"Li Kun?"

Li Kun was standing in front of the gate.
Last night, Mu Chen came to Su Family with the girls, but Li Kun and Xia Ping decided to stay behind to watch over Old Shi.

Mu Chen didn't expect to see him so soon and rushed forward. "Did something happen to Old Shi? Did you come alone? Where's Xia Ping?"

"Brother Chen, there is no need to be so excited," Li Kun said. "Everything is fine. I just came here to see you."

Mu Chen heaved a sigh of relief. "That's good. So what did you come for?"

Li Kun however looked at Su He. "This is?"

"Oh, he is Su He." Mu Chen pulled Su He to the front and smacked on his back. "Su Rong's little brother."

Su He shivered. "Brother Chen, can you not call me little? I am not that small."

Mu Chen grinned. "If you start listening to your sister, maybe I will change my wording," he said. "Right, this is Li Kun. He is from the same city as me."

"Brother Kun, is it?" Su He greeted Li Kun, "Nice to meet you."

"So you are Su Rong's brother," Li Kun scanned Su He from head to toe. "No wonder I thought you looked a bit familiar. You both have the same eyebrows.

Su He stepped forward with an eager look.
"Brother Kun, you are a thunder attribute cultivator?"

"Haha." Li Kun chuckled and tried to flatten his spiky hair. "It's that obvious?"

Su He looked at Li Kun's spiky hair and nodded, the light in his eyes grew stronger.

Mu Chen noticed Su He's eager look and had an idea. "Su He, you shouldn't be too eager to fight Li Kun, or you will regret it." He looked at Li Kun and his expression turned serious and he said in a low voice. "You don't know, but in our city, Li Kun has already earned himself a nickname. He is known as the...Battle Maniac."

Hearing the nickname, Li Kun's jaw dropped. He wanted to say something, but Mu Chen winked at him, and he had to swallow his words, with his mouth half-open.

"Battle Maniac?" Su He on the other hand was not discouraged but became even more feverish. "Brother Kun likes to fight too?"

"Just a little bit." Li Kun didn't know what Mu Chen was up to but decided to play along.

"Good." Su He looked at Li Kun like he had found a treasure. A thunder attribute cultivator who was also fond of battles. Wasn't this the kind of opponent he was looking for? Su He grinned. "Brother Kun, let's fight."

Li Kun was taken aback. "R-right now?"

"Is there a problem?" Su He raised his brow. "Brother Chen and I were going to spar, but since you are here, you can take his place."

Li Kun didn't know whether to laugh or cry and looked at Mu Chen with a look that said: Brother, why you pit me?

Mu Chen shrugged and grabbed Li Kun's shoulder and pulled him close. "Brother, go easy on Su He, he is Su Rong's little brother after all." In a voice that only Li Kun could hear, he whispered, "And he is looking for a brother-in-law."

"Really?" Li Kun's eyes brightened and his previous reluctance disappeared. He turned to Su He. "Let's do it."

"Let's go to the courtyard, there's plenty of room there," Su He said. "I will go prepare the field." Unable to contain his excitement, he ran ahead.

"Brother, good luck." Mu Chen gave Li Kun a thumbs up. As long as Li Kun could convince Su He, he would have a much easier time pursuing Su Rong.

"Thanks, Brother Chen," Li Kun said, excited.

The two of them began to walk towards the courtyard.

"Why did you want to see me, anyway?" Mu Chen asked.

Li Kun almost slapped himself. "Damn, I forgot." He took out a spatial ring and handed it to Mu Chen. "Brother Chen, I came here to give you this."

"This is?" Mu Chen took the ring and weighed it in the palm of his hand.

"Tan Jun's ring," Li Kun said. "You forgot to pick it up."

Mu Chen's face twitched. Recalling the scene, he almost had an urge to throw the ring away but resisted. Li Kun wouldn't have brought the ring in a hurry if it wasn't important. "What's in it?"

"Spirit stones, medicine pills, and a few treasures―but these are not important," Li Kun said. "There is a set of cultivation techniques only cultivators with yin element can practice. I think..."

