Desolate Era

by RWX

  “The ‘advancing’ step!”

  “The ‘sidestep’ step!”

  “The ‘leaping’ step!”

  “The ‘backwards’ step!”

  “The ‘withdrawing’ step!”

  “The ‘turning’ step!”

  Snow snapped one order after another.

  Actually, all footwork techniques relied on these basic movements. But the differences between different techniques were like night and day in terms of skill. Some would make you move as fast as a bolt of lightning, while others would make you as agile and graceful as the wind, or perhaps as unpredictable as a spirit.

  Each footwork technique had its own mysteries, and naturally would have different effects in battle.

  “Oof!” He hadn’t leapt high enough, and his back had brushed against the beast skin ropes, causing him to be unable to land onto the wooden pillar. He fell down.

  Not saying a word, Ning climbed back onto the pillar.

  “Oof!” His knee hadn’t been bent enough.

  “Oof!” He had used too much force.

  ……

  On those thousands of wooden pillars, Ning was moving like a flash, wildly training in these six basic steps. Because of the obstruction of the beast skins, Ning’s body also had to undergo various contortions to dodge them. But no matter what postures he used, the most important thing was that his center of gravity had to be stable, and his feet had to be stable!

  “Mother, how long will I train like this for?” Ning had fallen so many times.

  “Ning, son, start from the shortest pillar and move through all 1008 wooden pillars, then jump down from the tallest one! You are not to touch any of the beast skins on the way!”

  “If you are able to complete this within the time it takes for one to take ten breaths, then you will have mastered the ‘basic’ level of this footwork.” Yuchi Snow laughed.

  Ning was stunned when he heard this. “What? In ten breaths? Such a short period of time… even in running on the flat ground, I wouldn’t be able to do that in ten breaths.” 1008 wooden pillars, all of which had to be traversed. That was a distance of a thousand or so meters. It would take him a while to travel that distance at a full run.

  “Later, Ning, when you have finished mastering the first level of the [Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens], you would be able to travel a thousand meters on the ground in ten breaths.” Snow laughed.

  “But…” Ning was speechless.

  “Moving in the Thousand Star Array as though you were on the ground… only then would you have mastered the ‘basic’ stage.”

  “Then what about the second, ‘advanced’ stage?” Ning couldn’t help but ask.

  Snow pushed one of the nearby beast skin ropes, which began to collide with the other beast skins. Soon, the thousand plus beast skins were all swaying against and hitting each other in a totally wild, chaotic manner.

  “The second stage, the ‘advanced’ stage, requires you to once again start from the lowest pillar and move through all 1008 pillars, then jump down from the tallest one, in the span of ten breaths, without touching any of the beast skin ropes. However… for the ‘advanced’ stage, all of the beast skins will be striking each other.” Snow looked at Ning. “Once you can do that, you will have mastered the ‘advanced’ stage.”

  “But but but… how is that possible? If all the beast skins are swaying about, how will I dodge them? There would probably only be a split second for me to dodge the beast skins and also jump onto the wooden pillars. And in such a short time frame…” Ning felt that this was simply too hard, impossibly hard.

  “That is why I said that with the help of the Thousand Star Array, you should need ten years to reach the ‘advanced’ stage of the [Shadewind Steps],” Snow said. “From now until lunch time, you will continuously practice here at the Thousand Star Array.”

  “Then what about the third stage, ‘one with the world’?” Ning couldn’t help but ask.

  Snow looked at Ning and laughed. “That’s on an entirely different level. Once you reach it, you’ll understand.”

  “How powerful is it? You can at least explain it,” Ning asked.

  “Alright. If I have to describe it… even ten thousand arrows raining down on me at the same time wouldn’t be able to injure me at all.” Snow looked at her son.

  “Ten thousand arrows at the same time?” Ning instantly imagined a thick cluster of countless arrows raining down, but none of them able to touch him. This was inconceivable. A human’s body occupied a certain amount of space, after all. If those countless arrows filled the skies, logically speaking, there should be no way to dodge them.”

  Snow smiled. “Don’t be discouraged. Most of the peak Houtian experts of the various tribes are only able to reach the first, ‘basic’ stage.”

  “Xiantian lifeforms are usually able to reach the second, ‘advanced’ stage.”

  “Most Zifu Disciples are able to reach the third stage of ‘one with the world’. But of course, some extremely talented Xiantian lifeforms are able to reach the level of ‘one with the world’… such as your father!” Snow said.

  “Father?” Ning was surprised and delighted.

  “Your father’s footwork has reached the level of ‘one with the world’. And even in swordplay, which is harder to train in than footwork, your father has reached the ‘one with the world’ level.” Snow laughed. “That is why your father is the undisputed number one expert of the Ji clan’s West Prefecture. That’s why his prestige awes all of the countless tribes.”

  Ning’s heart immediately swelled with a heroic feeling. Whatever his father could do, he himself could definitely do, especially since he had the [Nuwa Painting] and the wisdom from his past life!

  “Continue!”

  “The ‘advancing’ step!”

  “The ‘turning’ step!”

