Morning.
Su Hao practiced swinging his blade at Martial Instructor’s training ground.
The Blaze Crow practiced flapping its wings.
The blade cut through the air with a whooshing sound.
"Adjust your state to its peak before you swing."
"Imagine there’s an enemy in front of you. Where would your strike fall? Could you cleave the enemy in one blow?"
Martial Instructor’s words struck a chord with the Blaze Crow.
Slashing, chopping—it needed an enemy, a target, for the cut to have substance.
During the session,
Martial Instructor demonstrated a few times himself.
His Blade Leaf Warrior also performed a few Leaf Blade Cuts on large stones.
Su Hao took it all in.
He now fully understood the techniques and training essentials of the ‘Draw Slash.’
So then…
A panel appeared before his eyes.
In the Blaze Crow’s column, the training method for ‘Draw Slash’ was already discounted.
[Secret Art: Draw Slash (Unlock with 5 [9] points of intel value)]
Not too expensive.
Su Hao chose to unlock it.
In an instant…
Countless pieces of information flooded his mind, and he felt like he’d become a bird that had swung a blade tens of thousands of times, its swordsmanship already quite refined…
A bird!
A strange confidence welled up.
Su Hao pressed his five fingers together into a hand blade, raised his hand, and brought it down.
Like a cold, detached swordsman.
He slashed it in one go onto the wooden post beside him…
Thud!
The wooden post wobbled.
Su Hao froze for half a second, then rubbed his left hand with his right, exhaling hot air from his mouth.
"That hurts like hell!!!"
His hand blade strike had felt incredibly right, carrying an unstoppable momentum.
So…
It hurt like crazy.
Su Hao rubbed his hands, glancing sideways at his surroundings.
Everyone else was focused on practicing their blades; no one seemed to notice his foolishness.
No big deal.
His reputation as Su the top student was safe.
"Hmm…"
He suddenly turned his head, looking at the Blaze Crow, which was learning the Wing Draw Slash.
It happened to look back at him.
Su Hao gave a warning glare: "Ahem!"
The Blaze Crow tilted its head, not quite understanding.
But…
It suddenly felt a bit cold.
Aren’t I a fire-type spirit?
Caw~!
It fell into thought.
…
The next day.
Inside the training ground.
Martial Instructor had set up plenty of wooden posts, looking at Su Hao and the other two students learning the Draw Slash.
"Today, and for the foreseeable future, your training task is to split these posts. When you can make a clean, smooth cut, you can move to the next stage.
"Of course, you’re splitting ordinary posts; the spirits are splitting ironwood posts."
Besides the Blaze Crow,
the other two spirits learning the Draw Slash were the Scyther Mantis and the Golden-Winged Silkmoth.
The Scyther Mantis had blade arms.
The Golden-Winged Silkmoth’s wings were as sharp as blades.
It transformed into a golden streak, slicing through an ironwood post in one go.
Clang! The ironwood post snapped cleanly.
But the break was jagged, not smooth.
"Doing it this way is still just ordinary slashing; you haven’t touched the essence of the blade’s path."
The Blaze Crow raised its wing.
Whoosh—
Half the post flew off.
The remaining half was charred black.
Martial Instructor’s eye twitched slightly.
In terms of raw power, it was strong, "But if you master the Draw Slash, concentrating all your attack into a single point, you’ll unleash several times the lethality.
"Now it’s your turn. While the spirits practice, you can’t slack off either!"
Martial Instructor’s two students nodded in agreement.
Su Hao gripped his blade, aiming at the post in front of him.
He swung.
A diagonal forty-five-degree cut!
Thwack!
A section of the post fell to the ground.
The cut was smooth and even.
As if a spirit had used a special move to slice it.
But…
Martial Instructor glanced at it, then couldn’t look away.
"You—you’ve been practicing all night?"
He wanted to ask if Su Hao had already known how, but recalling his performance yesterday—clumsy and unfamiliar with holding and swinging the blade—it didn’t seem likely.
