After ten days of grinding missions, Gu Ningyun arrived at the long-awaited Trial Tower with 2,600 points in hand.
Unlike the Technique Hall, where new disciples were a common sight, the Trial Tower was filled with senior disciples. Gu Ningyun didn't see a single person from her own intake.
Aside from Jun Luo, who had come along with her, that is.
Faint whispers of their conversation reached her ears.
“Hey, another one came today. Looks like she knows that sword cultivator kid from before.”
“Are the new disciples this fierce this year? It hasn’t been that long, and they’re already grinding the Trial Tower.”
“Why does it feel like the Xiaoyao disciples are getting more into involution with every generation?”
...
Ignoring the curious and direct stares of the crowd, Gu Ningyun entered the main gate with a calm expression.
Upon entering, she was immediately teleported into a vast, empty space.
Checking her identity jade token, she saw that ten points had been deducted.
A deep, resonant voice echoed in her ears. “Early stage of Qi Refining level three, matching with the first floor of the Trial Tower.
The first floor consists of one hundred levels. Level one will begin in ten breaths. Please prepare.”
Gu Ningyun immediately drew her peach wood sword, her muscles tensing in anticipation.
Ten breaths later, a rat the size of a soccer ball appeared before her. Its aura was unranked, roughly equivalent to the aura she had right after her qi induction.
Without giving Gu Ningyun a moment to react, the rat lunged as soon as it appeared, baring its massive front teeth to bite her.
Gu Ningyun blocked with her sword, immediately putting her experience from climbing the cliffs to use. She channeled wind spirit energy into her legs and nimbly leaped behind the rat.
After its bite missed, the rat quickly whipped its head around, trying to turn and continue its attack.
Gu Ningyun didn't give it another chance. She raised her sword and swung. Without using a single shred of spirit energy, she cleanly sliced the rat in two.
She looked at the neat cut and silently critiqued herself. That was a waste of strength; I should aim directly for the neck next time.
“Level one cleared. Level two will begin in five breaths.”
The halved rat vanished. Gu Ningyun adjusted her stance slightly, and two rats appeared before her, both at the same rank as the first.
This time she was prepared. The moment the rats appeared, she flashed forward and took off the head of the one on the right.
Hearing the rush of wind from her left, she followed the momentum with a backhand sweep. A crack appeared on the second rat's neck, and its head was severed from its body.
...
After eliminating ten rats that appeared all at once, Gu Ningyun finally passed the tenth level.
Thanks to the gap in cultivation and the advantage of her wind spirit energy, Gu Ningyun remained completely composed even when surrounded by ten unranked rats. She hadn't even consumed a drop of spirit energy.
She toyed with her peach wood sword leisurely, summarizing her combat experience while waiting for the eleventh level to begin.
Ten breaths later, a rabbit at the early stage of rank one appeared. Its aura was equivalent to Gu Ningyun's current level.
However, the moment the rabbit appeared, Gu Ningyun pierced its throat with a single thrust.
...
Still without using spirit energy, she once again finished off ten rabbits of equal cultivation that appeared simultaneously. Gu Ningyun was beginning to understand the combat power of a sword cultivator.
It seemed... truly a bit terrifying.
Level twenty-one featured a turtle the size of a millstone, also with cultivation equal to hers.
As soon as the turtle appeared, Gu Ningyun saw her opening and swung at its neck.
She hit nothing but air...
Wait, this turtle moved slowly, but it retracted its neck incredibly fast.
Seemingly realizing it couldn't land an attack on Gu Ningyun, the turtle simply pulled its neck and limbs into its shell and refused to come out.
Gu Ningyun: “...”
She poked the gap at the side of the shell, but a glow of spirit light flashed across the turtle's shell, sealing the openings. She couldn't poke through.
Fine then. It was a perfect, ready-made whetstone.
She happened to need a target to hone her sword skills.
