Ye Ling had just stepped into her bamboo courtyard and had not even sat down when the sound of a soft knock on the bamboo gate came from outside.
Her first thought was whether Yang Qinyao had returned after leaving.
With this thought in mind, Ye Ling stepped forward and opened the courtyard gate.
Standing outside the gate was not the princess of the Qingyun Kingdom who had just departed, but Nalan Yanli, dressed in red with a bright smile.
The moment Nalan Yanli saw her, she could not wait to ask.
“Lingling, did Yang Qinyao come to find you?”
“I heard she stayed in the sect for several days and refused to leave. I figured she would eventually find her way to your bamboo garden.”
Ye Ling nodded slightly and replied truthfully.
“She did. She waited for me in the bamboo forest outside the courtyard for a long time this morning.”
Hearing this, Nalan Yanli raised an eyebrow and quickly followed up.
“Then did you agree to anything, or accept any benefits or gifts she promised?”
“No.”
Ye Ling's tone was calm. “I flatly rejected the meeting gift she offered.”
“I have no prior relationship with the Qingyun royal family. I have no reason to accept expensive items from others, so I asked her to leave.”
Nalan Yanli immediately showed a look of approval and patted her arm.
“You did exceptionally well.”
“I came over specifically to remind you that her deliberate approach to you is definitely not just to maintain the relationship between the sect and the royal family.”
She paused and confirmed, “Did she introduce herself to you just now, saying she is the Seventh Princess of the Qingyun Kingdom?”
“Yes,” Ye Ling replied.
Nalan Yanli slowly explained the inside story to her in a solemn tone.
“She is by no means a carefree princess with nothing to do.”
“Currently, the King of the Qingyun Kingdom is nearing the end of his lifespan. The struggle for the throne has already been brought into the open, and undercurrents are surging in the imperial court.”
“Among all the princes and princesses, the only ones with the greatest hope and strength to contend for the throne are her and the Third Prince.”
“But right now, Yang Qinyao is at a distinct disadvantage.”
“Her third imperial brother has spent years cultivating his influence in the court, and his connections are deeply rooted.”
“Furthermore, his maternal clan is the Zhou family, one of the four great families of the Qingyun capital. The current head of the Zhou family is his maternal grandfather.”
“With both the noble families and the imperial court backing him, his influence is massive and difficult to shake.”
After listening to Nalan Yanli's thorough analysis, Ye Ling understood completely in an instant.
So that was why Yang Qinyao had lingered in the sect for days and deliberately waited in the bamboo garden.
Lowering her status as a princess to actively show goodwill and build a connection was actually done with the intention of using her to pave the way and back her up on her path to the throne.
However, she had always been single-mindedly devoted to the sword and obsessed with cultivation. She had absolutely no interest in meddling in the power struggles and political games of the secular court.
Ye Ling nodded slightly, her expression calm.
“I understand. Thank you, Senior Sister, for coming specifically to inform me. I will pay more attention in the future.”
Nalan Yanli had rushed over to advise her of the stakes simply because she was worried about her.
Now seeing that she was clear-headed and knew what she was doing, she did not stay any longer. After a simple farewell, she turned and left.
Watching Nalan Yanli's figure disappear at the end of the bamboo forest, a slight warmth rose in Ye Ling's heart.
She closed the bamboo courtyard gate and calmed her mind to examine her own cultivation.
At this moment, her cultivation was fixed at the Houtian Twelfth Layer, only a single step away from the Xiantian Realm.
With her talent and foundation, if she were to enter closed-door cultivation and solely pile up spiritual energy, she would naturally break through and enter the Xiantian Realm within three months.
But Ye Ling was in no hurry to break through.
To her at this moment, breaking through realms was merely a natural course of events.
What was truly worth her full effort to tackle was condensing her half-step Sword Force into a complete Sword Force.
Looking at the entire history of cultivation in the Qingyun Kingdom, comprehending half-step Sword Force in the Houtian Realm already made one a peerless genius. Comprehending a complete Sword Force in the Houtian Realm was a domain that no one had ever stepped into throughout the ages.
