Book 4, Chapter 27: Reward

Chen Chuan’s fist glowed for a while before the light dimmed and faded away. This time, he had managed to use spirit sense entirely on his own. He didn’t need to overlap with his second self for it.

There was a trick to this, though.

Since he had experienced drawing spirit sense, had enough depth of mind, and was in a gap, he could draw the power from the other world.

Even though it only lasted for a moment, it was enough to decide the victor of the fight.

The fact that he could do this meant that his mental training had been really effective. If he continued training, his mind would become sturdy enough to stabilize this power.

Awakening Clarity was a high-class training method from the old era’s national religion. Chen Chuan had also absorbed a certain amount of pure essence. He had his second self too. When he trained in front of a gap, he didn’t need to worry about corruption and could keep absorbing quintessence, which allowed him to improve quickly.

If any of these conditions were absent, he would have taken several times longer to reach his current state. He would only be able to keep up this effective training for a little over a month, so he had to make good use of it.

Chen Chuan took a look around. The shredded flesh and blood on the ground and walls were slowly disappearing as the lifeform absorbed them.

The red fog that had filled up the space was fading away too, so he could see again.

The other collapsed Serene Radiance School disciples, including Shiyuan Ba and the other Third Limit martial artists, were all gone.

Chen Chuan had only truly killed Yejian Hong. The others, who were attacked by his yielding force, shouldn’t have died instantly, since they were Third Limit martial artists.

It was most likely due to the Brilliant Sun being utilized to full capacity, which led to their mutated tissue necrotizing. After that, they were naturally unable to sustain their life force.

The Brilliant Sun was amazing, alright. This secret technique targeted mutated tissue directly, so a regular martial artist would have a hard time fighting against it. Even opponents at the same level of strength wouldn’t be able to resist it for long if they didn’t have a method to fight against it.

Speaking of which, Yejian Hong had only been able to draw out such great power from the secret technique because of his master’s mental energy projection. He had paid the price for it with his life.

The person who injected his mental energy into him should have been Serene Radiance School’s master, Xiaoyue Zhai. Yet no matter how strong he was, he couldn’t get the information remotely. Yejian Hong needed to go back alive to pass on all that he learned.

Chen Chuan guessed that the projected mental energy had drawn out all of Yejian Hong’s life force to inject it into his final attack. Once Chen Chuan died, he would send someone else to Single Flow School, which could not stop him.

Chen Chuan took a few steps forward and picked up Yejian Hong’s short saber to add it to his collection. As for the shattered long saber? He decided to give up on it. This was enough.

He was certain that Serene Radiance School had better weapons than this. Windforest School and Fierce Wave School should be the same. If he had the chance, he should take a look at some point.

Chen Chuan looked up and found that the silhouette of the person was still around. He was repeatedly demonstrating some sort of secret technique. Since many Serene Radiance School students had died here, the person was probably going to stay around for some time.

Chen Chuan shook his head and went to his waterproof bag. He opened it, took out a new jacket, and put it on. After smoothing out his clothes, he walked out of the gap and returned to the island.

Gan Guo and Talu were waiting for him on the cliff. The moment Gan Guo saw him, a smile broke free on his face. Then, he noticed that Chen Chuan had changed into another jacket, and he asked, “Are you alright, Mr. Chen?”

“I’m okay. I got rid of all those disciples from Serene Radiance School,” Chen Chuan answered. Well, more accurately speaking, both he and Yejian Hong had worked together to kill them.

Gan Guo had guessed that it was over, but after hearing Chen Chuan verifying the news, he was dumbfounded for a moment before becoming so excited that his beard started trembling.

Chen Chuan turned to Talu. “I think you should go down and take a look. There’s something there you might want to see.”

Gan Guo realized what Chen Chuan meant and urged her as well. “Talu, go. Quick. I’ll be here.”

Talu nodded and went down with Chen Chuan. Once they were in the gap, Chen Chuan took note that all the corpses were gone. Only a few weapons remained, which were partially sunk into the ground. They were sinking deeper bit by bit.

The moment Talu stepped inside, her gaze was attracted by the person demonstrating the secret techniques. More copies of the person appeared, and their movements began changing like smoke.

“These are... Serene Radiance School’s techniques. That’s the Brilliant Sun, Moon’s Illumination, Heart’s Path, the Spinning Saber Force...” she recited a few of Serene Radiance School’s secret techniques with delight on her face. “And Beholding Emptiness!”

