Chapter 282 : Qi-Opening Pill and Sword Refining Art

Chapter 282: Qi-Opening Pill and Sword Refining Art

Within the secret realm, after Chu Huaixu severed his connection with those spiritual swords, from his “perspective,” everything around him instantly fell back into endless darkness.

He heard the system notification clearly.

“Why is there an ‘advanced’ added?”

He immediately opened his 【Skill Panel】.

And as the saying goes—if you don’t look, you won’t know; once you look, you’re shocked.

The 【Skill Panel】 before him felt both familiar and unfamiliar.

The skills listed inside formed an entire long sequence—he could scroll endlessly downward.

There was no helping it. He had learned all Three Thousand Scrolls of the Sword Dao from the Dao Ancestor.

This directly gave him three thousand skills.

Some of these skills, he might never use even once in his life.

But honestly, just seeing them displayed there gave him a strange sense of satisfaction.

It reminded him of those wealthy players—who might not even know how to play a certain character, but once a new skin was released, their collector’s instinct kicked in and they bought it first anyway.

“I’m definitely the player with the most skills now.” Chu Huaixu felt there was no dispute about this.

Back when he played 《Borrowed Sword》, even his main account had only learned a dozen or so techniques, most of which were Yellow-rank.

And techniques also had mutual generation and restraint.

In the future, he could somewhat counter others.

Chu Huaixu adjusted the sorting settings of his skill panel, setting it to sort by grade from high to low.

【Myriad Swords Converge (Advanced)】 stood prominently at the very top.

And its specific grade was listed as: Unknown!

This made his gaze slightly sharpen.

“Unknown?”

He remembered clearly that after memorizing the sword technique of 【Myriad Swords Converge】 in the Dao Gate Scripture Pavilion, it had appeared in his skill panel.

At that time, it had been listed among Heaven-rank techniques.

“But it makes sense. The original Myriad Swords Converge was already known as the strongest Heaven-rank technique.”

“Now that it’s advanced and has broken beyond that category, it’s understandable.”

“But why doesn’t the system provide a detailed skill description?”

“Or is it that the sword technique itself hasn’t changed, but due to me as a special user, it has reached an advanced effect?”

Various speculations once again arose in Chu Huaixu’s mind.

Moreover, hadn’t the system also asked him whether he wanted to “attempt to learn” it?

He took a look—learning this skill still required spending 1,000,000 Experience Points to try his luck, just like before.

But there was an additional line:

Due to the Dao Ancestor Inheritance Secret Realm, the success rate will be increased.

Seeing this, Chu Huaixu once again recognized how infuriating the system was.

It increased the success rate—but didn’t specify by how much.

However, there was one thing he understood very clearly.

“I’m still too weak right now.”

“Even if I luckily learned it, I still wouldn’t be able to summon myriad swords.”

For him, this was certainly one of the gains of this trip.

But the greatest gain was actually raising Fearless Sword Intent to Perfection and successfully condensing the Sword Heart【Myriad Swords Return to One】!

Moreover, his current Sword Heart progress bar had already reached 56%.

He was already more than halfway to Minor Mastery.

“If I convert all of this into Experience Points, it would be an enormous amount.” He knew very well that such rapid advancement would normally require a terrifying quantity of Experience Points.

Right now, he only felt one thing—

He was unbelievably powerful!

As for the Eastern and Western Continents’ Grand Competition of the Third Realm, Chu Huaixu was becoming more and more excited.

Within the darkness, Chu Huaixu silently waited to exit this “illusory realm.”

During this journey, he had also learned many past events and resolved some of the questions in his heart.

But because of certain actions of the Dao Ancestor, even more new doubts had arisen.

“You old man are really just messing with me!” he sighed helplessly, a bitter smile on his face.

Nevertheless, no matter what, Chu Huaixu had already realized that the black bead held immense secrets that required gradual exploration.

In fact, he already had a bold guess.

