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A week passed by quickly and as Tian Ye trained himself in-between his spiritual qi absorption and refinement of qi, his Drifting Current could be displayed fully and steadily.
He stood alone within the cave, both hands gripping the hilt of the sword, and at the tip of the sword, he extended its length by a meter more with spiritual qi.
He nodded to himself in satisfaction a grin visible in his face, but also chuckled slightly in his mind, 'Not bad, I've actually reached this level in just 7 days! Not only that, although I said seven days, in total it was only 3 minutes per day where I consume my spiritual qi completely so I can be said to have reached this level in just 21 minutes.'
It wasn't all because of this 21 minutes of experience that he was able to display the full form of the Drifting Current but also because within a week of refinement, his control over spiritual qi has reached a higher level.
With a much purer qi, he was able to control it relatively easier than before thus, being able to display the Drifting Current over the days.
His thought process played a crucial role in his progress. Due to how he thinks of the pros and cons each time he pratice, he was able to correct his spiritual qi usage not by brute force of injecting more spiritual qi but by actually solving his usage problems.
Seeing that his progress over the Drifting Current has reached a satisfying level, he took back his spiritual qi and sheathed his sword back into its scabbard.
As he was about to sit down again on the ground to absorb spiritual qi now to proceed with increasing his cultivation, he heard clapping sounds from within the cave causing him to feel goosebumps all over his body.
"Good! Good! You actually learned it perfectly within a week! You're really a genius!" Along with the claps, came the praising voice.
Tian Ye, wide-eyed, turned to the direction of the voice hurriedly and then felt relieved as he was who it was.
It was a middle-aged man, wearing white robes, it was his master, Han Yi.
In his mind, he wanted to give the old man who looked like a middle-aged man a smack in the head, but on the surface, he simply complained, "Can you not do that, Master? You'll give me a heart attack."
"Haha, my bad." Han Yi laughed slightly, but walked in the direction of the entrance of the cave intending to go out, saying, with his back facing Tian Ye, "Follow me. Today, I'll be teaching you the Third Form of the Flowing River Sword Style. It's not suitable to practice within such a cramped cave."
Tian Ye just nodded as he followed closely behind Han Yi.
If anything, he also liked his master's straightforwardness, he refuses to waste time and gets straight into the business. But as he followed, he couldn't help but wonder, 'How destructive is the Third Form of the Flowing River Sword Style for it to require a large open area to practice?'
Although he wondered, he knew that he'd naturally know about it as they reached the place he was being led to so he just needed to follow silently, and he'll learn soon enough.
Unlike Tian Ye's expectation of them going down the mountain, he was led by Han Yi towards the other side of the mountain on the same level as the seclusion cave he was in and found that there was an open area there.
It was a circular flat area, devoid of trees and rocks. If Tian Ye had to estimate, it was at least 20 meters in diameter.
He was curious why such an area was in the highest peak of the mountain, but his curiosity was soon answered by Han Yi who was walking towards the middle of the stage.
"This is the stage in which the elders fight to decide the placement of the elders. Although it decides the placement of the elders, the difference in strength between elders is quite high so it's only used to gauge the strength of the lower elders as well as to show them how strong the 2nd and 1st elders are and see where they stand. Do you know why we do that?"
Tian Ye thought for a bit before replying with a bit of hesitation, "To show them what higher realms cultivators can do so they will know what to do in case they fought such an opponent? Even if they don't fight, they at least know whether they can run or not."
Han Yi, hearing Tian Ye's practical answer, laughed, "That's a part of it but it's mainly to drive them to cultivate more diligently. If other people cultivated as diligent as you, they'd reach my realm in their later 20s or even early 30s."
Tian Ye nodded in understanding. As a person who has lived in the current cultivation world for 9 whole years, he knew how lazy cultivators can be.
It's like they were already shown the path to godhood but only spend 1 or 2 hours in it each day because in their thoughts, the progress was merely 1%.
Don't they realize that the progress of 1% they do in 1 hour is 100% progress in 100 hours?
Instead of the practical progression, they think about how genius, the cultivators who work hard are, and wish for heavenly herbs that would boost their cultivation when they are making significant progress, although it seemed, long, 100 hours or 100 days isn't that long considering when you reach higher realms, your lifespan also increases due to the vitality granted by the absorption of spiritual qi.
As they reached the middle of the stage, Han Yi instructed as he walked towards a tree, "Stay over here."
Tian Ye followed and stood in the middle as instructed.
Han Yi jumped up high and pulled a small branch from the tree and descended in front of Tian Ye, 2 to 3 meters away.
Pointing the branch at Tian Ye, it emitted a slight blue light, the mark that it had been channeled with spiritual qi.
With a smile on his face, he taunted, "You need battle experience first before we can proceed to training the third form of the Flowing River Sword Style so come at me."
Tian Ye's eyes widened slightly in surprise but nodded as he unsheathed the sword in excitement saying, "Please be careful, master."
Tian Ye didn't think that he was a battle maniac, after all, this was the first time he was going into battle, and knowing that it was merely training, Tian Ye can rest assured that he won't die, the excitement in his heart can be fully shown, no matter how naive it was in combat.
"Well, come on." Han Yi replied nonchalantly.
Tian Ye strode forward when Han Yi hadn't even started talking and utilized 100% of his physical strength without spiritual qi.
Even without spiritual qi, his strength had been enhanced by at least 10 times when he broke through to the 1st layer from the mortal realm.
With his sword, grabbed by his right hand, pointing towards the rear on the left side, he slashed upwards diagonally.
Clang!
Han Yi responded to Tian Ye's quick movement by meeting his sword with his branch coated with spiritual qi and said as they clashed, "How impatient, but… good try."
Tian Ye's eyes slightly widened to how the branch was so sturdy, emitting a sound akin to a metal but he saw the light coating the branch slightly brighten when it clashed with his sword, meaning that Han Yi was still playing around with him using spiritual qi at moment of impact and could see through his movement like it was in his second nature.
Han Yi was a high realm cultivator of the 9th layer, naturally, he had seen his fair amount of fights, so fighting with the 2nd layer, he could treat him like he was playing with a child.
Tian Ye just acknowledged his current weakness and thought of gaining battle experience at this battle that won't take his life even if he was hit.
Right now, his sword and the branch of Han Yi was clashing, but instead of backing away and gaining distance, he grabbed the sword he swung with both hands and kicked the ground forward with his right foot, rotating his body in a 360 motion, his sword sliding through Han Yi's branch and delivering a sword slash on the opposite side.
Han Yi's eyes flickered slightly but he just stepped backwards, by 2 steps, and caught the hit with his branch.
Clang!
"Interesting, if I had to guess, you've never learned martial arts before right? So this is a fighting style based on instinct?" Han Yi asked, whilst Tian Ye simply nodded, not taking the time to reply instead he jumped backwards, and as his feet reached the ground he dashed forward again.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Tian Ye began to attack with his sword consecutively, and Han Yi also responded by casually blocking Tian Ye's sword strikes with his tree branch.
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