And Ye Ling was determined to be the trailblazing pioneer.
However, the transformation from half-step Sword Force to complete Sword Force was far more difficult than breaking through to the Xiantian Realm. Its shackles were extremely deep, and it was definitely not something that could be achieved overnight.
She had already settled on the most secure cultivation plan in her mind: first, extensively study and practice various Yellow-grade high-tier sword techniques.
She would polish them one by one and cultivate them all to the Great Perfection realm, using countless perfected sword techniques to accumulate a deep foundation.
This would broaden her understanding of the sword path, compensate for her shortcomings in comprehension, and allow her to accumulate strength before unleashing it, thereby helping her half-step Sword Force reach perfect unity.
As for why she did not directly cultivate the higher-grade Yellow-grade peak-tier sword techniques, the core issue lay in sect contribution points.
The contribution points of the Qinglan Sword Sect were the most precious and hard currency within the sect. Although the exchange ratio with spirit stones was one-to-one, their actual value was far beyond what spirit stones could compare to.
All disciples knew very well that only a fool would exchange contribution points for spirit stones.
No one was willing to waste precious contribution points to exchange for ordinary spiritual energy resources.
Furthermore, spirit stones had great limitations in cultivation. Only cultivators above the Xiantian Realm could efficiently absorb the pure spiritual energy within spirit stones to assist their cultivation.
Houtian Realm martial artists could only barely absorb it during the late stage.
Therefore, on the night before her parents departed, Ye Ling had specially taken out two thousand spirit stones and handed them to her father and mother.
She also specifically instructed them to take one thousand of those spirit stones back to the Ye family to provide for the clan elders' cultivation and revitalize the family's foundation.
As for the contribution point allocation for True Disciples, the sect had its own regulations.
An ordinary True Disciple only received one thousand contribution points a year. Only Ye Ling, as the first-ever exceptional Tenth True Disciple in the history of the sect, enjoyed top-tier treatment and could receive two thousand contribution points a year.
Even with this generous allocation in hand, she was still unwilling to squander it at will.
While Yellow-grade peak-tier sword techniques were indeed powerful, they consumed too many contribution points.
Moreover, their cultivation speed was not as fast as Yellow-grade high-tier sword techniques, which did not align with her current goal of quickly accumulating her sword path foundation.
The path she wanted to walk was an ultimate, untrodden path of the sword.
She did not seek to break through her realm quickly; she only sought a perfect foundation and a pure sword path.
She would first use a vast amount of high-tier sword techniques to build up a perfect comprehension and solidify her sword path foundation. Once her understanding, foundation, and state of mind were fully in place,
she would break through the shackles in one fell swoop and master a complete Houtian Sword Force, unprecedented in the history of the Qingyun Kingdom.
With her mind made up, she hesitated no longer.
After a brief rest, Ye Ling immediately set off for the Library.
Ye Ling walked straight to the sword technique section on the first floor. The techniques stored here were all Yellow-grade high-tier sword techniques. Although there were many of them, each one glowed with a faint spiritual light, indicating their extraordinary quality.
She slowed her pace and began browsing through them book by book, starting from the first row of bookshelves.
Selecting in this repetitive manner, half an hour passed before she knew it.
In the end, she selected ten sword techniques, covering various styles such as swift sword, heavy sword, deceptive sword, and soft sword.
She believed that if she could cultivate all ten of these sword techniques to Great Perfection, it would surely elevate her sword path foundation to another level and bring her one step closer to a complete Sword Force.
By the time she finished browsing and selecting and returned to the bamboo garden, the sun had already tilted to the west, and it was already afternoon.
Ye Ling took out the copies of the ten sword techniques one by one and laid them out neatly before her desk, her gaze calm.
“Let's test my cultivation speed first and see how long it will take me to cultivate all ten of these Yellow-grade high-tier sword techniques to Great Perfection.”
As her voice fell, she cleared all stray thoughts, sat upright before the desk, and officially began a new round of arduous cultivation in the sword path.
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