Tales of Herding Gods

Chapter 135: Spiral Sword Form

Translator: Ninetales Editor: Fish_Creek

Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor appeared in front of Hall of Supreme Learning and smiled, ”Grand Chancellor, in that case, I shall overstep my authority.”

Fu Yuanqing followed behind him and looked around. He frowned and thought to himself, ”Which is my little junior brother?”

When Qin Mu detoxified the Thousand Opportunity Poison on Empress Dowager, he saw Qin Mu’s appearance by the eyes of the bug. However, there were too many people here and he couldn’t find Qin Mu’s location in a short time.

The young patriarch smiled, ”You originally came here from time to time to be a directorate to teach the scholars. It just that you didn’t come these recent years so you couldn’t be considered overstepping your authority. Please.”

Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor came to the front of the platform and took a look around, ”It’s difficult to decline Grand Chancellor’s magnificent hospitality. I shall open the forum and talk about swords and I’ll only talk for two days and not touch on the rest.”

Chancellor Ba Shan muttered softly, ”Wasn’t it three days?”

The young patriarch took a glance at him and said, ”Dao Sect is only going to block our Imperial College’s gate for three days. Now half a day is already gone so if Imperial Preceptor is to talk for three days, it would be dreadfully late.”

Chancellor Ba Shan sighed, ”It’s so hard for Imperial Preceptor to come and give a lecture and yet he couldn’t talk for more than two days, what a pity… Imperial Preceptor giving a lecture personally is equivalent to Rulai of Great Thunderclap Monastery explaining the scriptures, Dao Master of Dao Sect imparting his skills and the cult master of Heavenly Devil Cult propagating the doctrine. How hard is it to come by?”

Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor slowly walked down from the platform and said leisurely, ”What is a sword? Is the nature of a sword fixed by a fixed shape? I strongly disapprove. Some people said that there were myriad of moves in a sword and some people said that there were only fourteen moves: stab, flick, wave, cleave, hack, poke, jab, parry, curve, smear, sweep, raise, intercept and shave. This is a misconception as well!”

He walked down and most of the scholars below instantly felt a pressure on them. It was as if an extremely sharp sword was hanging above their heads and was about to split them in half. That kind of unrivaled momentum seemed to be wanting to tear apart their bodies, their spirit embryos, their consciousness and their souls!

”If the sword is fixed, that would no longer be a path. The path is boundless so how can it only have fourteen moves?”

He walked down step by step and the pressure grew larger and larger but his voice was tranquil. Suddenly his voice was like sharp sword thrusting into everyone’s ears, ”Sword, why can’t it be sound? Why can’t sword be light? Why can’t it be color? Why can’t it be vital qi? Why can’t it be a gaze?”

His gaze swept across most of the scholar’s faces and many scholars couldn’t resist unsheathing their swords to block yet they blocked nothing at all, making them perspire in cold sweat.

Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor smiled, ”Thus, does a sword only still have fourteen moves?”

Cold sweat broke out on Qin Mu’s forehead and only now did he realize how powerful Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor was.

Village Chief taught him the most basic fourteen moves of sword techniques and Qin Mu changed these fundamental sword techniques into numbers. He could replicate any move as long as he saw it once. At that time, Qin Mu had thought that it was the pinnacle of the sword.

And now, Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor had obviously struck out a new path for himself on the traditional foundation of sword skills and had further developed the traditional sword skills.

His thinking was even broader and thus he had created other fundamental sword forms outside of the fourteen fundamental sword forms!

”An out of the ordinary accomplishment, it’s no wonder he is the number one man under gods.”

Qin Mu exclaimed endlessly in admiration in his heart. Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor’s thinking was too ahead of his time. Or maybe it couldn’t be said ahead of his time and instead, it was him who was pushing this generation forward, pushing the paths, skills and divine arts to move forward, pushing the people of this generation forward!

”Therefore I had created another few moves on the basis of the fourteen fundamental sword techniques. For the next two days, I will teach you these few basic sword techniques and I won’t talk about other sword techniques at all.”

Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor stopped and the smile on his face vanished as his expression turned solemn, ”But before we start, I want you to forget the shape of your sword. Sword can be light, can be sound, can be color and can be sight, therefore, sword doesn’t need to have a fixed form. It can be long, it can be short, it can be hard, it can be soft and it can attack from any angle. If you can forget the shape of a sword, you can learn my sword skill. The first move of my sword skill, spiral.”

His fingertip moved and instantly there were countless of fine vital qi that was like sword lights surging out. They turned into a sword pillar and stabbed forward, ”This is spiral!”

This is one of the moves in Great Six Directions Sword Skill and looked like a stab but the sword pillar was actually formed by countless of sword lights swirling around each other. These sword lights constantly moved and constantly changed their positions!

Qin Mu had seen similar sword skill from Qu Ping; however, what Qu Ping executed was a hack.

Stab and hack all looked like basic sword moves but what formed the sword moves inside was actually Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor’s spiral sword form.

There was still a difference between Spiral Sword Form and Coil Sword Form of the fourteen basic sword form. Coil Sword Form was exerting strength on the sword’s handle to coil the opponent’s weapon while Spiral Sword Form gathered the strength to burst forth a world-shaking strike.

The greatest difference between the Spiral Sword Form that Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor had executed and Qu Ping’s was that every sword in Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor’s sword pillar had a different transformation while there was no transformation in any sword when Qu Ping controlled his sword, therefore he was defeated by Daozi Lin Xuan with a horsetail whisk which was used as a sword.

If it was Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor, he could have blocked Daozi Lin Xuan’s horsetail whisk.

