Chapter 731: Temptation of the Drawing the Saber Painting
After Xiao Chen expressed his gratitude, he hurried to leave. When he reached the door, Shui Lingling suddenly called out.
He stopped and asked, “First Senior Sister, is there anything else?”
Shui Lingling closed her eyes, and her gentle and beautiful face looked contemplative. After a while, she opened her eyes and said, “I will wait for you to come back a year from now. At that time, you not only have to face your challenge to Bai Wuxue but should also be qualified to participate in the Sage War of the Proud Son of Heaven Ranking already.
“Finally, take care on your journey. No matter what, you have to come back alive.”
Xiao Chen was slightly stunned. He could feel Shui Lingling’s concern for him in her words.
He paused for a moment, wanting to say something, but he said nothing in the end, leaving shortly after.
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The stars flickered, making the night sky look like a chessboard filled with hundreds of changes.
Towering trees filled the periphery of the Savage Beast Forest in the Supreme Sky Province. All of them had lush green leaves blocking the starlight and not letting any of it through.
Beasts roared in the dark forest. Sometimes the cries came from nearby; sometimes they were far away. They sounded very strange. In this place where one could not see their fingers when they stretched their hands out, such conditions evoked significant agitation.
However, the cultivators who came to explore this place would not quail at the darkness. If they were gutless, they would not have come to this famous Savage Beast Forest in the Tianwu Domain.
Somewhere in the forest, a bonfire blazed, its flames illuminating the surroundings.
In this endless darkness, the light of this fire was visible from five kilometers away. Aside from newcomers to the Savage Beast Forest, no one would start a bonfire at night—that was suicidal.
The ferocious nocturnal Spirit Beasts would immediately discover these bonfires and head over quickly.
At this moment, a kilometer away from the fire, pairs of lush green eyes stared at a white figure sitting by the fire. However, they did not move forward or take any actions.
A few Fire Spirit Monkeys with their bellies split open hung on a tree a kilometer away. The blood on their chests had not coagulated yet. A bloody stench assaulted the nose, lingering for a long time.
The Fire Spirit Monkey was a Rank 8 Spirit Beast, an overlord-like existence that no one dared to anger in the forest’s periphery.
Any Spirit Beast with a modicum of intelligence would not make a reckless move after seeing the corpses on this tree.
An unfurled painting floated in the air beside the fire. The white figure now stood half a meter from the painting, focusing his full attention on the person depicted in it.
A petite and cute girl with a hot and exquisite figure currently tended to the fire, adding more tree branches.
The flickering fire dyed her tender face a fiery red. This girl had a smile on her face as she counted, “One, two, three, four…”
When she got to nine, the white figure before the painting appeared to experience something terrifying. His face filled with horror, and he took several dozen steps back.
The man and the woman were naturally no one else but Xiao Chen and Ao Jiao, who had left the Supreme Sky Sect.
Most sects would not permit members to travel too far if they had been with the sect for less than a year. Firstly, they feared that accidents might befall these disciples. Secondly, they feared that disciples would leave immediately after gaining some benefits from the sect.
However, because of Shui Lingling’s personal medallion, the First Elder of the Supreme Sky Sect had no other choice but to approve Xiao Chen’s application.
Yue Chenxi and Gong Yangyu had both gone out on sect missions, so Xiao Chen would not say his goodbyes to them. After entrusting someone to hand the Dragon Mark Fruit to Yue Chenxi, Xiao Chen set off on his journey.
The fastest route to the Fiend Domain from the Supreme Sky Province would be to head west through the Savage Beast Forest. After traversing the westernmost province of the Tianwu Domain—Hunluo Province—Xiao Chen would arrive at the Fiend Domain.
When Ao Jiao saw Xiao Chen stepping back, she smiled and said, “Not bad. This time, you lasted nine seconds. Soon, you will be able to break ten seconds.”
Xiao Chen smiled bitterly and stretched out his hand, furling the Azure Emperor portrait. He sighed and said, “I already discovered thirty-two directions to draw the saber. However, his starting stance seems to change endlessly. He is always able to send an attack from an unexpected direction.”
After entering the Savage Forest, Xiao Chen had nothing to do. In the end, he could no longer resist the temptation of the painting depicting the Azure Emperor drawing the saber. So he unfurled that painting once again.
In truth, any true bladesman would be like Xiao Chen. When they saw a Saber Technique that surpassed their understanding, no matter how strange it was, they would investigate it.
He soon discovered that it was possible to block the attack of the person in the painting. However, the caveat was that one had to guess the direction where his saber would come from correctly. Otherwise, one would perish in one strike.
That sense of death felt very real. Even though Xiao Chen had experienced it many times, he still had not gotten used to it—it was extremely unbearable.
However, such “suicidal” actions gave Xiao Chen many benefits in the past few days. His understanding of Drawing the Saber improved on many levels.
Drawing the Saber might just take an instant. However, in that instant, the slightest change in the movements of the body, the feet, or the angle one held the saber could result in a different trajectory of the saber. It was a situation where attacks with the same trajectory could produce different effects in different environments.
Going further, when one infused their states and mentality into Drawing the Saber, they could even form new changes.
An even higher level would be becoming one with heaven and earth. In the instant of the attack, it would contain a comprehension of the heaven and earth, having control of the Heavenly Dao. At that time, the saber would no longer be a saber.
