A Sword Cultivator Has Arrived in the Lord’s City

Chapter 10: Recovery

“...All right.” Martie nodded, though fear still lingered on her face. She had far too many questions she wanted to ask, but clearly this was not the time.

Inside the tavern, beneath the dim yellow lamplight,

Jiang Lin adjusted his posture and sat down cross-legged. Then he pried the magic crystal out of the staff.

Martie watched as he removed the magic-guiding crystal from the staff and gave him a long, searching look.

So this was what he needed...

Jiang Lin sat cross-legged, maintaining a meditative posture.

Closing his eyes, he felt the magic-guiding crystal in his hand, which contained a faint fluctuation of spiritual power.

The instant he touched it, Jiang Lin finally felt that long-lost spiritual power once more, now slowly flowing toward his dantian qi sea.

Although that thread of spiritual power was extremely thin, like a stone sinking into the sea, the sensation still filled Jiang Lin’s heart with exhilaration.

Spiritual power slowly flowed into Jiang Lin’s dantian qi sea. His qi sea, which had lain dry for more than a year, was finally nourished by a trace of spiritual power.

Jiang Lin suppressed his excitement and focused intently on circulating that pitifully small amount of spiritual power.

He did his utmost to nourish his spiritual root. His was the rarest of all, a Sword Spiritual Root. It was not as though no one else in Zhongzhou possessed a Sword Spiritual Root, but most of them had never reached his level of attainment.

Looking back over the past three hundred years, he had devoted himself wholly to secluded cultivation, training the Secluded World Sword, also known as the Ruthless Sword Dao.

In the end, he had broken through to the Mahayana Realm in the shortest time possible, becoming the greatest prodigy among prodigies to step into the Mahayana Realm in all of Zhongzhou.

And the Sword Sect had nearly poured all of its resources into him, grooming him as the future Sect Master of the Divine Sword Sect.

Unfortunately, all the glory and pride of those first three hundred years had been utterly destroyed the moment the Tianxuan Dao Sect joined forces with the Devil Sect.

Only hatred remained in Jiang Lin’s heart. The Ruthless Sword Dao was powerful, but when faced with dozens of Tribulation Transcendence cultivators joining hands, it had been useless.

But now, everything was different.

Jiang Lin had found a way to cultivate in this world.

And here, he would have ample time to grow stronger.

Martie did not know what he was doing at that moment, but as she watched his strange posture, a thoughtful expression appeared on her face.

Her gaze fell upon the flawed magic-guiding crystal in Jiang Lin’s hand, and gradually she noticed that the magic crystal was dimming rapidly, as though the magic power within it were being absorbed.

When she saw that, Martie fell silent. Her expression grew somewhat complicated, and a little hesitant.

Time passed bit by bit. The tavern remained silent, while outside, the torrential rain battered the tavern roof with overwhelming force.

Accompanied by flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, it roared through this night that should have been peaceful.

After an unknown length of time, Jiang Lin finally opened his eyes.

A gleam flashed through his black pupils, carrying the fluctuation of spiritual power, while a faint trace of divine bearing slowly withdrew and settled inward.

He let out a long breath and sensed the state of his strength.

After absorbing that faint bit of spiritual energy, his power had recovered to about the third layer of Qi Refining.

But compared to the utter emptiness he had known before, he was already deeply satisfied.

Jiang Lin turned to look at Martie, who was sitting nearby in a daze. Then he noticed that a few simple medicines had been placed beside him.

Martie had prepared them for him.

“Are you... feeling better? You really scared me just now.”

Martie came back to herself at that moment, still looking at him with worry as she pushed the medicine toward him.

“I’m all right now. Thank you, Miss Martie.”

Jiang Lin nodded, a relaxed smile on his face. Seeing the questions in Martie’s eyes, he explained,

“I killed that mage, and I’ve already taken care of the body, so there’s no need to worry, Miss Martie. I’ll deal with the others as well.

“Perhaps that way, you won’t have to leave after all. This tavern is something your father left behind, after all.”

Yet hearing those words brought no joy to Martie’s face. Instead, her worry only deepened. She looked at Jiang Lin with complete seriousness.

“So, you did it for the magic crystal in that mage’s staff?”

“Not entirely. That mage was never going to let this go, and neither were his companions.”

Jiang Lin said calmly, “I had to seize the initiative completely. Otherwise, I would only be at their mercy.”

Looking at Jiang Lin now, Martie could clearly feel that he was no longer the same as before, though she could not quite describe what had changed.

Perhaps it was simply a change in bearing.

At this moment, Jiang Lin seemed more detached, more certain of himself, as though everything were already within his grasp.

