This Martial Saint is Too Cautious

Lin Yan closed his eyes, his mind focused. With a thought,

In his mind’s eye, Martial Arts Fruits began to silently shatter, one by one.

The scene before him changed abruptly.

He saw himself standing atop a towering mountain peak. Below him were endless mountain ranges, the clouds and mist churning like an ocean.

He held his sword and swung.

Each swing sank lower, each strike grew heavier.

It wasn’t that the sword had grown heavier, but that the Sword Momentum had.

With every swing, the clouds were not torn asunder, but were instead continuously pressed down by the Sword Momentum.

Heavy momentum uses no tricks; heavy momentum does not dissipate.

Watching the sinking clouds and mist, understanding dawned in Lin Yan’s eyes.

The Sword Momentum of Heavy Mountain Swordsmanship was weight, and its Sword Intent was stacking.

A single swing unleashed Sword Momentum like a crushing mountain, while the Sword Intent was like a range of overlapping peaks. Each swing pressed down with even greater weight, building upon the last.

After a thousand swings, where the blade passed, a deep chasm was forcefully pressed into the sea of clouds, one that lingered for a long, long time.

The sun rose and fell, and the seasons came and went.

He swung his sword on this mountain peak above the sea of clouds for ten years, twenty years, thirty years.

Every swing repeated the same trajectory, the same force, the same downward pressure.

But with every swing, he felt something was still lacking.

Just a tiny bit.

Finally, at a certain moment, Lin Yan had already lost count of how many tens of thousands of swings it had been.

With this swing, the sea of clouds before him split in two, and the mist below it abruptly plummeted a hundred feet.

It hadn’t been blown or torn apart by the wind from the blade, but utterly crushed.

...

Lin Yan opened his eyes. He held the Abyssal Sword, its blade as dark as ever.

He raised the sword and gave it a gentle swing.

Several bluestone tiles on the ground, about ten yards in front of him, sank in unison. They dropped half a foot in an instant, and then cracks spiderwebbed across their surfaces.

The cracks spread rapidly. A few moments later, the bluestone slabs instantly turned to dust.

Heavy Mountain Sword Intent, Perfection.

’Perfection in seventy-four years. That’s six years faster than the Flowing Cloud Thirteen Techniques.’

Lin Yan murmured to himself. Using Introspection, he checked the Martial Arts Tree in his mind; he still had seventy-eight years left.

’At this rate of consumption, I can bring another swordsmanship to Sword Intent Perfection.’

He was tempted, but after some thought, he decided against it for the time being.

’The Blood Gang of the Blood Exchange First Transformation can only support the Four-Phase Condensing Gang Sword’s fusion of three Sword Intents. There’s no rush to master another one before I break through to the Blood Exchange Second Transformation. It’s better to save the Martial Arts Fruits for now, just in case.’

Lin Yan glanced at his Martial Arts Tree. It was already close to eight feet tall. At this rate, once he successfully reached the Blood Exchange Second Transformation, the tree’s height would reach ten feet. Compared to Brother Yuan, whose tree was eight-point-seven feet tall at the Second Transformation, the difference was considerable.

’This is the power of breaking through to the Blood Exchange Realm with Qi Blood Perfection after the Fourth-Time of Skin Smoothing!’

’The strength of one’s Qi Blood during the Skin Smoothing stage is like a base number. Each transformation of the Blood Exchange Realm is like multiplying that base by a certain factor. The higher the base, the wider the gap becomes with each subsequent transformation—the Second, Third, and even Fourth.’

’There’s no need to rush my Realm breakthrough; it will happen when the time is right. For now, I’ll focus on fusing the third Perfect Sword Intent into the Four-Phase Condensing Gang Sword.’

To cultivate the Four-Phase Condensing Gang Sword, Lin Yan did not use his Martial Arts Fruits.

The difficulty in cultivating the Four-Phase Condensing Gang Sword lay with the Sword Intent.

As long as one possessed the Sword Intents, fusing them wasn’t difficult—at least not in the early stages, when only a few were involved.

...

One hour later, Lin Yan extended his right hand. Sword Gang flowed around each of his three middle fingers. As he brought them together, the three strands of Sword Gang fused into a single one.

"Sword, come!"

With a soft cry, Lin Yan opened his right hand, and the Abyssal Sword, which had been resting upright to the side, flew into his grasp.

The three strands of Sword Gang no longer had to flow from his fingertips onto the sword as before. The moment he gripped it, three strands of Sword Gang were already circulating along the Abyssal Sword Body.

This was the fruit of a Spiritual Weapon attuning to its master, becoming as natural to wield as one’s own arm.

The three strands of Sword Gang converged on the blade, merging as perfectly as milk in water, becoming indistinguishable from one another.

Lin Yan glanced at the last remaining training post in the courtyard and swung his sword.

The training post abruptly sank, as if pressed down from above by an invisible giant hand. Its base splintered as it was crushed against the bluestone floor. Immediately after, hairline cracks appeared all over the post, spreading across its entire surface in an instant.

The post didn’t topple, nor did it snap.

However, when a gust of wind blew past, the entire post dissolved into a cloud of fine powder, silently scattering across the bluestone ground.

The powder was uniform and as fine as flour, without a single intact splinter of wood remaining.

Lin Yan withdrew his sword and stared at the pile of dust on the ground, silent for a moment.

’I only used fifty percent of my strength for that strike. The power seems a bit excessive.’

’According to Brother Hai, the Thunder Armor can withstand the Blood Gang attacks of a Blood Exchange Second Transformation Martial Artist. But with the current strength of my Four-Phase Sword Aura, I could probably shatter the Thunder Armor.’

This was Lin Yan’s intuition; he even felt the impulse to take off his Thunder Armor and test it out.

In the end, however, Lin Yan resisted the urge. ’The Thunder Armor is a precious item worth ten thousand Contribution Points. Better not risk it.’

’My strength won’t be seeing any rapid improvements in the short term. It’s time to go see if there are any suitable missions for me.’

Lin Yan put away his Abyssal Sword and prepared to head to the Task Hall.

On the way, however, he ran into Brother Hai.

"Brother Hai!"

"Lin Yan, where are you off to?"

"I was about to head to the Task Hall and see if there are any suitable missions."

Lin Minghai had only been asking casually, but he stopped in his tracks when he heard Lin Yan’s reply. He looked Lin Yan up and down. "I heard you’ve just been cooped up in your courtyard practicing your sword recently?"

"Mm."

"So, did all that practice turn your brain to mush?"

Lin Yan: "..."

"The New Year is in three days. What kind of mission are you taking on now? Wait until after the celebrations."