Currently, Xiao Chen was far from such a state. He was still at the most basic level, at how he could control his angle and environment to produce different changes.
As far as he knew, no one in the younger or middle-aged generations of the Tianwu Domain had such deep understandings about Drawing the Saber. If he could improve it further, it could become his new killing move.
Xiao Chen held the painting and revealed a contemplative gaze. He muttered, “I keep feeling that this painting is not that simple. There should be an even bigger secret in it.”
Ao Jiao raised her eyebrows and said, “How is it not that simple? I have seen a number of such treasures. It is merely turning one’s comprehension of a Martial Technique into a will and projecting it on paper. This is how many Martial Emperors pass down their Martial Techniques to the latter generations.
“The jade strip containing the Dragon Tone Art worked in a similar fashion. However, this Drawing the Saber is harder to comprehend.”
Xiao Chen smiled faintly and placed the painting back in the Universe Ring. He said, “Perhaps. However, I have a feeling that once I grasp all the directions of his Drawing the Saber, the answer will reveal itself.”
Ao Jiao’s lips curled up, clearly skeptical of the painting holding any big secrets.
Xiao Chen looked around at his surroundings and saw the pairs of lush green eyes. Then he said, “Time to get up. I’ve got to do some work.”
He waved his hand and extinguished the bonfire before him. Ao Jiao turned into a beam of dim light and entered the Immortal Spirit Ring.
The surrounding lights all vanished, and the night completely shrouded Xiao Chen. He stretched himself and locked down on his prey before quickly and suddenly dashing over.
“Sou! Sou! Sou!”
The dark night did not hinder Xiao Chen’s vision at all. His white figure flashed in the forest like a nimble panther, leaping over barriers one by one.
He covered a kilometer in an instant. A Spirit Beast that looked like a tiger covered in snow-white fur appeared before him.
This creature was one of the more powerful Rank 7 Spirit Beasts—the Ice Tiger. However, it did not pose any challenge to Xiao Chen. He had other reasons for making it his prey.
Xiao Chen withdrew his strong aura into his body, not letting it leak out. Doing so made him seem no different from an ordinary person. The Ice Tiger looked at Xiao Chen, and its first instinct told it that this change was strange.
However, the Ice Tiger did not have intelligence comparable to a human’s. When it did not feel a dangerous aura, it could no longer resist. It pushed off with its four limbs, its feet giving off a surging force as they pounded rhythmically against the ground.
“Dong! Dong! Dong!” The Ice Tiger’s heavy footfalls carried deep into the darkness before slowly vanishing.
Seeing the Ice Tiger getting close, Xiao Chen allowed himself a faint smile. He did not have any intention of shifting his position.
However, the purple clouds crowding Xiao Chen’s dantian scattered and turned into dense Quintessence. The Quintessence coursed through his meridians like a gushing river, surging as it flowed.
This Quintessence circulated in a strange manner. It only passed through three meridians in the chest, moving in small cycles.
Eventually, the Quintessence sped up, circling somewhat wildly. The violence made Xiao Chen’s blood vessels, bones, skin, and flesh give off a soft clangor.
“Dang! Dang! Dang!”
When the sounds combined, they seemed like a raging dragon’s roar. As the sound moved together with the Quintessence in Xiao Chen’s chest, they did their best to find an outlet.
However, the sound and Quintessence found none. They could only keep circulating, and circulating, and circulating without end. The deep dragon roar became briefer and more hurried. The accumulating energy made Xiao Chen feel like his chest would explode at any moment.
If he directed his consciousness into this body now, he would discover that the Quintessence circulating in his chest had turned into an azure-colored dragon image that looked very solid and real.
As the deep dragon roar became increasingly hurried and brief, the dragon image grew more and more solid. It seemed like all the sounds gathered in this azure-colored dragon-shaped Quintessence.
The bloated feeling in Xiao Chen’s chest pushed him to his limits. If he still did not release this force, he would explode and die.
Now, the huge Ice Tiger arrived within five meters of Xiao Chen. It swiped its paw ferociously at him.
If he still did not move, this attack would turn his head into a paste, no matter how hard his head was.
“Break!”
Xiao Chen, who had been motionless, finally moved. However, he did not move his legs or hands. Instead, he opened his mouth and throat.
The long pent-up dragon-shaped Quintessence burst out quickly. After circulating one final time, it turned into a whirlpool-shaped sound wave emerging from Xiao Chen’s throat.
A loud sound surged out together with this roar, even more powerful than thunder. Dragon Might flooded his surroundings as if it could shatter mountains and rivers for thousands of kilometers.
The Ice Tiger five meters in front immediately leaked blood from its ears, nose, and mouth. Then it fell over with a ‘bang.’
In the next moment, a strong wind blew. The towering trees within five hundred meters shattered one after another from the inside out. Their roots flew out along with soil. The broken tree trunks filled the air with random dancing splinters.
The Ice Tiger on the ground had not died yet. Its limbs twitched continuously. Blood slowly flowed from its mouth as its eyes opened wide.
Xiao Chen bent over and placed his right hand on the Ice Tiger’s back. After that, he sent out a strand of Spiritual Sense and carefully inspected the creature.
After a while, he revealed an expression of dissatisfaction. The internal organs of the Ice Tiger had not shattered, suffering only a few tears.
Despite such proximity, Xiao Chen’s Dragon Tone Art failed to kill a Rank 7 Spirit Beast instantly. He still had much to improve.