One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

It was a natural depression basin surrounded by ring-shaped rock walls. The cliffs on all sides looked as if they had been vertically cleaved by a giant sword, and the texture of the rock layers was clearly visible in the cross-sections. In some places, one could even see the marks carved by water over millions of years. The valley was much larger than they had imagined, about a hundred feet wide, and its depth exceeded the area shrouded by the thin mist at the horizon. The ground was covered with a soft, thick layer of grass, a dark shade between dark green and grayish-green, which made almost no sound when stepped on.

In the center of the valley rises a circular stone platform. The platform is about ten feet in diameter, carved entirely from a single piece of bluish-gray stone, its surface polished smooth as a mirror by countless years of wind and rain. In the very center of the platform, a sword is stuck.

It was a sword that looked plain, almost crude. The blade was bluish-gray, without any inlays or decorations. The hilt was a simple cross shape, and the cord wrapped around it had faded to a dark brown, but each line of the cord was even and tight. It stood quietly in the center of the stone platform, the tip of the sword embedded about two inches into the stone, without even a crack around it—as if the stone were soft and it had simply been pressed in by someone.

But this seemingly unremarkable sword was the source of the sword intent that permeated the entire valley, spreading out layer by layer from its center. That sword intent wasn't violent or intimidating, but rather possessed a weighty, almost stagnant quality, like an invisible seawater pressing in from all directions. Everyone standing in the valley felt their breathing involuntarily slow down by half a beat.

Zhang Chulan stared at the sword for a long while, then scratched the back of his head: "This is the True Martial Sword? It looks... less conspicuous than the clothesline downstairs from my house?"

"Its divine essence is restrained." Wang Ye's voice carried a solemnity he rarely displayed. "Top-tier weapons, once they reach a certain level, no longer pursue outward splendor. The sword intent itself is strong enough; it doesn't need decoration to prove anything. This sword, forged by our patriarch himself, used a long-lost layer-forging method, repeatedly folding and forging hundreds of layers of iron of varying hardness, achieving the ultimate in both toughness and hardness."

"That sounds amazing... So who's going to pull it out?"

Nie Lingfeng did not answer. He strode towards the stone platform and stopped three steps away. His gaze fell on the sword, his eyelids below his brow drooping slightly, as if he were listening to something.

A moment later, he turned to look behind him: "Linglong, come here."

"Me?" Lu Linglong hesitated noticeably as she stepped out of the group. "Master, I've only been learning swordsmanship for a short time, what if—"

"It's okay. Go up and try."

Lu Linglong took a deep breath. She took the backpack strap off her shoulder and handed it to Lu Lin beside her. Then she straightened her collar and walked step by step toward the stone platform. When she reached the stone platform, she stopped, put her hands together in the Wudang fist salute that Wang Ye had demonstrated to her on the way, and muttered, "Junior Lu Linglong, I apologize for my offense." Then she extended her right hand and grasped the hilt of her sword.

The moment her fingertips touched the old rope wrapped around the hilt of the sword, the blade emitted a deep hum. A surge of powerful, turbid qi rushed back from the hilt, flowing up her fingers, palm, and wrist, like a bucket of ice water being poured into her fingertips. Lu Linglong felt a numbness in her entire arm. The qi showed no sign of stopping, surging up her shoulder and chest. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment, and she was thrown off the stone platform by an unpleasant force, staggering back two or three steps before Lu Lin caught her from behind.

After she stopped, she took a couple of deep breaths and looked down at the palm of her right hand—there was a faint red mark on her skin, like a burn that had cooled down quickly.

"It..." Lu Linglong's voice was a little tight, "It doesn't want me to touch it."

"It's not that I don't want you to touch it," Nie Lingfeng replied quickly, his tone calm and firm. "It's just that it's not ready to accept you yet. This sword has been with your ancestor for hundreds of years and has developed its own temperament. Changing masters is no small matter for it; it takes time."

Lu Linglong pulled her hand back and clenched it in front of her, biting her lip, but quickly smiled again: "Hmm, I'm not in a hurry."

"Master Wang," Nie Lingfeng stepped aside, "you come here."

Wang Ye walked to the stone platform. His movements were much more composed than Lu Linglong's. He first stood three feet in front of the stone platform, put the cloth bag he carried on his back at his feet, then straightened the front of his Taoist robe, clasped his hands together and made a standard Wudang internal salute, the degree of his waist bending down was precise and restrained.

"Wang Ye, a disciple of Wudang, pays respects to the Divine Sword, our patriarch."

