The path of training was a long, winding one.
This was a hard road to travel, but on this path there were constant new breakthroughs, making one feel gratified and moved.
Linley began to grow a beard, and his originally short hair began to grow long as well. His eyes, previously filled with a proud aloofness, had become calm and tranquil, due to the influence of being in touch with nature for so long.
Only occasionally while training would his eyes become terrifyingly sharp.
Linley’s temperament, as well, had become molded by nature to become more stable. Without Doehring Cowart’s guidance, Linley had no one to rely upon. Naturally, he continued to develop and mature even more.
“Rumble.”
Water thundered down from the hundred-meter-high waterfall, smashing down against the deep pool below, spraying water everywhere. Right next to the waterfall, there was a large boulder sticking up from the ground.
There was a person seated cross legged atop the boulder, with a black heavy sword resting atop his legs.
It was early dawn. The sky was just beginning to lighten. Within the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, one of the things Linley enjoyed doing was enjoying the clear dawn air.
“Ah…” Linley opened his eyes.
He glanced behind him, and saw Bebe curled up right next to him. Bebe’s two little claws were stuck directly into the stone itself to make sure there was no possibility he could roll off and fall.
“Bebe, time to move,” Linley said with a laugh.
Bebe opened his eyes lazily, glancing all around himself. Then he shook his head, clearing it of the last remnants of sleep, and stood up. “Boss. I’m hungry.”
“Let’s go. We’ll eat later.” Linley leaped off the boulder. Moving as gracefully as the wind itself, Linley traversed several dozen meters with that leap, landing on the opposite shore of the pond. Also jumping off the boulder, Bebe transformed into a black streak, finally landing next to Linley’s feet.
A man and a magical beast once more began their voyage.
But before they had gone too far, Linley’s footsteps suddenly halted. Bebe looked questioningly at Linley.
“There’s a magical beast nearby,” Linley said mentally.
Bebe stared. Bebe could now be considered an early-stage magical beast of the ninth rank. Generally speaking, there were very few magical beasts that could draw near without him sensing it. But this time, he hadn’t sensed anything.
With his feet pressed against the earth and his ability to sense the wind, it would be difficult for anything moving nearby to not attract Linley’s attention.
“This magical beast’s movements are light and graceful. I can’t sense its movements on the earth at all. But when it moves, it causes vibrations in the wind,” Linley said mentally.
Bebe nodded.
A Golden Tattooed Panther was latched onto a tree trunk, not moving at all. Panthers could be considered one of the fastest type of land-based magical beasts.
In particular, the Saint-level Electrobolt Panther’s movement speed made it an incredibly terrifying Saint-level magical beast to deal with.
Golden Tattooed Panthers were magical beasts of the seventh rank. But as a panther-type magical beast, it naturally possessed the high speed which all panthers were known for. Its explosive, short distance pouncing speed was even superior to magical beasts of the eighth rank.
The Golden Tattooed Panther suddenly exerted pressure with its four limbs.
“Swish.”
It leapt atop another tree. Panthers were extremely skilled at running and leaping about on tree tops, and were very well known for that as well. From within the dense leaves, the Golden Tattooed Panther had already seen that distant human figure.
The Golden Tattooed Panther waited quietly. Waited for the human to draw near.
Indeed, the human and the black Shadowmouse were beginning to come nearer.
“A black Shadowmouse? Not a threat.” Magical beasts of the seventh rank possessed very high intelligence. The primary focus of the Golden Tattooed Panther was that human. The aura that human emitted had already raised the Golden Tattooed Panther’s caution level. But the Golden Tattooed Panther had the feeling that this human shouldn’t be too powerful.
Indeed, in his base form, Linley was only a late-stage warrior of the seventh rank.
Generally speaking, when a magical beast of the seventh rank fought a human of the seventh rank, the magical beast would have the advantage.
“Swish.” Leaping off from the tree trunk, the Golden Tattooed Panther transformed into a vicious golden blur, gracefully soaring towards Linley.
The seemingly totally unprepared human, suddenly…
As fast as lightning, drew that adamantine heavy sword from his back while retreating! At the same time, he chopped down with that sword against the Golden Tattooed Panther with tremendous power.
Already in mid-leap, there was no way for the Golden Tattooed Panther to change its trajectory. The only thing it could do was to do his best to move his head away.
“Bam.”
Flashing out like a lightning bolt, the adamantine heavy sword viciously slammed against the Golden Tattooed Panther’s body. Where it landed on the Golden Tattooed Panther’s body, a deep crevice appeared. The sounds of bones shattering could be heard.
With that ‘bam’ sound, the Golden Tattooed Panther’s body crashed to the ground. It lay twitching there, blood pouring out of its mouth. But within ten seconds, the Golden Tattooed Panther moved no more.
Linley gracefully resheathed his adamantine heavy sword.
“Bebe, our breakfast today will be panther flesh,” Linley said casually.
To Linley and Bebe, this was just a very ordinary event. Within the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, they would kill several magical beasts every day.
