Reincarnation: A Wuxia/Xianxia Cultivation Novel (Path of Lazy Immortal Book 1)

by A P Gore

  If it didn’t involve using qi, he could even teach it to Fei’er.

  “Fei’er.”

  She lifted her head.

  “Let’s practice sword martial skill after we eat.”

  Stopping her needle, she nodded her head firmly. “Yes, I’ll learn it quickly and protect you from the beasts.”

  Wei didn’t know if he should laugh or cry. This lass didn’t know the heavens and earth if she thought she would kill the wolves by learning a basic sword skill. But he liked her determination. Very much.

  Chapter 17 One Sword Strike

  A light film of perspiration formed on Li Wei’s forehead when he swung his sword for the tenth time through the air. It took everything from his arm, and he almost lost control on the last strike. But this was expected. The swords he’d found in the ring were heavy swords made up from low-tier Silver Grade material. But the craftmanship wasn’t good enough to make that sword a true Silver Grade martial artifact.

  “Puff.” Exhaling, he tried to calm his burning body. His gray robe was drenched in sweat, and he had already practiced this move for at least a hundred times. Although his body was exhausted, his mind wasn’t. After all, he was practicing the same move after almost two hundred years.

  “Young master, you looked like a general when you swung your sword continuously.” Fei’er stood close to him and reached with a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead. She was wearing the makeshift gray gown she had made from the traveler’s extra clothes. After making her gown, there was so much cloth left from the original robe she made small handkerchiefs out of it, and she was using one to wipe his sweat. Looking at her gray gown and his gray robe and the gray handkerchief in her hand, he was suddenly sick of gray. They both looked like a band of gray, and their oversized clothes looked quite ugly.

  “Did you even look at the sword? You have to practice these moves,” he asked in a despair-filled voice. A salty taste spread over his tongue as he licked his lips.

  “Yes, but you were so mesmerizing that I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

  “You lass . . .” Reaching forward, he flicked her forehead. What was wrong with her? For the last two hours, he’d been trying to show her the basic movement of the One Strike Sword, but she kept murmuring about how good he looked when he swung the sword. Out of the ten basic moves he performed, she didn’t even look at one. And that damn sword martial skill required him to complete ten moves on everything he practiced. If one practiced the move, they couldn’t stop it in one go, they had to swing it ten times. It was a martial skill that required comprehension to master it, and first level comprised of ten moves. When one could superimpose these ten moves, he would master the early completion. So, one had to practice ten moves when one lift his sword.

  Anything less was considered a taboo and an insult to the martial skill.

  That was how it was. In the many years he’d lived in Heavenly Firmament Sect, many people had practiced this skill half-heartedly, but they all lost their motivation in the end and deviated from cultivation. They never succeeded in their endeavor of cultivation. After reincarnation, he understood why the martial skill required one to practice ten moves every time. It built up the cultivator’s martial will. Martial will was something every cultivator needed on the arduous path of cultivation. Cultivation wasn’t easy, and no one said it would be. It allowed one to live eternally, but no one looked at the sweat and blood one donated to the soil while traversing the path of cultivation. If one couldn’t even stick to a principle while practicing a sword martial skill, what destiny they had to walk on the path of cultivation?

  His resolve became firm after realizing this now. If he wanted to achieve early completion of One Sword Strike level one, he had to push forward with his martial will.

  A martial skill quality was defined by grades, and each martial skill had levels. Some had only one level, while some had three levels or five levels. One Sword Strike had three levels, and each level was further divided into completion levels. They were early completion, middle completion, late completion, and then peak completion. One didn’t need to achieve peak completion to learn the next level, but late completion was mandatory.

  One Sword Strike had three levels. The first level focused on the basic sword movement. The second level focused on qi enablement, and the third level could allow one to become a killing machine that could destroy a mountain with one sword strike. Of course, reaching third level was almost impossible, and other than a couple of elders in the Heavenly Firmament Sect, no one had even touched the level three threshold. But then many disciples discarded this simple skill after obtaining better and easier skills. So, it was given. Even he had discarded it after being stuck at middle completion of level one for years.

  No more. In this life, he wouldn’t discard this skill and deviate from his martial will.

  “Young master, I can’t even lift that sword, then how can I practice it?”

  Wei shook his head. This lass was too weak, and she also practiced wood qi, so she wouldn’t hold a tyrannical amount of strength. “Once you reach Foundation Realm, you’ll gain some strength to use this sword.”

  “Then how can you swing it so fast and accurate.” She batted her eyelashes. “It’s like you’ve practiced this move thousands of times.”

  He patted her head. Of course, he had practiced this tens of thousands of times when he’d joined Heavenly Firmament Sect. With his metal qi, he was chosen as an apprentice to a refiner, but before he could even touch the hammer, he was asked to practice One Sword Strike level one ten thousand times to build his arm strength. At that time, he had almost reached peak completion in the first level of One Sword Strike. Maybe this time he would pass the threshold of peak completion. Although he didn’t carry the muscle memory, his mind still remembered the exact feeling. So, practicing it to perfection shouldn’t be an issue in this life.

