Chapter 148: Learning from Others

Ding Songyan looked at Tang Du’s remnant soul and asked in a resigned tone, "Why did you try to kill me?"

It was obviously because of the counterfeit huangliang awakening block, but the question still needed asking. After all, what if there was some other purpose behind it?

Tang Du’s remnant soul answered with a trembling voice, "I wanted that awakening block. I still have hopes of entering the Dharma Realm, and if I could live through an entire lifetime in a dream, it might help me refine my heart and mind.

"And I get particularly excited at the thought of a fight to the death."

Such a love of fighting... Ding Songyan asked a few more questions and confirmed that this man was a fish he had lured in himself, not bait sent by someone else.

He thought for a moment, then engaged Tang Du’s remnant soul in a conversation about martial arts with considerable interest.

"Those near-Dharma Realm hammer blows of yours must have come from gathering the strength of many. It can gather the strength of nearby comrades as well as the accumulated force of your own past strikes?"

Broadening his exposure to countless martial arts schools, then using Bringing All Things Into Unity and Manifesting the Way and its Virtue to synthesize and recombine what he learned into a grand unified model of martial arts of his own creation was one of the few paths by which Ding Songyan felt he could surpass Ji Hanyi in thinking, ideas, and practice.

From the fight just now, he had gained some understanding of Tang Du’s Accumulating Water Divine Art, but having only witnessed it for such a short time and without the experience of his mind being directly struck by it, many of the details remained unclear.

Tang Du’s remnant soul answered Ding Songyan’s questions honestly.

According to him, a martial artist who cultivated the Accumulating Water Divine Art would, upon reaching the Great Proliferation Realm, gradually develop a connection to the surrounding void, as if they were standing at the center of a pond.

Once he activated Fathomless Depths, a portion of the true qi and force from each hammer blow would overflow and accumulate in that surrounding void "pond." When the pond had gathered enough to become an abyss, it would shatter the "dam" and pour out, producing a strike approaching the Dharma Realm. The one problem was that if the accumulated force was left unused or exceeded its time limit, it would backlash against him.

Gathering the strength of comrades was also achieved through the void "pond." When practitioners of this art were within four meters of one another, all their ponds would connect to form a vast abyss-sea, which would ultimately be channeled outward by whoever stood at the front or led the charge.

Since the heaven-earth severance, there were limits to human power. Even a Supreme Master would find an army wielding this art extremely troublesome.

You can begin to make use of the surrounding void as early as the Great Proliferation Realm? This art is quite interesting... Ding Songyan listened with keen attention.

Manipulating the surrounding void was one of the defining traits of the Dharma Realm. The Accumulating Water Divine Art’s approach was narrow and crude, but it was still remarkable. A typical Great Proliferation Realm martial artist could barely project true qi enough to deflect rain, generate a bit of sword or saber radiance, or produce some flames and miasma.

Kindling Passes to Candle of the Seven Swords of Candlelit Night was a technique of fast swords building momentum before breaking the enemy. It was superficially similar to Fathomless Depths, but the underlying principles were different.

Its momentum-building came from two sources. First, using oneself as a vessel, coordinating apertures and true qi with each technique to accumulate force drop by drop. Second, using the rapid clashes with an opponent to transform true qi into sparks that scattered through the air and briefly lingered, then threading them all together with a single sword stroke before they dissipated, igniting them against one another to multiply the technique’s power.

For this reason, the opening portion of Kindling Passes to Candle had to be fast. Too slow, and the Candleflame would extinguish one by one before momentum could build. Moreover, driving the technique with Candleflame True Qi was at least ten percent more effective than using Myriad Star True Qi.

Ding Songyan eagerly asked Tang Du what specific techniques Fathomless Depths involved, which apertures it employed, how the true qi circulated, and how those corresponding apertures had originally been refined.

In his view, there was a real possibility of integrating this technique with Kindling Passes to Candle. At worst, it could make Kindling Passes to Candle considerably more potent.

His short-term goal was to rely on the Chaos Realm he already possessed. Since the Chaos Realm placed extremely strong constraints on the outward release of true qi, he could incorporate the techniques of Fathomless Depths and similar moves into Kindling Passes to Candle, thereby greatly increasing its power.

His medium-term goal was to derive the apertures from Fathomless Depths that involved making use of the void and put them to use with Candleflame True Qi, leveraging the fact that Presence-Absence Myriad Forms Qi could coexist with Candleflame True Qi. This would allow Zheng Zhuxi, having mastered the Lesser Limitless Art, to transform the surrounding void into a "pond" or a "prairie" at the Great Proliferation Realm, accumulating spark after spark without worrying that the overflowing true qi would quickly dissipate.

With that, Kindling Passes to Candle could evolve into a "man-made flood." A single spark could set the prairie ablaze.

This improvement would certainly not come easily. The apertures from Fathomless Depths that pertained to void manipulation would inevitably overlap with some of the apertures refined through the Candlelit Nocturne Chart and the Celestial Stars Chart. Using both at the same time would create conflicts, or even result in clashing true qi and qi deviation.

He would have to feel his way forward carefully, eliminating the less critical overlapping apertures, and for those that couldn’t be eliminated, improve their refinement and rerouting the true qi pathways so they wouldn’t produce obvious conflicts with the corresponding apertures of the Candlelit Nocturne Chart and the Celestial Stars Chart. It would be useful for a time, at least.

This would inevitably diminish the effectiveness of Fathomless Depths, but once integrated into Kindling Passes to Candle, the combined power would still be formidable.

As a medium-term goal, Ding Songyan felt the integration would take at least six months to a year before it could succeed.