If an expert at using the sword had been present, they would clearly be able to tell that Linley, despite only being a late-stage warrior of the seventh rank, was able to utilize this 3,600-pound heavy sword at an extremely high level. Not only did the weight of the heavy sword not hinder Linley, Linley was even able to make use of its weight to make the speed of the heavy sword’s blows faster.
When chopping, he could actually chop a magical beast of the seventh rank to death at one blow. This power was simply astonishing.
Linley and Bebe began to roast panther flesh in the middle of the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts.
“Boss, how powerful is the most powerful attack you can now use with that heavy sword? A few days ago, you said you had a breakthrough,” Bebe asked.
They had been in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts for over a year now. During this year, Linley’s mind had become one with nature, and he had completely immersed himself in his training. This year and a half of training had improved his abilities at an extremely rapid pace.
“My most powerful attack? Hard to say. Speaking in more general terms, I should be able to fight most magical beasts of the eighth rank in human form alone,” Linley said confidently.
This wasn’t arrogance. This was confidence in his own power.
“The panther meat smells so good.” Bebe sniffed the air with his nose.
“Hrm?” Linley frowned, then suddenly laughed. “Bebe, when we roast meat, we often attract attention from magical beasts. Only, this time, this magical beast seemed to be quite a slow and clumsy one.”
After waiting a good while, Linley and Bebe finally saw a magical beast appear.
A Velocidragon.
“Velocidragon?” Linley began to laugh. Linley was now quite familiar with Velocidragons. Despite being magical beasts of the seventh rank, they possessed extremely powerful defense. Although both were of the seventh rank, a Velocidragon’s defense was far more formidable than that of a Golden Tattooed Panther. But in turn, the Golden Tattooed Panther was far faster than a Velocidragon.
“Boss, you say that your attack power is really high now. Do you think you can chop a Velocid
ragon to death with one sword stroke?” Bebe suddenly said.
The scales of a Velocidragon were nearly half a meter thick, and the bones of its skull were extremely hard and dense. Although Velocidragons were fairly slow, their defense could match an ordinary magical beast of the eighth rank.
“One sword blow? I haven’t tested it yet. Let me give it a try.”
Linley drew the adamantine heavy sword from the sheath on his back, then began walking step by step towards the Velocidragon.
The Velocidragon was two stories tall and nearly twenty meters long. Compared to this enormous creature, Linley was nothing more than a small speck.
“Grooooowl.” The Velocidragon roared angrily at Linley.
But wielding the adamantine heavy sword in his hands, Linley continued to walk towards the Velocidragon, one barefooted step at a time.
Suddenly…
Linley’s movements sped up dramatically as he charged towards the Velocidragon. Letting out an angry roar, the Velocidragon sent its draconic tail whipping towards Linley. The Velocidragon’s tail was an extremely quick weapon.
“Clang.” Linley’s adamantine heavy sword suddenly moved at high speed and blocked the draconic tail.
Despite the great lashing force of the Velocidragon’s tail, Linley leapt off the ground, borrowing the force of the tail to fly over the Velocidragon.
“Uh, this is a human?” The Velocidragon was surprised to discover that the man in front of him had wielded that adamantine heavy sword as easily and as naturally as the grass bowing from the wind. And now, that man was smashing directly down at his head with the sword.
The Velocidragon was extremely confident. Its skull was, after all, the toughest part of its body.
Indeed…
When that agile, flowing black heavy sword touched his skull, it posed no danger to the Velocidragon at all. But all of a sudden, just as it touched the skull, an incredibly powerful force exploded from the sword. Like a sudden flood bursting through a dam, that astonishing power poured out all at once. It only heard a ‘crack’ sound, and then everything went dark.
Bebe watched this scene in astonishment.
Linley had only struck the skull, the toughest part of a Velocidragon’s body, with a single blow from his sword. And then, the Velocidragon’s head had split open like a fragile egg, with brain matter and blood pouring out. The massive, powerful body of the Velocidragon slumped to the ground, as Linley gracefully landed as well.
“Boss! Wow! You are that powerful now?” Bebe ran over excitedly.
Linley laughed. “Over the past year, I have been able to almost perfectly merge my own strength with my Dragonblood battle-qi. And then, based on what I have learned from my connection to the earth, I broke past the simple levels of using ‘strength’ and ‘battle-qi’. I have arrived at the level which the ancestors of the Baruch clan described as ‘wielding the heavy as though it were light’. Only now, I have managed to develop this technique: ‘Thunderbolt’.
91
The Howling Worldwolf
The most basic underpinnings of training with the heavy sword lay in combining battle-qi along with physical strength in utilizing it.
Right after the adamantine heavy sword had been forged in the City of Hess, when Linley had used the adamantine heavy sword to attack the violet-robed Special Executors, he was not capable of combining his strength and his battle-qi to use the heavy sword in a meaningful way.
The heavy sword was not meant to be used with pure brute force.
It lay in conserving every little bit of strength to allow the heavy sword to reach its maximum possible velocity, while at the same time combining physical strength and battle-qi to reach the most optimal level possible.
After spending more than a year, Linley had finally become able to wield the adamantine heavy sword as easily as though it were his hands, without wasting any strength at all. Despite a limited amount of strength and battle-qi, he was able to raise the power of the adamantine heavy sword to an extremely high level.