Martie could not put that feeling into words. After thinking for a moment, she took out a pale blue magic-guiding crystal and opened her palm, holding it out in front of Jiang Lin.

Jiang Lin froze at once.

Looking at the magic crystal in Martie’s hand, he could feel that the spiritual energy contained within it was far richer than the one from that mage.

“Miss Martie...”

“You should have told me earlier that you needed this.” Martie smiled and explained, “My father left this behind.”

Looking at the magic crystal in her hand, Jiang Lin was speechless for a long while.

“Then what was the point of all my earlier effort...?”

“It proves you’re impressive!” Martie blinked and pressed the crystal into his hand. “If it’s useful to you, then use it. It’s useless in my hands anyway.”

Jiang Lin did not refuse.

He had only recovered to the Qi Refining Realm so far, and every bit of spiritual power he used would only diminish further. In the future, he would definitely need a great many magic crystals to replenish his spiritual power.

After thinking for a moment, Jiang Lin began absorbing the spiritual energy from the pale blue magic crystal.

The magic crystals of this world were very similar to spirit stones, but the spiritual energy they contained was scant.

And from the earlier battle, Jiang Lin had already realized that the mages of this world all relied on these magic crystals to cast their magic.

Since magic crystals existed, then magic crystal mines should exist as well.

If he could obtain a magic crystal mine, then his strength could be replenished without end.

Of course, that was a matter for later.

There was, however, one thing that left Jiang Lin puzzled.

Earlier, he had clearly sensed hidden fluctuations of spiritual energy in this world.

But it was as though that spiritual energy had been bound or imprisoned. Merely circulating a cultivation art was not enough to absorb it.

And the mages of this world also seemed to rely on magic crystals as a medium in order to use magic.

There had to be some connection within this, or else some secret Jiang Lin did not yet know.

It seemed he truly did need to understand the power system of this world.

Most importantly, he needed to study the profession of mages.

Not long afterward, Jiang Lin had absorbed the second magic crystal as well, and his strength had already recovered to the seventh layer of Qi Refining.

The quality of the crystal Martie had given him really was far better than the one that mage had possessed.

Jiang Lin rose to his feet and drew in a deep breath, feeling the fluctuations of spiritual power within himself. A wave of ease and exhilaration filled him.

Then he looked at the luggage that had already been packed inside the tavern. After a moment’s thought, Jiang Lin said, “Miss Martie, I’m afraid we’ll have to delay things a while longer. Now is not the time to leave.”

“You want to kill the rest of them too?” Martie looked at him somewhat blankly, then said with serious concern, “Killing a mage might be simple enough, but dealing with knights and warriors will probably be much harder.”

“Oh? Then tell me about it.” Jiang Lin nodded, his expression turning serious as well.

“I feel like I’ve already boarded your pirate ship...” Martie pressed a hand to her forehead helplessly and let out a sigh. “But there’s one condition: honesty. I still don’t even know where you came from, and yet you’ve practically seen through all of me already. That’s not fair.”

“All right.” Jiang Lin nodded. His identity was not some great secret. Even if he told her, it made little difference.

Besides, after observing her for about a year, Jiang Lin knew that Martie was fundamentally a girl without much scheming in her heart, aside from a few trivial little secrets.

And no one here knew him.

There were certainly no people from the Tianxuan Dao Sect here.

A long while later, disbelief still lingered in Martie’s eyes as she looked at Jiang Lin, this man who had come from another world.

It was not as though this world had no stories of outsiders, but most of them were only legends.

Today, Martie had seen a living outsider with her own eyes.

After thinking it over for a while, she began to explain.

Through her explanation, Jiang Lin came to understand much more about the power of knights and warriors.

Of course, by Jiang Lin’s understanding, that meant this:

Knights were roughly equivalent to those who cultivated both body and magic.

As for warriors, they leaned more toward body tempering.

Zhongzhou also had many cultivators who focused entirely on Martial body refinement, though overall, their realms were much harder to raise to truly high levels.

He remembered that there had once been a sect famed precisely for Martial body refinement, and its Sect Master had already reached the Mahayana Realm.

Although entering the Dao through body refinement was difficult, at the same realm, aside from sword cultivators, other cultivators could scarcely break through their defenses at all.

Calling them monstrous would not have been an exaggeration.

The question was whether the warriors of this world could reach that same level.

Of course, Zhongzhou also had cultivators who trained both body and magic, though advancing in the realm was even harder for them.

The strength of such cultivators lay in their stability. Every time they advanced a realm, they possessed abundant foundations within themselves.

Perhaps professions like knights belonged to this same sort of balanced power system.