Yin Long's torso was covered with tiny bloody holes that stained his clothing, a prickling sensation creeping through his body thanks to the minuscule stabs. But he didn't mind, he was blazing with excitement and anticipation. Hongzai had quickly and easily spotted three weaknesses of his, one that he already knew of and two that he hadn't even noticed himself. Once he fixed those weaknesses and coupled it with Esi, what sort of realm would he be able to reach?
"We'll start with weakness three, your body. You can train that whenever, even while we're training the other two weaknesses, so it's good to start early. Weakness one and two will take up most of the time, and we'll start with weakness two, fixing that one is more important to ensure that you'll survive. 13 hours of training every day, what you do in the remaining 9 is up to you. You two can watch if you want, but I won't be sparing any thought for you so don't ask anything of me."
Hongzai paid no mind to Yin Long's expression and laid out her plans quite simply, reiterating her earlier point as she glanced at Xiao Yin Yu and Jin Wang. 13 hours a day, even if 9 hours were left to him he would usually need about 8 for eating and sleeping, normally there would also be a need to maintain his equipment. It was a gruelling schedule, but Yin Long was nothing if not a training fanatic so it fit him just fine.
"Here, this is the technique I mentioned. Fundamental, nothing more. But it is in those fundamentals that people find their path to ascension, the path you take it down rests entirely on you."
Hongzai flung out her arm as she spoke, tossing over a jade slip that was so smooth that it had clearly passed between countless hands. Yin Long caught it, almost dropping it thanks to the blood that stained his hand. But as he sank his mind into it, he truly understood why Hongzai called it fundamental, nothing more.
It only contained a single section, guiding you to reach the first of the body cultivation realms, the One-Petaled Heart realm. Yin Long probably wouldn't be able to cultivate this technique, he hadn't been able to cultivate any technique of any kind so far after all. But the first step it focused on was a rather interesting one to him, it went well with the technique he learned from Meiyu, Buddha Dances In The Rain.
The first step of this technique, Twisting World, focused entirely on his joints. But it didn't focus on all three types of joints, it focused solely on the two types of joints that allowed movement, even if it was just minute movement. It also didn't focus all that much on strengthening and instead cared more about smoothness and accumulation, storing up strength in your joints. It was an intriguing concept that he could keep in mind as he worked on figuring out how to cultivate his body.
"Memorize it, implement it in whatever fashion you see fit. Now, for the second weakness, your lack of speed. Trying to force yourself to learn a speed-based law might be nothing but detrimental, and there's no telling how long it'll take. As such, we'll focus on a single technique. But, be warned, this is not my own technique but something I was taught by someone else, I've also abandoned it as I failed to properly learn and improve it, what I can teach you is limited so you'll have to add on to it to create something that suits you. But while I may have abandoned it, I can assure you that it is more than good enough to cover up your weakness, if you can fully personalize it then it will be a supreme addition to your arsenal."
Yin Long wasn't the slightest bit discouraged by Hongzai's statement, he had always been focused on carving his own path, on bringing his own sword to the very peak. And even if it was limited, the fact that she was speaking so highly about it meant that it was likely still a technique that not even she could scoff at.
"The person who taught you, where can I find them if I want to learn more about the technique?"
Most people might consider it rude to just immediately ask about another teacher when you had only just managed to luckily get picked up by one, but Yin Long had never been someone who cared for such things. But what a shame it was that the answer he got was less than favourable.
"He's dead, died a hundred or so years ago, maybe more. Fat bastard is probably tearing up the Netherworld as we speak, assuming that they haven't whittled down his will already that is."
Hongzai shook her head slightly, a very faint glimmer of mournfulness flitting past her eyes. She spoke quite casually, but once again provided a hint about just how old she really was. But it was something that was only to be expected, not everyone could be like Tao Tiankong or Zhao Feng and enter the Skyborne Doors before they were 100.
"Raise your sword, hold it out as far as you can and close your eyes."
The hint of mournfulness had vanished from Hongzai's eyes as she finished shaking her head, gesturing for Yin Long to follow her orders. He did as he was asked and held out his sword, his arm fully stretched out so that the tip was as far away from him as possible. Hongzai stepped forward, placing a finger on the tip of his blade and slowly sliding it along the back of the blade and up his arm.