  “It’s not as hard as you think,” he said. “The trick is going with the flow. Lose it when you think you grasped it.” Raising his sword, he swiped it again at an angle. When his sword moved, he felt like his soul connected with that move, and it flew like an air current through the air. The next thing he knew, he had completed the move. Pulling his sword back, he struck again, and then again. It was a menial activity, but he had to do it hundreds of times to reach the early completion. Right now, he needed thirty breaths completing ten moves. Once he could do it in ten breaths’ time, he would achieve the early completion. To master level one, one had to complete all ten moves in ten breaths’ time. It was taxing on the body, but once mastered, one could even jump a level to fight with Refinement Realm cultivators.

  After all, Refinement Realm and Foundation Realm only helped one to get acquainted with their qi. It only cleansed one’s body to a certain degree, and only a meager amount of qi would be stored in their dantian. Only after entering Bone Baptization Realm could one be called a real cultivator, as qi would permeate their bones and change the fundamental properties of one’s body. It exponentially increased one’s battle strength, and they could use a bit of their qi with the help of martial artifacts.

  Mortal stage of cultivation was divided into six stages, namely, Refinement, Foundation, Bone Baptization, Marrow Cleansing, Boiling Blood, and finally Heart Blood Realm. Qi and body cultivation realms shared same name, but they had different ways to achieve these realms. Body cultivation, in particular, differed with every new cultivation art.

  Anyway, it was a long road ahead.

  After his perspiration turned into a small stream, he stopped and sat down.

  “Young master, this is the first time I’ve seen you so focused and tenaciously practicing. Why didn’t you ever practice like this in Li clan compound? You always got beaten blue by old master,” Fei’er asked with a sullen face. She was a lass who never took a step back while complaining about his father. Her loyalty toward Wei was unending.

  Reaching with his hand, he tousled her hair.

  “Don’t mess m
y hair.” Her beautiful big blue eyes blinked rapidly. “Answer my question.”

  “Would you believe me if I said I can cultivate?”

  Her brows turned into a straight line. “But your dantian . . .” She cupped her mouth and looked away. He didn’t like to talk about cultivation, and she knew that.

  “I’m not practicing qi cultivation, but body cultivation. You’d better not tell anyone about this, lass.”

  She nodded. “Which layer have you reached? Is that how you gained the endurance to swing that sword hundreds of times? You must be at layer six or seven.” She sighed. “I can’t even lift that sword.” She purred. “Stupid me.”

  “No.” He chuckled after hearing her naïve questions. “I’ve only reached layer one in Refinement Realm. It’s nothing impressive. You’re way faster than me.”

  “Then why can’t I lift the sword back after swinging it?”

  Well, that was strange. Although body cultivation and qi cultivation used different paths of cultivation, there wasn’t much power difference between them. Of course, body cultivators had stronger bodies, but qi cultivators had qi that refilled faster and was easier to cultivate.

  So, if she was two layers above him in cultivation, why couldn’t she lift the sword back up?

  Unknowingly, he started comparing his current condition with his previous life experience. When he’d started practicing this sword martial skill, he had already reached qi Refinement Realm.

  Yet he’d faced many difficulties while practicing this martial skill. Swinging it ten times was hard, because one had to let go of the sword to complete the movement. When one released control, the sword would move along with gravity. Gaining control back at the last moment and pulling it up had required too much power. When he’d started practicing, he was like Fei’er, unable to gain control back at the last moment. It took him months to reach the point where he could practice for hundreds of times. It required him to build up strength in his shoulders and arms. That’s why his refinement teacher made him practice this move, because artificing was a game of arm strength, and he had to swing his hammer for hundreds or thousand times in a sitting.

  Then how did it become easy in this life? It had been only two hours, and he could swing the sword for one hundred times already. It couldn’t be just the memories of his previous life, right?

  Could it be his Blood Essence Body?

  Carefully, he practiced the same move again and observed his blood.

  Damn, this was awesome. His body was expending a little blood and then providing him a boost to continue without fatigue. The little blood his body expended was replenished in the next few seconds.

  Suddenly his heart filled with excitement. This Blood Essence Body was something awesome.

  Chapter 18 Three-Fold Strength Defense Array

  Li Wei walked cautiously through the metal tunnel leading to a vague place. Despite the possibility of losing memories, he intermittently expanded his divine sense toward the end but found nothing.

  Fei’er followed him with silent steps. Thanks to their gray clothes, they blended with their surroundings and didn’t stick out like his stomach flab. And with the White Cicada Fruit in Fei’er’s hand, their bodily scents were masked neatly.

  Two more days had passed since he’d started practicing One Sword Strike. Although he hadn’t reached early completion yet, he’d gotten his ten moves down to seventeen breaths. It satisfied him, as he’d had to practice for six months to achieve a similar phase in his previous life.

  They halted abruptly.

  Something screeched, like a claw of a beast scraping against a metal wall, to their left. It was so intense that it sent shivers down his thighs.

  The thing let out a low, powerful growl, and it didn’t sound like a Two Fang Wolf. It sounded more like a hungry bear beast’s growl. It actually made his heart beat faster. It wasn’t something he could take on at this stage. He didn’t even think about probing with his divine sense. If that thing caught his scent, they might end up dying prematurely.

