Cultivation: Start From Simplifying Martial Arts Techniques

Chapter 291: Mirror Image Godslayer Sword

Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

The Suppressing Dragon Elephant had nearly reshaped Chen Fei’s physical body, and compared to the transformation from the Body Refining realm to the Aperture Tempering realm, the strengthening brought about by the Suppressing Dragon Elephant was even more thorough.

As a result, even when Chen Fei exerted the force field of the Zhongyuan Sword to its fullest upon himself, he could still move freely in his usual manner. Apart from initially leaving deep craters and cracks in the ground as he walked, there was no other discernible impact.

This added extreme gravitational force allowed Chen Fei to quickly comprehend the Giant Spirit Sword. In just a few days of practice, he had already moved beyond the novice stage and reached the level of proficiency.

In addition to all this, Chen Fei also practiced the Godslayer Sword, which he had obtained from the Long Rainbow Sect.

Compared to the simplification cost of Aperture Tempering realm techniques, which often amounted to ten Elemental Stones, the Godslayer Sword, while being a mental technique, was still considerably cheaper to simplify due to it being a mental skill. It cost Chen Fei only two Elemental Stones.

The result of simplifying the Godslayer Sword was a hand-drawn visualization diagram.

This diagram was described in the secret manual of the Godslayer Sword, and after dividing one’s core soul energy into two parts, the smaller portion of the core soul energy would sketch the visualization diagram in the sea of consciousness.

The Godslayer Sword required self-inflicted harm at the entry level, which reminded Chen Fei of a certain legendary cultivation technique from his past life. The Godslayer Sword involved self-inflicting harm to the core soul energy, whereas that cultivation technique involved self-inflicting harm to the physical body.

Chen Fei had simplified it to avoid self-inflicted harm and make the initial practice more comfortable.

Throughout the process, Chen Fei never considered tearing apart his own core soul energy. The Godslayer Sword was an unconventional technique, and if practiced to a high level, its power would naturally be formidable.

However, tearing apart one’s core soul energy would cause damage to it. If lucky, the injury might not be severe, and it could slowly recover. If the injury was more substantial, it would undoubtedly leave lasting consequences.

With every Aperture Tempering realm cultivator working diligently to enhance and maintain their core soul energy, Chen Fei had no intention of risking such damage to himself.

Chen Fei’s willingness to practice the Godslayer Sword was primarily for the purpose of achieving perfection and then merging and improving it. After all, the Godslayer Sword had excellent principles but employed an extreme technique.

Drawing the visualization diagram, although somewhat complex, was easily done by Chen Fei due to his current mastery over his hands. Therefore, creating a visualization diagram didn’t take much time for Chen Fei.

In less than three days, Chen Fei had raised his proficiency in the Godslayer Sword to a state of perfection.

At the state of perfection, using the Godslayer Sword wouldn’t cause any injury to Chen Fei when splitting his core soul energy. He could smoothly separate a portion of his core soul energy without causing any harm.

Evidently, the creator of the Godslayer Sword didn’t intend for users to injure themselves each time they employed it.

However, this separation still came from the essence of the core soul energy, which was a significant loss for the core soul energy’s source. While keeping such a trump card for life-saving purposes might indeed save one’s life at a critical moment, Chen Fei aimed to make the Godslayer Sword a technique that could be used routinely.

To achieve this goal, Chen Fei carefully searched through the sect’s scripture library and the exchange repository of the Alchemist Alliance. Eventually, he found a mental technique called the “Mirror Image Technique.”

Mirror Image Technique!

It allowed one’s core soul energy to serve as a reference point and project another mental image. The Mirror Image Technique was not an offensive technique against someone else’s core soul energy but rather a mental defense technique. When facing an attack on one’s core soul energy from others, the mental image would automatically respond.

Of course, due to its nature as an illusion, the mental image was fragile and would almost instantly collapse when touched. Thus, the Mirror Image Technique served to buy time for the core soul energy’s source to react against an opponent’s mental attacks.

So, to be serious, the Mirror Image Technique doesn’t truly defend against mental techniques. It merely provides martial practitioners with a bit of reaction time to make other responses.

From this perspective, while the Mirror Image Technique might not be considered completely useless, the cost-effectiveness of practicing it is indeed not very high. Therefore, very few people actually choose to cultivate this technique.

However, when Chen Fei saw the Mirror Image Technique, his first thought was that it might be a perfect match for the Godslayer Sword.

Exchange, merge, simplify, and practice!

With a cost of 15,000 alliance contribution points and a simplification fee of two elemental stones, Chen Fei spent five days to cultivate this entirely new Mirror Image Godslayer Sword to the state of perfection.

Using the mental image as a separated core soul energy source, he refined it into the Godslayer Sword. Compared to the original Godslayer Sword, this fused Mirror Image Godslayer Sword was undoubtedly somewhat weaker.

However, it didn’t require separating the core soul energy source, and because it was a Godslayer Sword created from a mental image, after using it, Chen Fei could easily continue refining new Godslayer Sword.

In extreme cases, Chen Fei could even consecutively perform the Mirror Image Godslayer Sword. Of course, due to the lack of tempering, each strike in a continuous sequence would be relatively weak.

But just like the original Godslayer Sword, there was no need to worry about any backlash issues with the Mirror Image Godslayer Sword.

Chen Fei was very satisfied with the Mirror Image Godslayer Sword, mainly because it didn’t have any backlash effects. In the end, it took less than ten days, cost four elemental stones, and 15,000 points of contribution to cultivate a mental technique.

Time passed swiftly, never pausing for anyone.