Mu Chen stopped dead in his tracks. He didn't even need to hear the rest.

Cultivation technique was a cultivator's foundation. It was the specific way to revolve the spiritual qi inside the body to draw in the spiritual qi from the surrounding, through the acupoints for further refinement. So to practice a cultivation technique, it was essential for the person to have a certain number of acupoints open. Cultivators with a higher number of acupoints could practice superior cultivation techniques that could utilize more numbers of acupoints, and their cultivation would be faster.

Of course, not everyone could be lucky enough to open a high number of acupoints. So cultivation techniques with lower requirements existed. These were the most basic cultivation techniques and needed only a few major acupoints to practice―even a person with average talent could use them.

On the other hand, a cultivator who had more acupoints than the cultivation technique supported would have his progress limited by the cultivation technique. Zhou Mei was in such a situation. After Ningxue, he was most worried about Zhou Mei's future.

The Mu Family was big and had a few good cultivation techniques, but Mu Chen couldn't get any of them for Zhou Mei. She was not a member of the Mu Family. Passing on the family's cultivation techniques without permission was a capital crime and Mu Chen didn't dare risk it.

So Zhou Mei could only practice a basic cultivation technique. Since they were just basic cultivation techniques, they weren't controlled and were widespread. Anyone could practice them without worry.

But if what Li Kun was saying was true, the cultivation technique in the ring was not some ordinary technique. If Zhou Mei could cultivate it, her speed would skyrocket.

"Li Kun, you go play with Su He," Mu Chen said.

"Of course," Li Kun grinned.

Mu Chen increased his speed. On the way, he saw Su He who wanted him to referee their fight, but he ignored him. Once he reached his room, he pushed open the door, only to discover that the room was empty.

"Not here." Mu Chen sighed and then chuckled. It was foolish to think the two girls would stick around when he had gone for so long.

Mu Chen lied on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The initial excitement had faded a bit. He didn't go seek Zhou Mei. It didn't matter if Zhou Mei got the cultivation technique or magic arts now―you couldn't master them in a day or two. But in his excitement, he had forgotten this. Anyway, the girl was pretty thin-skinned and probably embarrassed by what happened last night. Mu Chen decided to give her some time.

But staring at the ring in his hand, he was curious to see what was inside it. Since Zhou Mei wasn't here, he wished he could confirm the contents of the slip first. It wouldn't be good if he bragged about it to Zhou Mei, only to discover she couldn't use the cultivation technique.

Mu Chen pinched the ring between his forefinger and thumb and raised it, peering through the socket and sighed, "Too bad I can no longer use divine sense―"

Mu Chen sat up with a jolt. "Divine sense?" His heart began to thump as an ambitious idea popped into his mind.

Since he discovered sword intent, Mu Chen hadn't stopped training it and trying to find ways of using it. This was how he discovered he could use sword intent even without the sword. It was harder and he could only barely extend it to a foot, but with practice, he was able to do it. And now Mu Chen felt he had once again touched some threshold.

Mu Chen recalled what he knew about divine sense. "Divine sense is like an extension of a cultivator's mind. It's very sensitive, but also very fragile on its own. So it needs the supplement of spiritual qi―this was why once I lost my cultivation, I couldn't use divine sense at all. But even with the support of spiritual qi, using divine sense for an extended period will cause a lot of mental strain. So cultivators will use it sparingly and only when required..." Mu Chen remembered the scene where he had cut through Tan Jun's magic technique. "When using magic arts, it's cultivators' divine sense that gives it structure. But my sword intent was able to cut through Tan Jun's divine sense, and without divine sense, the magic art fell apart. This means my sword intent can interact with divine sense―this is a common ground I can work from."

Mu Chen began to pace around the room as he compared his sword intent with divine sense. "Both are formless and intangible, both require focus to manipulate, and both cannot be sustained indefinitely. There are similarities. Does it mean I can use sword intent like divine sense? Wait, I never tried to use my sword intent like divine sense..."

