Borrowing a sword

Chapter 284 The Acupoint-Opening Pill and the Sword-Refining Technique
Within the secret realm, after losing contact with those spirit swords, Chu Huaixu, from his "perspective," found himself surrounded by endless darkness once more.

He heard the system notification tone very clearly.

"Why is there the word 'advanced'?"

He immediately opened his [skill bar].

As a result, you won’t know it until you look at it, but you will be shocked when you look at it.

The skill bar in front of me was both so familiar and so unfamiliar.

The skills displayed inside are quite a long list, and he can keep scrolling down.

There was no other way; he had learned all three thousand volumes of swordsmanship from the Dao Ancestor.

This gave him a total of three thousand more skills.

There are some skills he may never use in his entire life.

But I have to say, just displaying it here like this gives me a strange sense of satisfaction.

This reminded him of some super-rich players who might not even know how to play a particular hero, but as soon as a new skin is released, their collecting instinct kicks in, and they'll buy it first.

"I am now definitely the player with the most skills." Chu Huaixu felt that this was beyond dispute.

When he played "Borrowing Swords", his main account only learned a dozen or so spells, and the vast majority of them were yellow-level.

Furthermore, there are also mutual generation and restraint among different techniques.

In the future, I will be able to exercise some restraint towards others.

Chu Huaixu sorted the skill bar by rank from highest to lowest.

【Ten Thousand Swords Return to the Source (Advanced)】 is prominently listed at the top.

Furthermore, the specific grade is listed as: Unknown!
This caused his gaze to narrow slightly.

"It's actually unknown?"

He remembered clearly that after he memorized the sword technique "Ten Thousand Swords Return to One" in the Taoist library, it appeared in his skill bar.

At that time, it was still listed in the Heavenly Rank.

"But it makes sense, since the original Ten Thousand Swords Return to One was known as the strongest Heaven-rank technique."

"Now that they've advanced to a higher level, they've transcended that category, which is understandable."

"Why doesn't the system provide detailed skill descriptions?"

"Or is it that the sword technique is still the same, but it has been enhanced by my special user status, resulting in an advanced effect?"

Various speculations began to arise in Chu Huaixu's mind again.

Besides, didn't the system also ask him "whether he wants to try learning"?

He took a look and saw that learning this skill still required spending 100 million experience points to try his luck, just like before.

There was just one more line: "Due to the Dao Ancestor's inherited secret realm, the success rate will be increased."

Upon seeing this, Chu Huaixu realized once again how utterly awful the system was.

The extent to which the success rate has increased is not indicated.

But there was one thing he was very clear about.

"I'm still too weak."

"Even if you were lucky enough to master it, you still wouldn't be able to summon ten thousand swords."

For him, this was certainly one of the gains from the trip.

But the biggest gain was actually raising the Fearless Sword Intent to its highest level and successfully condensing the Sword Heart [Ten Thousand Swords Return to One]!
Moreover, his current Sword Heart upgrade progress bar has reached 56%.

We are already more than halfway to the point of achieving minor success.

"If all of these were converted into experience points, it would be a huge sum." He knew very well that he would have to spend a terrifying amount of experience points to advance so many realms.

He now feels incredibly powerful!
Chu Huaixu was becoming increasingly excited about the East-West Continent Grand Competition of the Third Realm!
In the darkness, Chu Huaixu silently waited to exit this "illusory realm".

During this trip, he also learned a lot about the past and found some answers in his heart.

However, because of some of the actions of the Dao Ancestor, he had many new doubts in his heart.

"You're just messing with me, old man!" He sighed helplessly, a bitter smile on his face.

However, in any case, Chu Huaixu must have realized that the black bead holds a huge secret that he needs to uncover slowly.

In fact, he already had a bold guess in his mind.

"This bead feels like the greatest opportunity and fortune for the Dao Ancestor!"

"Because he was already wearing this pendant when he was still a young Taoist priest at Junzi Temple."

It feels like a cheat system that the male protagonist in a novel gets early on.

However, at that very moment, the image reappeared before his eyes.

This made Chu Huaixu frown, feeling quite surprised.

"This instance is called 'Ten Thousand Swords Return to the Origin.' Now that I've finished watching 'that episode,' and I've obtained the advanced version of the spell, there's actually a sequel?"

The scene that appeared before my eyes was still inside the Gentleman's Temple.

However, Chu Huaixu could clearly feel that time was passing.

Others have already begun to refer to the Taoist Ancestor as the Abbot.

Many new faces have also appeared inside the temple.

Those familiar faces had all aged more than ten years.

The Dao Ancestor stood with his hands behind his back, the morning sunlight falling on his shoulders, as he wandered aimlessly.

As he walked, he arrived at the Purple Bamboo Forest of Wendao Peak.

The Taoist priest walked up to the giant rock that Chu Huaixu recognized very well.

Then, with a light tap of his toes, he flew to the boulder and sat down.

I must say, the shape of this stone is actually quite suitable for sitting cross-legged in meditation.
The Taoist patriarch then entered into meditation on the boulder, seemingly lost in thought.