But this was still just the basics.
Above this basic level was the second level, a different realm of possibilities. This was something Linley had suddenly awoken to when he saw the crashing waterfalls within the mountain grotto.
To wield something heavy as though it were light was easy to say, but hard to do.
In truth, it required one to be able to perfectly control one’s battle-qi and physical strength. And then, one could suddenly unleash all of one’s power, like the unending, cascading waters of the waterfall. The power that erupted from a blow such as this was extremely great.
This was the principle underneath Linley’s ‘Thunderbolt’ technique.
But this was easier said than done. It required an extremely solid grasp of the basics. If one didn’t have enough control over one’s strength and battle-qi, even after one understood the principles of this technique, one still wouldn’t be able to utilize it.
“As powerful as that? Boss, is this the most powerful way to use the heavy sword?” Bebe said in surprise.
Laughing, Linley shook his head. “Not even close. Based on the information contained within my clan’s records, the way of using heavy weapons can be described as having three levels. The first is to master and perfect the basics. The second is to be able to wield something heavy as though it were light. And the third is known as ‘impose’.”
“‘Impose’?” Bebe was a bit confused. “What is that?”
“I don’t know either.” Linley shook his head. “After all, my clan’s records, aside from the Secret Dragonblood Manual, primarily consists of general descriptions of the history of my clan and some stories of my ancestors. With regards to that ancestor who was able to ‘wield something heavy as though it were light’, there were only a few lines describing his power. That record also mentioned that the third level was ‘impose’, but what exactly ‘impose’ is, it didn’t describe in detail, so I don’t know either.”
Linley didn’t understand.
Could ‘impose’ be referring to an imposing manner?
But when wielding the adamantine heavy sword, how much could an imposing manner possibly add to attack power?
“I haven’t had that moment of enlightenment yet. No way to understand it.” Linley shook his head.
Linley knew very well that he had not yet in fact mastered this level of ‘using something heavy as though it were light’. Because the most important part of the ‘Thunderbolt’ technique was to suddenly release all of the power available at the last moment.
How would one further increase the power of this technique?
Right now, Linley was suddenly releasing all of his strength and battle-qi in a brute force manner, but Linley knew that this was a stupid, crude method.
“Pity that there’s no signposts on the path of training.” Linley chuckled, then ceased his idle speculations.
Deep autumn. The prime, virgin forests of the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts were covered with yellowing leaves.
This was the late autumn of year 10001 of the Yulan calendar. Linley had already entered the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts for more than a year and a half, but he had only travelled five or six thousand kilometers thus far.
He spent most of every day in training, progressing only a few dozen kilometers at most in his journey.
Late at night, not a sound could be heard. Within the central areas of the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, beneath a giant tree which would take five or six men linking hands to embrace the trunks of, Linley was quietly sitting cross-legged in the meditative trance.
Slowly…
The skies began to brighten. Linley opened his eyes, a hint of a smile on his face.
The light, pure dawn wind was blowing. Several leaves slowly spun about and fell down. Watching these leaves fall, Linley was silent.
“Boss?” Bebe casually opened his eyes. Questioningly, he said, “You woke up? Why didn’t you wake me?”
Actually, e
very day, when Linley woke up, Bebe would wake up as well. But every day, Bebe would wait for Linley to wake him up before he would be willing to open his eyes. Today, though, Linley hadn’t called him.
“Bebe, I seem to have made a breakthrough,” Linley suddenly said mentally to Bebe.
“A breakthrough?” Bebe immediately jumped to his feet. He asked with excitement, “What sort of breakthrough have you had?”
Linley laughed. “My spiritual energy has finally reached the level of a magus of the eighth rank.”
“A magus of the eighth rank?!” Bebe immediately yelped in surprise.
That winter, when he was sixteen years old, Linley had crafted the sculpture ‘Awakening From the Dream’, and the rapid improvement he had gained over those ten days and ten nights had resulted in Linley’s spiritual energy strengthening tenfold, arriving at the level of spiritual power possessed by a late-stage magus of the seventh rank.
He was sixteen years old that winter, and already at the late-stage seventh rank!
From then until now, three years had passed.
While he had been at Fenlai City, Linley’s spiritual energy hadn’t improved that fast, and based on that rate of improvement, Linley probably would’ve needed five or six years to advance from the late-stage of the seventh rank to the eighth rank. But this year in the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts, Linley had totally submerged himself into nature, and each time he had engaged in stone sculpting, he had been so natural and unrestrained.
His rate of improvement in spiritual energy was quite noticeable.
Right now…
Linley’s spiritual energy finally reached the eighth rank as a magus.
“Boss, how powerful are spells of the eighth rank?” Bebe said curiously.
“You’ll find out if you are willing to give it a try.” A hint of a smile was on Linley’s face. Bebe stared at him, then said proudly, “Come. I, Bebe, am not afraid of magical beasts of the eighth rank, much less a spell of the eighth rank.”
Dragonblood: Book 2 of the Coiling Dragon Saga Page 71
