Chapter 320 Feedback
James stared blankly at Fang Xingjian, “You… I… But this…”
He let out a breath and sorted out his thoughts before saying, “You aren’t affected by the ten Heavenly Barriers? You mind didn’t receive any impacts?”
“Impacts? Are there any?” Fang Xingjian said with indifference, “I only felt some slight discomfort, but it’s alright now.”
“Slight discomfort?” James smiled bitterly. Back then, when he himself had reached 30% in his ether synchronization rate, it was as if his perception on the entire world had collapsed. Everyone’s appearances and voices were all terribly twisted. Food appeared like shit, and the sound of the wind was like the howling of ghosts. It was a situation which would drive one crazy.
However, Fang Xingjian had gotten over this phase while they were chatting. James did not know how to describe this situation. Even he felt somewhat envious. The talent which Fang Xingjian possessed was truly terrifying.
Most of the time, it was only after the Conferred Knights’ cultivation gradually increased in level and was able to affect and filter the information from these light waves and sound waves that they would be able to ignore some of the reality and see what ordinary people saw.
However, Fang Xingjian was not concerned about these. “I’ll leave the matters of the arbitration to you. It’s my turn to study the ancient artifact today, right? My ether synchronization rate has increased, so I’ll go give it another try.”
Back to the scene at the Sword Tower, Sasa had just finished saying something when he saw Fang Xingjian pushing open the door and walking in.
“Oh? Xingjian, you’re here?” Sasa smiled, “Aren’t you pretty busy lately? It’s fine even if you don’t come.”
Fang Xingjian threw Sasa a cold glance and said, “All of you should leave. It’s my time to study it now.”
Sasa’s mouth twitched. He let out a cold snort but eventually got everyone to leave.
Fang Xingjian walked up to the dragon’s scale and said, “You can come out now.”
Suddenly, something seemed to be moving agitatedly in the air. Once again, Fang Xingjian experienced that tremendous pain as if ten thousand swords had pierced through his heart, and the Heaven’s Volition Sword Intent once again entered Fang Xingjian’s consciousness.
Glancing at the lifeless dragon’s scale, Fang Xingjian let out a faint smile and reached his hand toward it. In a short instant, a gush of information flow surged toward the dragon’s scale.
Sword intent was just a type of information flow. The only thing different about it was that the sword intent primarily contained sword theories and emotions toward sword arts.
However, the powerful thing about the Heaven’s Volition Sword Intent was that it could affect the physical world with just information alone.
Fang Xingjian felt that this was something which probably only Divine level experts would be able to accomplish.
Additionally, right now, he was trying to write out the sets of theories and emotions toward sword arts, turning them into an information flow and channeling into the dragon’s scale.
Of course, it would be impossible for him to use his real sword theories. He merely used a set of fake sword theory which he had came up with.
Fang Xingjian remembered that when he was young, he had taken a great liking to the contents of a particular martial arts story, and he recalled the interpretation of the sword arts mentioned in the story.
[1] ‘Marrying Maiden trends toward Innocence, Innocence trends toward Fellowship, and Fellowship trends toward Great Possession [2]. Jia turns to Bing, Bing turns to Geng, Geng turns to Gui [3], Zi connects to Chou, Chen connects to Si, and Wu connects to Wei [4]. The wind and thunder forms one variation, the mountains and rivers form one variation, and the fire and water forms one variation. Qian and Kun stimulates each other, Zhen and Dui stimulates each other, and Li and Xun stimulates each other [5]. Three evolves into five, five evolves into nine…’
After completing what he had set out to do, the dragon’s scale once again turned a crimson red due to the information channeled inside. Like before, the dragon scale exuded both scorching hot and extremely chilly auras.
Following this, Fang Xingjian wanted to see just how Sasa was going to fall into a deadlock. However, Fang Xingjian was no longer willing to stay in the research room to put up a pretense, so he simply returned to the Sacred Land and continued his cultivation.
Somewhere else, the team from the central government had already arrived in the Great Western City.
The one in the lead was a beauty who seemed to be below 30 years old, with brilliantly golden hair and a pair of beautiful sapphire eyes.
The lady looked at the streets of the Great Western City and said coldly, “What generation is this now? To think that someone would still dare to mess around with their self-created Nurturing sword technique and cause people to suffer from internal injuries. What on earth are the association’s upper management doing that they even approved such a sword technique?”
One of the subordinates smiled bitterly and said, “Madam, Fang Xingjian is the apple of the Governor’s and the Second Prince’s eyes. You’re now in Great Western City, so it’s better for you to be careful of what you say.”
“Even I have to be careful? Is this His Majesty’s country or Devitt’s (Governor) country?” The lady let out a cold snort and said, “The budget issued by the Empire every year has been put to waste by these vermins.
