Chapter 357: Chapter 356: Sword Heart’s Great Achievement (Third update, please subscribe)
The force that surged into his body from the stone wall should be the ’mark’ mentioned by the old man.
With no matter how Shi Xiaole searched, he could not find it at all, as if it was just a hallucination.
"What have I gotten myself into again?"
There is cause and effect in the way of heaven.
When the Divine Strategy Elder left his blueprint all those years ago, it was supposed to be his two apprentices who rushed here. But due to an unfortunate turn of events, after six hundred years, it was Shi Xiaole who broke in here.
He had never even heard of the Flying Immortal Wondrous Realm.
Surveying his surroundings again, Shi Xiaole remembered an important issue: Where was the old servant, was he alive or dead?
No answer.
He had searched through every nook and cranny of the palace, with no results.
Could it be that the secret meticulously planned by the experts of the Sky Edge Pavilion for years was just this?
Why did the Divine Strategy Elder leave behind the blueprint?
One mystery after another made Shi Xiaole disoriented and confused. And when he wanted to return, he found the passage blocked. However, there was a long passage in front of the main hall.
Walking down the passage, Shi Xiaole was surprised to find that the passage was cluttered with scattered rocks, clearly not excavated manually. Judging by the remaining trace of energy, it seemed to have been blasted out by internal power!
One must know that the deeper underground, the denser it gets. Even at full force, Shi Xiaole could only pierce a hole three feet deep with his sword.
If someone could really blast out a tunnel that could accommodate a person, how powerful must their internal power be?
Were there such masters in the world?
The passage seemed endless, and as Shi Xiaole swiftly traversed it using the Wind God Leg technique, about a day later, the passage suddenly narrowed with the occasional sound of gurgling water echoing through.
"There must be an underground spring nearby that washed through here, causing a collapse in the tunnel."
With no other options, Shi Xiaole had to crawl forward on his stomach. Two days later, he had to crawl just to get through the passage. A few days later, the way forward was completely blocked by heaps of rocks.
With the path forward blocked and no way back, Shi Xiaole was trapped. His determined spirit quickly assessed the situation and made the most rational decision—to dig a tunnel!
His return path had long been blocked by an array system, its whereabouts unknown, impossible to find even if he wanted to.
Ding ding ding.
From that day forth, the sound of sword strikes rang out in the unfathomably deep passage.
To conserve energy and expedite the process, Shi Xiaole only dug a hole about two feet square where a person could crawl through.
But this brought up another problem. With this arrangement, a person would have to lie on the ground, which would greatly diminish the force and angle of the sword strike, subsequently slowing down the tunneling speed.
Of course, this was still a lot quicker and less energy-consuming than digging a large hole that a person could walk through upright.
At first, Shi Xiaole wasn’t sure how to maximize efficiency, so all he could do was keep trying, adjusting his internal power usage from thirty percent, to twenty percent, to ten percent...
Shi Xiaole found that the more internal power he used, the greater the single-hit power, shattering large chunks of rock, but he couldn’t keep it up very long.
If he only used a bit of internal power each time, although the power was very small, almost negligible, as it was more enduring, he could actually excavate a longer tunnel by the end of a day.
Shi Xiaole was determined. He tunneled for nine 2-hour periods each day, so much so that his arms were sore and even swelled up, forcing him to switch to using his left hand to strike with the sword.
When his left hand could no longer hold the sword, he switched back to his right.
Having consumed the Elephant Strength Fruit, Small Vermilion Fruit, and other spiritual fruits, Shi Xiaole’s physical stamina far surpassed that of ordinary people. About half a month later, he had adapted to using the sword with consistent force for nine 2-hour periods a day.
Involuntarily, he increased the time to ten 2-hour periods a day.
Upon realizing that the food supply was dwindling, Shi Xiaole only ate a little each day and pushed himself to a gruesome eleven 2-hour periods of excavation, leaving only one 2-hour period for rest.
At the end of each day, he was drenched as if he just got out of water. His hands, down to his fingers, could hardly move anymore.
There was no one to talk to, no one to interact with. Shi Xiaole performed the same motion alone, unevenly and tastelessly for countless times day after day.
