Chapter 53: Epiphany
"Where is it? Did it escape?"
Yu Nianzhen looked around, but the seahorse was nowhere to be seen.
Although he couldn’t see it, he didn’t let his guard down.
The seahorse was good with illusions, and its disappearance could be an illusion.
Because of that, he remained vigilant as he monitored his surroundings. For good measure, he even retreated towards the array.
However, the seahorse didn’t reappear to stop him.
’The seahorse is a support-type sea beast. It likely escaped when I killed the other two.’
’I should retreat before another beast finds me.’
Although he still had some qi and could defend himself against a class one sea beast, Yu Nianzhen was not in good condition.
He had several broken bones, wounds that were bleeding profusely, and sea urchin poison that was numbing his body.
Now that he wasn’t entangled by a sea beast, Yu Nianzhen rushed into the array.
He went to a small hill close to the array and found a secluded place behind the hill.
After making sure he was alone, he removed an array plate from his storage ring.
This array plate was a defence array that could defend against a full-blown attack of a qi transformation realm cultivator.
Soon after, he activated it and sat cross-legged in the middle.
’I need to remove the toxin as soon as possible.’
The antidote he used was called one hundred poison antidote.
It was a general antidote that was only effective for common poisons, but it was powerful enough to remove the urchin’s toxins.
After taking the antidote, he mobilised his qi to circulate around his meridians.
As the qi circulated, the greenish colour around his wounds began to clear up, and he sighed in relief.
’Today was a little dangerous.’ He thought as his mind recalled the three-way battle.
Before this war, Yu Nianzhen had never fought seriously or killed anything.
Because of this, his swordsmanship was all theory.
After fighting and killing, he realised that a sword couldn’t be considered complete before tasting blood.
As these thoughts ran through his mind, he remembered his last sword when fighting the sea urchin.
At that moment, not only did his sword feel weightless, even his body felt weightless.
’At the perfection stage of the drifting wind sword art, I can release nine wind blades. However, at that moment, I released twelve wind blades. Is there a higher stage of the sword art?’
From what he knew, there were four stages when practising a martial art.
The first stage was the entry stage. At this stage, a cultivator could only be considered as having grasped the essence of the martial art.
Following that was the sub-completion stage.
This marked the stage where a practitioner could use the martial art with a small degree of competency.
After that was the completion stage and the perfection stage.
At the completion stage, a practitioner would have understood at least half of the martial art, while the perfection stage meant full understanding.
However, Yu Nianzhen had released twelve wind blades.
His mind focused on this matter and suddenly recalled the one hundred and eight basic sword variations.
Each variation has an individual essence, and for a long time, he couldn’t figure out how to combine the essence.
At this time, a thought came to mind.
’Intent...’
The basis of the drifting wind sword art was speed. It pursued speed like the wind.
Although each sword variation had an individual essence, some essence were very similar to each other.
In the case of the drifting wind sword art, all the sword variations used to form the sword art had essence related to speed.
’Does that mean that intent is what allows different sword variations to be combined into a sword art?’
When he thought of this, Yu Nianzhen felt like a door had opened in his mind.
He previously thought that the perfection stage was the limit of a sword art, but that was not true.
Beyond perfection, each sword art had a sword intent.
Understanding the sword’s intent would elevate the sword art to a higher realm.
’The drifting wind sword pursues speed. What about the heavy mountain strike?’
Yu Nianzhen laughed when he thought about this.
The sword art’s name made it clear, and he didn’t need to complicate the matter.
Rather than the weightlessness of the drifting wind sword art, the heavy mountain sword art pursued heaviness.
The drifting wind sword could slash the enemy at a very fast speed, while the heavy mountain sword could crush the enemy with its weight.
As his body expelled the poison, Yu Nianzhen took the chance to analyse all his sword arts.
Other than the drifting wind sword art, and the heavy mountain sword art, he had eight others.
After analysing them now, he realised that each of them had an intent.
Although he was not intentional when he chose the sword arts, he now realised that each pursued a different intent.
One pursued extreme penetration, another pursued flexibility, and one even focused on maximum damage.
’I am really stupid not to have realised this sooner.’
When he thought that he had wasted years trying to figure it out, Yu Nianzhen felt stupid.
However, he calmed down when he thought about it carefully.
An epiphany wasn’t something that could be realised just because someone was clever and had a good comprehension ability.
Instead, an epiphany could only come when accumulation reached a limit.
For many years, Yu Nianzhen had practised his basic swordsmanship to perfection.
He understood the one hundred and eight sword variations and their essence.
All he needed was combat experience to bring his accumulation to the limit.
When the limit was reached, all his previous accumulation came together like pieces of a puzzle and revealed the whole picture.
’Intent...’
At this point, Yu Nianzhen’s mind recalled a distant memory.
When he first received the black sword, his consciousness was transported to a valley where he watched a swordsman practice.
At that time, he wondered about the meaning of his sword.
Once again, he thought about it, and the answer was the same.
Back then, he felt that his sword was meant to transcend above the heavens.
At this time, he felt the same way.
He wanted his sword to transcend above the heavens.
However, what did that mean?
His mind felt strangely empty.
This was the same feeling as when he killed the sea urchin, and in this state, he felt like he could untangle all doubts in his mind.
’What does it mean to transcend the heavens?’
Yu Nianzhen saw a sword in his mind.
His path was the sword. If that was the case, his sword must not only stand above other swords but other martial dao.
For that to happen, he needed a deep foundation.
’To improve the body, I must improve the mind.’
A smile curled his mouth, and he suddenly figured it out.
When his master asked him to practice ten sword arts, Yu Nianzhen followed the instructions, but he had his doubts.
At the origin forging realm, he could only practice low grade and mid-grade silver rank sword arts.
Even then, practising one sword art took a lot of time, and it made no sense to practice so many.
However, he now understood his master’s reasoning.
When he first cultivated a sword art, it took him four months to cultivate it to perfection.
The next took three months, and the following two took less than two months each.
By the time he cultivated the tenth, he only needed one week to cultivate it to perfection.
’Everything is built on something. My sword foundation will be built on countless sword understandings.’
When he thought about it, Yu Nianzhen laughed.
’It turns out that ten sword arts are really not a lot.’
’When I return, I will need to cultivate hundreds, if not thousands of low-grade silver rank sword arts. After that, it will be mid-grade, high grade, and peak grade silver rank arts.’
Yu Nianzhen felt his mind relax when he thought about this.
’For now, I need to focus on recovery.’
After that, Yu Nianzhen moved his mind, and several bottles appeared in his hand.
He removed one pill from each bottle and threw them into his mouth.
’The antidote has removed all the poison from my body. It’s time to heal my injuries, replenish my blood, and qi.’
.....
When Yu Nianzhen was recovering, a big change happened on the battlefield.
For the past few days, the battle was between class one sea beasts and origin forging realm cultivators.
Occasionally, a class two beast would appear among the sea beasts.
At that time, some unlucky disciples would lose their lives or the unlucky beast would encounter a powerful disciple.
All in all, the more powerful sea beasts and cultivators had not appeared on the battlefield.
However, things changed without notice.
Five kilometres from the array, a crab appeared behind the sea beasts.
The crab was one hundred metres wide, and its red colour glowed with the morning sun.
However, its most noticeable features weren’t the skin or colour.
Its most noticeable feature was that it had nine legs instead of ten like other crabs.
