After just a few days of cultivation, Chu Feng felt like he couldn’t take it anymore….not because the training was too intense, but because of Aunt Zi’s attitude toward him.
She really treated him like a little child, patting his head from time to time. If he performed well, she gave him candy pills. Setting everything else aside, the candy pills were delicious.
As expected, the last candy pill was just like yesterday’s. They were unbearably bitter.
By the time he made it to the shore at dusk, when Zi Xin’er reached out with both hands to cup his cheeks, he tried to run off in a flash. But with his mere Second Rank cultivation, how could he possibly escape from Zi Xin’er’s grasp?
After a gentle tap on his forehead, Aunt Zi told him that he could rest tomorrow and didn’t need to come.
When he returned to the cave dwelling, Chu Feng didn’t see any sign of Liu Shijing. Ever since the night she had moved in, he hadn’t seen her for several days straight.
Chu Feng asked Liu Xueyao, “Sister Saintess, where is Senior?”
Liu Xueyao was flipping through a book. When she saw her husband return, she closed the book and replied, “Aunt has something on her mind to deal with.”
“Something on her mind?”
Chu Feng didn’t quite understand, but when he saw the book in the Saintess’s hands, it reminded him that Aunt Zi had also given him a book about sword intent. He couldn’t understand it, so this was the perfect chance to ask her.
“Oh right, Sister Saintess, there’s a book I don’t quite get. Could you help me interpret it?”
Liu Xueyao naturally wouldn’t refuse any request from Chu Feng.
Taking the book from him, she glanced at the cover. “Husband, this is a book about laying the foundational path of the Sword Dao.”
“The foundational path of the Sword Dao?”
Chu Feng felt that it was yet another new set of terminology. He had never heard of it before.
Liu Xueyao opened the book with her fair, delicate hands and began to slowly explain:
“Cultivation is the fusion of essence, energy, and spirit. Essence refers to the physical body and blood; energy is spiritual power and true qi; spirit refers to the soul and consciousness. The blood essence is the soil, the soul is the root, and energy is the nourishment. Rooted in the dantian, one builds the foundation of their Dao.”
What, what?
After listening to Liu Xueyao say a long string of things, Chu Feng wondered if he could apply for a “Chinese-to-Chinese” translation.
He clearly understood every single word she said, but once they were strung together, he couldn’t understand a thing.
Right now, he rarely trained his physical body, let alone cultivated his soul.
He had been in this world for less than two years, and his understanding of cultivation was still only superficial.
Liu Xueyao continued her explanation:
“The path of the sword takes the sword as its foundation, merging with sword intent…. supremely rigid, supremely gentle, suppressing all things. The sword cuts down evil and corruption, standing undefeated beneath the heavens…”
At first, Chu Feng couldn’t understand what Liu Xueyao was saying, but as she patiently explained, the more he listened, the more he felt…
He might actually be starting to understand.
Because what followed was a detailed explanation of sword intent….something he had deep experience with.
Combined with the insights from his battle with Lin Ruo and the training arranged by Aunt Zi, he gradually began to close his eyes and observe his dantian inwardly.
By the time Liu Xueyao finished her final sentence, what had seemed like a dense and content-heavy book was already fully explained in less than an hour.
She looked at the youth before her, his eyes shut tight, a faint glow emanating from his body, and the soft sound of a sword resonating around him.
Even though she already knew that, in his past life, her husband’s mastery of the sword path was astonishing and unprecedented. He even fused two types of sword intent and stood at the very peak of the cultivation world—
Now that she was witnessing it with her own eyes in this life, the shock in her heart was no less overwhelming.
At this very moment, Chu Feng appeared to be in a state of enlightenment.
There was once a tale of a demonic cultivator who had taken countless lives.
One day, he saw a child lying on his mother’s corpse, crying in agony.
The sight reminded him of his own childhood.
Because he too had once wept over his mother’s corpse, killed by demonic cultivators.
In that instant, the demonic cultivator completely changed his ways, abolishing all of his demonic cultivation and retreating deep into the mountains.
Many years later, a benevolent and revered medicine sage appeared in the world.
Listening to Liu Xueyao’s explanation, Chu Feng felt as if he had found a glimmer of light amidst a dense fog.
The path of the sword…. rigid and gentle coexisting—
Since the two sword intents had originally branched out from the same fundamental sword path, then they could be merged once more into a single path of the sword.
All paths ultimately lead to the same destination!
With that thought, he immediately calmed his mind and took action.
With a single thought, two types of sword intent manifested.
