As Liu Xing sat cross-legged, intending to experiment with his Eye of Lightning technique, he encountered a small problem. The gun was currently rather busy inside his consciousness. He could summon it easily, but doing so would mean halting the grinding of the mark, which he considered a priority. He thought for a moment whether he wanted to summon the gun anyway; his curiosity about the effect his gun would have on the Eye of Lightning was strong. In the end, however, he reined in his curiosity and sighed. If danger arose, he would not hesitate to summon his gun, but for now, ridding himself of the mark was more important than experimenting.

Since he could not experiment with his Eye of Lightning using his gun, he decided to experiment with his own power. As he sat cross-legged, the wind rushing, the women chattering, and the waves below rolling, he cycled his qi and activated the Eye of Lightning.

He altered the cycling pattern and visualization slightly, adding several new cycling paths, incorporating the knowledge Moon Flower had imparted to him, or rather, a small part of it, and then activated it. Instantly, a lightning orb materialized from his right palm. A connection formed between him and the orb, and he could see through it, his third eye.

This technique, given by Bai Lin, had one weakness. Granted, it was not too severe. It was just that his third eye, while looking like a lightning orb, actually had a front and a back side. This difference arose because he could only see from one side of the orb, like a real eye. If he wanted to see in the other direction, he needed to rotate the orb. The additional and modified cycling patterns he implemented were an attempt to diminish this weakness. Currently, while his lightning orb could not make Liu Xing see in all directions, its field of vision was actually quite wide.

Seeing that his experiment succeeded, he created a second and third lightning orb. He decided against creating a fourth eye because having three lightning eyes was already quite disorienting, and his head was also screaming in pain, so it seemed three lightning orbs were his limit for now.

The women looked at him and his three lightning eyes curiously, so Liu Xing decided to send the three Eyes of Lightning to fly ahead, acting as scouts. This was quite challenging. He was maintaining quite a lot of tasks simultaneously. Flying his turtle, maintaining the bubble of qi, grinding the little creature inside his consciousness, and currently controlling three additional eyes. Granted, he cheated a little. Instead of moving separately, his three new eyes moved together, making them a bit easier to control.

As he tried to maneuver the three eyes here and there, he began to rise from his position and move. He threw punches, kicks, and palm strikes, flowing from one attack to another. In just a couple of minutes, beads of sweat began to form on his face, his forehead scrunched in a focused expression.

"This is... a lot harder than I thought."

He intended to make these three additional eyes permanent, meaning he needed to make controlling them as easy as breathing, without burdening his mind. Still, while it was currently hard, and his face twisted in pain, his lips began to form a wild smile. A cultivator's main path to becoming stronger was to reach the next realm, but it was not the only way. The other, harder way was to deepen their understanding and consolidate their knowledge, be it their techniques, battle style, or many other things. Liu Xing's path to immortality was wide open, thanks to his gun, but he could not solely depend on his gun. He wanted to become stronger on his own too.

Currently, he did this by enhancing his mind and his multitasking ability.

At first, his movements were quite choppy and robotic. He needed to stop between strikes to ensure his Eyes of Lightning did not stop or collide with each other. But as time passed, his movements became smoother, his strikes more natural, and his footwork graceful. He did not practice a particular combat style now, only flowing from one form to another, but it was enough to mesmerize the women, who watched as if viewing a graceful dance show.

An hour later, he finally had enough control of his three eyes to begin pondering other things. His thoughts latched onto his recent fight with Han Jiulao.

"I've become too arrogant," Liu Xing suddenly muttered.

The battle with Han Jiulao could have ended swiftly if he had not decided to talk to Han Jiulao and gather information. At that time, while he thought Han Jiulao could not be underestimated, his heart actually did underestimate him. After all, Liu Xing had just won two huge victories.

One against Wei Yi and a kilometer-high giant, as well as Wei Yi's army of abominations. He had decimated thousands upon thousands of enemies and broken through from the Lock Opening realm's sixth stage to the Core Splitting realm's second stage. Second, he had just won against Wang Miau, an inner disciple of the Purple Moon Sect, as well as those three inner disciples.

He knew he was an elite even among Purple Moon Sect inner disciples, and this fact... made him a bit too arrogant.

As he began to control the three eyes to move in a triangular formation, speeding ahead to scout the surrounding area, he thought that if he had not disabled his invisibility, he could have killed Han Jiulao easily. Granted, Han Jiulao would have been on guard since his two sect members had suddenly dropped dead, but Liu Xing was pretty sure he could have killed Han Jiulao before he could escape.

