivator ought to be!

Rumble!

Before the sword intent in his heart could build, an even thicker bolt of heavenly lightning came crashing down.

Unsurprisingly, Xu Changxing was knocked flat.

But he paid it no mind, raising his hand to unleash a sword strike even more dazzling than before.

While Xu Changxing battled the thunderclouds filling the sky, Li Changge's remnant soul above them nodded slightly and said,

"As expected of someone who could break through in the face of certain death. You adapted to the thunderclouds' pressure so quickly.

"Where have you been all these years? Why was there never any trace of you, and why did you suddenly regain your youth after dying?

"Could time truly flow backward in this world?"

After a moment lost in thought, Li Changge murmured again,

"What a pity I failed to grasp the true essence of this sword intent sooner.

"If only I had comprehended this sword intent earlier..."

At this point, a glimmer of hope that he could not conceal suddenly shone in Li Changge's illusory eyes.

But a moment later, that light swiftly faded.

"In this world... there are no ifs."

As he whispered, he slowly raised his hand and pointed toward Xu Changxing from afar.

Below, Xu Changxing was still resisting the thunderclouds when he suddenly discovered that they had stopped churning and begun contracting instead.

In mere moments, the thunderclouds filling the sky condensed into a small mass.

Within it, a bolt of purple lightning, held in check and yet to strike, grew increasingly concentrated.

I'm dead!

The thought sprang into Xu Changxing's mind instinctively.

Before he could react, however, the purple lightning broke free of the clouds and struck down at his head.

At that moment, Xu Changxing's true essence and will were completely suppressed. He could not move so much as a finger.

He could only watch helplessly as the purple lightning landed on his head.

To his astonishment, however, rather than reducing him to ashes, it plunged straight into his sea of consciousness and poured entirely into his spiritual roots.

His dozen or so jumbled spiritual roots were instantly scattered by the heavenly lightning, leaving nothing but purple light before his eyes.

Even his first-grade wood spiritual root held out for only an instant before it, too, was dyed purple.

At the same time, an image suddenly appeared in Xu Changxing's consciousness.

It was the instant when Li Changge had swung his sword at the heavens.

Though it was only a still image, the defiant power of that slash against the firmament came through with perfect clarity.

Combined with the lightning that had dyed his entire sea of consciousness purple, it made him feel as though he stood within that image.

So this is the true inheritance...

Only now did Xu Changxing finally understand what this inheritance truly was.

It was the sword intent in Li Changge's heart when he had swung his sword at the heavens.

As for the thunderclouds he had faced earlier, they had merely been preparation to let him bear that sword intent.

The instant Xu Changxing understood, the illusory space around him shattered.

Li Changge could no longer sustain it.

Rumble!

The moment the space shattered, a low roll of thunder entered Xu Changxing's consciousness.

Alongside the thunder, Xu Changxing heard the faint, elusive ring of a sword.

Though he glimpsed the scene for only an instant, Xu Changxing immediately realized where he was.

This was where Li Changge had fallen.

Before Xu Changxing could examine his surroundings, his vision abruptly went black.

A moment later, everything around him returned to normal. His consciousness had returned to his own body.

Yet Xu Changxing had no time to marvel at the wonders of the inheritance.

Purple light wreathed him, and that terrifying sword intent spread ceaselessly from his soul, filling his dantian in an instant.

Xu Changxing even felt as though the sword intent would pierce straight through him in the next moment.

That feeling was no illusion.

Almost instantly, the nine cloud patterns within Xu Changxing's dantian were dispersed one after another by the purple light.

This inheritance is going to kill me!

Even as he silently grumbled, he was already driving his dantian with all his strength.

Xu Changxing knew perfectly well that in his current state, he could not possibly bear this sword intent.

There was only one way to save his dantian.

He had to harness this sword intent to force his way into Core Formation!

The true essence within his dantian rapidly condensed.

Under the scouring force of that overbearing sword intent, the golden core formed from his true essence naturally took the shape of a tiny sword.

A sword core!

In mere moments, Xu Changxing had formed the sword core he had long yearned for.

But before he could rejoice, a surge of purple lightning suddenly poured out from within him and plunged into his sword core.

The newly formed sword core in his dantian could not withstand such ferocious heavenly lightning.

Crack, crack, crack...

Amid a series of sharp cracks, countless fractures appeared across Xu Changxing's newly formed sword core.

Just as Xu Changxing thought the sword core he had only just formed was about to shatter, an even more powerful sword intent suddenly surged from within him.

Under the suppressive force of this sword intent, his sword core, on the verge of shattering, coalesced once more.