"You go ahead with your alchemy, I’ll find a way to get you the remaining two stalks of Great Luo Sword Grass. However, it will be two days later before I can give them to you. As for the auxiliary medicines and such, you’ll have to figure that out on your own!"
"Your senior brothers and sisters exchanged for four stalks of Ten-thousand-year-old Daluo Sword Grass in one go, which could easily attract attention. I must find a way to cover this up for you."
Elder Shoumei is also well aware of the extreme difficulty Chu Feng faces in reclaiming the Nine Yang Sword Veins.
He is more concerned about premature exposure, leading to the mad retribution from Prince Jianyun. If a True Disciple were to kill an ordinary disciple without any regard, the chances of succeeding are very high.
Elder Shoumei can’t possibly watch over Chu Feng all the time.
Therefore, to show weakness to the enemy, to make them complacent and lower their guard, is the best approach.
Chu Feng had already obtained four of the most crucial Ten-thousand-year-old Daluo Sword Grass, and with the promise of two more from his master Elder Shoumei, he finally gathered the six stalks of Great Luo Sword Grass he needed.
Thereby, a destination for his remaining six Fake Sword Veins was secured.
If relying solely on his personal efforts, obtaining six stalks of ten-thousand-year-old Daluo Sword Grass would be impossible within a year, let alone in three or five years.
There are four essentials for cultivation: Wealth, Companions, Method, and Location; with ’Wealth’ being the first and foremost.
’Wealth’ represents cultivation resources.
With ample cultivation resources, Chu Feng can cultivate undistracted, focusing all his energy and time on tasks such as creating Fake Sword Veins and understanding Sword techniques.
In the following days, Chu Feng invested all his thoughts in cultivation, severing all ties with the outside world.
He had made arrangements with Li Shishi, that unless it was a matter of life and death for his senior brother, second sister, Han Xiaoying, and others, he should not be disturbed. All matters were to be handled by Li Shishi.
Time flew by in a hurry, and more than ten months passed in the blink of an eye.
With the help of his master Elder Shoumei, and his four senior brothers and sisters, Chu Feng finally created the remaining six Fake Sword Veins without any major incidents, achieving the number of extreme nine.
In the world, all things regard nine as supreme.
Since ancient times, there has been an adage that too much is as bad as too little. This applies to the numerical principals of heaven and earth as well.
If it exceeds nine, then it reaches ten, which is a number of fullness.
It’s not that the fullness is bad, but that heaven is jealous. If there is something too perfect, it easily invites calamities from the heavens. The often mentioned ’heaven’s jealousy of the talented’ is of this very reason.
If a person is too outstanding, too perfect, to the extent that even the heavens become jealous, caution is required. It often leads to disasters and misfortunes that end their promising lives prematurely.
Chu Feng not only created all nine Fake Sword Veins but also elevated his cultivation to the Advanced Sword Master Realm.
His status as an Advanced Sword Master, however, is quite different from that of an ordinary Advanced Sword Master.
Because an ordinary Advanced Sword Master has, at most, five sword meridians, and some even only possess three sword meridians.
The vast majority of ordinary people have three sword meridians, also known as the Three Talents Sword Veins. A small portion of people possess the Five Elements Sword Veins, which is five sword meridians.
Whether it’s the Three Talents Sword Veins or the Five Elements Sword Veins, they are classified as ordinary sword meridians.
Only when there are more than five, such as the Six Yang Sword Veins, Seven-star Sword Veins... do they belong to the Special Sword Veins.
It can be said that each additional sword meridian signifies that one’s talent far exceeds others. This ’exceeding’ is not by just a little, but by several folds, dozens, or even hundreds of times.
This is no exaggeration.
Comparing the Three Talents Sword Veins with the Nine Yang Sword Veins is definitely like comparing the earth to the heavens.
After successfully creating nine Fake Sword Veins, Chu Feng almost became a regular at the Fiery Flame Cave. His cultivation surged like a flood, achieving an unprecedented rate of improvement.
Given that his constitution was inherently a Nine Yang Body and he possessed an Abnormal Fire, coupled with being in a place abundant in Fire Spirit, it was only natural that his cultivation soared rapidly.
One day of cultivation inside the Fiery Flame Cave was equivalent to over a hundred days of cultivation for an ordinary person.
Now, every one of the nine sword meridians in his body was brimming with Sword Qi.
Besides reaching the gratifying realm of an Advanced Sword Master, Chu Feng’s understanding of sword techniques had also significantly advanced.
The Glazed Sword Technique had progressed to the Fourth Level, reaching the realm where the sword is like a wall, and the technique is like a barrier. When he executed the Fourth Level of the Glazed Sword Technique combined with his Advanced Sword Master cultivation, he could absolutely form an impregnable wall of sword light.
Compared to the Glazed Sword Technique, his understanding of the Heaven and Earth Sword Skill advanced much slower. Currently, he had only grasped the Second Level, Heavy Sword.
The First Level of the Heaven and Earth Sword Skill was Fast Sword, pursuing the ultimate in speed.
The Second Level, however, was Heavy Sword. The Heavy Sword without Edge.
It is in total contrast to Fast Sword, not seeking speed. It focuses solely on ensuring that each sword strike achieves the pinnacle of strength.
At that time, in order to comprehend the Second Level of the Heaven and Earth Sword Skill, Chu Feng specially got a blunt, unsharpened sword, and ran to the sect’s woodshed to chop wood.
This was a task normally done by those relegated to performing miscellaneous tasks within the sect.
What does ’miscellaneous tasks’ entail? It refers to those who were Sword Slaves; when their masters died and no one was willing to take them in, but the sect, due to considerations of face, did not wish to expel them.
So, they were arranged to join the sect’s kitchen, mines, and other places to assume the role of doing miscellaneous tasks.
Chopping wood, carrying water, mining, and building were all tasks done by these people.
After all, Chu Feng was an entry-level disciple and a disciple of an elder; compared to a person assigned to miscellaneous tasks, his status was many times higher.
Yet, he ran to the woodshed to chop wood, which was truly a bit demeaning.
Many people mocked him in secret, calling him a woodchopper. Others even fabricated so-called rumors, saying that Chu Feng had no talent and couldn’t win the favor of Elder Shoumei, hence he was punished daily by chopping wood.
Regarding these rumors and slanders, Chu Feng merely laughed them off, never taking them seriously.
He still did as he pleased, cheerfully running to be a woodchopper every day. He seemed to have an endless supply of energy, tirelessly chopping wood each time he went into the woodshed. Initially, due to a lack of technique and insufficient comprehension of the Second Level of the Heaven and Earth Sword Skill,
he didn’t chop much wood. Exhausted to death, his hands blistered, yet he was only able to chop a full load of wood.
Thus, he gained another nickname, ’Waste’.
Even many of the servile workers mocked him behind his back. As ordinary workers, they could chop up to ten full loads of wood each day.
In the first three months, Chu Feng constantly bore the title of ’Waste’.
The amount of wood he chopped always remained under five loads.
Later, in the fourth month, he began to comprehend a hint of the deep meaning of Heavy Sword. The speed of his wood chopping doubled, and he could chop up to ten full loads each day.
It’s worth mentioning that the sword he used for chopping wood was a dull sword without a sharpened edge.
It would have been tough even to cut tofu, let alone chopping wood.
Those who ridiculed him as ’Waste’ were incredibly superficial. Some mocked him with malice, while others chose to overlook the tool he used for wood chopping.
By the seventh month, Chu Feng had comprehended even more of the Profound Meaning of Heavy Sword, and the number of wood loads he chopped each day continued to surge.