Another reason he had taken his time was because he wanted to kill Han Jiulao using his gun. He wanted to get qi from Han Jiulao so he could advance faster, and this greed, combined with his arrogance, allowed Han Jiulao to escape successfully.

He had been marked too. This fact would not change whether he killed Han Jiulao or not, since he got this mark for killing Hou Qiang, but Han Jiulao knew about him and his mark. It was not impossible for Han Jiulao to suddenly appear behind him, which meant Liu Xing needed to maintain alertness.

Liu Xing decided to stop moving his body. At this point, he realized he had sufficient control of his three eyes. So, he challenged himself by making the three lightning orbs move in a bigger triangle, widening his sight area. He felt a bit of pain in his head and took that as a sign he was on the correct path.

When he felt a bit more comfortable, his mind circled back to the previous thought.

"My arrogance and greed were the fundamental reasons Han Jiulao escaped," he muttered, "but this is a battle-style problem as well."

It's because while he wanted the fight to end swiftly, he also wanted his gun to kill Han Jiulao.

Liu Xing remembered the first time he got the gun he had thought about changing his battle style. Previously, he was a close-quarter combatant, but the gun made him a long-range combatant. Once he got the Lightning Cloak Technique and could shape his Lightning Palm Technique into a lightning blade, he returned to being a close-combatant again, albeit with long-range capability. Not to mention when he got the stone blade. It was as if his gun had been reduced to a support role.

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That was precisely what had happened.

The gun had become mainly a support tool, but this did not fit with its most important capability.

Absorbing the qi of those it killed.

Liu Xing pondered for a long time. By then, his additional three eyes became more and more agile in the sky. At one point, he decided to make a really big triangle spanning hundreds of meters in size, with his turtle as the middle point. This way, they could not be ambushed by enemies. But while his mind became used to the three additional eyes, he could not come up with a singular idea about how to approach the correct battle style for him.

"If I'm using my stone blade as a primary tool to fight, I wouldn't get the qi of my opponents. But if I used the gun as my primary tool to fight, then the fight would be unnecessarily longer."

Soon, he realized the crux of the problem.

It was because his gun was weaker.

No, not the gun itself, but his techniques currently could not compete with the firepower of his stone blade.

This meant the solution was simple.

He needed stronger techniques.

This made Liu Xing sigh. Not too long ago, he had thought his Lightning Cloak and Lightning Palm were sufficient for him. Even if both were merely Base Grade, they could serve him until he was an Immortal. And yet, he currently assessed that this was not true, at least if he wanted the most optimal way to kill his enemies.

As he scratched his head, surprisingly, the leader of the women came to him. "Esteemed cultivator, I see you're troubled. Is there any problem?"

Liu Xing wanted to shake his head. But, after a moment, he thought better. Usually, something like this needed to be consulted with more experienced cultivators, ideally, his own master. But since he did not have a master, was an outside perspective not also good? Even if that perspective came from a woman who had never fought or even held a blade, he was sure she would have a unique perspective on his trouble. Hell, why not just involve all the women here?

Nodding, Liu Xing decided to invite all the women to sit in a half-circle around him, with the woman in the blue dress right in front of him.

He needed several minutes to describe his problem, even taking out his stone blade from his spatial bag. Unfortunately, he could not summon his gun, so he illustrated it using fingers posing as a gun.

Some of the women looked troubled by Liu Xing's problem. Understandable, really. All of them probably lived quite far away from violence. But some of them pinched and rubbed their chins, while some thought carefully and thoughtfully, as if even if they did not fully understand his problem, they could grasp it.

"Hence, why I'm troubled," Liu Xing concluded. "I have two distinct methods of attack. One, shooting bolts from my finger," he gestured to his left hand, "while the other involved moving close to the enemy and dealing with them with my blade," he gestured to his right hand, which held a long stone blade.

The leader of the group raised her hand. "So, if I'm not mistaken, then the problem is like this," she inhaled deeply. "You have two ways of dealing with enemies, each with advantages and disadvantages. To make it clearer, I imagined that your stone blade was strong and cut enemies with ease, but you're making a loss every time you deal with an enemy with it. It's like cutting an enemy with your stone blade is akin to cutting a precious gem, destroying it, while your other hand can harvest it, but it's weaker and riskier."

