Chapter 8: The Variable II

Time flies in the blink of an eye. Lin Hui followed his routine, diligently practicing the Seven-Section Quick Sword daily at the Clear Wind Taoist Temple. His proficiency increased rapidly, and his physical fitness and reaction speed slowly improved with the hard training.

Although he had promised his parents not to overtrain, after having personally seen the Mist Zone and the fleeting shadowy figure within, Lin Hui’s newfound sense of security underwent another change.

He briefly simulated the shadow from the Mist Zone lunging at him to see if he could react in time. The result immediately fueled his motivation to train harder.

As time went on, in addition to his own hard-won mastery of the Seven-Section Quick Sword stances, the blood-red mark’s evolution of the first stance, Ascend High and Gaze Far, also came to an end.

In the early morning, on the training ground in the rear courtyard of the Clear Wind Taoist Temple.

Students and disciples, each holding a wooden stick, individually sought out an empty spot to repeatedly and diligently practice the sword stances.

A few people clearly showed slightly skewed postures, but most were relatively proficient, repeatedly practicing this sword style that looked like a health exercise.

Lin Hui found a spot next to a wooden post, his wooden stick circling repeatedly as he practiced the first stance, Ascend High and Gaze Far.

He felt an inexplicable premonition, knowing the blood-red mark’s evolution time was nearly up. He had been guessing how the blood-red mark would manifest the effect of the evolution.

Now, it seemed to be a method that induced the body to spontaneously change, eventually leading to a qualitative leap.

Swish.

The wooden stick in his hand accelerated faster and faster. Although he was only repeating the first stance, there were few students who could practice it at this speed with such precision.

However, the sky was dim at this early hour, and most people were immersed in their own practice, completely unaware of these details.

Soon, about three minutes later.

Clap.

The wooden stick in Lin Hui’s hand abruptly halted. His entire body slowly retracted the posture and stood still, quietly regulating his breath.

Just then, the blood-red mark on the back of his hand flashed fiercely, returning from a circle to its previous rhombus shape.

An indescribable rush of enlightenment and sword practice experience quickly flooded Lin Hui’s mind.

His body trembled, and he entered a state of profound realization.

A vast amount of knowledge—including the various pros and cons of the first stance, Ascend High and Gaze Far, methods for refinement, optimization, and even attempted research—madly merged into his mind.

It was as if he himself had spent many years, trying and failing one bit at a time, gradually refining and optimizing this sword stance to perfection.

Dozens of breaths later.

Lin Hui slowly raised his hand again. The wooden stick lightly drew a perfect arc forward, then gently hooked downward, then slanted upward. The footwork beneath his feet changed along with it, perfectly natural and harmonious.

‘It’s done!’ Lin Hui had an inexplicable sense of certainty in his heart.

The move he just executed was still Ascend High and Gaze Far, but it was at the level of perfection, which could now be called Ascend High and Gaze at Mountain.

Furthermore, with the mastery of this perfect sword stance, he gained a significant understanding of the remaining quick sword stances.

‘Quick Sword, Quick Sword. So that’s how it’s fast. The Seven-Section Quick Sword is essentially a way to store power in the muscles. The first six stances are like constantly twisting a spring, and only in the last stance does it enter a poised state. The entire style has no true lethal moves. Clearly, the killing moves belong to a different specialized sword style.’

Lin Hui realized in his heart. After practicing for two months, he now looked back at the stances practiced by the other students, and they all looked crooked, distorted, and full of flaws.

“A Hui, why are you hiding here practicing alone?” A familiar voice suddenly drifted from behind him.

It was Chen Zhishen.

He walked slowly, stick in hand, yawning.

“Why didn’t you call me when you started practicing?”

His and Lin Hui’s progress were actually similar, which was the average progress for most students in the Seven-Section Quick Sword.

This sword style was for training, not fighting. The hidden power generation was extremely complex, requiring the conditioning of over fifty points of force in the body.

