The Grass Character Art!

Wutan City lay in the eastern Jia Ma Empire, a thriving hub thanks to its proximity to the Magical Beast Mountain Range.

Shops lined the city, and mercenaries thronged its streets. The bloody stench of magical beasts and the scorched fragrance of medicinal pills lingered in the air year-round.

Here, strength was the only passport!

And the city was controlled by the Xiao Clan, the Jia Lie Family, and the Ao Ba Family.

The three families each controlled mining, medicinal herbs, and mercenary businesses.

Decades of open rivalry and covert struggle had maintained a delicate, fragile balance.

The Jia Lie Family, inner courtyard training ground.

The blazing sun hung overhead, its vicious rays roasting the bluestone ground until even the air rippled with distortion.

"Swish! Swish! Swish!"

In the most secluded corner of the training ground, a youth dressed in coarse hemp clothing swung an iron sword with a slightly rolled edge.

His movements held no flashy flourishes, only the simplest downward cuts, thrusts, rising cuts, and chops.

Yet every swing stirred a faint whistle through the air. Sweat streamed down his resolute face, falling onto the scorching stone slabs and instantly evaporating.

The youth was named Lu Ze, an orphan adopted by the Jia Lie Family and a nominal collateral-branch disciple.

Within the Jia Lie Family, the difference between the direct and collateral branches was as vast as that between clouds and mud.

Direct descendants enjoyed the finest cultivation methods, medicinal pills, and instruction, while collateral descendants-especially orphans like Lu Ze, whose parents were both dead and who had no backing-received only a meager monthly allowance. Even that was mostly docked by the stewards under various pretexts.

In the eyes of those finely dressed direct descendants, collateral descendants were merely cannon fodder the family kept to guard its grounds, expendable at any time.

"Whew..."

Lu Ze stopped and let out a long breath of turbid air.

He glanced at the iron sword in his hand, which was on the verge of falling apart, and shook his head helplessly.

"It's been three years since I transmigrated to the Dou Qi Continent. This body's original talent is still far too poor."

"Without a high-tier cultivation method or medicinal pills to help, relying solely on the family's dime-a-dozen Breathing Technique is still far too difficult."

"Reaching Two-Star Dou Zhe is already its limit."

Lu Ze muttered to himself, yet there was little dejection in his eyes. Instead, a trace of anticipation flashed through them.

"But fortunately, the wait is finally over!"

With a thought, a screen of light that only he could see instantly appeared before his eyes.

[Extreme Dao Deduction Panel]

[Host]: Lu Ze

[Realm]: Two-Star Dou Zhe

[Cultivation method]: Jia Lie Family Breathing Technique (perfection)

[Dou Technique]: Basic Swordsmanship (10000/10000, perfection)

[Deduction Points: 10]

As Lu Ze looked at the flashing words "Deduction available" after [Basic Swordsmanship] on the panel, his heartbeat quickened.

This was the transmigrator privilege he had brought with him.

The Extreme Dao Deduction Panel!

It had no flashy missions or entities like artifact spirits. It had only one function: deduction.

The great Dao was simplicity itself.

So long as he ground any cultivation method or Dou Technique to perfection and supplemented it with special materials, he could spend "Deduction Points" to break the laws of the world and perform an ultimate deduction across dimensions!

Over these three years, he had swung his sword a hundred thousand times, rain or shine, finally grinding this Low Yellow Tier sword art to perfection and collecting the required materials, along with ten Deduction Points.

The fact that the material for the Grass Character Art was ordinary weeds had left Lu Ci unsure whether to laugh or cry at the time, and he had checked several times.

System! Deduce [Basic Swordsmanship] for me! Lu Ze silently commanded.

"Hum!"

The panel trembled slightly, and his ten Deduction Points instantly dropped to zero.

In an instant, an enormous, profound torrent of information was violently crammed into Lu Ze's mind.

Lu Ze instantly saw memories of all manner of moves within his mind, but that was not all.

This supremely domineering sword art also contained an ultimate understanding of the very concept of the "sword."

