Ancient Strengthening Technique (Web Novel)
chapter-621

AST 621 – The Fiery Golden Eyes at the Small Success Stage, the ‘lower’ Segment of the Basic Sword Technique

The progression of the Primordial Flame made Qing Shui feel as if he had just entered an even wider land. Simultaneously, he also made up his mind to strengthen this killer weapon of his.

Primordial Flame was the most ancient kind of flame across the world. An ordinary flame already possessed tremendous strength, let alone this kind of ancient flame. Even though it’s considered to have reached a very accomplished state, if Qing Shui could learn to use the Primordial Flame efficiently, it wouldn’t be hard to use it to kill people.

Qing Shui spent his remaining time to congeal and condense the Primordial Flame in hopes of gaining the ability to draw out an even stronger power from it. At present, the Primordial Flame which Qing Shui released was much more powerful than the Fire bird’s ‘Nether Fireball’.

Qing Shui put more emphasis on cultivating his Nature Energy, Immovable Mountain, Frenzied Bull’s Strength and on drawing the Hundred Forms of the Tiger. He also didn’t forget the Heavenly Pellet and the Blue Lotus Art. It’s just that compared to the other skills, he spent less time on these two.

Of course, the most significant one was still his Ancient Strengthening Technique. It was Qing Shui’s most fundamental technique. All of the things which he cultivated, his Primordial Flame, Immovable Mountain and Frenzied Bull’s Strength all relied on his Qi of the Ancient Strengthening Technique as their most basic component.

Qing Shui cultivated the Fiery Golden Eyes every day. Throughout the cultivation, he was able to feel its improvement. It’s just that until now, it still didn’t manage to reach the small success stage. This made Qing Shui torn between feeling happy or sad.

Normally, the harder the technique was to cultivate, the larger the effect would be once it was successfully cultivated. Hence, Qing Shui threw away all the distracting thoughts, including whether he would succeed or not.

Once he started cultivating, he stopped thinking about everything, about how much he would improve, whether he would achieve the small success stage, what he should do if he fails to achieve the small success stage, all of it. He completely immersed himself in his cultivation.

He closed his eyes and sat down in a cross-legged position. He looked really calm and relaxed, not exposing any kind of expressions on his face. He appeared to look so peaceful that it could shock people. He tried to form a sign with both of his hands.

Time went on like usual in the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal. There wasn’t anyone bothering Qing Shui, hence, he could focus solely on his cultivation.

Suddenly, a faint light started emerging from Qing Shui’s body. Not long after, the huge Buddha Statue once again appeared behind him.

The Buddha Statue was golden in color. It gave out a really powerful spiritual fluctuation as it slowly channeled threads after threads of golden light into Qing Shui. It made the light emerging from his body even brighter and more dazzling, which added a bit of a dignified aura to his peaceful demeanor.

Qing Shui slowly opened both of his eyes. Everything was still the same, he still looked really calm like usual. The only thing different was his gaze which had a really sharp look.

He turned around!

A thread of faint golden light shot out of his eyes!

It’s done!

The Fiery Golden Eyes reached the small Perfection Stage!

Qing Shui slowly got up. He never thought that he would actually break through at such a time. He was well aware that he would only be able to make much progress if he could throw away all random thoughts and focus solely on his cultivation. Other than that, the chances of which he could break through would also be more than ten times higher than normal.

Nevertheless, it’s no use even if he had known about these factors because the chance of achieving this kind of feat itself was quite rare. It wasn’t really considered as an insight, but it had effects really similar to it. It’s just that it’s a bit inferior to insight itself.

The Fiery Golden Eyes had achieved the small success stage! It could destroy 10% of all the opponent’s temporary strength!

Qing Shui didn’t know what was included as temporary strength. However, when he thought about it himself, he managed to figure out something. The Violet Gold Divine Shield, Lunar Silk Clothes, Big Dipper Sword as well as Heavenly Talismans were all temporary abilities. As for other skills, Qing Shui wasn’t really clear about it.