Chen Chuan took a look in the direction of her gaze. Talu had mentioned before that Beholding Emptiness was the final realm Serene Radiance School disciples needed to understand before becoming sabermasters. A technique of the same name existed in Single Flow School as well.

Their secret techniques were different, which meant that the two Beholding Emptinesses complemented each other.

They were only given to disciples who were about to cross the threshold. Yejian Hong had not reached that point yet. Besides, as someone who received mental energy projection, he had no need to learn both techniques.

This meant that this technique demonstration shouldn’t have appeared because of Yejian Hong, but because of the mental energy projected onto him.

Since this wasn’t exactly Single Flow School’s secret technique, Chen Chuan watched it out of interest. After some observation, he found that this might be a way to activate spirit sense.

There was no need for him to continue watching it, since he had already reached that state. He should do things according to his understanding on how to activate spirit sense, and that would be enough.

He shifted his attention to the refined force secret techniques and paid special attention to how the person used his mutated tissue to generate power and execute them. This would give him more references to continue developing his Heartborn Force.

Talu watched for a while before sitting down to understand something. Several hours passed.

At around 2 p.m., she stood up with a lively spark in her eyes. Then, she thanked Chen Chuan in the way of Single Flow School. “Thank you, Mr. Chen.”

“You’re welcome. Was it helpful to you?” Chen Chuan asked.

Talu nodded. “I know how to continue forward and which parts to improve upon now. But the benefits I got aren’t as great as said by my predecessors.”

“Oh? Why is that?” Chen Chuan asked.

After some thinking, Talu said, “Serene Radiance School and Single Flow School were indeed split from the same master. Plenty of things from Serene Radiance School can make up for the flaws of our refined force techniques, but while I have learned something from observing them, I can’t blend the two refined forces into one. I can only continue forward in the way of Single Flow School.

“I think I understand why Master Hongfa wanted his disciples to form two independent schools now. It was because neither of them were able to inherit his complete refined force, not with their talent.

“Honestly, Single Flow School has always been a school leading to the path of a fistmaster. That’s already a complete path in itself. We don’t need to take in too much knowledge from other martial arts.”

Chen Chuan understood what she meant. “Are you saying that it wasn’t Master Hongfa’s intention to split his legacy into two, but he was forced to do so because neither of his disciples could inherit his complete legacy? That’s why he had the two schools train half of his martial arts and walk down their own paths?”

“That’s what I think, yes,” Talu said.

Chen Chuan nodded. If that were the case, only a single truly outstanding disciple would be able to merge the two schools into one. But anyone who could do that could just become a martial arts master with one school of martial arts. The other school’s secret techniques would only give them enlightenment at best.

“Serene Radiance School suffered a major loss this time. There’s no telling whether they’ll continue sending disciples over to take the gap from you,” he pointed out.

“I know the situation at Serene Radiance School. They have around five Third Limit martial artists, and most of their more famous disciples had come here. They won’t send anyone else,” Talu declared with a shake of her head.

If that were the case, Serene Radiance School had sent all of their elites. If they wanted to show up again, their sabermaster would need to come himself.

But that was impossible. If he could do that, Xiaoyue Zhai would have done so long ago.

Martial artists practically never fought. It could be because of limitations from the government and the companies, or it could be because of something else. Regardless of what it was, Chen Chuan didn’t need to worry about this for the time being.

“Can I spar with you again, Mr. Chen?” Talu asked.

After a pause, she pointed at the person and said, “I won’t be sparring against you myself. But this predecessor and I can... I mean, I can let this predecessor possess me. If I spar against someone in that state, I can learn the school’s secret techniques even better.”

“You can do that? Okay, if you think that’s possible, let’s spar again,” Chen Chuan said gladly. He was quite interested in sparring against someone in that state.

The moment Talu heard him say yes, she lifted her staff and bowed to him. “Let’s have a good match.”

Then, she swung her staff up. The person rose from his feet and blended with her.

Their biofields intersected with each other, and they overlapped so well that they slipped into a deep state of resonance.

Chen Chuan took a look and grabbed a long saber stuck in the ground. Since this was a spar, he was going to use a weapon as a sign of respect.

Even though the mutated tissue in this saber wasn’t his own and couldn’t perfectly transfer his refined force, he could make do with his speed and strength.

Once Talu saw that he was ready, she ran forward a bit before spinning and swinging her staff downward.

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