Chapter 39 - Abnormal Requirements

A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality

First, I want to thank everyone for their opinions and thoughts on how we should overhaul completed novels. We've reviewed nearly 2000 comments across multiple platforms and forum, and while we haven't responded to everything I can promise I HAVE read it all. First, I'm going to briefly go into some of the things which were discussed which may or may not work, because I don't want people to think I ignored anything. I'm putting those in 'spoiler' tags so people who don't care can skip it. Then, we'll talk...

Chapter 39 Abnormal Requirements.

Chapter 39: Abnormal Requirements

However, Han Li was quite unfamiliar with the voice of the other spy. He must have never met this person before. However, judging from the spy’s voice, his age must be relatively young, around 20 years old.

Unfortunately, in order to insure his own safety, Han Li didn’t dare to steal a glance. He feared that these two men practiced martial skills that could detect his spying gaze, enabling them to be aware of nearby outsiders. The potential gains were not worth the potential losses.

After this slightly dangerous event, the trip after became quite safe.

Han Li finally returned home after his regular supper time.

As always, Doctor Mo mysteriously paid him a visit and gave him a glance that lacked any interest. Aside from delivering a few concocted medicines, he normally left Han Li to do as he wished.

Han Li seemed as if he had not noticed the medicines that Doctor Mo had delivered. They were all created from rare medicinal ingredients that were gathered from his previous expedition away from the mountain. Han Li believed that Doctor Mo had abandoned his expectations of him and had some other malevolent scheme prepared.

For now, Han Li completely disregarded the precious medicine Doctor Mo had delivered. But in order to avoid raising suspicion from Doctor Mo, he pinched his nose and swallowed it down.

He threw away any suspicion that the medicines were laced with poison. Currently, any harm Doctor Mo inflicted onto Han Li would only be hurting himself.

With regards to seeing the Feral Wolf Gang spies, Han Li thought of the best method to deal with them on the way back to his residence.

Although he wasn’t deeply passionate towards the Seven Mysteries Sect, he was halfway to becoming an Inner Disciple. How could he possibly be impartial toward a harmful affair toward the Seven Mysteries Sect before his eyes and ignore it completely?

He had long thought of a best candidate to handle this matter——Li Feiyu, the famous Senior Disciple Li.

According to Han Li’s observation, perhaps the reason Li Feiyu consumed the Essence Extraction Pill was because he greatly valued being in the center of attention far greater than a common man and and possessed no small amount of ambition. He had always dreamed of entering the upper divisions of the Seven Mysteries Sect, further becoming the focus of attention.

Han Li had previously suspected that Li Feiyu probably thought he was in the last stage of his life, and thus he became even more frantic and hungry for fame.

If Han Li allowed Li Feiyu to perform a large contribution to the Seven Mysteries Sect, Li Feiyu would certainly be excited to no end. This way, Han Li would be able repay Li Feiyu for stealing the sword manuals.

Thinking of the Blinking Sword Art, Han Li felt a wave of emotion.

Han Li did not tell any lies regarding the Blinking Sword Art to his good friend. This sword art truly did not suit Li Feiyu. However, Han Li did not reveal many of the details.

An essential rule of survival was that one should always keep a few secrets, regardless of who they were being kept from.

Although Li Feiyu and Han Li seemed to have a close relationship, it was hardly exceptional.

However, the contents written in these secret manuals were quite different from common martial teachings.

It seemed to Han Li that, rather than to say it was a sword art, it would be more appropriate to call it sword ingenuity. It was a complete integration of weather, timing, favorable positioning, and secretive assassination techniques against all kinds of factors and people; such a skill was rarely seen. It was pure killing skill; as soon as the sword was drawn, death approached.

These books described different environments, times of day, and the utilization of diligently practiced secretive sword skills. There were all kinds of sure-kill techniques that would cut down an enemy in a single strike.

The manuals taught those that learned these sword skills to make use of every tree and strand of grass in the terrain, as well as light rays of all intensities and angles, in order to hinder the opponent’s vision. During the split second the opponent was weakened, the user would take advantage of it and kill them in an instant.

This was a mysterious technique that required much attention and skill to execute. Without the slightest talent, it would be impossible to understand this sword art.

Therefore, those who learned this mysterious technique must excel in the five senses. Their vision and hearing must far exceed that of an ordinary person by many levels if there were to be the promise of even the slightest results.

Even if they had the requirements to achieve that stage, there would inevitably be a few disciples who would covet the Blinking Sword Art’s formidable power and choose to cultivate it immediately after reaching the minimum requirement.

However, mastering the sword art required an excessive amount of effort. In addition, it had even harsher requirements. Those who cultivated this mysterious technique could not possess pure inner strength. Otherwise, their body would suffer from complications when trying to execute the technique. This made cultivating the sword art quite difficult.

Even if someone with True Qi was lucky enough to succeed, if the True Qi in their body became too vigorous during actual combat, the sword maneuvers would unwittingly produce deformations. These deformities left large gaps for the opponent to take advantage of, thereby causing life-threatening calamities.

These requirements basically severed away the majority of those attempting to cultivate the technique. In Jiang Hu there was a common saying: “To practice the fist and neglect skill will end with one’s effort in futility.”

To not practice inner strength was an enormous taboo. Anyone who would abandon their cultivation of True Qi and spread their name with ineffable sword swordplay would truly be the laughingstock of Jiang Hu.

Therefore, only the remaining few still had the intention to continue cultivating the technique.

However, even if those individuals had plenty of talent and had no problem with abandoning True Qi, the final difficult barrier would thoroughly dispel their intentions of continuing down this path.

The final obstacle was the excessively complex nature of the Blinking Sword Art and the painstaking memorization of the meticulous conditions in which each of the sword maneuvers within the sword manuals could be applied.

Seeing such a large pile of thick secret manuals would intimidate any average person at first glance.

Each sword manual represented a sword maneuver, and each sword maneuver could be broken into hundreds of sword forms. Every sword form must be carefully selected for different environments and different times of day. To fully master the Blinking Sword Arts, one had to make complete use of different techniques for every situation.

The tremendous quantity of sword skills, let alone cultivation, could make one’s head ache. Not to mention that this further required the complete memorization and comprehension of every sword maneuver and sword form.

The previously mentioned abnormal requirements have obstructed an innumerable number of motivated disciples, making them endlessly curse in their heart at the Elder who had established this sword art.

With the passage of time, the Seven Mysteries Sect gradually lost interest in this sword technique. Believing it impossible for someone to train in this martial technique, many disciples thought that the Elder had baselessly and casually fabricated these martial teachings as he was facing death’s door. Otherwise, why would there be these excessive requirements? This was deliberately designed to be difficult for disciples that were unaware of how things stood. As a result, these secret manuals were put away on a shelf, no longer catching anyone’s interest.

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