There was also a few unique medicinal pills which only had temporary effects!

It may just be a 10% decrease in strength, but one thing that Qing Shui was well aware of was that there are almost no warriors in the World of the Nine Continent who didn’t have temporary abilities, so much that he felt that some of the supportive techniques were also temporary. If it was really as he thought, then the Fiery Golden Eyes would truly be terrifying.

This reminded Qing Shui of a phrase. Everything was temporary!

Every temporary attribute boosting abilities! That meant it has taken account of every temporary abilites!

Previously, Qing Shui also spotted the Buddha Statue behind him. He still didn’t know if it was actually caused by his Thousand Buddha Palms Imprint or the Ancient Book of ‘Rebirth’. Often, the first thing a normal person would feel was that it had something to do with the Thousand Buddha Palm Imprint. However, since a long time ago, Qing Shui has always felt that it was because of the Ancient Book of ‘Rebirth’.

Seeing as time was almost up, Qing Shui showered before getting out of the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal. The lightstones in his room were giving out a gentle light. It didn’t really make the room bright, yet it was able to make people feel comfortable.

Qing Shui released his Spiritual Sense and felt the two girls sleeping soundly in a room not too far away. He suddenly thought about the book ‘Art of Observing Females’ which he read before entering the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal.

Qing Shui went up to the shelf. He didn’t actually take out the book ‘Art of Observing Females’. Instead, he took out other books, but he only flipped through the majority of the books and didn’t really pay too much attention to the details.

He continued on and managed to flip through quite a lot of books. They were all basically about common things across the continent except it was more interesting and written specifically.

After going through almost half of the books, Qing Shui randomly picked out a book again. He planned to sleep after reading this book. It was just that at the moment Qing Shui got his hand on the book, he noticed that the book felt a bit different. It was a bit soft and it felt as if the book was made of a much higher quality materials compared to the rest.

‘Last part of Basic Sword Techniques’……

Qing Shui blanked out. In an instant, he went from feeling sleepy to being incomparably awake. Lin Zhanhan had given him a book named the ‘First part of the Basic Sword Techniques’ back when he was on Qing Clan’s Library. While he was on Heavenly Palace’s Library, he had managed to find ‘The Second Part of Basic Sword Techniques’. And now, to his surprise, he had actually found the ‘Last part of Basic Sword Techniques’ in Four Sea Inns.

At this moment, Qing Shui felt a bit agitated. When it came to Sword Techniques, Qing Shui had already known a thing or two about it. He felt really lucky he had trained the most unattended Basic Sword Technique at that time.

Most importantly, ever since he started cultivating it, he had just continued on for more than ten years. After that, he had even mixed his ‘Wave Essence’ into the basics of the Sword Techniques, enabling the strength of the Basic Sword Technique to undergo tremendous changes.

If it was converted to the time duration in the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal, it would have taken around a hundred years of cultivation. This enabled Qing Shui’s cultivation of the ‘Basic Sword Technique’ to reached great heights. However, he was still limited by the most basic restriction of the ‘Basic Sword Techniques’. In the book ‘Basic Sword Technique First part’ it only had the most fundamental sword skills. For warriors who only got into sword techniques, they would have most likely replace the most basic sword techniques with an even stronger one after one to three months.

Compared to the first book, the ‘Second part of Basic Sword Technique’ had more variations of Sword Techniques. For example, it would have techniques which combined different piercing methods in a series. It might seem really simple, yet it possessed a really tremendous wounding power. It might look like a very basic skill, but Qing Shui was able to cultivate his Basic Sword Technique up to a terrifying stage by practicing it numerous times.

But Qing Shui always had high hopes in the ‘Last part of Basic Sword Techniques’. He felt that there would definitely be some killer moves recorded in the book. It’s just that he was a bit uncertain if he would be able to find the last book of the Basic Sword Techniques series. Who would have thought that he would actually find it here?

Qing Shui sat down in front of the study table. He no longer planned to sleep but instead, he planned to spend all of his time to go through the book carefully.