The real despair lied in not knowing how long the journey ahead was, and when the light could be seen. Perhaps all the tunneling was just a futile effort.
But as long as he had the strength and could wield the sword, Shi Xiaole would not abandon any glimmer of hope.
His desire to survive and his unyielding spirit had been thoroughly tempered while leading Xia Yunxi and others in the bizarre sea in search of the mainland. Nothing could make him despair.
He relished in solitude, and enjoyed loneliness.
Shi Xiaole’s spirit became increasingly calm. His eyes saw only his hands and his sword. Repeated strikes, sometimes even in his sleep, he would make a sword-thrusting action.
Even Shi Xiaole himself didn’t realize that in this isolated and undisturbed tunneling process, his mind and body were always adjusting to achieve the best speed, force, and angle of the sword thrust in order to maximize efficiency.
It was like a scale filled with water on both sides, trying to find the hardest balance to maintain.
On the second month, Shi Xiaole struck his sword, and with the same force, the tip of the sword penetrated three inches deeper than before!
The force from a person always gets wasted to some extent due to the way it is used. But the higher one’s level, the less the waste.
Under the constant threat of death, Shi Xiaole unlocked his potential and improved his swordsmanship realm greatly within a few short months.
...
Among a range of cloud-high mountain peaks, there were many gorgeous buildings. The wind blew occasionally, stirring up countless shapes in the sea of clouds, reflecting the distant red sun, making it seem like a paradise on earth.
"The mission has failed. All of the experts in the Pavilion, including Elder Xu, have gone missing! According to the message sent before they lost touch, Xie Xiaofeng should have obtained the Devil Seed."
In a pavilion, the veiled Tianya Saintess put down the letter, her tone calm.
"Humph! Those weak Devil Path wretches dare to harm our people of the Sky Edge Pavilion! Saintess, since we cannot obtain the Devil Seed, we might as well report this to our superiors, and send people to thoroughly exterminate the Great Cold Demon Path!"
The old woman in black violently thumped her walking stick, her killing intent brimming.
Sitting casually on a chair, the Tianya Saintess, with her unrealistically beautiful curves, said: "That’s useless. A few years ago, the master of the Ghost Carriage returned with full strength, boosting the morale of the Devil Path. Now, their actions are becoming less and less concealed."
"First-rate powerhouses have their rules. The Pavilion Master told me the other day that we should not use the top-level power from the Sky Edge Pavilion to deal with the Great Cold State. Otherwise, the first-rate Devil Path powerhouses will retaliate; then the situation would be even more chaotic!"
The elderly woman in black was indignant: "Did the experts of our Sky Edge Pavilion die in vain? Moreover, Xie Xiaofeng who is a traitor, is a fake Holy Son, but deceives people as if he is a genuine one."
The beautiful eyes of the Tianya Saintess were deep and profound, and she smiled: "Don’t worry, their satisfaction is only temporary. Sooner or later, I will personally take down Xie Xiaofeng and end the Great Cold Demon Path."
...
Inside the dark tunnel, Shi Xiaole was still swinging his sword.
It was in the third month.
His cultivation had smoothly advanced from the early stages of the Spiritual-Passage Realm’s third tier to the peak of the third tier.
His swordsmanship had reached an extremely terrifying level. When his sword was thrust out, there was almost no sound of wind, and no Sword Qi leaked out. The concentrated power did not dissipate until it pierced into the stone wall, then it freely vented and shattered a large piece of rock.
If someone was here, they would be extremely surprised as these were evident signs of nearing the completion of the Sword Heart Realm.
The Sword Heart Realm ultimately amplifies the power of the swordsmanship to the maximum. When one reaches the initial mastery of the realm, they can eliminate distractions. And upon reaching complete mastery, one can control the Sword Qi at will, making it undetectable even at the moment of the sword’s release.
Characters like the Tidal Waves Sword Marquis only reached this level in their forties. Compared to him, Shi Xiaole had saved more than half of the time, a fact that would shock many if revealed.
In the fourth month, Shi Xiaole passed his twenty-first birthday. His cultivation had finally reached the early stage of the fourth tier of the Spiritual-Passage Realm, greatly increasing his strength.
