Chapter Eleven: The Full Moon

The elder held a tree branch, imparting a set of saber techniques to Shi Fei. The saber style was incredibly fierce, emphasizing fluid variations and seamless continuity—once unleashed, it flowed endlessly, pressing the enemy step by step.

“...”

Seeing the confusion in Shi Fei’s small eyes, the elder felt a sharp pang in his liver.

“I said, remember it!” the elder said impatiently.

Shi Fei exerted great effort to memorize the saber techniques, mainly by sketching the moves.

“Once memorized, practice diligently!”

The elder looked coldly at the chaotic scribbles of saber forms Shi Fei drew in the cave, resembling nothing more than gibberish.

If Shi Fei could master this saber style, then...

He would teach him another set!

Unexpectedly, the cave contained rusted weapons—sabers and swords—seemingly relics left behind long ago.

Each blade seemed to hold an untold story.

Shi Fei sighed as he gazed at the swords and sabers, recalling that when he first entered this dreamlike realm, he seemed to have brought a sword and a spear with him.

Where the spear had gone, he did not know.

Even if he had the spear, what good would it do?

Could he escape this place?

He picked up a saber and began practicing the set.

The saber style was powerful but difficult to grasp, especially since Shi Fei had never trained in saber techniques before. His clumsy attempts made the elder turn away in embarrassment.

It was too painful to watch.

Days later, the elder had a strange feeling about Shi Fei’s saber practice.

He began to think that teaching Shi Fei the saber style might have been a mistake.

Shi Fei himself felt an unease throughout his body, as if something was off.

This saber style was not right!

Since it felt wrong, he decided to practice in his own way.

He swapped the saber for a sword, beginning to train the techniques as he understood them.

Were saber and sword techniques different in power application or focus?

As long as the move could kill, what difference did it make?

Shi Fei didn’t know; he only knew that practicing according to his understanding felt right. His internal energy flowed with the sword moves, emitting a faint ringing sound inside the stone cave.

A sword light appeared, like an aurora in the night—beautiful, dreamlike, and illusory.

The elder couldn’t help but stand up and asked, “What is that?”

“The saber technique you taught me!”

“You? Taught it?”

“Yes!”

“Then why can’t I recognize it?”

“Because when you taught it, it was yours. Now, it’s mine,” Shi Fei said. “Martial arts change in the hands of each practitioner.”

“Did I ever say that?”

The elder looked at Shi Fei’s sword style, which resembled saber moves yet also sword techniques, bearing traces of the form he’d taught but going in a completely different direction.

“Did I really say that?”

Shi Fei sheathed his sword. “You did.”

I said it, but not like this... not to have you practice it all wrong!

The elder was puzzled but feigned calm.

He said, “You’re practicing well! How long until you can leave?”

Shi Fei leapt upward like a great bird, running along the cave wall for seven or eight yards.

Soon, he returned.

“If it were just me, it’d take about a month. But with you, it’ll take a month and a half.”

The elder raised an eyebrow in the shadows.

A month and a half to reach the pinnacle of martial arts in the jianghu?

Am I crazy, or is this guy?

He had much he wanted to say, but in the end, he said nothing: “Keep practicing. I’ll teach you another saber technique!”

This new set was more complex, each form containing thirty-six moves, each move having one hundred and eight variations, with techniques nested within techniques, tightly linked like a chain.

Infinite variations, infinitely flexible—it exhausted all possible changes in saber techniques!

For an ordinary person, mastering this would take years.

But Shi Fei was no ordinary man; he broke through normal limits.

Seven days later, his sword style was perfected.

Sword light densely packed, stretching boundlessly—a culmination of all saber and sword technique variations. Anyone caught within this sword light would surely perish.

“What the hell is this?” The elder cursed, a first in his life since he had never needed such language.

Now, he was somewhat shaken.

Shi Fei said, “This is the saber technique you taught me!”

The elder, breaking down, said, “What the hell is this?”

He had spent years mastering that very technique.

Now, some kid had learned it in seven days using bizarre methods and twisted it beyond recognition.

How could he not be rattled?

Shi Fei performed a flourish with his sword. “Yours is yours, mine is mine.”

“This is impossible! Have you studied sword techniques before just to toy with me?” The elder pointed accusingly.

Shi Fei shook his head. “I came here knowing nothing—not martial arts, not sword techniques.”

Yes, sword techniques could hide incompetence, but internal energy could not.

Internal energy...

Even that was something else entirely.

The elder felt as if thousands of sheep were stampeding through his mind.

His lifelong beliefs had been shattered, as if someone told him humans evolved from monkeys.

To test Shi Fei and preserve his own understanding, the elder hesitated before saying, “I have one more move to teach you.”

“One move?” Shi Fei asked.

Sunlight streamed into the cave, shining on the elder.

“A move unmatched in heaven and earth!”

“If you master it, there’s nothing left for me to teach.”

Shi Fei nodded. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here.”

He never forgot his promise to the elder: the elder taught him martial arts, and he would lead the elder to escape.

The elder was silent for a moment, then said, “You have spirit. Though this move lacks variation, it encompasses the essence of all saber technique variations. It can spiral and dance in the air, decapitating foes from a hundred paces away.”

“Because with this move, every factor—blade technique, position, timing, force, speed—is precisely calculated to maximize your power!”

“Listen carefully...”

Shi Fei listened intently, sensing the elder’s words were strangely familiar.

As if he had heard them somewhere before.

This time, he didn’t try to imitate but practiced the elder’s move in his own way.

Though it was just one move, it was truly difficult.

Even with his own method, it took him more than ten days to master it.

In that time, the elder’s mood shifted from calm to alarmed, from alarmed to fearful, and finally back to calm.

He coolly watched the sword in Shi Fei’s hand emit an extraordinarily dazzling light, like a full moon or a crescent moon, carrying mysterious power that easily carved into the stone wall.

The stone wall, compressed for millions of years and harder than refined steel, bore a thumb-width scar!

Exhausted, the elder thought, let him be.