  “The ‘leaping’ step!”

  Ning’s small, young frame carefully flashed about the Thousand Star Array, occasionally falling down.

  ……

  After lunch.

  After having eaten to his fill and rested for a while, Ning was pulled to the training yards once more by his father. The afternoon spring Sun was dazzlingly beautiful, and its rays were very comfortable.

  “Father.” Ning looked at his glacier-like father, clad in a blood-red beast fur. His heart was filled with awe. His father had killed even Diremonsters such as Dragonsnakes. In terms of strength and skill, his father had already reached an extremely high level. Even some Xiantian lifeforms had come to ask to be taken as his father’s disciple and learn his sword techniques.

  His father had nine primary disciples, three of which were Xiantian lifeforms. But his father only taught the nine disciples once every month.

  But Ning? He would be taught every day!

  “From today onwards, I will teach you how to use the sword.” Yichuan looked at his son and said in a cold voice, “The sword is not the bow, nor is it like footwork.”

  “Archery training only requires one to become familiar with it. Once one’s strength increases and one’s vision improves, naturally, one will be able to fire more powerful arrows!”

  “Although footwork is important, it is still supplemental… to kill an opponent, you still have to use your sword in the end!”

  “Swords are considered short weapons! They are light and agile, with two edges. Their usage is more precise and profound than that of sabers; whether by slashing, by stabbing, by chopping, by scraping, or by tapping, one can easily kill the opponent. Sometimes, a person who is training incorrectly can even hurt himself. It is the truest weapon of war.” Yichuan looked at his son.

  Ning could feel his blood boiling, and he was extremely eager. His eyes were shining. “Father, what sort of sword technique will I learn?”

  “Sword technique? Wait a few more years!” Yichuan said coldly.

  “Wait a few more years?” Ning was confused.

  Yichuan said coldly, “The movements of the
sword are birthed by your body! If you wish to use the sword well, then first, you must control your body well. First, you must train in boxing. After your body and your arms are extremely agile and you can fully control your strength, then your body will be ready to learn sword techniques!”

  “But preparing your body isn’t enough.”

  “You must also prepare your ‘mind’ for learning the sword!”

  * * *

  Book 1, Chapter 11 - Sword Training

  Ning, listening to this, felt totally confused, as though his head was covered by mist and clouds. “Father, you say that I must prepare my body before I can train with a sword. I can just barely understand that. But I must also prepare my ‘mind’? What does that mean?”

  “Don’t be impatient.”

  Yichuan looked at his son. A thick book appeared in his hands out of nowhere. He tossed it towards Ning. “First, closely read through this boxing manual. There are sixteen stances in this boxing technique. It contains the simplest yet most fundamental of methods to allow one’s body to exert strength. Once you have mastered this boxing technique, your entire body will act as you will and you will be able to exert strength with ease.”

  “The sword is born from your body. If not even your body acts as you wish it to, how can your sword act as you wish it to?” Yichuan looked at his son, worried that his son would bite off more than he could chew. “First, you must calm your mind.”

  Ning understood the logic that ‘sharpening the knife didn’t slow down the cutting process’.

  “Yes, father.” Ning said as he lowered his head to begin reading the book. He began to closely review the mysteries of boxing described in the book. The book was quite thick, but actually, it was because it was made from animal leathers, which made every page very thick.

  After memorizing the profound secrets, he began to train. His father constantly gave him advice and pointed out his mistakes, or even demonstrated himself so as to help Ning understand.

  Actually, the [Shadewind Steps] also contained some principles on exerting force, but the [Shadewind Steps] were primarily about using force in the legs. Because he had some prior experience now… Ning learned relatively quickly.

  Two hours later.

  “Rest a while.” Yichuan looked at his sweaty son. “In the future, you will spend two hours every day training your boxing, unless and until I judge that your body is prepared to train with the sword.”

  “Preparing your body to train with the sword is just one aspect.”

  “You must also prepare your ‘mind’ to wield the sword.” Two black metal swords appeared in Yichuan’s hands, and he tossed them to his son. “Take them!”

  Ning took the two swords.

  Yichuan pointed to an empty area. Hu. A metallic puppet appeared out of nowhere, wielding a single saber.

  “This is a puppet,” Yichuan said. “Ki Refining practitioners of the Immortal way are often good at producing these puppets. This one is just a very ordinary puppet, with the power of a master-level Houtian combatant. However, its body is extremely tough.”

  “Father, what are those red spots on its body?” Ning wondered.

  The black metal puppet had over ten red dots on its body. The red dots were located between its forehead, on its throat, on its chest, on its arms, hands, back, and some other areas.

  “Try stabbing at the red dot on its forehead,” Yichuan said. “You have to be fast.”

  “Yes.” Ning stabbed out fiercely with his right hand.

  Hua!

  The tip of the sword pierced forward, but it struck the head, roughly an inch away from the red dot.

  “But…” Ning was slightly startled. He clearly had aimed at the red dot. He couldn’t help but try stabbing three more times, but the results were always the same, slightly off.