If even one of these fifty points was wrong, the effect would be greatly lost. But once the entire style was completely mastered, aligning all the points of force, the physical conditioning would formally begin.

For an average student starting from scratch, it would take at least three years to completely master all the points of force and fully learn the sword style.

And that was only a rough mastery. When practicing alone, if they could manage one practice session out of ten with no mistakes in the points of force, it would be a blessing.

This was also why many students eventually couldn’t keep up and quietly left. After all, mastery is one thing; being able to consistently execute a flawless practice is another.

Lin Hui calculated his own time. With his hard practice combined with the blood-red mark’s evolution, he would only need about a year to completely master it, and that would be perfect mastery.

Moreover, during his practice just now, he discovered a powerful point.

After completing the evolution of Ascend High and Gaze at Mountain, every time he practiced this stance afterward, it would be executed perfectly, without a single flaw. That incredibly smooth feeling, without thinking, without hesitation, everything flowed out naturally.

He knew exactly what this meant.

“What did you do last night? Why do you look so listless?” Snapping back to reality, Lin Hui looked at Chen Zhishen.

“Don’t even mention it. I dreamt all night. My dreams were full of…” Chen Zhishen blushed, not finishing his sentence.

“How is your sword style coming along?” Lin Hui changed the subject, speechless.

He knew his friend had been getting close to a new female student recently. The two had been helping each other out for the past few days and slowly became familiar.

“It’s alright. I feel like it won’t be long until I completely master all the stances, and as for the points of force, I already have a clue. I got four of them right a few days ago!” Chen Zhishen’s attitude became serious when martial arts were mentioned.

“That’s not bad,” Lin Hui nodded.

“What do you mean ‘not bad’? Huang Shan and Qiu Yiren are the truly amazing ones. One mastered the entire style in a week, and the other only took four days. I really don’t know how the minds of these geniuses work,” Chen Zhishen sighed.

Lin Hui was silent.

He had watched these two new geniuses practice. They were newcomers who had joined the temple in the first half of the month.

They had mastered all the stances of the Seven-Section Quick Sword in an extremely short time, and the accuracy of their points of force had reached over eighty percent. It was simply terrifying.

Compared to them, his blood-red mark was moving as slow as a snail…

Sighing again, Lin Hui stopped overthinking. At least the biggest advantage of the blood-red mark was that once a stance was correct, it would remain correct forever. During his test just now, the terrifying accuracy was more mechanical than a machine.

Although he was slow to start, his later pursuit would be much faster!

He comforted himself this way.

The two chatted for a bit, then practiced the sword together again.

Aside from resting, drinking water, and going to the latrine, the two practiced non-stop.

It was noon in the blink of an eye. The logistical helpers brought in various meals in large buckets.

Thick, dark red mixed-grain rice, large pieces of braised pork ribs, and soup mixed with various green wild vegetables and slices of brown mushrooms.

They ate in a dedicated dining hall on the side, where rows of wooden benches looked very much like the university canteen in Lin Hui’s past life.

At this time, men and women were steadily walking inside.

Many students from well-off families gathered around Senior Brother Chen Sui and Second Senior Brother Zhao Jiangan, forming small groups.

Senior Sister Mu Qiaozhi didn’t frequent this place; she was only occasionally seen.

In addition, a few small groups gathered around the new geniuses, Huang Shan and Qiu Yiren.

The rest sat down in twos and threes, waiting for their meal.

The meals were served by designated staff carrying large ladles and wooden buckets, walking around and filling one scoop for each person.

Lin Hui always sat with Chen Zhishen, but just as he sat down this time, ready to call Chen Zhishen over, he saw the latter happily sitting opposite a girl with shoulder-length hair. Both of their faces were flushed, and they were talking quietly about something.

“It’s only been a few days… He hasn’t mastered his sword style, yet he has time for romance?” Lin Hui was speechless.

Despite saying that, Chen Zhishen hadn’t been affected much. He practiced the sword on time and in full measure every day.