In the blink of an eye, two months had gone by, and the conflict between the Immortal Cloud Sword Sect and the Divine Flame Sect had entered a silent phase. The relentless slaughter that had seemed like a meat grinder had disappeared. The Immortal Cloud Sword Sect had reclaimed many resource points, and just when the Divine Flame Sect was planning to counterattack, the Immortal Cloud Sword Sect halted its actions.

Both sides seemed to have established an unspoken agreement and rules.

While there were still occasional probes, the intense battles with real swords and real guns had become rare.

The Immortal Cloud Sword Sect was waiting for new Combined Aperture realm cultivators to emerge, while the Divine Flame Sect was waiting for Tong Zhongqiu to die of old age and continuously recruiting new independent cultivators to compensate for their previous losses.

Tasks related to alchemical concoctions within the Alchemist Alliance further decreased. However, Chen Fei, relying on the savings he had accumulated, managed to open three more acupoints during these two months, reaching a total of eighteen acupoints.

His progress in the early stages of Combined Aperture Tempering realm cultivation had already reached halfway. Moreover, in these two months, his proficiency in the Zhongyuan Sword and the Soaring Heaven technique continued to improve and was approaching the Great Completion stage. As for the recently learned Giant Spirit Sword, thanks to the force field, it caught up with the progress of the other two techniques and reached the Perfection stage.

The Perfection stage of the Giant Spirit Sword, built upon the foundation of the Suppressing Dragon Elephant technique, bestowed Chen Fei with new strength, further enhancing his already formidable power in the early stages of Aperture Tempering realm cultivation.

As for the long-practiced Suppressing Dragon Elephant’s spirit-suppressing aspect, much like the body-suppressing aspect in the past, it was progressing rather slowly. Nevertheless, daily cultivation brought incremental gains, continuously strengthening Chen Fei’s mental and physical faculties. At this point, he was only a small portion of proficiency away from achieving mastery.

Chen Fei’s daily life was simple yet busy, shuttling back and forth as if following a set routine. Time flew by, and within the span of three months, it had been half a year since the massacre of the Long Rainbow Sect.

The alchemical tasks within the Alchemist Alliance continued to decrease, and Chen Fei’s supply of Spirit Snow Pills dwindled. In the span of three months, he opened two more acupoints, bringing the total to twenty.

At the same time, Chen Fei’s core soul energy had reached a level commensurate with the number of acupoints. If he were to open one or two more, he feared that his core soul energy would become uncontrollable. If Chen Fei continued to open acupoints without significantly increasing his core soul energy, the balance of power within his body would be disrupted.

Uncontrollable power not only failed to increase his strength but also became a burden, even a timed bomb. Chen Fei had to consider how to rapidly elevate his core soul energy

Almost no cultivator had such a predicament. It could only be said that Chen Fei’s rate of acupoint opening was simply astonishing.

In nearly two years, from breaking through the Aperture Tempering realm to now, he had traversed the equivalent of twenty years of progress for other cultivators, and that was for those with exceptional talents.

For many independent cultivators, opening five or six acupoints in twenty years was already considered remarkable progress. Even within the Immortal Cloud Sword Sect, there were no cultivators with Chen Fei’s rapid pace of advancement.

Progressing too quickly had become a predicament in itself.

Aside from his cultivation progress, Chen Fei had finally reached the Great Perfection stage in the second layer of the Primordial Sword Manual. This meant that he could now fuse the Zhongyuan Sword and the Giant Spirit Sword together.

Chen Fei would likely be the first person in the Primordial Sword Sect to achieve this, as even the Sect Leader, Qu Qingsheng, was still struggling in the first layer of the Primordial Sword Manual.

The Primordial Sword Manual, which had been the sect’s foundational technique in the past, wasn’t as easy to comprehend as it seemed.

Outside the Immortal Cloud city…

The Zhongyuan Sword Formation rose before him, with sixty sword pearls whizzing within the formation. Although the Zhongyuan Sword had not yet reached perfection, with increasing proficiency, Chen Fei could now display the level of sixty sword pearls.

In terms of comprehension of the Zhongyuan Sword, there were only two individuals in the Primordial Sword Sect who surpassed Chen Fei at this moment.

Giant Spirit!

Chen Fei pointed forward, and the power of the Giant Spirit Sword suddenly poured into the sword pearls. The pearls instantly expanded, and their strength increased significantly.

This was the process of fusion, directly enhancing the power of the technique. Even in the later stages of the Aperture Tempering realm, one’s strength wouldn’t be much weaker than others.

The Primordial Sword Manual was capable of fusing seven sets of techniques. If each of these techniques reached the Great Perfection stage, it would create an incredible scenario.

Chen Fei waved his right hand, and the sword formation dispersed, while his figure vanished from the original spot.

Ten days later, a piece of news suddenly reached Chen Fei’s hands: the mystic realm jointly managed by the four sects had undergone a transformation and upgrade.

Previously, only cultivators in the Body Refining Realm could enter the mystic realm. If a cultivator in the Aperture Tempering realm entered, they would be rejected by the entire mystic realm, making their movements difficult. If they weren’t careful, they could even be expelled from the mystic realm.

Now, however, that mystic realm had ascended in rank. Cultivators in the Aperture Tempering realm Early Stage could now enter it without any issues.

The first thing that came to Chen Fei’s mind was the little tree spirit, Baka.

A mystic realm wouldn’t ascend in rank without reason; there must be some secrets within it. However, when Body Refining Realm cultivators entered previously, they couldn’t find the reason.

The Primordial Sword Sect and two other sects were planning to organize a team to enter the mystic realm when the Immortal Cloud Sword Sect intervened..