Chapter 216: Four Retributions of the Nine Lesser Heavens?

“The Twenty-Three Swords…”

Jiang He brought out his pen and paper, but paused halfway through his writing.

Having read the comic, tv series, and movies of the Storm Riders franchise, he knew very well how powerful the Twenty-Three Swords technique was—it was without question, the finest swordplay in Storm Riders.

Space and time would actually freeze once that technique was unleashed. The sword would in turn be wielded by one’s heart and essence, keeping themselves immune from all physical blows, and it was only by grasping ‘essence attacks’ that one could stop it.

And yet, that was precisely why using the Twenty-Three Swords required one’s essence to leave their physical body, leaving it in a ‘pseudo-death’ state. Jiang He would be unable to resist at all if his physical body was struck at that moment.

“But it’s not like I would be completely defenseless. If I hone my physical body to a certain extent of durability, my opponent could hardly injure my physical form.”

“The only problem is that the Twenty-Three Swords is basically a self-destruct swordplay—there’s a chance I would kill myself even before I defeat my opponent.”

That said, Jiang He actually had a theory about that.

Since the Twenty-Three Swords was no longer within the domain of martial arts, the reason it requires one’s essence to wield the sword outside one’s body was because the Sword Sage had yet to cultivate himself into a Primordial Spirit. That was why once his sword leaves the sheath, his spirit and consciousness would erupt along with his sword, dispersing and himself perishing naturally after using that technique.

“So, if I could cultivate into a Primordial Spirit and achieve essence disembodiment, the one drawback of the Twenty-Three Swords would no longer be a drawback, but a most powerful essence attack!”

“Still, the problem is that I’m a novice of the Immortal Arts who only recently completed the Qi Refinist tier. I’m thousands of miles away from cultivating into a Primordial Spirit… surely I can’t learn the Twenty-Three Swords, only for it to prove incompatible with me?”

Therefore…

Revamping was needed!

And Jiang He was very experienced when it comes to that.

“First of all, there’s no need to strengthen the power of the Twenty-Three swords since it’s strong enough. What if I can’t plant it if it was too powerful?”

“Sword-wielding with one’s essence and heart… okay, I could alter it into mind sword-wielding, and the power of the Twenty-Three Swords shall be connected to how far strong the part of one’s mind which the user could allocate. The stronger the part of mind allocated, the stronger the power of the Twenty-Three Swords!”

The mind was not one’s essence.

As such, one did not have to worry about dying even if one did not cultivate into Primordial Spirit. At worst, one would be waning in spirit and be tired in consciousness, and that could be resolved with some medicine for the mind such as the Heart Invigorating Pill that helped with a troubled mind, palpitations, and insomnia…

Either way, after thirty minutes, writing several hundred words elegantly albeit with innumerable adjustments, Jiang He was done revamping the Twenty-Three Swords.

Be that as it may, he maintained the three styles of the technique:

First Style: Selfless Passion.

Second Style: World Ruin.

Third Style: Six Devastations.

After that was the touch-up following the revamping.

Truth be told, touching-up is actually no different from post-editing for novels, adding in certain cool words, putting on airs while adding to the word count.

For Jiang He, that meant adding special sound and visual effects to add cool points.

After musing to himself for a while, Jiang He raised his pen and wrote, “Once the sword technique is released, the sword’s hum shall resound away from the user, with ten thousand blades resonating within a hundred miles.”

“Once the sword technique is released, the sword light fires into the school as Sword Qi overflows…”

“Finished!”

“Job done!”

After checking the Twenty-Three Swords manual carefully and correcting several typos, Jiang He crumpled it into a ball and dump it into the hole Dumbo had already dug.

Turning on his System and redeeming a bag of Mysterious Soil, Jiang He poured the bag entirely into the hole before burying it.

As he looked on expectantly, the soil began to squirm in moments, and a sword light was slowly streaking out of the earth.

At first, it was merely a hilt, but it soon turned into a small sword that was around eight inches in a dozen minutes.

It looked ethereal instead of physical, with various symbols flickering and flashing over its edge.

And after an hour when the sun rises, the small sword grew up to a meter in length and stopped extending.

Extending his hand, Jiang He grasped the small sword.

Ooom!

The small sword instantly turned into a sword light, sinking between Jiang He’s brows.

[Ding!]

[+30000 Farm Points]

[Ding!]

[Swordplay: the Twenty-Three Swords detected. Consume 100,000 Farm Points to learn the First Style?]

“Woah!”

Jiang He could not help inhaling sharply once he heard the System Notification in his head, feeling utterly disconcerted.

What the heck…

Was the world of Storm Riders not a martial world?

And yet, the first-style of the Twenty-Three Swords already costs 100,000 Farm Points!

“It only cost me 50,000 Farm Points to learn White Foal Crosses The Rift—the first style of the Three Thousand Calamities…”

Jiang He couldn’t help complaining.

Of course, complain was all he did. The truth was that he felt pleasant, since the more Farm Points was consumed, the more powerful the technique was.

That said, Jiang He did not learn the Twenty-Three Swords at once, since he had all the Farm Points he needed.

The most pressing matter right now was to level up his farm!

“Hold on…”

Jiang He suddenly realized something. “If I level up the farm now, the Farm Points and EXP I earn from Orirocks would definitely be reduced significantly based on how awful the System had been!”

Hence, Jiang He turned to look at the many Orirock trees.

Releasing a gust of True Qi with a wave of his hand, Jiang He blew off the Orirocks on the trees.

[Ding!]

[+100 Farm Points.]

[Ding!]

[…]

As System Notifications jingled repeatedly, Jiang He stared mournfully at the EXP that was basically leaking out of the System Panel, and seethed through clenched teeth, “It’s a waste of EXP, but I just have to farm it slower next time. Still, there won’t be such a great chance of hoarding Farm Points!”

Eventually, he had harvested a total of 280 Orirocks.

It takes almost two hours for an Orirock tree to mature and be harvested, and with only 30 trees going in each batch, Jiang He basically stayed in his farmyard until the sun was setting, eventually converting the 280 Orirocks into Farm Points and EXP.

Jiang He turned on his System for a look then… to find out that he had actually accumulated a total of 2,882,000 Farm Points!

“2.88 million…”

Jiang He laughed out loud, and had a thought!

“System, I’ll learn the Twenty-Three Swords.”

[Ding!]

A crisp System Notification jingled—

[-100,000 Farm Points.]

[Congratulations, Host. You have gained Mastery over Selfless Passion, the First Style of the Twenty-Three Swords.]

Ooom!

An exceptional sword will instantly erupted within Jiang He’s body.

As the sword will overflowed, Jiang He’s grasp over sword will which was already above 90 percent instantly reached perfection.

“Level up, System! Level everything!”

“Nine Stars Heavenly Body Formula, Three Thousand Calamities… Hold on!”

Jiang He, who had been prepared to spend all 2.88 million Farm Points suddenly paused, asking hesitantly, “System… If I level up Nine Stars Heavenly Body Formula and Three Thousand Calamities… would it trigger divine retribution and other stuff like that?”

After all, it was a most common plot in novels.

Whenever cultivators reached the level of Golden Cinnabar, they would face the legendary Four Retributions of the Nine Lesser Heavens.

What if he ascended without preparation, in tun invoking divine retribution upon himself which he could not defend against?

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