Without his friend to chat with, Lin Hui ate much faster than usual. Coupled with mastering the perfect first stance, Ascend High and Gaze at Mountain, which allowed him to practice all eight points of force in the first stance without error.

This put him in a great mood, and his appetite improved significantly. After finishing a large bowl of rice and gnawing on seven or eight pork ribs, he paid for an extra serving of meat to continue gnawing.

He was about seventy to eighty percent through his second serving when a sudden clamor and commotion erupted not far away.

It was accompanied by the students’ yells and pained grunts.

Lin Hui frowned and quickly looked up.

In a corner of the dining hall, near the vegetable bucket, two groups of people were already intensely confronting each other.

A girl from one of the groups was now clutching her backside, her face flushed crimson, glaring at a tall, grinning boy from the opposite side.

The boy was still laughing while making a kneading gesture with his hand.

People from both sides were cursing and shoving.

To avoid getting caught in the crossfire, Lin Hui quickly stood up, ignored his meal, and backed away.

Chen Zhishen and the girl he had just met also ducked over to hide.

“It’s Huang Shan! Someone grabbed her butt!”

“Who is that bold? Huang Shan has high aptitude; the teachers must be keeping an eye on her, right?” the girl next to them whispered.

“It’s that Chen Chong fellow. Quite a few good-looking girls in the temple have been harassed by him. As for high aptitude, what good is it against his Chen Family background? Although he is from a distant branch, he is still from the Chen Family,” Chen Zhishen frowned.

After explaining, he quickly introduced Lin Hui and the girl.

The girl was named Lu Baihua. She came from a family of medicinal herb farmers. She was delicate and pleasant to look at. Although her body was a bit thin, her personality suited Chen Zhishen perfectly.

“Huang Shan might suffer a loss, but the few boys next to her are not ordinary either. They must have some backing to dare confront Chen Chong head-on. We should stay far away and not get involved,” Chen Zhishen warned.

“Since Chen Chong is so arrogant, don’t the teachers at the temple do anything?” Lu Baihua couldn’t help but ask.

“How can they? The Clear Wind Taoist Temple can’t afford to offend the Chen Family; there’s nothing they can do,” Chen Zhishen shook his head.

“But this time it’s Huang Shan. What if it were a girl without talent or a background… what would happen then?” Lu Baihua worried.

Chen Zhishen was silent for a moment.

“They can only hide. Before, I heard a Senior Brother say that two female students were harassed by Chen Chong two years ago. They went home afterward. Later, one managed to avoid him. As for the other, someone saw her near Chen Chong’s house—she was raving mad and had lost her mind…”

The atmosphere suddenly tightened.

Lin Hui clearly saw Lu Baihua’s eyes tense up, and her face turned pale.

She was clearly worried about herself.

“It’s alright, don’t worry. Just try to dress ugly and dirty every day, and Chen Chong won’t even look at you,” Chen Zhishen comforted her.

Lin Hui said nothing, only sighed, and turned to leave.

Returning to the communal bunkhouse, he lay down on his bed and silently concentrated his attention on the second stance of the Seven-Section Quick Sword—Hundred Turns Thousand Revolutions.

‘Hundred Turns Thousand Revolutions – Seven-Section Quick Sword Stance Two, one of the fundamental stances, contains eight points of force. When practiced to great mastery, it can accelerate the practice of the sixth stance. Evolvable Branches: 1.’

‘1 – Hundred Turns Thousand Hearts.’

‘Evolve Hundred Turns Thousand Hearts?’

‘Required Resources: One wooden sword, sixty days of stored energy.’

‘Required Time: Sixty days.’

After selecting yes, Lin Hui recalled the fear and worry of Chen Zhishen and Lu Baihua today, and Chen Chong’s arrogant, skinny horse face…

‘It seems that sometimes, just being fast isn’t enough…’

When encountering someone like Chen Chong, even if Huang Shan ran, she still had her parents and family, and there was nothing she could do.

(End of Chapter)