“To think that someone would dare to mess around with a Nurturing sword technique now. These are sword techniques which even apprentices would have to cultivate. This is an act of digging at the Empire’s foundation. I’ll definitely not allow this!
“I’ll definitely put in my best for this arbitration!”
Looking at their female commanding officer who wore a righteous expression, all the other Knights broke into bitter smiles.
In the Northern Ice Region, Rehlings emerged from his seclusion. He wore a furious gaze, and his eyes were filled with anxiety and gloom.
“Why?
“Why did it turn out like this?
“What went wrong?”
Rehlings cultivated in saber arts, and although there were many similarities between saber arts and sword arts, when they were put through serious comparisons, there were still many differences.
For example, saber arts focused on slashing while sword arts focused on piercing. This produced great differences when used in battle as well as during cultivation.
However, at Rehlings’ level, both saber arts and sword arts were mastered easily. Although his sword arts were not as great as his saber arts, they had also far surpassed the level of an ordinary talent.
When Rehlings went into this recent seclusion, he had wanted to change the Rebirth Sword Technique into his own Rebirth Saber Technique. However, he faced great difficulty in doing so.
Seeing that he was unable to change such a powerful Nurturing sword technique into a saber technique for his own cultivation, this was pure torture to him. It was the feeling of a little kitten looking at dried fish yet was unable to eat them. This made Rehlings feel very anxious.
The moment he came out, he grabbed his younger brother and asked, “Where’s Fang Xingjian? Has he come? You’ve invited him over, haven’t you?”
“Uh…” The guy Rehlings grabbed was a muscular man who looked very similar to him. As the muscular man’s body was restrained firmly, he let out a bitter laugh and said, “We invited him, but he rejected our invitation.”
“Damn it.”
“However, his recent situation isn’t too good. The central government has sent an arbitration team to the Great Western Region. It seems like there’s some problem with the Rebirth Sword technique.”
“There’s a problem with the Rebirth Sword Technique?” Rehlings frowned and asked, “What problem?”
His younger brother shrugged and said, “I heard that a few apprentices have suffered from a certain degree of internal injuries after picking up the Rebirth Sword Technique. I think it’s a deterioration of their internal organs.”
“Ridiculous! How can the crap from central government believe in such rubbish?”
“Fang Xingjian sent a letter here for you. It might be a request for your help,” his younger brother said carefully. Rehlings’ younger brother’s talent was not bad, but when compared to his elder brother, the difference between them was just far too great.
This caused his radiance to be completely overshadowed by Rehlings, and he had practically become Rehlings’ follower.
“Where’s the letter?” Rehlings took the letter as it was handed to him and tore it open violently, reading through it quickly.
“Oh? So, this is how it is? It’s a problem with the circulation of my vital energy and blood? Hmm… It has probably clashed with my Waves?
“But how could he possibly know… Hmmm… Seems like this person also circulates his Waves constantly at all times.”
Looking at the letter for a few minutes, Rehlings occasionally let out elated mumbles. Then his eyes suddenly widened, and he let out a cold snort, “What is this? This is it?”
He turned to his younger brother and asked, “Where are the letters? He didn’t send anymore?”
Seeing his younger brother shrug, Rehlings let out a breath and said, “This is really bad luck. This person is baiting me.”
However, he said to his younger brother anyway, “Mmmm, bring a piece of paper here. Write a letter to the Great Western Region Regional Academy.”
His younger brother’s eyes were wide open as he said, “Brother, you should know why this has happened, right? There are too many complications with this matter, and our clan has yet to decide on our standing in it.”
“What is it to me? I know nothing about standing on sides. I don’t know what I don’t know. I only feel that there’s no problem to the Rebirth Sword Technique. You just write what I tell you to.”
Rehlings’ younger brother let out a cold smile and said, “Brother, you really like to dash into places where trouble brews.”
“What’s there to be afraid of? There’s nothing more important than attaining the Divine level. Leave the mortals to deal with their own problems.”
[1] An extract from a novel ‘The Smiling, Proud Wanderer’ (also has many other English translations of the title) written by a well-known Chinese novelist with the pen name Jin Yong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smiling,_Proud_Wanderer
In the novel, it was mentioned that there’s apparently over 3,000 words in this incantation! Thank goodness Jin Yong was sane enough not to write the entire thing…
[2] Referring to hexagrams listed in the I Ching or Book of Changes, an ancient Chinese divination text and the oldest of the Chinese classics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching
http://the-iching.com/hexagram_table
[3] Referencing the ten Celestial or Heavenly Stems which are a Chinese system of ordinals that first appeared during the Shang Dynasty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_stem
[4] Referencing the twelve Earthly Branches was a Chinese system for reckoning time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthly_Branches
[5] Referencing the eight trigrams used in Taoist cosmology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagua