A Mortal's Journey to Immortality: Starting as a Sword-Forging Servant and Ascending to Immorta

Chapter 43 This isn't a good-for-nothing, he's clearly a peerless genius.

Zhou Lingxuan sat on the broken wooden stool with a missing leg, his hands tucked into his sleeves, waiting for Lei Yang's answer.

The night breeze carried a chill, blowing across the collapsed earthen wall and stirring up the withered leaves on the ground.

Lei Yang looked down at the crisscrossing scars on his body and remained silent for a long time.

He grabbed a handful of pebbles from the ground and clenched them tightly in his hand, his knuckles turning white from the force.

"My grandfather was a half-crippled sword cultivator," Lei Yang finally spoke, his voice soft, tinged with grievance and bitterness.

He raised his head, looking at the dark night sky outside the courtyard wall, recalling those long-forgotten stories.

"My family lived in a small town on the northern border, a hundred and eight thousand miles away from the main Lei family. I was ten years old and didn't even know which way the Lei family's gate faced. What a joke it was to me to be a first-class sword cultivator family."

"My grandfather's meridians were half destroyed, so he worked as an ordinary guard in the town. That small place was poor, and you rarely even saw petty thieves, so nothing much ever happened, and he didn't earn much money."

Lei Yang paused here, the pebbles in his hands rubbing against each other, making a harsh sound.

"Life was tough, but we were happy. Our family never benefited from the Lei family's wealth in the slightest. Occasionally, when Grandpa had too much to drink, he would take a twig and gesture around in the yard, saying it was the Lei family's secret technique. At the time, I just thought he was bragging."

Zhou Lingxuan didn't interrupt him and listened quietly.

"And then?" Zhou Lingxuan asked.

"Later..." Lei Yang crushed the pebbles in his hand into powder, which leaked onto the ground through his fingers. "One night five years ago, several swordsmen in black suddenly appeared in the town."

"We had no idea that the main branch of the Lei family had been destroyed. Those people were carrying a magic disc with a bloodline tracking technique, and they followed that extremely faint trace of the same blood aura all the way to our door."

Lei Yang's voice began to tremble, and his shoulders twitched slightly.

"The person who came was highly skilled. Grandpa noticed something was wrong and immediately pushed me towards the cellar in the backyard."

"Those assassins didn't spare anyone who saw the man surnamed Lei. My grandfather's meridians were half-destroyed, but in order to survive, he immediately reversed the remaining blood and energy in his meridians and risked his life to hold off those attackers, ultimately dying together with them."

"I hid in a crack in the cellar. I only dared to crawl out after the fighting outside stopped."

Lei Yang abruptly released his grip, and the remaining rubble fell to the ground. He covered his face with his hands and took a deep breath.

"The courtyard was a river of blood. Those men in black were dead, and Grandpa was also covered in wounds. His internal organs were shattered, and he lay in a pool of blood, unable to stand up. He couldn't take me with him when we ran away."

"Before he died, he forced the lightning-patterned longsword in his hand and the only amulet he had left onto me, telling me to run for my life and go as far away as possible."

Zhou Lingxuan looked at Lei Yang and sighed softly to himself.

"So you took that sword and fled all the way to the Southern Region?"

"Hmm." Lei Yang nodded, raised his hand to wipe his face, "After that bloody calamity, I embarked on the path of cultivation in a daze. I left the town overnight, hid in the mountains for half a month, and then kept heading south."

"For the past five years, I have been dodging the subsequent pursuit while practicing the sword techniques that my grandfather demonstrated back then."

Lei Yang gave a self-deprecating laugh, a laugh filled with despair.

"Unfortunately, I'm too stupid. I've been practicing for five years and haven't even touched the threshold of the Qi Refining stage. I'm still stuck in the Body Tempering stage."

"Later, I ran into the people chasing me on the road. Any one of them was at the mid-stage of Qi Refining. Every time I encountered them, I could only run for my life. All these injuries on my body were left from my escape."

"I'm a complete and utter loser. I don't even deserve to avenge my grandfather."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Lingxuan raised his eyebrows slightly.

He looked Lei Yang up and down, his gaze sweeping over the boy's old injuries.

"You just said that for the past five years, you've been practicing the moves your grandfather demonstrated?"

"right."

"Has no one taught you the mental techniques? Has no one given you guidance on how to generate power?"