Once the idea took hold, Mu Chen couldn't resist testing it. He sat cross-legged in the center of the room and closed his eyes. He gathered his sword intent, but instead of concentrating it in a narrow space, he spread it out.

Mu Chen's robe swelled like a balloon but the next instant it deflated as it was split in pieces. Several nicks and cuts had appeared on Mu Chen's body. Some of them were bleeding.

"Ugh!" Mu Chen groaned and spat a mouthful of blood. Looking at his wounds which had already started healing, he felt it was a bit unreal. He was hurt by his own power. If he hadn't noticed something wrong and decided to pull back his sword intent, the injury would have been much more severe.

"Was I wrong?" Mu Chen couldn't help but doubt. "Ordinary cultivators don't get hurt by their divine sense, but they can't destroy other physical objects with it either. Could it be that my sword intent is too strong? So when I use it, I end up destroying objects?" Mu Chen reached an unexpected conclusion. "What if I try to use only a little bit?"

Until now, Mu Chen had only practiced using sword intent without holding back. Since his sword intent was consumed only when he cut through something solid, he didn't need to worry about wasting it and hadn't bothered with this aspect before.

Filled with renewed vigor, Mu Chen began to test once again. Only this time he was careful and frugal with using his sword intent.

Time flew by as Mu Chen continued his attempts.

"Hah..hah..." Mu Chen gasped. His eyes were a bit red and there was sweat on his forehead. But his face was full of smiles. "Tch! A cultivator's divine sense is really pathetic." Mu Chen chuckled. "It's no surprise that it is easily impeded by physical objects." He surveyed the room and there was a sense of pride.

The room was devastated. Tiny pinpricks-sized holes had been drilled through the furniture and the walls of the room, a result of Mu Chen's experiments.

Once Mu Chen focused on expanding the sword intent instead of concentrating it, he noticed that it was indeed possible to utilize his sword intent like divine sense. But his first few attempts resulted in destroying the room. So Mu Chen kept lowering the amount of sword intent till he reached the point where he could use it like the divine sense he was once familiar with. In the end, he had to dilute his sword intent by ten thousand times. But once he got a hang of it, it became second nature.

Unlike ordinary cultivators, Mu Chen's newfound divine sense was tenacious and resilient. If an ordinary cultivator's divine sense was like a strand of hair, Mu Chen's was like a thick iron rod. It could easily penetrate through physical objects. But it took Mu Chen a lot of practice to do it without damaging them.

"Let's see if it has other uses like divine sense." Mu Chen took out a jade slip from his pouch and held it in his hands. Slowly and carefully, he probed it with his divine sense. Mu Family's list of rules and regulations filled his mind. Pleased with the result, Mu Chen put away the jade slip and took Tan Jun's ring.

A space the size of a cubic meter opened in his mind's eye. An assortment of goods was locked in the space. Mu Chen extended his divine sense to a spirit stone and wrapped it around it. He tugged at the stone with his divine sense, but the stone remained unmoved. Mu Chen increased the intensity of his divine sense and the spirit stone appeared on his palm.

"Success!" Mu Chen was elated, then frowned. "Some sword intent was consumed. But cultivators will also consume spiritual qi when using spatial rings so that's expected, I suppose."

After practicing using the spatial ring for a bit, Mu Chen turned his attention to the several jade slips in the ring. He removed one of them and probed with his divine sense. A stream of complex characters and images flowed into his mind.

"These techniques and arts are quite suitable for Mei'er." Mu Chen grinned. "She will be quite pleased."

Mu Chen took out a sound transmission token and tried activating it with his divine sense. But to his dismay, the token remained silent without any change. Mu Chen tried several times without any success and finally gave up. He took out a few talismans from the ring and tried activating them. But he was unable to use even one.

"As expected, although there are similarities, there is a difference in essence." Mu Chen sighed. "Calling my newfound ability as divine sense seems improper? But what should I call it then?" Mu Chen scratched his head. "Forget it, I will just call it sword sense."