The ration in the system space was just a little, which couldn’t last for many days. Fortunately, the rock veins became more and more moist, and the clear sound of flowing water could be heard every day.
His confidence increased greatly, and he didn’t know how many more times he thrust his sword. At some point, his Sword Qi was completely withdrawn, a single sword pierced through the two-foot-wide thick rock.
His Sword Heart Realm was finally completely mastered!
For four consecutive months, he thrust his sword for nearly eleven 2-hour periods every day. Not just humans, but even mechanical puppets would break down, but Shi Xiaole persevered hard.
A willpower stronger than steel endowed Shi Xiaole with the abilities of survival in dire straits and an inexplicable executive power. Coupled with his own outstanding talent, the combination of all these elements finally brought him to this astonishing level that made people sigh in admiration!
Three days later, with a sizzling sound, a large amount of water surged through the rocks and gushed by.
Shi Xiaole lay on the ground, closed his eyes, allowing the water to engulf him and buoy him. He didn’t want to move anymore, he just wanted to rest quietly.
After two 2-hour periods, Shi Xiaole caught his breath, started to swim upstream, finally broke a narrow mouth, and filled it with a large rock, then entered a big lake.
A day later, he broke out of the water. He was surrounded by towering green mountains. Considering the time, it should be midwinter, but for some reason, Shi Xiaole felt a strong warmth in the air.
"Ah!"
A scream sounded by his ears.
Shi Xiaole suddenly discovered that apart from himself, there was another woman in the water. Judging from her snowy shoulders and wet hair, she seemed to be bathing.
Seeing a stranger suddenly emerge, the woman’s face turned red and white, her eyes filled with deep horror.
"Miss, what happened?"
Someone from afar asked but did not dare to come over.
Shi Xiaole turned around and skimmed out of the water.
Seeing this, the horror in the woman’s eyes gradually faded away, but thinking whether her body had been seen by the stranger, she felt angry again. She said to the people outside the forest: "It’s okay, don’t come over."
The woman swam to the shore, saw that Shi Xiaole was still closing his eyes and practicing, quickly jumped into the bushes, and after getting dressed, she immediately rushed to confront him: "Who are you, why are you here?"
Drying his clothes with Internal Power, Shi Xiaole opened his eyes and said: "I came here unintentionally."
The woman laughed as she clearly did not believe him.
This lake was only so big, how could he appear here unintentionally?
"Help!"
Thinking of this, the woman retreated quickly. As soon as her cry for help was made, numerous experts immediately rushed over. Seeing Shi Xiaole, all of them showed wary expressions.
"Miss, what would you have us do?"
A man in his mid-forties stepped forward to ask.
"Zhang Qing, this lecher tried to assault me."
"What?"
The crowd was furious. Zhang Qing glared at Shi Xiaole, each word clearly pronounced: "Sir, from your appearance, I would never have guessed you are such a beast. How dare you offend Miss Zhao, what do you have to say for yourself?"
"I didn’t."
Shi Xiaole stood up and walked away.
"Stop!"
Seeing Shi Xiaole ignore him, Zhang Qing’s face changed color, he stomped his feet, drew the silver spear from his back, and fiercely aimed at Shi Xiaole’s back.
Without turning his head, Shi Xiaole casually waved his hand.
Boom!
Zhang Qing scraped his feet on the ground, using the tip of his gun to stop himself from sliding back further. He finally stopped after retreating by more than ten meters, and his face showed utter shock.
"Leader Zhang is a practitioner of the eighth tier of the Spiritual-Passage Realm, and he has understood the realm of man-spear unity. Most experts of the ninth tier of Spiritual-Passage Realm are not his match, how could he..."
The others remained shocked.
The Zhao Miss also widened her beautiful eyes, and could only watch as Shi Xiaole disappeared into the forest. She stomped her foot angrily and said: "I better not see you again."
After coming out of the forest, Shi Xiaole had already taken off his human skin mask. He was dressed in a green robe and had a long sword hanging from his waist.
This place was unusual, the surrounding air was filled with intense heat. His first priority was to find out where he was.
Not long after, Shi Xiaole met a group of armed escorts.
"Young Master, this is near the Flame Cloud Mountain Range, and the closest city to here is the Flame Cloud City."
The leading escort replied with a smile.