"No." Lei Yang shook his head, his tone matter-of-fact. "Grandpa didn't have time to explain the details of swordsmanship, and he didn't even leave behind a sword manual. I can only practice blindly based on the bits and pieces of memory I had when I was a child."

Zhou Lingxuan remained outwardly calm, but inwardly he was in turmoil.

Blindly practicing?

A ten-year-old child, carrying an extremely heavy longsword, without any martial arts guidance, relied entirely on a few fragmented movements from his memory to practice for five years.

Moreover, he had been on the run for the past five years, facing constant pursuit from Qi Refining stage cultivators.

If it were an ordinary person, let alone practicing swordsmanship, they would have died in the wilderness long ago.

Even if one survives by sheer luck, that kind of haphazard training method is enough to completely ruin a person's meridians.

Lei Yang not only didn't die, but he also developed the prototype of the Wind and Thunder Sword Intent!

Zhou Lingxuan looked at the dejected, self-proclaimed good-for-nothing boy in front of him and clicked his tongue in amazement.

This guy is anything but a good-for-nothing.

This is clearly a genius, one in a million!

Lei Yang's seemingly low cultivation level was actually a miracle achieved through sheer willpower, relying solely on his terrifying intuition without the guidance of any orthodox cultivation method. The stagnation in his power was not due to any error in his training, but rather an instinctive adjustment made by his body to protect his meridians.

This kid is risking his life to experiment and learn from mistakes, forcibly transforming a flawed sword technique into a wild style suitable for his own physical condition.

Zhou Lingxuan suppressed the shock in his heart and changed to a more comfortable position.

"Since you've been on the run, how did you end up at the Heavenly Sword Pavilion?"

Lei Yang took a deep breath and calmed himself down.

"When my grandfather was a guard in town in his early years, he met a disciple of the Heavenly Sword Pavilion who came to the mortal world for training. That person left a jade token, saying that he could go to him if he was in trouble in the future."

"I searched high and low, and that person did see me."

Lei Yang smiled, but the smile was somewhat bitter.

"However, after examining my aptitude, he said my physical constitution was too poor to enter the outer sect. So he sent me to this abandoned hall. He also said it was quiet here and suitable for me to recuperate."

Zhou Lingxuan raised an eyebrow.

To throw someone into the abandoned hall to fend for themselves—that's a really low-level relationship. Otherwise, how could they not even give them the status of an outer sect servant, but just stuff them into this dead-end corner where scrap is piled up?

However, Zhou Lingxuan didn't intend to point it out. This child had suffered enough blows; there was no need to rub salt into his wounds.

After hearing about Lei Yang's experience, a huge question suddenly popped into Zhou Lingxuan's mind.

It's understandable that the Lei family's main branch was wiped out, and their enemies would try to eliminate them completely.

But Lei Yang's family was just a distant, remote branch of the family, who had never even entered the main house.

Why would those assassins be so ruthless as to use bloodline tracking techniques to kill even unrelated collateral relatives?

This is completely illogical.

Zhou Lingxuan suppressed this thought. The cultivation world was too complex, and he was currently just a blacksmith at the first level of Qi Refining. These matters were none of his concern, so he ultimately did not ask.

As the night wind blew, the moon in the sky was gradually obscured by the clouds.

It got dark all around.

Occasionally, a muffled cracking sound would come from the fire pit at the bottom of the valley in the distance, breaking the silence of the abandoned hall.

In front of the dilapidated wooden house, an old man and a young man stood a few steps apart. In this corner of the sect's lowest level, a sense of warmth and camaraderie arose between them.

Lei Yang poured out everything he had kept inside for five years, and finally relaxed completely.

He looked at Zhou Lingxuan sitting on the broken wooden stool and felt that the withered old man was a bit more amiable.

At least, the old man was willing to listen to him and didn't mock him for being a good-for-nothing who hadn't even reached the Qi Refining stage.

Lei Yang stood up and patted the dust off his trousers.

"Alright, that's the end of the story. Go back to sleep now."

Lei Yang picked up the Thunder Pattern Longsword stuck in the hard soil of the yard and turned to walk towards his dilapidated hut made of straw.

Just then, Zhou Lingxuan looked at him and suddenly spoke.

"Perhaps I can forge a suitable sword for you?"