At the moment he flipped through the thin pages made of beast parchment, Qing Shui smiled. The skills listed on it might seem really simple and easy, but Qing Shui was the only one who managed to see the key points within it.

Combination Sword Techniques!

Qing Shui could already tell that these were all combined sword techniques with just one look. It’s just performing different sword techniques together at one go. There were already a few simple combinations in the ‘Second Part of Basic Sword Techniques’. Most of them were combinations of two sword techniques merged together.

As for the ‘Last part of Basic Sword Techniques’, they were combinations of at least three basic sword skills merged together. There were also some which combined four to five sword skills. When Qing Shui saw all of these, he felt as if he just saw the light again. There were finally powerful killer moves in the Basic Sword Techniques which he could use.

Qing Shui didn’t know who drew out the Basic Sword Technique. But he felt that it must be someone whose sword skills belonged to that of the legends. All of the most basic sword skills written inside the Basic Sword Techniques were something that wouldn’t be achieved without at least a hundred years of experience.

Seeing that all of these combined sword skills were the most basic combinations, normal people wouldn’t be able to see the essence within it except Qing Shui.

Combining three skills together!

The sword techniques, which Qing Shui was reading, were all skills which had combined three sword techniques. The most powerful thing about the combinations was that it had ways to merge sword techniques which were totally incompatible together. For example, ‘slicing’ and ‘thrusting’ were skills that could be easily combined together whereas ‘chopping’ and ‘piercing’ were techniques which were very hard to be combined.

While reading the book, he had also attempted to mimic the skills written on it. As Qing Shui swung the sword in his hand, he had noticed that there was a really profound knowledge within it. If it has been a normal person reading about the sword techniques combination, it would surely drive them mad. This was because they were mostly combinations which were very hard to combine.

Qing Shui, on the other hand, felt that these sword techniques combinations were like a life-saving rope for someone who was drowning and like a sweet spring of water found by people who were about to die of thirst.

It wasn’t until the sky slowly turned bright when Qing Shui woke up like he was drunk and stupefied. There was a satisfied smile on his face. The Two Moves Combination Sword Technique was able to increase his original fundamental strength by 10% whereas the Three Moves Combination Sword Technique was capable of increasing it by 20%. As for the Four Moves Combination Sword Technique, Qing Shui was unclear about it because at present, he was only barely able to perform a Three Moves Combination Sword Technique.

Even though he was only able to perform the Three Moves Combination Sword Technique, he was able to witness just how powerful these combined sword techniques were. Since he still had plenty of time, he immediately threw the book into the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal.

When Qing Shui went out, he proceeded towards the top of the building. The enormous roof resembled a tiny plaza. It was designed in a way so that it would be really suitable for warriors to cultivate. Of course, for someone like Qing Shui, he would definitely have to hold back his strength while cultivating. There weren’t many ordinary buildings left which could stand Qing Shui’s attacks.

As Qing Shui arrived at the highest part of the building, he noticed that there were already a few people cultivating. Qing Shui found a spot at the corner and then he took out a sword which was around one to three meters long from the weapons rack.

After he mulled over his last sword strike, he felt that it was more effective than just practising the moves. When this kind of simple Combination Sword Technique was executed, it did not have those kind of gorgeous vision effects but had a bleak killing intent instead.

The techniques were fierce and severe!

After that, Qing Shui continuously performed the Three Moves Combination Sword Technique which he had practiced since midnight. Slowly, he had realized that he was able to do it more and more smoothly. He was also able to perform the combination more quickly and skillfully.

Later on, Qing Shui had once again merged the ‘Wave Essence of the Thousand Buddha Palm Imprint’ into his sword techniques. This wasn’t actually hard for him since he was already able to do it before. It was just that when he did it now with the sword techniques combined, he felt a bit awkward.

Practice makes perfect! This was a saying which Qing Shui strongly believed in. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have cultivated the Basic Sword Techniques every day for ten years!