Rise of Humanity

Chapter 45 Sword Token

Beads of cold sweat percolated on Qiu Jin’er’s forehead, her mother had really stepped it up, she even dared to set her sights on the secret art of the Swords Gate headmaster.

“The headmaster’s 【Great Boundless Sword Qi】 will definitely be passed down to his successor, while the headmaster is now old, he might die anytime now, therefore, he will definitely leave down a written record of it, a medium that contains the secret of his 【Great Boundless Sword Qi】.”

The beautiful woman pondered and thought, “I’ve searched the whole golden summit and paid countless visits to the library, but I still couldn’t find where he hid the medium at, the only thing I’ve found is this sword token. But it’s utterly useless, it contains only an ordinary sword art that goes by the name of Geng Jin Sword Qi. I peeped at headmaster diligently sculpting this sword token and I thought it would be some good stuff, but who knew it was just an ordinary sword art like this Geng Jin Sword Qi…”

Qiu Jin’er took over the sword token and looked at it, it was really the Geng Jin Sword Qi.

Geng Jin Swords Qi was one of the most common sword art among the Swords Gate, Qiu Jin’er had once practiced it, it could not be considered as a profound art at all.

“Mother, even if I don’t practice the 【Great Boundless Sword Qi】, I would still not be weaker than the others. There is no need for mother to worry about me, as long as I am outstanding enough, the headmaster would surely pass the 【Great Boundless Sword Qi】 to me” Qiu Jin’er smiled and reassured her mother.

The beautiful woman shook her head and said solemnly, “It may be true but things are different now. If the headmaster is still young and lively, he will have more than enough time to select the next in line, there will be time for you to grow and compete with the four young successor candidates. But now the headmaster is old, he will have to push forward the timeframe within which he decides the next headmaster by at least a few years. You entered the scene later than those four young and formidable opponents of yours, they are already strong and well-known Qi Practitioners, you will not have enough time to stand out. The only way to stand out and chase up to Fang Jiange and the like … is to take a shortcut!”

“I don’t want to stand out either…” Qiu Jin’er mumbled.

“If you don’t stand out, how are you going to remedy your leg?”

The beautiful woman sighed, she carried Qiu Jin’er and placed her on the wooden wheelchair and pushed her out, she said, “You were born with the Wood Innate Spirit, the wood element in your body is too overpowering causing your legs to be impaired from birth. I’ve asked the You Yu Clan grand elder, he said that the Wood Innate Spirit is both a blessing and curse, you are born with a heavily concentrated wood element Qi that also took a toll on your body. Plus, you didn’t make it in time to cultivate at an early age, hence, the wood element Qi accumulated in greater quantities. As the Wood Innate Spirit is the God of Tree, when you were born, the tree god will have to find a way to take root. Your legs were the roots, your body the tree trunk and branches and your head comprise the tree crown. It is still fine if your legs are impaired, but a few more years later your body might just be wholly affected, then you will be a living dead, there’s nothing you can control other than your soul.”

Qiu Jin’er stayed silent, moments later she insisted, “Mother, you don’t have to push me, I am a Qi Practitioner, I can fly even without my legs.”

The beautiful woman shook her head and insisted on pushing the wheelchair as she said, “Only with the increase of your prowess can you resolve the oppressive wood Qi in your body and wrest back full autonomy of your body. But the wood Qi is too heavily concentrated in your body … accumulated too much. With your current cultivation speed, god knows how long it would take to resolve the wood Qi. If your body is solidified by the wood Qi, then you … If you can practice the headmaster’s 【Great Boundless Sword Qi】, your cultivation speed will be crazily fast. Once you are cured, why would mother still stop you from leaving the palace?”

Qiu Jin’er gripped the sword token tightly in her hands, she maintained a contemplative silence.

“Let’s go and bathe in the sunlight, look at your face, all pale and white.”

The beautiful woman pushed her out of the palace, she crouched down and tapped on Qiu Jin’er’s legs, she asked, “Any feeling?”