Not only that, from what Qin Mu could see, Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor’s sword moved as a whole.

His sword pillar was formed by countless of sword lights and every sword light was an individual but when he stabbed, they all stabbed as a whole. If one wanted to break this sword move like his, they would have to overcome the power of the sword pillar when confronting it. Only then could they break every single sword light in the sword pillar.

The method Daozi Lin Xuan used to handle Qu Ping was totally useless against him!

”Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor’s foundation is as solid as mine and even much more solid than Daozi Lin Xuan!”

Qin Mu was astonished. How could there be such an existence?

He was literally like a heavenly god!

Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor meticulously explained the key to exerting the power of Spiral Sword Form and it was extremely detailed. It gave Qin Mu the feeling that it was as if Village Chief was teaching him sword techniques.

Spiral Sword Form was an extension of the fundamental sword techniques and Qin Mu’s fourteen fundamental sword techniques were already extremely solid and after going through Village Chief’s teachings, it wasn’t hard for him to learn this Spiral Sword Form. A hint was all that was needed for him to comprehend and be clear, making him listen as if he was drunk and stupefied.

However, It was only him. The others were all pondering strenuously when they heard Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor’s explanation. There were some that didn’t even bother to think and just memorized it carefully. There were also some that used vital qi to control the pen to quickly note down Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor’s words and planned to slowly comprehend them in the future.

Those that could understand and completely comprehend it right there was still a minority after all. Most of the people were at a loss.

Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor finished explaining Spiral Sword Form and said, ”Scholars, now you can try to execute it once.”

Most of the directorates, secretaries, and chancellors all stirred their spirits. They were also listening to the lecture just now and were entranced, however they had no choice but to raise their spirits now as their gazes landed on the bodies of the thousand over scholars.

The reason Imperial Preceptor wanted to let them try out was actually because he wanted to see if there were any individuals among these people that were worth noticing. Those that had a strong comprehension must definitely be picked out to challenge Daozi Lin Xuan two days later.

In front of Hall of Supreme Learning, the scholars started to try out clumsily and tried to transform their own vital qi into sword qi to execute Spiral Sword Form. There were some people who couldn’t control the sword qi and their vital qi crumbled, shooting off in all directions and almost hurting the scholars beside them, raising a ruckus.

There were also people who gathered qi as sword pillar but when they controlled the sword qi to swirl around the center, they wouldn’t turn no matter what and just continue on a straight path.

There were also many divine arts practitioners that had learned the Great Six Directions Sword Skill taught by Imperial College. Great Six Directions Sword Skill was originally created by Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor and since they had learned it before, their execution naturally looked alike.

There were also some people who had got Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor’s advice and their sword skills went up another level. Even though there weren’t the Samadhi of Spiral Sword Form, but their power had been raised hugely.

There were also some people who were extremely intelligent and even though they hadn’t learned Spiral Sword Form before, they were still able to comprehend part of the profundity in it after the teachings. They executed the sword pillar and even though the transformation of their sword skill was still rough, each time they executed it, it would become more and more agile.

Qin Mu was also trying to execute Spiral Sword Form but he immediately frowned as he stared blankly at his own ’vital qi thread’.

Other people’s vital qi were as fine as hair so when they executed their sword pillar, it was formed by incomparably fine sword qi. Meanwhile, his vital qi thread was as thick as an arm and he was to use such thick ’vital qi’ to execute Spiral Sword Form?

How thick would the sword pillar be?

The youth shook his head. Such a thick sword pillar would no longer be a sword pillar and should instead be called a sword mountain!

Stabbing with a mountain formed from sword qi?

”Even though my vital qi is dense, it’s still not that dense. I can’t execute that kind of sword mountain.”

Beside Qin Mu, even the little fox was learning Spiral Sword Form which looked pretty authentic. Wei Yong, Yun Que and the rest were already trying to make the sword qi swirl, with Ling Yuxiu and Chen Wanyun progressing the fastest. Only he was staring into the air blankly.

After some time, Qin Mu tried to release an arm-thick ’vital qi thread’ and thought to himself, ”Since that couldn’t work, in that case, can I use Spiral Sword Form to break down my vital qi thread?”

Once he thought of it, he immediately did it and tried out the method Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor taught him to break down his vital qi thread excitedly.

His vital qi was firm and extremely pure which was why it was hard to refine it into a thread. Especially after he had learned Secrets of Elixir Hearts, his vital qi became purer and purer.

No one in the village had taught him how to refine qi into thread because the one with the highest attainments in sword techniques was Village Chief. However, Village Chief only taught him one sword move and fourteen sword forms, disregarding everything else without exception and letting Qin Mu’s ’vital qi thread’ to grow sturdier.

A hint of inspiration flashed across Qin Mu’s mind this time and felt that he would definitely succeed using Spiral Sword Form to refine qi into thread.

The Spiral Sword Form taught by Eternal Peace Imperial Preceptor was indeed extraordinary fine and he got hold of the trick very quickly, revealing an expression of joy.

In front of Hall of Supreme Learning, the young patriarch’s gaze landed on Qin Mu and couldn’t help frowning slightly, ”What is this rascal doing fiddling with a stick instead of learning the sword technique?”

Not far away, Chen Wanyun looked at Qin Mu’s vital qi stick and gave a smiled, ”He may be strong but his comprehension was so-so and far from mine!”

At this moment, Qin Mu suddenly turned wild with joy and laughed out loudly. With his voice like thunder, it resounded throughout the entire place, ”It’s done, it’s finally done. The heavens aren’t blind, I have finally refined vital qi thread!”