Sword Spirit
chapter-7

Lu Xuan continued to cultivate for a full ten days time.

Within these ten days, Lu Xuan’s days passed by pretty nicely. Every day, other than cultivating Tai Yi Soul Return Tactic, he practiced the Blinking Sword Skill, and the progress was fast, letting him feel very excited!

Thanks to his extreme talents, within the very short period of ten days, Lu Xuan had already arrived at body refining third level’s peak. He was only a step away from body refining fourth level.

What gave Lu Xuan encouragement was although he hadn’t reached body refining fourth level, he could feel that, at this time, his fist strength had definitely broken the 1400 jin mark!

There was no doubt that the reason for this kind of change was naturally because of the Tai Yi Soul Return Tactic.

Although the degree of fist strength was used to measure the level under normal circumstances, that was only used for ordinary martial artists. For some martial artists that had cultivated to a higher level, with the same level, the explosive strength wasn’t the same.

Tai Yi Soul Return Tactic’s circulation path fully traveled through twenty-six meridians throughout the whole body. In fact, Lu Xuan’s whole body had been exercised. If compared, Guiding Qi Tactic that only used one meridian in its pathway was completely not worth mentioning.

Other than his realm being raised a lot, he had also achieved the large success stage of the Blinking Sword Skill.

Blinking Sword Skill. Although this was Lu Xuan’s first real martial skill, but because the memories of the Blinking Sword Skill were firmly engraved into Lu Xuan’s mind. Thus, when he practiced it, it was half the effort for the results.

“It’s already been two days since I entered the body refining third level peak, but I still haven’t been able to breakthrough to body refining fourth level. It looks like even if I continue cultivating, I won’t be able to breakthrough in a short amount of time.”

Lu Xuan frowned to himself. The path of cultivation was originally not something that one could only work behind closed doors. There was no way to breakthrough by only blindly and bitterly cultivating. Right now Lu Xuan had encountered a bottleneck.

The reason last time he was able to break through without trouble to reach body refining third level was, one, because the sword crystal had helped Lu Xuan clear away some of the obstacles, and two, because he had entered into the ethereal state. Right now he eagerly wanted to succeed, but he couldn’t.

Thinking of that bit, Lu Xuan decided to not continue bitterly cultivate. He had already been in these woods for a full ten days and it was time to leave.

Going by the fact that his strength was comparable to body refining fourth level, and that he had the Blinking Sword Skill has a killing move, why would he still be afraid of running into Long Yang. Lu Xuan also had a combat strength!

After cleaning up a bit, Lu Xuan embarked on the road to Lin City.

In truth, there wasn’t much to clean up. Originally he had been beaten unconscious by Long Yang and dragged out. He didn’t carry anything on his body, and the bit of money that he had was taken by the Long family servants. Fortunately he had plundered some silver pieces off of that Second Brother’s body, otherwise he would have been penniless.

Other than this, Lu Xuan only had one thing which was a very smooth bamboo stick. That was something he had created a few days earlier to use for his Blinking Sword Skill.

After using it more many days, Lu Xuan felt that it had become very smooth, and had even become reluctant to throw it away, thus he brought it along with him as it didn’t really get in the way.

The journey went by quickly. Having received a large boost to his strength, Lu Xuan felt very carefree. Before even half an hour, he could already see Lin City’s imposing gates.

Having stayed in the woods for ten days and then returning to Lin City, Lu Xuan felt a bit of reminiscent, especially since there had been too many changes in the past ten days.

Returning to Lin City, Lu Xuan first found a place to live. Before he had signed up, Lu Xuan had rented a room at an inn. He had put in half a deposit before and his room was still there.

Just as Lu Xuan was opening the door to his own room, the next door room suddenly opened. A small fatty appeared at the door, saw Lu Xuan, and his face suddenly lit up.

“Eh, Older Brother Xuan, you’ve returned, ah? Where’d you run off to during this time? I had even thought you weren’t preparing to participate in the Wind Sword Sect assessment!” As he spoke, he had already flown out of the room.