  “Have you discovered it?” Yichuan said calmly. “Although you want to stab it in the middle of the forehead, when you actually try to do so, you aren’t able to do so accurately. How can you stab accurately? First, you have to have to control your body perfectly. Second, you have to train countless times.”

  “Every single sword technique can be described as being composed of thirteen specific movements; chop, pierce, scrape, sweep, break, tap, cleave, support, intercept, twist, lift, draw, and sheath.”

  “Chop, pierce, scrape, sweep, tap, cleave; these are used to attack.”

  “Support, break, intercept, twist, lift, draw, and sheath; these are used to defend.”

  Yichuan pointed at the metal puppet. “This puppet isn’t moving at all, and it has nine red dots on its body. Execute the ‘chop, pierce, scrape, sweep, cleave, and tap’ movements against it. I will teach you the secrets to every single movement and how to move in harmony with your attacks. Every single basic movement must be practiced at least ten million times!”

  “In the future, the puppet will begin to move and chop at you with its own saber techniques. You will then use the ‘support, intercept, twist, lift, draw, break, and sheath’ movements, the seven basic defense movements, to defend yourself. You will train all of these movements ten million times as well.”

  “Attack!”

  “Defend!”

  “After you have become familiar with these two, the puppet will engage in battle against you, and you will use the combined thirteen stances to fight against it.” Yichuan looked at his son. “When the day comes when your thirteen basic stances have become engrained into your mind and your bones, and when you are perfectly accurate, that is when you will have absorbed the essence of the sword into your mind. Only then will your mind be ready to train in the sword.”

  Ning listened with his breath held.

  “Prepare your body.”

  “Prepare your mind.”

  “Afterwards, you will be able to truly start training in sword techniques.” Yichuan looked at his son. “Sword techniques are very complicated, but they are still formed from these thirteen basic movements. If you aren’t even able to memorize and absorb these thirteen basic movements… how can you possibly have any achievements in training with the sword?”

  “After you have truly become familiar with the sword techniques I will pass down to you, then you can be considered to have reached the first, ‘basic’ level of wielding a sword.”

  “The sword has three levels as well.”

  “The basic level, the advanced level, and the ‘one with the world’ level!”

  “The ‘advanced level’ for footwork requires precise control over the body. But the ‘advanced level’ for the sword requires one to have precise control over both the body and the sword, and then merge them into one! It is ten times harder!”

  “Becoming ‘one with the world’? That’s even farther off.”

  Yichuan looked at his son. “Ji Ning, do you now understand the path you must walk?”

  “Yes.” Ning nodded heavily.

  The [Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens] training technique would give him a Fiendgod’s body and inconceivable strength.

  But the training in footwork and swordplay would decide… how much of that strength he would be able to use!

  “Father, how long would I need to train before I can reach the level of ‘one with the sword’?” Ning couldn’t help but ask.

  “Hard to say.” Yichuan shook his head. “In the past, I had spent six years mastering the basics, then six more before becoming ‘one with the sword’. You can say that it took me twelve years!”

  “Twelve years?” Ning held his breath.

  His father, despite being young, had become the number one expert of the Ji clan of the West Prefecture. Someone as peerless of a talent as him had needed twelve years. Many ordinary people… would spend their lives training without being able to reach the ‘one with the sword’ level.

  “Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Take things one stable step at a time.” Yichuan looked at his son. “Let’s begin. Let me first teach you the ‘pierce’ movement of the thirteen basic movemen
ts!”

  ……

  Under his father’s guidance, Ning’s posture was very correct as he pierced repeatedly! Chopped repeatedly! Scraped repeatedly! Tapped repeatedly!

  This was very boring.

  And very tiring.

  Fortunately, Ning had astonishing regenerating capabilities. And given his experience in being tormented by illness in his past life… he was a person who would not easily give up.

  After training attacking movements for two hours, he began to train defending movements for another two hours.

  The metal puppet wouldn’t get tired, delivering endless hacking blows with the saber for Ning to defend against.

  “Yichuan.” Snow stood from afar, watching her son train hard.

  Yichuan walked to his wife’s side as well, and both of them watched that distant metal puppet battle against their son. “Snow. I didn’t expect this. I really didn’t expect… that our son would have such strong willpower. I had even prepared for him to complain about being tired, and prepared to force him to continue training. I didn’t expect that I don’t need to force him at all!”

  “When he was training his footwork in the morning…” Snow felt sorry for her child. “Even though he said he was tired, all he did was talk. He didn’t stop a single time. Six hours in the morning, six hours in the afternoon… twelve hours of the day spent training. Ning is still very young…”

  “I still remember when I was young,” Yichuan said softly. “At that time, I was forced by my father to train. I felt too tired and that I was at the point of collapse, but whenever I gave up, my father would use his whip to beat me. I cried each time I drew my sword or used it to pierce… that continued until I turned ten, and my father was killed by a Diremonster from Eastlake Mountain. The status of my mother and I dropped by a thousand fathoms. Seeing how cold everyone had become towards us and then my mother die of illness… I finally woke up. I no longer said I was tired, or that I was hurting. Every day, I focused on my training.”