"Blade length, 80 centimetres. Hilt size, 30 centimetres. Arm length, 70 centimetres. The size of the hilt can be ignored most of the time, but you can slide your grip down to slightly extend the distance in a pinch. Going by just the blade and your arm, you've got about a metre and a half of length. That means that the moment anything gets within that range, you're dead. That range has to be your domain, a world where only that which you acknowledge can enter. Focus your senses, only that metre and a half matters, everything else is unimportant. Shrink them down, block out the world, it doesn't accept you so you don't need to see it. Only that small world, only that needs to exist for you."
Yin Long had his eyes closed, Hongzai's voice quietly sneaking into his ears. They were Woehowl, they abhorred the world and desired nothing more than to drive a nail into it with every swing of their sword. The world did not accept them and they did not accept it, it seemed like this technique she was trying to teach him was created by another Woehowl Swordsman.
Yin Long did as Hongzai said, the range of his senses shrinking little by little. His connection to the law of space gave him constant vision of the surroundings, spanning a bit more than 500 metres in each direction. Those 500 metres were his world, always in his mind, a map at the back of his eyes. But now that world was crumbling little by little, 500 turned to 400 and then to 300.
The map grew clearer and clearer as his world shrunk, what was previously only shapes and outlines gaining details. But it wasn't good enough yet, he rejected it just like Esi rejected the world, the way his pain rejected it. The world continued to fade, shrinking with each passing second as he forced his senses to compact, to focus solely on him and his world.
And slowly, ever so slowly, he started to feel something. The world he was crumbling, the world that was fading as he rejected it, what remained seemed to call to him. A soft whisper in his soul, a warm breath in his ears, a pair of cold hands on his back. Time itself felt like it was starting to distort as he continued to crumble the world, reality flickering as he sharpened his senses more and more.
And then, after what felt like years, his world had fallen away to become just that tiny one and a half metres around him. Within that world, everything was visible to him. The grooves on the dust that lingered in the air, the pores on Hongzai's skin, the flow of blood within the worm that was creeping just beneath the earth.
But more than that, he saw the Qi in the air. Like tiny drops of water that danced around him, each one so small it was practically invisible, but each one filled with power. And in that Qi he saw himself, reflected hundreds and thousands of times over. There was nothing else there, not even the world was reflected in those droplets, there was only him. To that Qi, he was the world, he was all existence.
Hongzai stepped away, her movements appearing stilted and slow to Yin Long's compressed senses. But he felt a slight pang of pain as she moved, the strain on his mind was several thousand times worse than when he just used his senses normally.
But he persevered. This sensation in his soul, on his back, and in his ears, this tiny world of his, this was something he had to grasp. It was the same instinct that made him seek our Hongzai when he saw her sword scars, an instinctual knowledge that he had to learn and understand whatever this was. He needed this, this tiny world, these hundreds of thousands of reflections, he needed to understand what it was, how to use it.
As he was struggling to maintain this tiny world of his, something broke into it. It fell down from above and stabbed through his world, descending towards his head. But the moment it touched his world, his body moved instinctually. This was his world, he had a duty to protect it, he wouldn't allow anything to enter it unless he gave the command.
His blade moved, flashing upwards as it practically roared with Qi and slammed into the thing that had broken into his world. The thing, a branch sharpened into a spear, felt like it moved incredibly slow, it had barely moved half a centimetre by the time Yin Long's sword reached it.
His blade cut cleanly through it, the sword-tinged Qi contained within it shredding the wood until only splinters remained. But not even those were reflected in the droplets in the air. But there was however one other thing that was now reflected in those droplets of Qi, a rising sword, an ascending blade that protected the world. Yin Long and his blade, those were the only two things the droplets reflected, those were the only two things that existed within those droplets, within this world.
"I had some expectations, but that was fast, scarily so. Do you feel that, Yin Long? That is your domain, that metre and a half. Nothing can enter it, and anything that tries to breach it must be decimated instantly. You abandon the rest of the world for that tiny area, and in doing so you remove all pointless distractions. There is nothing left to stop you from reacting the moment something tries to enter your domain, nothing that can cloud your mind or movement. That is how you acquire speed beyond speed, a defence that does not care one whit for how fast your opponent is."
Hongzai's voice reached Yin Long's ears, twisting and distorting as it fluttered through his world. Her words became the final straw, Yin Long's strained senses crumbling, the tiny world around him expanding and fading as his eyes opened, now bloodshot. She had aimed to teach him how to set up that domain, that inviolable area to just him, but what neither of them realized was that what Yin Long saw and felt was not what Hongzai had been trying to teach him. It produced the same effect, but they were not the same, but that wasn't something the two of them would realize for quite some time.