  Fei’er huddled closer and grabbed his arm, her palm quivering a little.

  Placing his finger on his lips, he asked her to remain quiet and slowly walk forward. Although he portrayed himself to be calm, he was shocked to his core. What kind of beast could make his heart shudder even after reincarnation?

  Damn! If it wasn’t for their food source drying up, he wouldn’t have ventured from their hiding place before reaching level five in Refinement Realm in Blood Essence Body.

  However, he wasn’t sure if he could do that in the next few days, even if he had enough food. For the last two days, he’d been stuck at ninety-nine blood pearls, and he knew his level up depended on those blood pearls. It was inconceivable. Even after spending 200 years cultivating brutally, he was stuck at a bottleneck. This was idiotically stupid.

  After ten more minutes of walking, they stopped at a fork. One tunnel led to the left and one to their right. This decision was quite simple. No matter what, they couldn’t head left.

  Right was the only choice. Yet he spread his divine sense and quickly retracted it after finding nothing in a mile’s radius. But that tunnel to came to a dead end inside a room.

  A room.

  How could there be a room in the sewage system? And why wasn’t there another tunnel connected to this room? If this was a dead end, they had to go left, and that might lead to quicker death.

  Wei frowned as he scanned the room. It was impeccably clean. Not a single speck of dust covered any surface, nor did the room smell like anything. When he lit a candle, he found the walls shone with a metallic luster like they were polished recently.

  “Young master, what should we do?” Fei’er whispered.

  “Let’s check this room carefully. I doubt it’s a dead end.” At least he hoped for it not to be a dead end. Tracing his palm over the walls, he moved around the room, checking every inch of the wall and ground. Seeing him doing that, Fei’er followed suit and started checking the other side of the room.

  “Young master,” she called to him after a few minutes. “I think there’s a door here. Come here.”

  Halting his search, he took out his gray handkerchief and placed it on the ground to remember his last position. Then he marched to Fei’er’s side. To his surprise, the little lass had really found a small hatch present in the wall. After moving his candle around the hatch, he confirmed it was a door. But there was no handle, and it was tightly closed. He couldn’t even use his fingers to move it aside. It was that close.

  No, if there was a door, there had to be a way to open it. There should be some mechanism. So, he started carefully observing the door in the dim candlelight.

  His heart forgot to beat for a moment. How could it be? Why was there an array marked on the sewage system wall?

  It was a Two— No. He traced his finger over the array diagram carvings. It was a Three-Fold Strength Defense Array.

  Inconceivable. This was the Mortal Realm. How could it be?

  It was simply . . .

  “Young master, why are you murmuring to yourself while standing in front of a blank wall?” Fei’er leaned closer and peered at the wall. “Oh, there is a diagram. Do you know this diagram, young master?”

  Wei shook his head in shock. “No, I haven’t seen the complete diagram before.” It was the truth. Once he had seen some traces of this diagram in one of the inheritance jade slips, but that was it.

  This array was beyond the Mortal Realm’s capabilities.

  The world they lived in was divided in two realms, the mortal realm and the martial realm. The first few stages of cultivation were called the Mortal Realm, and after breaking through the Xiantian realm, one could step into the Martial Realm.

  It was easier said than done. In his previous life, after spending so many dog years working in Mortal Realm, he’d made it to the Martial Realm. He had seen its vastness. The Mortal Realm was like a grain of salt in a huge desert when compared with the Martial Realm. But once so
meone stepped into the Martial Realm, it was impossible to come back to the Mortal Realm. How did this array appear in the State of Zin? Even though it wasn’t a heaven-defying object or something, it was a Soul Array, and on top of that its array diagram was lost in the passage of time. Soul Arrays were difficult to attune and carve, so how could a mere city located in the corner of the world have an array like this?

  Unfathomable.

  Arrays followed the generic system of grading used in the cultivation world. Starting from Bronze, Silver, Gold, etc. But people differentiated them using the energy source used to sustain them. In the Foundation Scripture of the Array Masters, it was said that any energy could be used as the array source, but humankind only used a few types. The basic was qi and essence energy that qi and body cultivators cultivated. But there was another energy only very high-level Array Masters could use, and that was soul energy. Wei’s divine sense was a kind of soul energy manipulation, but as his body wasn’t strong, he couldn’t regenerate it right away, and he was constantly on the verge of losing it because of his low cultivation level.

  Arrays used Qi Stones to power arrays. There were Essence Stones available, but they were too rare, so everyone used Qi Stones as a power source. But Soul Arrays used Soul Stones, and right now he was seeing one of those strange arrays.

  With trembling hands, he tapped at the corner of the array repeatedly. He had studied One-Fold and Two-Fold Strength Defense Arrays, and he hoped that the method to unlock the power source would work on this too.

  He failed his first two attempts, but the third attempt worked like a charm. A purple fluctuation emerged from the center and spread outward when he tapped on the tenth power point.

  The center piece changed, and a half-broken purple stone came out of the center. As soon as it came out, the room filled with dream-like purple light.