Qi Yan demonstrated the starting stance three times.
The first time, he slowed his movements down, breaking down every twist of the wrist and every step back with crystal clarity.
The second time, he returned to normal speed. The sword-light linked together into a smooth silver line, flowing seamlessly from start to finish.
“Practice,” he said, sheathing his sword. He retreated to a protruding green stone at the edge of the arena, sitting down and casually crossing his arms as he watched her.
Lin Zhiyue took a deep breath, gripped the Azure Scale Sword tightly, and recalled the three demonstrations she had just witnessed.
On her first attempt, she honestly followed Qi Yan's movements to the letter. The tip of her sword wavered, and her wrist rotation was half a beat too slow, but she gritted her teeth and pushed through the entire sequence.
By the time she sheathed her sword, she already had a clear idea of what to do—
On her second attempt, she began to make adjustments. Qi Yan had taught her to thrust upward naturally after twisting her wrist. However, she found that given the length of her arm and the sword's center of gravity, following up the upward thrust with a step back caused a tiny delay. Thus, she changed the upward thrust into a diagonal slice. The blade cut down from the upper right, allowing her to use the momentum to pull the sword back to her waist as she stepped back. The entire sequence flowed half a beat faster than the original, as smooth as running water.
Nearby, Qi Yan's brow twitched slightly.
On her third attempt, she modified it again. Qi Yan had taught a large-scale spin-and-slash in the fourth variation. She tried spinning halfway and realized that the moment she spun, wind spiritual energy would surge up from her dantian, creating an upward lifting force.
So, she simply changed the full spin into a half-spin followed by a small hop. She rose half a foot into the air, flipping the Azure Scale Sword. By the time she landed, the blade had already rotated to the optimal angle, which was far less strenuous than forcing a spin on the ground.
On her fourth attempt, Lin Zhiyue completely dismantled and reorganized the first two moves of the starting stance.
She retained the core exertion method and the path of the sword energy that Qi Yan had taught, but completely changed her footwork and hand movements. She replaced the original cross-step with a diagonal forty-five-degree slide-step.
Instead of a direct frontal thrust, she angled the strike half an inch to the left. Combined with the frost condensed from her ice spiritual energy, the edge of the blade left an arched trail of frost wherever it passed, lingering in the air thirty percent longer than the straight path Qi Yan had taught.
She sheathed her sword, stood tall, and panted as she turned to Qi Yan, her face flush with excitement. “Master, I just tried changing the cross-step to a slide-step. The ice elemental infusion seems much more even when I strike. Do you want to take a look at this attempt—”
Qi Yan had already stood up.
He walked over to her, his gaze sweeping along the line between her shoulder and wrist, before trailing down to the residual arched frost trail on the ground. He paused for two seconds.
He reached out and traced the trajectory of her strike in the air, his fingertip following the curve of the frost trail.
“This footwork of yours,” he began, a faint, suppressed trace of surprise in his voice, “saves three inches of stride compared to what I taught.”
Lin Zhiyue nodded. “Right. Because I'm shorter than you, when I take the final step of the cross-step you taught, my center of gravity falls forward. By changing it to a slide-step, my center of gravity stays in the middle, making it much more stable.”
Qi Yan looked at her, falling silent for a moment.
The morning wind of the martial arena swept in from the edge of the cliff, blowing the stray hairs on his forehead. Something shifted slightly in his deep black eyes—it wasn't displeasure or doubt, but more like a teacher accustomed to conventional methods suddenly encountering a student who didn't play by the rules, leaving him momentarily unsure of how to evaluate her.
“Have you studied the sword before?” he asked.
“No,” Lin Zhiyue answered honestly.
However, in her past life as an academic, only by constantly innovating and solving practical problems could one win recognition from others and hone their own skills.
Qi Yan stared at her for another two seconds. Then, he raised the silver-white sword in his hand once more and walked over, standing three paces away from her.
“Then I will perform the remaining six variations,” he said. “Modify them as you see fit.”
That afternoon, Qi Yan demonstrated every variation of the entire sword art on the martial arena. Lin Zhiyue stood at the edge, watching each one before trying it herself, identifying issues, and adjusting them on the spot.
She modified, tested, and modified again. Sometimes, she would try four or five different paths for a single move before finding the smoothest one. Yet each time she finished a modification and swung the Azure Scale Sword, the frost trail on the blade was more even, stable, and aligned with her own spiritual energy flow than the last.
The sun shifted from overhead to behind the mountains to the west.
The shadows on the martial arena stretched longer and longer. By the time Lin Zhiyue practiced for the twentieth time, she had already adapted seventy percent of the sword art's moves to fit her body type and spiritual energy habits.
As she sheathed her sword and caught her breath, she noticed that Qi Yan had stood up from the green stone at some point. He was standing at the edge of the martial arena with his back to the setting sun, holding a blade of grass plucked from somewhere, slowly twirling it between his fingers.
She walked over to him.
Qi Yan didn't turn around, only tilting his face slightly. The pale golden glow of the setting sun cast deep contours over his brow and the bridge of his nose.
“Finish learning the remaining thirty percent tomorrow,” he said. His tone was still flat, but the end of his sentence lilted upward slightly. “Once you've learned it, I will teach you the next set.”
Lin Zhiyue smiled, bowed in thanks while holding her Azure Scale Sword, and turned to walk out of the martial arena. After a few steps, she suddenly remembered something and turned back to call out, “Master! Tomorrow, can I perform the entire sequence using my own footwork for you to see?” That way, you'll see just how amazing I am!
Qi Yan didn't answer immediately. The setting sun blanketed the entire martial arena, coating his red-and-black figure in a warm gold. He twirled the blade of grass a couple more times before speaking.
“Sure.”
By the time his voice was carried over by the evening wind, Lin Zhiyue had already reached the turn of the steps. The corners of her mouth curved upward. Without looking back, she jogged down the stone steps.
The next day, when Qi Yan came to watch her practice, she indeed performed the entire sword art from start to finish using her modified footwork.
The silver dragon pattern and ice-blue frost flowers on the Azure Scale Sword complemented each other. Wherever the wind of her sword reached, it left arched trails of cold that slowly dissipated in the air in an orderly fashion, like an invisible hand painting a frost-colored picture on the green jade platform.
Qi Yan watched the entire performance, remained silent for a while, and then asked an entirely unrelated question: “What did you usually do at home before?”
Lin Zhiyue leaned on her sword to catch her breath, thought for a moment, and answered succinctly, “I used to mess around with interesting things. Once, I almost burned the house down.”
This was the truth—at the time, the laboratory was already smoking. If she hadn't been quick-handed, the trouble wouldn't have been just "almost."
Qi Yan looked at her. His lips twitched slightly, but he quickly flattened them again, as if holding something back. He averted his gaze to look at the distant mountains, his voice half-scattered by the wind.
“No wonder.”
Rate on N.U.