Chu Huaixu couldn't help but wonder to himself, "Is my master in seclusion here because she saw the Dao Ancestor comprehending the Dao here within the Dao Ancestor's lineage?"

Seeing how skillfully the Taoist priest sat down, he figured it wasn't the first time he'd pondered a problem here, meditating facing the wall.

Chu Huaixu looked at the Dao Ancestor's back, only to see that he remained motionless.

After a long while, he slowly raised his head and looked up at the sky. "I have cultivated to this point, and my realm has reached its limit, but why am I still always one step short?"

The Dao Ancestor muttered to himself, his tone revealing a hint of confusion.

"Looking back now, I realize that every step I took was correct, and I didn't skip a single step, so why was I always just one step short?"

"There is no road ahead, I have reached the end, what should I do now?"

Where should we take this step?

Chu Huaixu listened from the side, completely unable to understand the troubles of this kind of person.

He's only at the third realm; this isn't something he should be worrying about.

He couldn't even quite understand what the Dao Ancestor was saying.

To be precise, he didn't know what the Dao Ancestor was trying to do.
The Taoist priest began to mutter repeatedly, "Where should this step be taken?"

It seems that if you ask yourself the question a few more times, you will suddenly get the answer.

The results are obvious.

—He actually got it.

Suddenly, the Dao Ancestor lightly patted his thigh and then laughed.

"Why can't it be that the path itself is wrong?"

"Since I can't take this step forward, why don't I take a step back from the beginning?"

"If I take a step back at the starting line, I will have to take an extra step to reach the finish line."

"This step should be taken there!"

He let out a hearty laugh.

Chu Huaixu was completely confused.

To put it bluntly, he even felt that the Dao Ancestor was somewhat abstract.

"What is he saying?"

Then, he heard the Dao Ancestor begin to mutter to himself, repeating the same thing over and over:

"But how can we add this one more step to the path of cultivation?"

The Taoist Ancestor repeated this nine times, when suddenly a flash of inspiration struck him.

"Have it!"

"All that's needed is one more realm before the first realm!"

As Chu Huaixu watched this scene from a thousand years ago, goosebumps suddenly rose on his body.

He already knew what it was; he already knew the answer in his heart.

—The stage of opening the orifices.

That's right, it's the Qi Refining stage!
Legend has it that in the era of the Dao Ancestor, there was no such thing as the "Breaking Through the Apertures" stage; everyone started cultivating directly from the first realm.

This means that only those who are born with all nine orifices open can embark on the path of cultivation.

It was precisely because the Dao Ancestor created the formula for the Opening-Aperture Pill that even those whose nine orifices were not open could open their acupoints, while those whose nine orifices were fully open could clear away the debris accumulated in their acupoints, making their nine orifices even more unobstructed.

"So, this is what the Dao Ancestor meant by taking a step back at the starting point?" Chu Huaixu finally understood completely.

This act gave many people in the world the opportunity to cultivate themselves!
The scene suddenly shifted, and a bottle of pills appeared in the Dao Ancestor's hand.

Chu Huaixu didn't even need to guess to know that it contained the Qi-Opening Pill.

The Daoist Ancestor murmured to himself, "Only in this way can the path of cultivation for all people be considered complete."

The entire cultivation system of the Xuanhuang Realm was thus changed because of one person.

The surrounding scenery changed once again.

By the time Chu Huaixu could see everything around him clearly, the Dao Ancestor had already begun to speak.

"Let's call this stage the 'Aperture-Opening Stage'."

"And this step will just fill the gap in my swordsmanship."

After he finished speaking, he raised his head and looked at the sword floating in the air behind him.

This place is actually the summit of Cangling Mountain.

The bronze sword was sealed here at this time, but it seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep, unlike later when it stood arrogantly on the mountain for thousands of years, looking down on every climber.

At this moment, the Dao Ancestor began to talk to himself again.

Chu Huaixu thought to himself: Why do I always feel a little scared when you talk to yourself?
“Bronze can be used to make swords,” said the Dao Ancestor.

He looked at the scabbard he had placed aside and remembered the broken black wooden sword.

“Black wood can be made into a sword.”

"In fact, for sword masters, once they reach a certain level, everything in the world can become a sword."

He raised his hand and waved it, and the surrounding wind condensed into a sword.

"The wind can be a sword."

He raised his hand again, and water droplets began to condense in the air, eventually coalescing into a sword.

"Water can be used as a sword."

He waved his hand again, and the soil began to float in the air, gathering into a sword.

"Earth can also be a sword."

"Since everything in the world can be used as a sword, then..."

"Why can't a person be a sword?"

After saying that, he opened his palms.

The black bead floated over and hovered in the Dao Ancestor's palm.

The Dao Ancestor slowly turned his head, looked at Chu Huaixu who was standing to the side with a bewildered expression, and spoke with a gentle smile, as if chatting with a junior:
"Chu Huaixu, what do you say?"

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(End of this chapter)