Qiu Jin’er shook her head.

The woman then pinched her waist, “Pain?”

“Pain.” Qiu Jin’er answered.

The beautiful woman heaved a breath of relief and her face suffused a pensive smile, “Good, your waist is still not affected yet, if it is, then it will be very dangerous. The waist is not far away from the heart, if your heart is affected, then there would be no recourse anymore. When you are done resting, I will go to the golden summit again … I refuse to believe that I can’t find where the 【Great Boundless Sword Qi】 is hidden!”

The smile on Qiu Jin’er face was sweet and warm but beneath her clothes at her waist lied purplish and livid bruises that belied the serenity she showed on her face. The bruises weren’t pinched by her mother, but a result of her own desperate inflictions.

Her waist had long since been numbed - she could not feel any pain at all, no matter how hard she pinched.

The next day, Zhong Yue met with Qiu Jin’er again. The young maiden’s soul flew over, she danced in the midst of the lightning like a gracious fairy; she was practicing an art of the sword.

The sword art she cast was sharp and intense, the golden Sword Qi curled and intertwined with the lightning, it painted a very astonishing scene, even more profound than the 【Spring Thunder Swords Art】 he has learned from Elder Pu.

“Junior Martial Sister Jin’er , what sword art is this?” Zhong Yue was surprised and asked curiously.

Qiu Jin’er was even more surprised, she said, “This is the Geng Jin Sword Qi, most of the Qi Practitioners in Swords Gate have learned this before, hasn’t senior martial brother practice it before?”

Zhong Yue was ashamed, he was never a Qi Practitioner, how could he have the qualification to learn the Qi Practitioner leveled sword art, Geng Jin Sword Qi.

I guess only this silly little Junior Martial Sister Jin’er couldn’t tell that I am not Qi Practitioner. Zhong Yue said in his heart.

“Wait for a moment senior martial brother!”

Qiu Jin’er’s soul flew back to her palace and returned moments later, bringing a sword token along with her, she smiled and said, “Senior Martial Brother Zhong, this sword token contains the art of Geng Jin Sword Qi, you only need to ‘look’ at it with your heart and feel it, then you will be able to learn it.”

Zhong Yue accepted the sword token and his sights fixated on it, there were sword marks disorderly placed all over the sword token, it was hard to tell how would one learn the Geng Jin Sword Qi from the sword token, his brows furrowed in confusion.

But it was not long before Zhong Yue’s heart suddenly thumped quicker, the cluttered sword marks on the sword token magnified before his eyes as if they were actual slashes of sword rays that sliced the heaven and earth in half!

A thrust that caused the stars to fall, a slash that demarcated life from death, a slice that divided Yin and Yang from the Void!

Another few moments later, the sword marks slowly disintegrated and within it, various kinds of marvelous totem carvings emerged, this should be where one could truly learn the Geng Jin Sword Qi!

Zhong Yue focused his sights on the totem carvings, the more he looked at it, the quicker his heart thumped.

The totem carvings are the medium that contain the true quintessences of the arts and techniques. Every single art and technique is derived from the fundamental permutations of the totem carvings. For example, the 【Spring Thunder Swords Art】, it’s core totem is the thunder totems, Elder Pu taught me twelve different types of thunder totems and from those twelve totem carvings, formed the 【Spring Thunder Swords Art】.

He watched closely at the Geng Jin Sword Qi’s totem carvings, there were a total of thirty-six different totem carvings!

But as he focused deeper into it, he could slowly delineate an abstruse secret about the totem carvings, they all ostensibly appeared as such on the surface, but in truth, all of the thirty-six totem carvings, were in fact, one!

The total of thirty-six totem carvings was only ancillary to this one totem carving!

This totem carving was like Zhong Yue’s Dragon Blood Scabbard, if you place a sword in it then it would be a sword scabbard, or if a blade then a blade scabbard.

This totem carving was shaped like a sword totem, it was the base of all and within it were incorporated thirty-six other totem carvings which ultimately formed the Geng Jin Sword Qi visualization totem.