It was the unrestrained freedom of wielding grass, wood, bamboo, and stone as swords, the sharpness to sever the laws of heaven and earth!

The supreme dominance to cleave the heavens with a single sword strike, even when facing the immortals and Buddhas of all worlds!

A moment later, the torrent of information was fully absorbed. Lu Ze's eyes snapped open, and a sword gleam seemed to flash in their depths.

[Ding! Deduction successful!]

[Grass Character Sword Art (incomplete/first rank)]

[Note: The Grass Character Sword Art originates from a supreme offensive art of a higher dimension. Powered by Dou Qi, its might rivals a Low Earth Tier Dou Technique.]

[Currently an incomplete version. Can evolve. One move available: "Sword Qi into Threads."]

Looking at the panel's notifications, Lu Ze sucked in a cold breath as towering waves surged through his heart.

The Grass Character Sword Art!

In that age of Immortal Kings, Immortal Emperors, and other beings in whom the great Dao fully manifested, this had been the inherited treasured art of the Nine-Leaf Sword Grass, one of the primordial Ten Fiends. Alongside the Calming Chaos Art and the Immortal Tribulation Sword Art, it was known as one of the three great sword arts.

Although the panel had now reduced its dimensionality and evolved it into an incomplete version, even a starved camel was bigger than a horse.

Though its numbers were lower than before, its mechanics still existed!

Rather than relying on a wild outpouring of Dou Qi, it compressed Dou Qi to the utmost, transforming it into "sword threads" that could cut through anything.

On this Dou Qi Continent, even Earth Tier Dou Techniques emphasized clashes of Dou Qi and their associated attributes.

But the Grass Character Sword Art emphasized ultimate sharpness and cutting!

They're all Earth Tier Dou Techniques. I never meant to launch a dimensionality-reduction strike!

"Let's test its power!"

Lu Ze tightened his grip on the iron sword with its rolled edge and drew a deep breath. The meager Dou Qi within him surged madly into the blade along an extremely obscure meridian route.

There was no dazzling radiance of Dou Qi, no earth-shaking sound!

There was only a soft hiss.

A strand of Sword Qi, as fine as gossamer and nearly transparent, slipped from the sword tip and drifted lightly down onto the thousand-jin black iron stone used to test strength at the edge of the training ground.

"Crack!"

The incredibly hard thousand-jin black iron stone, which even a One-Star Dou Zhe's full-strength blow could only mark with a white trace, actually had a thick corner sliced cleanly off, like butter beneath a hot knife.

The cut was as smooth as a mirror, without even a lingering ripple of Dou Qi!

"What terrifying sharpness! And this is with only a Two-Star Dou Zhe's reserves of Dou Qi..." Feeling that slightly less than half his Dou Qi had vanished in an instant, Lu Ze's eyes filled with delighted surprise.

Its power rivaled an Earth Tier technique, yet its Dou Qi consumption was bearable. This was practically a divine skill for killing enemies above his rank!

"Well, well, well! Lu Ze, still practicing that lousy swordsmanship of yours?"

Just then, a mocking voice came from the entrance to the training ground, interrupting Lu Ze's thoughts.

Lu Ze frowned slightly, put away his iron sword, and turned to look.

The newcomer was Jia Lie Shan, a direct descendant of the Jia Lie Family.

He was the nephew of the family head, Jia Lie Bi. With his cultivation as a Four-Star Dou Zhe, he was quite overbearing among the family's younger generation.

Dressed in lavish brocade robes, he toyed with a gem-inlaid Mysterious Tier longsword as he swaggered over with several lackeys.

"You've practiced that lousy swordsmanship for three years. Think you can make it bloom into something?"

The collateral-branch disciples nearby who had been practicing their swordsmanship all stopped when they saw Jia Lie Shan approaching. They lowered their heads and stepped aside, fear showing in their eyes.

"Jia Lie Shan? What brings you looking for me?" Lu Ze's tone was calm; he had no need to bow and scrape like the collateral descendants.