Gu Ningyun settled into the rhythm of her daily thirty thousand swings and began hacking at the turtle shell.
One hundred times, five hundred times, a thousand times!
Gu Ningyun became more immersed with every swing, her movements growing more fluid. She slowly digested the experience she had gained from the previous twenty levels.
By the time she reached the one thousand two hundredth strike, a surge of spirit energy suddenly flowed from her dantian to her arm and surged into the peach wood sword.
A flash of spirit light erupted from the tip of the sword, and the turtle was split in two.
Hmm?
Ignoring the turtle on the ground, Gu Ningyun lifted her sword to inspect the tip.
A trace of an aura remained there—something similar to spirit energy, yet not quite the same.
Was this... sword qi formed from her spirit energy?
Had she developed sword qi?
Gu Ningyun moved her divine sense closer to investigate. No, that wasn't right; the intensity couldn't compare to Jun Luo's sword qi.
This aura likely hadn't reached the level of true sword qi yet; at most, it could be considered a sword qi prototype.
Furthermore, when she tried to replicate the scene by following the same spirit energy path and infusing it into the peach wood sword, the spirit light failed to appear at the tip again.
Just then, level twenty-two began, and two more turtles appeared.
Initially, the two turtles tried to take turns biting her, but her footwork was too agile. Even the rabbits couldn't get close to her, let alone these turtles.
In the end, both turtles became her whetstones.
...
As she cleared level after level, the intervals between the appearances of her sword qi prototype grew shorter, and she became increasingly familiar with it.
By the time six turtles appeared at once, Gu Ningyun was wielding her sword with perfect ease, her strikes whistling through the air.
As she split five shells and swung toward the sixth turtle, a sensation similar to the previous dozen times—yet subtly different—washed over her.
Wind spirit energy flowed through her meridians into the peach wood sword, and a streak of azure spirit light erupted from the tip. As the sword swung down, it sliced the turtle shell in two.
Suppressing the excitement in her heart, Gu Ningyun carefully sensed the feeling she just had.
She was certain that the azure light was sword qi!
She tried to mobilize her spirit energy again, swinging her sword according to the sensation she had just captured. A faint azure light appeared at the tip, only to dissipate quickly.
Still a little off. Practice more!
...
At level thirty, Gu Ningyun's eyes sparkled as she faced ten turtles with their heads tucked in.
She could now barely manage to release sword qi intentionally. Once she finished off these ten shy turtles, she expected to be able to release and retract sword qi at will.
The third, the sixth, the tenth!
As the final strike swung out, a bright azure spirit light sliced through the air with an unstoppable and incredibly swift momentum, splitting the turtle in half.
Sword qi—achieved!
Gu Ningyun raised the blade and infused it with spirit energy.
Azure spirit light shimmered along the length of the sword, radiating an aura that chilled her spine and tightened her throat.
The light was incredibly thin, yet extremely hard and sharp.
Gu Ningyun made a sweeping motion with the sword. Compared to before, the peach wood sword imbued with sword qi was now easier to control, faster, and more flexible in its transitions. She could even hear the howl of the wind as it sliced through the air.
Wait, a howling sound?
That wouldn't do. That was an obvious warning to the enemy that an attack was coming.
After clearing another ten levels and finally taking down ten crabs that appeared simultaneously—each one level higher than her own cultivation—Gu Ningyun toyed with the peach wood sword, looking at the azure light on the blade with great satisfaction.
She raised her hand and swung—splitting, piercing, slashing, and sweeping. Every move was lightning fast, carrying an aura that chilled the bones. She sliced through the air repeatedly, yet managed to do so without making a single sound.
It was as if her speed had reached the absolute limit, her sword qi so thin and sharp that it didn't even stir the wind as it passed. It was silent, yet capable of cutting through metal and jade.
This was her wind-attribute sword qi: low-profile, dangerous, and silent in its lethality.
However, this still wasn't the limit.
Rate on N.U.
