Chapter 187: Pi
"Damned it." He cursed and hurriedly sat cross-legged.
His divine sense entered his sea of consciousness, and he saw his soul with its eyes closed.
The soul looked unharmed, but Yu Nianzhen couldn’t relax because the soul was surrounded by a white mass.
’Is this the phantom that entered my body?’ He wondered and frowned.
After refining his soul into a sword soul, Yu Nianzhen was confident that his soul couldn’t be easily attacked and damaged.
Under normal circumstances, his soul could defend against remnant souls that wanted to take over his body and other soul attacks.
However, for an unknown reason, it was not defending itself against the attack of this white mass.
On the contrary, it seemed to accept the white phantom as a part of itself and was greedily absorbing it.
’I have to stop this.’ He thought and planned to forcibly attack the white mass.
However, things did not go as planned.
As soon as he made a move, thousands of thoughts entered his mind. These thoughts were like a long video, cut out of an even longer video.
At first, Yu Nianzhen was still fighting the invading images but after a few breaths, he couldn’t withstand the temptation of the swordsmanship playing out in his mind.
As a swordsman, Yu Nianzhen pursued the peak of swordsmanship.
When he saw the sword moves in the images, he felt that what he saw was the peak he pursued.
The swordsmanship was flawless, and each sword move looked like a timeless work of art.
After what felt like an eternity compressed in an instant, the images stopped, and Yu Nianzhen was a little shaken.
He remembered all the images he saw but only had a vague understanding of their profundity.
’The peak is higher than I expected.’ He thought, but he wasn’t discouraged.
Since he entered the Black Wind Abyss, he trained by fighting the black wind blades and black wind beasts. In doing this, he hoped to improve his perception and reaction speed.
After three years, his perception of danger and reaction speed had improved. Other than these, he had also learned to use his qi more efficiently, but he now realised that his vision was too limited.
While he learned about speed and sharpness by fighting the black wind blades, he failed to understand that everything in the world had a polar opposite.
The white phantom that entered his body was an accumulation of experience left behind by an old sword master.
From this inheritance, Yu Nianzhen learned that when speed reached its extreme, it produced stillness. The contrary was true that extreme stillness produced speed.
With this glimpse of truth, Yu Nianzhen was enlightened, and his body relaxed.
’I need to observe the black wind blades more carefully.’ He thought and forced himself to sit still.
However, this was easier said than done.
After many years in the abyss, his body had learned to perceive and react to the wind blades.
It had become a habit to wield his sword to break the wind blades, and unlearning that was more difficult than he expected.
Whenever he decided to sit still and observe the wind blades, his body would defy his mind. By the time he realised it, his sword had already countered the wind blades without giving him a chance to observe them.
However, Yu Nianzhen was determined.
After twenty-one days, his body synched with the mind, and he learned to sit still when a wind blade approached him.
’It better be worth it.’ He complained but didn’t really doubt the experience in his mind.
Although the experience was not his own, it was engraved in his soul, and he only needed some effort to make it his own.
With a long sigh, Yu Nianzhen cleared his mind and closed his eyes.
Soon after, he felt seven wind blades approaching him and his body tensed for a moment.
However, he didn’t move to counter them and instead observed them.
The first wind blade was a blur, and it cut into his body before he could observe it. Following that, the remaining six also blurred together, and Yu Nianzhen learned nothing.
This continued for a long time, but with the injuries, a concept began to form in his mind.
Initially, Yu Nianzhen only observed the wind blades to understand the transition between extreme speed and stillness. However, the more he observed, the more naïve he felt.
This was because he realised that the black wind blades in zone C were too weak to manifest the profundity he hoped to find.
Nevertheless, his observation was not useless.
Although he didn’t find what he was hoping for, Yu Nianzhen found what he needed.
’Every wind blade has at least one weak point. However, the blades are so fast that exploiting the weak points is almost impossible.’ He thought, but his heart was filled with excitement.
More than the impossibility of exploiting the weak points, Yu Nianzhen saw the possibilities.
If he could see the weak points of an attack and exploit them, his combat power would increase severalfold.
More importantly, this discovery made him realise what was missing in his swordsmanship.
For some time, Yu Nianzhen had been trying to create his own sword art, but he always felt that something was wrong.
After discovering that all attacks had hidden flaws, he realised he had been trying to create a perfect sword move with imperfect intent.
At this time, he realised that the perfect sword art he envisioned was like the concept of pi in his previous life.
Pi encompassed all possibilities and if he wanted a perfect sword art, his swordsmanship had to encompass everything.
In the case of swordsmanship, all possibilities were represented by the one hundred and eight basic sword variations.
Ultimately, the supreme sword move would encompass all the variations. However, Yu Nianzhen was not at a level where he could create such a sword move.
For now, he was only trying to create a sword move based on speed. This move required the essence of twelve sword variations, but in his eagerness, Yu Nianzhen had ignored this basic.
After these thoughts went through his mind, Yu Nianzhen laughed from the bottom of his heart.
He felt like he had uncovered a secret, and his heart was filled with expectation.
’I have observed the wind blades for long enough. From now, I will train to break them at their weak points.’ He thought and tied a blindfold around his eyes.
.....
While Yu Nianzhen was training, Yang Xu was summoned to the main hall of the Sea Cloud sect.
"Sect master." He called as soon as he entered the hall.
His mood was a little lighter than before, but no one could tell.
"Uncle master has been in seclusion for a long time. Are there any rewards?" The sect master asked.
His words were inquisitive but had a hint of mockery hidden in the tone.
However, Yang Xu didn’t care.
After four years, he had refined the leaves left by Nianzhen, and his cultivation had broken through to the peak of the core formation realm.
Although his origin was still damaged, he now viewed the injury as a blessing in disguise.
Originally, Yang Xu formed a golden core, which was only inferior to the purple core.
When he recultivated, he expected to still form a golden core, but the reality was better than his expectations.
Probably because of the leaves of the tree of life, Yang Xu formed a purple-gold core.
According to an ancient text he came across, the purple-gold core was even better than a purple core, but Yang Xu didn’t know the specific benefits.
’I am blessed with a filial disciple.’ He thought but didn’t plan to reveal his luck to the sect.
Since he was injured, Yang Xu had seen the darkness in people’s hearts, and this lesson was now curved in his bones.
Because of this, he suppressed his cultivation to the peak of the origin tempering realm and kept his true strength as a hidden card.
"My injury is a little better, but I am afraid there is no hope for improvement." He said and showed a little depression.
"Uncle master shouldn’t give up hope. There is still hope of finding a heaven and earth treasure." The sect master said and sighed.
"The sect master summoned me, is there something?"
As soon as he arrived, Yang Xu noticed there were a few strangers in the hall.
Although he had a guess who the strangers were, he didn’t take the initiative to recognise them.
"Uncle master has been in seclusion and doesn’t know that elders from the Beast region have come to propose marriage." Elder Chen said, and Yang Xu almost laughed.
He could hear the barely concealed anger in her voice and guessed that she couldn’t locate Jiang Yue.
"Marriage? I believe the matter of my marriage is still unresolved. It is inappropriate to consider other proposals." He said and forced confusion on his face.