Liu Xing nodded. "Precisely. I want to deal with enemies as efficiently and effectively as possible, while on the other hand, I also don't want to lose my 'gems' since they are precious."

"Hmm," the leader rubbed her chin for several moments.

Unexpectedly, the teen raised her hand meekly. "E-esteemed cultivator, why don't you combine both of your weapons? You can use your blade to weaken the enemies and then harvest them with your other weapon?"

The other women nodded, agreeing with her idea.

Liu Xing thought for a moment. Indeed, that was an obvious path. It was like what he did to Wei Shuren. First, he split the man in half, and then he finished him with his gun. In hindsight, this was truly the best method to deal with an enemy. It would reduce his gun to a tool to harvest qi from his enemy, while the stone blade would be his main weapon. Still, he felt a little unsatisfied with this solution. After all, this meant he needed to consciously ensure his stone blade did not kill the enemy in the first attack but finished them with a two-move combo. Since he needed two moves to kill an enemy, there was a possible complication between the first and second attack.

"That's a good way of thinking," Liu Xing complemented the teen, and the teen smiled bashfully at him.

At this moment, he suddenly realized the morbidity of the conversation. Liu Xing had just asked for and received advice on how to murder people from the group women in front of him. Seeing the teen smile proudly, as if happy she could give a cultivator advice, his stomach twisted a little. Should he end this conversation?

The leader chose that moment to offer her advice.

"Esteemed cultivator. Truth to be told, my father had a similar experience to yours."

Liu Xing's eyebrows rose. He doubted another person had a similar situation to his, moreover from the leader's father. Was she not a merchant's daughter?

"Oh, really? Is your father a cultivator, or a warrior at least?"

"No, my father was a trader," she scratched her cheek with her index finger. "I know it seems far-fetched, but hear me out first. Around two to three years ago, my father had this problem. He had an employee who had a sharp mind and was a talented trader. When talking about him, my father was always full of praise. On the other hand, he had another employee. This one was also talented but rather slow compared to the first. The problem was, the second employee came from a more prominent background. My father was trying to marry me to one of them, but he could not make up his mind. Marrying me to the first would ensure our success, while marrying me to the second would open more opportunities. Imagine the first man was your blade, while the other was your fingers."

Liu Xing rubbed his chin but nodded.

"After a week of thinking, he decided on a simple solution. He set up a competition between the two. Whoever made the most profit in a year would marry me. After hearing his decision, both of them moved as if their rears were on fire. That year, my father's company was booming."

"I knew this story," a girl from behind exclaimed. "In the end, both of them tied, right?"

"Indeed," the leader nodded. She smiled a little, as if remembering fond memories. But a moment later, her smile vanished. Those happy memories were probably currently overshadowed by their gruesome deaths. She inhaled deeply, as if trying to forget the memory.

"The conclusion of this story, esteemed cultivator, is not to hold one of your weapons as main and the other as reserve. Instead, you need to make both of them compete. Whether your stone blade wins or your fingers, in the end, the one who will reap the benefit is you."

Liu Xing blinked several times, trying to digest the conclusion of her story.

A moment later, he felt as if he had just been struck by thunder.

Indeed, rather than trying to hold one behind the other, he could make sure his blade and gun competed with each other.

There would be occasions where his stone blade won, and other occasions where his gun won.

His mind suddenly filled with ideas. After all, making his gun and his stone blade compete was not impossible. He was currently in the Core Splitting realm, which meant he could control qi outside himself. There had been several occasions where he let the gun fly alone, controlled remotely by him. He more often than not held the stone blade, but holding his stone blade with qi alone was not impossible either.

Liu Xing released the stone blade from his right hand, encased it with qi, and made it move like a flying needle. The little shark, seeing his stone blade flying, tried to move along with it.

And then, as if everything came together, his mind once again startled, as if struck by thunder again.

He had Eyes of Lightning as well!

If there's an enemy in front of him right now, he would not be fighting one against one. Rather, he would fight as if trying to fight two opponents at the same time, his gun and his stone blade. No, three opponents! After all, he could enter this competition too.

"No, four opponents," he muttered.

The Tide Walker could also compete!

This way, his gun would not be guaranteed to be the one that killed his enemy last. But at the very least, this combat style would be efficient and effective. He would not underestimate his enemy either; rather, he would unleash all his power from the start, simultaneously.

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