The long-term goal was more complicated still. What Ding Songyan had in mind was adding a set of supplementary apertures beyond those refined by the Celestial Stars Chart and the Candlelit Nocturne Chart. These apertures would play no role in advancing his realm and would not interfere with regular cultivation, but would activate the moment Kindling Passes to Candle was used and produce an effect similar to Fathomless Depths.

Whether such an improvement was even achievable, Ding Songyan himself wasn’t sure. It depended on exactly which apertures from Fathomless Depths were involved in the void manipulation, how severe their conflict with the Celestial Stars Chart and the Candlelit Nocturne Chart actually was, and whether simply rerouting the true qi pathways could produce some degree of integration.

If it could be achieved, Ding Songyan didn’t dare imagine how magnificent pairing the Northern Dipper Sword Formation, the Celestial Guardian Sword Formation, or the completed Celestial Stars Formation with a Kindling Passes to Candle imbued with the special properties of Fathomless Depths would look.

If it didn’t work out, he would have to consider having everyone in the Brightnight Sect cultivate the Lesser Limitless Art, but then calling it the Brightnight Sect would be a bit of a misnomer.

Eyes burning with that desire, Ding Songyan listened intently as Tang Du’s remnant soul described the techniques of Fathomless Depths and the various apertures it involved.

The soul had barely spoken seven or eight sentences before it let out a wailing shriek and rapidly dissolved away under Banishing Demons and Warding Off Evil.

"Don’t go..." Ding Songyan instinctively reached out his left hand, trying to pull Tang Du’s remnant soul back, but it was already too late.

He let out a sigh, both frustrated and helpless.

Right when it was getting to the important part... Sigh, this trait of mine that radiates but can’t be reined in really is a problem...

Ding Songyan was forced to think about how he might obtain the Accumulating Water Divine Art later. Otherwise all those ideas he had just worked out would come to nothing.

This is a military art. I wonder if I could get a look at the Accumulating Waters Scripture through Xing Chang. I’m not asking for the aperture forging or viscera installation techniques, just a chance to look over the Fathomless Depths technique and its corresponding aperture refinement methods. There should be a way, right?

Hmm, I’ve only mastered the Northern Dipper Sword Formation so far. I haven’t yet learned the Celestial Guardian Sword Formation. As a higher-level sword formation, would it have its own force-gathering techniques?

Mind churning with these thoughts, Ding Songyan slid Frostshade—now completely clean without a drop of blood remaining—back into its scabbard.

In the narrow space between the bed and the table, the surrounding air shifted strangely, as if invisible barriers were rapidly dissolving.

A few breaths later, Pan Yunzhou—asleep in his chair with his saber in his arms—twitched his nose.

Blood! He snapped awake instantly.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Ding Songyan standing with his sword to one side, a corpse on the floor. The fatal wounds were in the throat and between the brows, and blood had pooled across the floor.

"What..." Pan Yunzhou rose to his feet in shock.

He could tell that the body had been dead for some time.

Junior Brother Ding had not only killed the attacker, but he has already finished the spirit channeling as well?

How did I not notice a single thing?

Ding Songyan turned his head.

"This man came in the night to take my awakening block. I killed him."

Before Pan Yunzhou could respond, he smiled.

"Senior Brother Pan, you know I have important business in Yuejiang Prefecture and can’t afford to draw attention to myself. When you report to the station master in a moment, please tell him that you were the one who killed this man. The wound between his brows is where I finished him off. Just say it’s from your saber. I’ll split some of the bounty with you."

Pan Yunzhou walked over to the corpse and studied the dead man’s features carefully.

Distinct physical anomalies. Looks like someone who cultivated the Accumulating Water Divine Art. He was probably fourth-rank Mortal Surpassed... If I pushed myself hard and had some assistance, I could have killed him. It wouldn’t raise suspicion... Junior Brother Ding really does have strength on par with a fourth-rank Mortal Surpassed. No wonder he wins whenever we spar... His cultivation realm may be low, but he’s a prodigy in the martial path with extraordinary insight... Pan Yunzhou thought for a moment, then looked up at Ding Songyan.

"Okay."

He drew his saber at once, set it against Tang Du’s neck, and severed the assailant’s head along the line of the sword wound Ding Songyan had made.

At the same time, an image was already forming in his mind of how his junior brother had killed the man.

The moment the assailant reached the bedside, Junior Brother Ding had struck without warning, driving his sword through the man’s throat. Once the assailant fell, he finished him off with a thrust between the brows.

Pan Yunzhou felt that only this kind of swift ambush consisting of only two or three moves to end the fight could explain why he hadn’t noticed a thing.

And only that was consistent with how he assessed his junior brother’s strength. Otherwise, wouldn’t Junior Brother Ding be as powerful as Junior Sister Zheng?

His cultivation realm was still lower than hers!

"He called himself Tang Du," Ding Songyan informed his senior brother as he stepped out to summon the waiter and the post station soldiers.

The commotion woke the people in the surrounding rooms; some stepped out to see what was happening, others cracked their wooden doors open a sliver.

Before long, the station master, whose face bore a certain resemblance to a goat, entered the room with several soldiers.

He produced a crumpled wanted notice dug up from some corner, crouched beside the corpse, and compared them carefully for a while before looking up at Pan Yunzhou.

"It’s definitely Tang Du. Originally a military traitor, he committed a violent crime last month. He’s believed to have reached the perfected Great Proliferation Realm—third-rank Form Transfigured. Bounty of 19,000 taels.

"Young Hero Pan, you killed him? Excellent saber technique!"

The station master’s gaze toward Pan Yunzhou had quietly changed, now carrying unmistakable awe.

Believed to have reached the perfected Great Proliferation Realm—third-rank Form Transfigured. A bounty of 19,000 taels... I killed him? Pan Yunzhou stood frozen.

He instinctively turned his head to look beside him.

He found his junior brother smiling at him with a perfectly innocent expression.

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