Under his will, the two sword intents began to fuse together.
***
As night deepened, Zi Xin’er was engrossed in a book, reading with great interest.
She was studying the knowledge about child-raising techniques.
Suddenly, a strange phenomenon appeared in the pitch-black night sky.
She sensed it instantly and looked up…the disturbance was coming from the little one’s location.
In the next moment, her figure flashed, and she appeared midair.
In the night sky, faint white radiance gathered.
Specks of glowing light converged into countless longswords, with sword intent radiating all around.
“The little one is preparing to forge his sword foundation.”
This disturbance…Zi Xin’er recognized it at a glance.
Forming a Dao Foundation meant that from this point onward, a cultivator could only walk a single great path. For example, a sword cultivator who established a Sword Dao Foundation would no longer be able to pursue things like alchemy, as the Daos would conflict.
That’s why very few cultivators chose to form a Dao Foundation. Because it meant their cultivation path would be reduced to a single road with no turning back.
Moreover, to form a Dao Foundation, one needed to engrave Dao Marks. Nine was the limit.
Three Dao Marks was considered acceptable, six marked a genius, and eight was something seen once in a thousand years. As for nine…. throughout the entire history of the cultivation world, such individuals could be counted on one hand.
If one possessed extraordinary talent in a particular Dao and formed a Dao Foundation to walk that single path wholeheartedly, they could reach the peak of the cultivation world faster and stronger than others.
However, Chu Feng who was sitting with eyes closed and merging his sword intents had no idea he was forming a Sword Dao Foundation. He had simply gained insight after listening to the Saintess’s explanation and was attempting to merge the two sword intents. As for the abnormal phenomenon occurring outside, he was completely unaware.
High in the sky, countless glowing specks of light converged, eventually forming a vortex that resembled a tornado.
One Dao Mark, two Dao Marks…
The Dao Marks had begun to form.
When the eighth Dao Mark appeared, it signified that this person would undoubtedly become a formidable figure in the path of the sword.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Such a spectacle naturally alarmed the elders in the core region. Upon seeing Zi Xin’er present, they bowed and asked, “Holy Master, who is establishing their Dao Foundation?”
Zi Xin’er replied calmly, “A junior of mine.”
Seeing that Zi Xin’er was unwilling to reveal exactly who it was, the elders didn’t dare press further. They could only let it go… after all, the person belonged to the Yaochi Holy Land.
But what followed made the eyelids of the present elders twitch slightly, as they vaguely sensed that the Heavenly Dao of the world seemed to be stirring.
Inside the cave residence, Liu Xueyao noticed a few strands of Heavenly Dao fortune around her husband drifting into his body.
Chu Feng furrowed his brow.
Not enough. Still not enough!
No matter how hard he tried, the two types of sword intent always fell just short of merging. If it were measured like a progress bar, it would be at ninety-nine percent…just one final step remained.
Buzz—
At that moment, five-colored light surged from within Chu Feng’s body and merged into his sword intent.
Outside, amidst the white glowing sword aura, specks of “spiritual light” appeared, manifesting in five distinct colors. The five-colored spiritual light was dazzling, containing an incomparably pure and powerful energy.
With the appearance of the five-colored light, a shocking phenomenon occurred—
The ninth Dao Mark had begun to form!
With the help of the five-colored light, Chu Feng felt the immense resistance from earlier vanish instantly. Seizing the opportunity, he focused completely….and completed the final step!
The two sword intents…one soft and one firm were gradually and completely merged by him.
In an instant, five-colored light burst forth within the dantian, sword intent spread out, and a strand of five-colored sword qi floated inside the dantian.
At the same time the five-colored sword qi appeared, a dramatic change occurred in the sky outside. Under the guidance of the brilliant spiritual light, countless strands of sword qi merged together, ultimately releasing a boundless wave of sword intent.
“Nine-mark Sword Foundation!”
The elders present all cried out in astonishment. Even though they had cultivated for hundreds or even thousands of years, they couldn’t help but lose their composure at this moment.
Eight marks…they could still accept that. It would simply mean that the Yaochi Holy Land would gain another powerful cultivator in the future.
But nine marks….that was earth-shattering. It meant this person would lead the Yaochi Holy Land to the pinnacle of the cultivation world!
Zi Xiner’s beautiful eyes gazed at the phenomenon of the Nine-mark Sword Foundation.
Her heart, once calm like the surface of a still lake, now rippled with waves.
Suddenly, her rosy lips curved into a smile as she murmured softly,
“Little one… you’re making it quite hard for Aunt Zi to let you go.”
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