The Xianmen Sect is different from any known cultivation Immortal Sects; it is quite special.
Inherited from the last civilization era, it places great importance on mortals and does not regard them as mere ants whose sole purpose is to produce cultivators with Spiritual Roots.
"The Sixty-eighth Set of Fledgling Hawk Flying Decree" is a product of this philosophy. The project was born on the day that cultivators were first discovered, more than ten thousand years ago, and has been improved and enhanced through the dedication of successive generations of Xianmen Sect's wise elders, including the participation of Patriarch Hua Shen and a large number of Nascent Soul Monks, now iterated for the sixty-eighth time.
Even now, one of the core threads of the Central Array Spirit Computer is still deriving the sixty-ninth generation of the "Eagle Taking Off Technique".
If there are breakthrough advancements, even the current Patriarch Hua Shen might get involved to accelerate its research and development.
This is absolutely a pioneering breakthrough in the cultivation world.
Those other various large and small sects and holy lands might have the ability, maybe not, but they would definitely not invest massive resources and high-level cultivators into such an endeavor.
Historically, every high-level cultivator with Quadruple Spiritual Roots who had a momentary brilliance was someone who had received an against-the-heavens opportunity, with no possibility of replication.
"The Sixty-eighth Set of Fledgling Hawk Flying Decree" is a popular curriculum on Lanying Planet, including sword arts, saber techniques, fist forms, staff techniques, and more—all-encompassing. As long as you want to, you can find something within it.
Jiang Ding was practicing "The Sixty-eighth Set of Fledgling Hawk Flying Sword Technique"!
Unfortunately, often matched with the effectiveness of a cultivation method is its difficulty!
He had been practicing martial arts since he was seven years old and now, after nine years, he was still only in the realm of proficiency, far from achieving a minor level of mastery!
How could he train his marrow to generate Inner Qi?
Jiang Ding's talent, although it was considered the bottom of the barrel on Lanying Planet.
But after all, he was the bottom of the barrel among the warriors of Lanying Planet!
With the aid of Rongcheng City's Array Spirit Computer, no matter which small world with only a martial arts heritage he was placed in, he would be the genius among geniuses, a dimension-reducing strike. It would not be strange for him to have cultivated to the peak of the Internal Qi Realm by now.
And indeed, that was the case. If he had cultivated a martial arts cultivation method other than the "Eagle Taking Off Technique", he might have been hopeful for the Xiantian realm by now.
The only downside was that his path to cultivation would be cut off.
The vast majority of mortal martial arts were created by mortals and low-level cultivators. With their abilities and insights, it was impossible to bridge the gap to cultivation.
The process of practicing mortal martial arts is one of forcibly destroying many tiny meridians in the body that many warriors cannot observe, reducing already meager talent to below the baseline.
Even if he risked a life-and-death danger to transition to a cultivation method with the Xiantian realm, the ultimate endpoint he could achieve was at best the first or second level of Qi cultivation, and his lifespan would be greatly reduced.
"Today, I will continue to practice 'The Sixty-eighth Set of Fledgling Hawk Flying Sword Technique'," Jiang Ding said, picking up a green steel sword from the weapon rack.
It was an Eight-Faced Han Sword, one meter three in length, with a blade, forged from N2702 Spell-Breaking Steel, which inherently had a weak law-breaking effect that could be slightly enhanced by channeling Inner Energy into it.
This material was also commonly used in bullet manufacturing. Under the conditions of sonic velocity and rotation, it could block a certain degree of interference from cultivators' Divine Sense, not deviating from its original shooting direction due to a light touch of Divine Sense.
He placed his hand on the hilt of the sword.
The figure under the light screen moved.
Stretching its limbs, the body gradually enlarged and became as tall as Jiang Ding, with matching height, shoulder width, arm length, and more, all identical—except the body was composed of faint blue light lines, with every muscle, bone, and tiny meridian clearly visible and labeled with small characters.
In the mechanical voice, the blue shadow moved, stepping forward with the right foot, bending the knees slightly, caressing the sword scabbard with the left hand, and placing the right hand across the waist on the hilt.
The air around seemed to stall.
Although it was just an assembly of faint blue lines without even skin, at that moment it exuded a heavy aura that radiated outward like a towering pine.
Jiang Ding knew that this was not simply grasping the sword with a hand.
From his perspective, within less than half a second, he could clearly see dozens, even hundreds, of complex changes in the shadow's muscles and meridians, like a variety of springs of different sizes compressing in the body, gathering various forces, and storing energy for the next moment's explosive display.
The aura was not an illusion, but the brain's perception of danger, issuing a warning in this form, urging the body to distance itself as much as possible from the source of danger.
Jiang Ding gripped the sword hilt, his posture indistinguishable from that of the blue shadow, closing his eyes to feel the build-up of energy in his body's muscles and meridians.
Out of 639 muscles, 52 could not store energy perfectly, mainly located in the smooth muscles of the digestive system and bladder, along with the cardiac muscle of the heart. Despite his success in the Body Refining Realm, he still couldn't perfectly train these muscles.
A miss is as good as a mile.
The result was that the strength he accumulated was at least three times less than that of the shadow in front of him, even though the latter was formed by fully utilizing his muscular and meridian data—the underlying foundation was precisely the same.
"Expose Sword Style."
Like a fully compressed spring, the blue shadow transitioned from absolute stillness to rapid motion in an instant, drawing with the tip of the sword, a perfect circle around itself.
The hundreds of tense muscle lines released, following a certain rule, gracefully like a piano master performing, filled with rhythmic beauty.
Jiang Ding did as shown, but the circle he drew always had a slight disharmony, a deviation, unable to release the stored power fully.