If it were for the fact that he was cultivating the 【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】, allowing his soul to take the form of the Sui Sovereign which had the third eye - divine eye, he would not be able to discern the hidden sword totem carvings within the chaotic derangement of sword marks.

“A sword art with only one totem carving?”

Zhong Yue was perplexed, the totem carvings of the Geng Jin Sword Qi were even fewer than the simple 【Spring Thunder Swords Art】!

The 【Spring Thunder Swords Art】 was the art that the upper house disciples can only learn while the higher grades of thunderous lightning sword arts were in the hands of Lei Hu Qi Practitioners. Zhong Yue once heard Elder Pu and Ting Lanyue say before, that the Lei Hu Clan had mastered 128 thunder totem carvings!

The common intuition of cultivation was, the greater the number of totem carvings in the arts and techniques, the stronger it would be. Under this consensus, the twelve thunder totem carvings 【Spring Thunder Swords Art】 would be stronger than the one totem carving Geng Jin Sword Qi. But the truth was, the more Zhong Yue studied the sword totem carving the more he could feel its immense strength, it was far more profound than the 【Spring Thunder Swords Art】!

If he combined it with the Jiao Dragon totem, it would incite an incredible phenomenon between the two and form an incisive and brutal combat art, an art that would be far stronger than the 【Jiao Dragon Winding Body Totem Technique】!

Not only that, it seemed like the sword totem can fuse with any of the other totem carvings giving him infinite possibilities in the way of cultivation!

Geng Jin Sword Qi could be described as a boundless Sword Qi, there are no limits to it! With this Sword Qi, I can travel the world without fear!

Zhong Yue praised it greatly in his heart, he then immersed his whole body and mind to study the sword totem, he did not even notice when Qiu Jin’er had left.

The sword totem was too exquisite and marvelous to the point that he completely disregarded the thirty-six totems, in his eyes, only this one sword totem carving was the core, the other thirty-six totem carvings were merely accessory, it would not be necessary to practice them.

Junior Martial Sister Jin’er left?

Zhong Yue only stopped after his psyche and soul neared exhaustion, he said in his heart, It’s fine, I will return to her tomorrow. This sword totem is too profound, I can’t study it thoroughly alone, Junior Martial Sister Jin’er is a Qi Practitioner and she had practiced the Geng Jin Sword Qi for quite some time, she must have some precedent experiences that I can glean from.

Qiu Jin’er’s soul returned back to her body, the palace was empty as her mother had yet to return. She tried to stand up - Pu-tong - unsurprisingly she fell down from the wooden wheelchair.

The young maiden’s psyche moved and lifted her up from the ground and placed her back onto the wooden wheelchair.

“Jin’er, your waist…”

The beautiful woman stood in front of the palace, she stared blankly at Qiu Jin’er, her voice shuddered with fear, “Does it have no feeling anymore?”

Qiu Jin’er lowered her sights, a small part of her clothes were torn as she fell to the ground, revealing the livid bruises on her waist.

The beautiful woman’s psyche lifted Qiu Jin’er and the wooden wheelchair wholly out of the palace, she hurried and said, “We can wait no longer, I will talk to the grand elder right now, no matter how I will have him suppress the wood element in your body!”

Qiu Jin’er’s heart thumped, she quickly answered, “Mother, can we wait until tomorrow, I will tell Senior Martial Brother Zhong and then we can go to the grand elder…”

“Not a single second can we delay!”

The beautiful woman brought her up to the golden summit of Swords Gate.

The next day, when Zhong Yue arrived at the lightning zone, Qiu Jin’er was unexpectedly absent, he waited and waited but she did not appear.

Is Junior Martial Sister Jin’er entangled with some other matters? I was just thinking of asking her the about the sword totem.

The third day, Qiu Jin’er was still nowhere to be found, as well as on the fourth, and the days following so forth. For a long period of time, Zhong Yue no longer saw the young maiden he first spotted in the lightning.