He straightened up, extended his right hand, and grasped the hilt of the sword.

When his fingertips touched the hilt, the True Martial Sword's hum was softer than before. The flow of Qi emanating from the sword didn't surge forth as violently as it had repelled Lu Linglong; instead, it slowly seeped out from the hilt in a tentative manner, like a fine thread probing into his meridians. Wang could feel that power slowly circulating within his body, as if examining him, before gradually receding and returning to the sword.

He felt a sense of relief and lowered his wrist to try and lift the sword—but the blade remained motionless. The weight didn't feel like physical mass; it felt more like a spiritual, willful "no." It was as if the sword was saying: You are good, you are qualified, but not now.

Wang Ye tried twice more, each time using the flowing power of Tai Chi to move the sword hilt with soft force, but the sword seemed rooted to the stone platform and remained motionless. After the third attempt, he loosened his grip, took half a step back, and exhaled a breath of white air.

"It recognizes my identity, but not me as its master," Wang said, his tone lacking regret but rather carrying a sense of relief and acceptance. "Perhaps in its eyes, my cultivation is still halfway there."

Nie Lingfeng nodded, said nothing, and walked straight up.

His movements were more concise than the previous two. When he reached the stone platform, he didn't even stop; he simply reached out his right hand and grasped the sword hilt.

The instant the fingertips touched the hilt of the sword—

A vast sword intent surged from the sword into his arm like a flood bursting its banks! It was not the repulsive force that Lu Linglong had felt before, nor the tentative probing that Wang Ye had felt—but a complete and unreserved outpouring, like a deep well that had been blocked for hundreds of years suddenly having its cover lifted, with everything accumulated at the bottom surging up in the same instant.

Nie Lingfeng's body tensed abruptly. Every muscle from his shoulder blades to his spine contracted in the same instant, and his feet left a shallow mark on the rocky edge of the platform. He could feel the sword intent surging forward through the meridians in his body. It was different from the heat of the Dragon Essence and the composure of the Qilin Blood—it was a pure, transparent, intangible substance that had been accumulating for hundreds of years, as heavy as a mountain and as sharp as a needle.

Deep within his consciousness, he "saw" a sea of ​​clouds. Above the clouds stood an old Taoist priest with white hair, not tall, slightly hunched, wearing a patched blue robe, but the hand holding the sword was so steady it seemed to be an extension of the blade. The old priest didn't turn around, but simply swung his sword slowly with his back to him. The movement was extremely slow, but the tip of the sword left a silver-gray trail that lingered in the air for a long time before slowly dissipating.

Nie Lingfeng knew that wasn't a real scene—it was fragments of memory remaining within the True Martial Sword, enveloped by sword intent and poured into his senses. But he didn't resist those fragments; instead, he let them flow through his mind. He could feel three completely different forces surging simultaneously within his body: the violent heat of the Dragon Essence, the rich and steady essence of the Qilin Blood, and the clear and sharp intent of the True Martial Sword. They collided, pulled, and rubbed against each other at the same point in his meridians, each clash sending a sharp, piercing pain deep within his bones.

But he did not retreat. He closed his eyes, emptying his consciousness of resistance, leaving only a very thin strand of divine sense as a guide, leading the three forces step by step to different meridians, allowing them to proceed along their own paths, avoiding simultaneous compression at the same intersection.

He didn't know how long this process lasted. He only felt the sweat on his forehead trickling down his temples, sliding across his jawline, and dripping onto the edge of the stone platform, where it was instantly absorbed by the dry rock surface.

Then the pain suddenly subsided. Like the last wave of the tide receding from the beach, all the pressure was released in the same instant. The blade of the Zhenwu Sword trembled slightly in his palm, the vibration traveling from the hilt to his palm, to his wrist, to his shoulder and neck, like a heavy stone door slowly and completely opening.

He opened his eyes and gently lifted the sword—the blade was drawn from the stone platform, gleaming with a pale blue light in the afternoon sunlight, like a pool of water that had been still for too long and was suddenly stirred up again.

"Congratulations, Benefactor Nie." The aged yet majestic voice slowly coalesced above the sword. A phantom figure gradually became clear in the afterglow of the sword's light—wide robes and flowing sleeves, snow-white hair, and a face identical to the silhouette Nie Lingfeng had seen deep within his consciousness. But the figure's eyes were different from the dragon soul within the ice wall of Kunlun Mountain; they were calm and clear, like a mirror without any impurities.