He also knew about this student.
Top scholar of Tiannan Province, wiped out all sophomores in the freshman challenge round, led Whale Island University to win the Yuling Cup, became a member of the special training camp in the first half of freshman year, created several secret arts, published a major paper…
And so on.
In just over a year, Su Hao had achieved so many remarkable feats.
When would he have had time to learn swordsmanship?
‘Could there really be such a prodigy who learns everything at a glance?’
"Give me another strike."
Su Hao gripped the long blade, moving to another post.
He measured it.
Hasaikee!
Whoosh—
The blade reflected a silvery gleam under the light. One strike, and the post broke.
The blade slid back into its sheath.
Perfect!
Su Hao felt he was already a seasoned swordsman.
Martial Instructor fell silent.
His two students’ eyes bulged wide.
One of them didn’t believe it.
He picked up a blade, stepped up to a post, and with a sudden burst of arm strength, swung down.
Crack—
The blade bit into the post, leaving a gash, but didn’t cut through.
It got stuck.
The recoil jarred his hand numb.
He looked at Su Hao again, who seemed hooked on splitting.
Left slash, right slash.
Diagonal cut, vertical cut, forward lunge…
The posts were effortlessly split in two.
Compared to yesterday, the improvement was enormous.
What kind of cram school did you go to (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻!!
…
"You’re the most talented person at swordsmanship I’ve ever seen. I’m sure you’ve used all your free time to practice to make such remarkable progress."
That was…
Su Hao’s achievements today came from his own steady efforts, step by step.
Take swordsmanship, for example.
He’d unlocked a style suited to the Blaze Crow.
If he hadn’t spent hours holding, swinging, and slashing the blade, would he have reached this level?
"If I unlocked a Fist Art or a boxing secret art, could I then…"
He thought about it. No.
The arts and training methods were just directly instilled into his mind; they couldn’t change his physique or muscle memory.
At most…
It made Su Hao’s learning ten times more efficient.
Enough to defend himself.
"Learn swordsmanship from me. You won’t need to spend a single credit, and you can use all the facilities here freely."
Faced with Martial Instructor’s invitation, Su Hao politely declined.
He was just a study companion.
He was used to it.
He’d already developed a method for ‘how to politely refuse others’ kindness.’
Martial Instructor was regretful.
But he taught even more earnestly.
…
Two days, three days, four days…
Su Hao kept swinging the blade, growing more familiar with its feel.
He finally understood why the Blaze Crow loved cutting people so much.
The moment the blade sliced through flesh… ahem, through the post, it felt incredibly satisfying.
While guiding the Blaze Crow’s training, he didn’t neglect his other spirits.
He arranged for Husky Lin to practice dodging at the defense assessment grounds.
—Thanks to his status as a special training camp member, Su Hao could use some campus facilities not open to the public.
He also set the Thunder Bear to absorb lightning in the Thunder Pool, boosting its charge capacity.
Of course…
Su Hao had to accompany the Blaze Crow, so he couldn’t personally go buy tickets at each facility.
But what did that matter?
Butterfly had grown very mature.
She knew how to buy tickets.
She knew how to type on a phone.
With his student card, she could go anywhere on campus.
She could also pass on some dodging tips to Husky Lin.
And teach the Thunder Bear how to control its energy with fine manipulation.
Butterfly herself?
Su Hao never worried.
Developing the Spirit Orb, studying real illusions… she was tinkering with it on her own.
Once she had a direction, Su Hao would deduce a mature plan from it.
Pretty efficient!
Time came to the fifth day.
It was also Su Hao’s last day at the training ground.
He was about to leave.
A little reluctant.
After all, the feel of splitting those posts here was just too good.
Before leaving, Martial Instructor said:
"Finally, I need to check the Blaze Crow’s training results. The Draw Slash isn’t something you can master in a few days. If you have any questions in the future, come ask me."