In the Knight Temple's underground training ground.
Yang Haoyu stood at the edge of the arena, arms folded, watching the figure swinging a sword.
Huo Yuhao was practicing a set of basic Retribution Knight sword techniques. The sword was a standard-issue iron blade, and the movements were what Yang Haoyu had just taught him.
But what Huo Yuhao was doing now looked very different from Yang Haoyu's demonstration.
A thin layer of ice-blue Spiritual Energy coated Huo Yuhao's blade. Every slash left a pale blue arc in the air, and cold seeped from the blade, forming fine ice crystals on the ground.
Yang Haoyu noticed that Huo Yuhao had changed the angle of the third move's diagonal upward slash from forty-five degrees to about thirty.
The change seemed minor, but combined with the way Huo Yuhao's ice-attribute Spiritual Energy flowed, it made the transition from the upward slash to the fourth move nearly twenty percent faster.
He had never taught Huo Yuhao that. Had Huo Yuhao discovered it himself?
If so, Huo Yuhao's talent on the path of a knight was no less than his talent as a mage!
Yang Haoyu said nothing and continued watching.
Huo Yuhao finished the final move, lowered his sword, and stood still.
His breathing was steady. An hour of high-intensity sword practice seemed like a warm-up to him.
Sensing Yang Haoyu's gaze, he turned and called out:
"Grandpa."
"Yuhao, did you change the angle of the third move's upward slash yourself?"
Huo Yuhao paused, then nodded. "My Spiritual Energy would catch for a moment at the original angle. It flowed much more smoothly after I changed it."
Yang Haoyu was silent for two seconds. Then he said, "Do it again."
Huo Yuhao asked no questions and started from the beginning.
This time, Yang Haoyu watched more closely, following the path of Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Energy.
He found that the route Huo Yuhao's ice-attribute Spiritual Energy took through his meridians differed slightly from the Knight Temple's standard path.
Those differences were not mistakes. Huo Yuhao had made the adjustments himself to suit the characteristics of his ice attribute.
The standard path was designed for light-attribute knights. Sending Huo Yuhao's ice-attribute Spiritual Energy along it was like forcing a square peg into a round hole: it could be done, but it would always catch somewhere.
Huo Yuhao had adjusted every spot where it caught, allowing his Spiritual Energy to flow more smoothly.
"Have you practiced Sunlight Slash?" Yang Haoyu suddenly asked.
Huo Yuhao lowered his sword and thought for a moment.
Sunlight Slash was a Fourth-Tier Retribution Knight skill. It required light-attribute Spiritual Energy to be concentrated on the blade and transformed into an immensely powerful, crescent-shaped slash.
He had seen Yang Haoyu demonstrate it, but had never formally learned it.
"I've seen you practice it, Grandpa."
"Then give it a try."
Huo Yuhao tightened his grip on the iron sword and closed his eyes. Memories of his previous life surged through his mind.
The principle behind Sunlight Slash was somewhat similar to the Douluo Continent's "Slash of Light"; only the Spiritual Energy attribute was different.
He drew on the ice-attribute Spiritual Energy in his meridians, circulated it along Sunlight Slash's path, and then-
Slash!
Instead of lighting up white, the blade erupted with a burst of ice-blue light.
An arcing slash broke free of the blade, carrying a bone-piercing chill as it traced a crescent-shaped blade of ice-blue light through the air.
The blade of light flew three zhang before striking the stone wall at the edge of the training ground, leaving an ice mark deep enough to expose bone.
Yang Haoyu looked at the ice mark, then at Huo Yuhao.
"You changed it."
"Mm."
Huo Yuhao nodded and said:
"Ice-attribute Spiritual Energy is different from light-attribute Spiritual Energy. Sunlight Slash was designed specifically for light-attribute knights.
"To make it work with my Spiritual Energy too, I slowed the gathering rhythm by one beat. The Spiritual Energy is denser, and the slash cuts more powerfully, but its explosive power is a little weaker.
"So I widened the arc to make up for it with a greater area of coverage."
Yang Haoyu said nothing. He silently estimated the power of that slash.
The "Ice Slash" modified from the Fourth-Tier Sunlight Slash was indeed inferior to the original in penetration, but it far surpassed the original in control and sustained damage.
A wound struck by Ice Slash would continue to be eroded by the ice attribute. For the Demon Clan, that sort of sustained ice damage was more troublesome than a single explosive attack.
"Did you come up with the name yourself?"
"Yes. I thought Ice Slash suited it!"
Huo Yuhao nodded.
Over the next month, Huo Yuhao hardly stopped cultivating.
During the day, he practiced knight skills with Yang Haoyu. At night, he cultivated the Knight Temple's meditation technique.
The meditation technique was the foundation of the Knight Temple, used to increase Internal Spiritual Power and stabilize the mind.
Huo Yuhao practiced for two hours every night. The golden lake of Spiritual Power in his Sea of Consciousness grew larger and more solid with each passing day.
He did not stop studying magic either, learning it once every five days.
He mastered ice-attribute magic considerably faster than knight skills.
He mastered every ice spell below the Fourth Tier.
There were not many books on Fourth-Tier magic. He had already been able to cultivate above his level while at the Third Tier, so Fourth-Tier magic did not prove difficult for him either.
Unfortunately, the Knight Temple did not have many ice-attribute spells in its collection either. There were only seven or eight Fourth-Tier spells, and even fewer Fifth-Tier spells.
If he wanted to learn more advanced magic in the future, he seemed to have no choice but to bid for it at auctions.
Huo Yuhao was not anxious about having no magic to cultivate. If all else failed, he would create his own spells.
During that month and more, Huo Yuhao improved every day, far faster than Yang Haoyu had expected.
What astonished Yang Haoyu most was the speed at which Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Energy grew.
In the first month after his awakening, Huo Yuhao's Internal Spiritual Power increased by twenty or thirty points a day.
Including the hundred innate points he had awakened with, his total Internal Spiritual Power had surpassed one thousand by the end of the month.
With another two hundred points of External Spiritual Power, his total Spiritual Energy had reached more than twelve hundred points. By the Knight Temple's ranking standards, that already put him in the realm of a Fourth-Order Grand Knight.
A Fourth-Order Grand Knight of seven or eight years old. The holder of the Knight Temple's historical speed record was Long Xingyu.
But at that age, Long Xingyu might not even have awakened his Innate Internal Spiritual Power.
Yang Haoyu was also somewhat worried about the speed at which Huo Yuhao's Spiritual Energy was increasing.
It was too fast.
An increase in Internal Spiritual Power that was too fast had never been a good thing.
Spiritual Energy was water, and meridians were the riverbed. If the water rose too quickly and the riverbed could not keep up, the banks would burst.
At best, the meridians would be damaged; at worst, one would suffer cultivation deviation.
More than one genius in the Knight Temple's history had been crippled because their Spiritual Energy increased too quickly. Yang Haoyu had seen far too many.
Strangely, however, no problems appeared in Huo Yuhao's meridians.
Yang Haoyu personally checked his physical condition every week. The width and resilience of his meridians had been steadily improving, with no signs of Spiritual Energy blockages or cracks in the meridians.
Huo Yuhao's body was like a sponge: however much Spiritual Energy was poured into it, he absorbed it all, with no sign of overflow.
Yang Haoyu checked three times and confirmed that there was no instability in his foundation, but that only made him more worried.
If Internal Spiritual Power increased too quickly, it might not affect one's foundation early on, but problems were bound to arise later.