This little fatty’s name was Yao Lei. He was younger than Lu Xuan by half a year, but his height was half a head shorter. He was Lu Xuan’s good friend. Calling him a small fatty, in truth, he couldn’t be considered to be that fat, but his face was rather round, giving the impression that he was a small fatty. The Yao family was also a small clan in Qing Mountain Village that was basically the same size as the Lu family. This time, the two had come together to Lin City to participate in the Wind Sword Sect assessment.

“Oh, in order to prepare for the assessment, I went outside the city to cultivate for a while.” Lu Xuan didn’t talk about the matter with Long Yang. Too many things had happened outside the city, especially the matter with the crystal sword. No matter who it was, Lu Xuan would still not say anything about it.

“Cultivating? You went to the wilderness? Whatever, I couldn’t bear with that sort of bitterness. Anyway, I’m guessing that there’s now hope of entering into the Wind Sword Sect now.” Yao Lei said bitterly, “While you weren’t here, I was bored to death. There was no one to play with me. But now it’s better. Let’s go, go, go. Come with me to walk around. Hehe. I still haven’t played enough in this Lin City’s fireworks ground.”

(TN: 烟花之地 I believe this is a euphemism for a brothel. Could be wrong though.)

Seeing Yao Lei’s smiling round face, Lu Xuan suddenly was speechless. This guy only had this on his mind. Don’t look at the fact he was only sixteen, but he had already gone to every single brothel in Qing Mountain Village.

“Shopping is fine, but I’m not going to that place. If I ever do go, when I come back I’d have to pick off my skin.” Lu Xuan’s attitude was very clearly rejecting Yao Lei’s invitation.

“Okay, okay, okay. If you’re not going, we won’t go. We’ll just go shopping. Let’s go, let’s go.” Seeing that Lu Xuan had agreed to go with him to play, Yao Lei was suddenly very happy and directly pulled Lu Xuan towards the outside.

Having played with Lu Xuan since they were small until they were big, Yao Lei knew, Lu Xuan was their village’s famous cultivation maniac. Even though this time’s assessment was coming up, he had actually agreed to go out and play. This was giving a lot of face.

“Older Brother Xuan, go, let’s see the dan medicines. I’ve heard that there are dan medicines that can greatly enhance a martial artist’s strength. It can even help a martial artist make a breakthrough. If we can buy two pills and raise our strength, maybe we’ll have some hope in getting through the assessment.”

Dragging Lu Xuan out the door, Yao Lei chattered non-stop along the way. It seemed that in the time that Lu Xuan wasn’t there had made him hold back too much.

Listening to Yao Lei, Lu Xuan couldn’t help but be moved: “You said there was a dan medicine that could help martial artists break through bottlenecks?”

Right now Lu Xuan was stuck trying to break through the bottleneck at body refining fourth level. If there really was a dan medicine that could help break through, then once he entered body refining fourth level, Lu Xuan’s strength would have once again have an unbelievable jump.

“Of course. Do you know why those large clans and sects disciples are so strong? That’s because those guys have money. They eat dan medicines like candy. Their strength would naturally soar upwards.” Yao Lei put on an expression as if he was teaching someone who didn’t know anything.

In truth, most of the time Lu Xuan was immersed in cultivation and did not have as much understanding towards these kinds of thing like Yao Lei did.

“Then it should be very expensive right? We don’t have that much money…” Lu Xuan had some doubts. The money he had right now was plundered from those two servants Second Brother and Old third. Together, it still didn’t add up to 50 taels of silver silver.(TN: 1 tael is 1/16 of a jin)

Yao Lei waved his hand, and nonchalantly said: “What are you afraid of? Let’s go look. Looking doesn’t require money.”

While being dragged by Yao Lei, the two walked towards Lin City’s Spirit Materials Streets. Spirit Materials Street was Lin City’s market that specially sold items that various martial artists need. It included various kinds of materials, dan medicines, weapons, and enchantment scrolls, etc. And within some of the larger-scale shops, they even sold high-grade cultivation techniques and martial skills!

In the short time Lu Xuan wasn’t there, Yao Lei had long since clarified everything. At this time, it was like he was travelling along a familiar road as he brought Lu Xuan straight towards Spirit Materials Street.