“This bead… feels like the Dao Ancestor’s greatest opportunity and fortune!”

“Because even when he was still a young Daoist at the Gentleman Temple, he was already wearing this pendant.”

It really resembled the kind of cheat item a novel protagonist obtains early on.

However, at this moment, a new scene actually appeared before his eyes.

Chu Huaixu frowned, feeling greatly surprised.

“The name of this instance is Myriad Swords Converge. Now that I’ve already watched ‘that episode’ and obtained the advanced technique, there’s still more?”

The scene that appeared was still within the Gentleman Temple.

But Chu Huaixu could clearly feel that time had passed.

Others were now addressing the Dao Ancestor as the Temple Master.

There were also many new faces in the temple.

Those familiar faces had aged by more than ten years.

The Dao Ancestor walked with his hands behind his back, the morning sunlight falling upon his shoulders as he wandered aimlessly.

As he walked, he arrived at the Purple Bamboo Forest of Ask-Dao Peak.

He approached a massive rock that Chu Huaixu found extremely familiar.

With a light tap of his foot, he leapt onto the rock and sat down.

Indeed, the shape of this rock was quite suitable for cross-legged meditation.

The Dao Ancestor sat there in meditation, seemingly pondering something.

Chu Huaixu could not help but mutter inwardly:

“Did First Master cultivate in seclusion here because she saw the Dao Ancestor comprehending Dao here in the inheritance?”

Seeing how naturally the Daoist sat there, it was clearly not his first time contemplating and meditating against this rock.

Chu Huaixu looked at his back as he remained motionless.

After a long time, the Dao Ancestor slowly raised his head and looked toward the sky.

“I have cultivated to this point. My realm can no longer advance. But why is there still that one step missing?”

He muttered to himself, a trace of confusion in his tone.

“Looking back, every step I took was correct. Not a single step was skipped. So why is that one step still missing?”

“There is no road ahead. I have reached the end. What should I do?”

“Where should this step fall?”

Chu Huaixu, listening from the side, simply could not understand this kind of problem.

He was only at the Third Realm—this was not something he needed to consider.

He could barely even understand what the Dao Ancestor was saying.

More precisely, he did not know what the Dao Ancestor was trying to do.

The Daoist repeatedly muttered:

“Where should this step fall?”

As if asking himself enough times would suddenly yield an answer.

And the result was obvious.

—He actually found it.

The Dao Ancestor suddenly slapped his thigh lightly and burst into laughter.

“Why must it be that this path itself is wrong?”

“Since I can no longer take that step forward, why not take one step backward from the very beginning?”

“As long as I step back at the starting point, I will need to take one more step to reach the end.”

“That step should fall there!”

He laughed freely.

Chu Huaixu was completely baffled.

To say something disrespectful, he even found the Dao Ancestor somewhat… abstract.

“What is he talking about?”

Then he heard the Dao Ancestor continue muttering:

“But how can one add this extra step to the path of cultivation?”

He repeated this nine times, before suddenly having a flash of insight.

“I’ve got it!”

“I only need to add one more realm before the First Realm!”

Seeing this scene from a thousand years ago, goosebumps suddenly rose across Chu Huaixu’s body.

He already knew.

He knew the answer.

—Qi-Opening Stage.

That’s right, the Qi-Opening Stage!

It was said that in the era of the Dao Ancestor, there was no such thing as the Qi-Opening Stage—people began cultivation directly from the First Realm.

This meant that only those born with all Nine Apertures open could cultivate.

But because the Dao Ancestor created the formula for the Qi-Opening Pill, those whose Nine Apertures were not open could open them, and those whose Nine Apertures were already open could clear out impurities and make them even smoother.

“So this is what the Dao Ancestor meant by taking a step back at the starting point?” Chu Huaixu finally understood completely.

This act gave countless people in the world the opportunity to cultivate!

The scene suddenly shifted.

A bottle of pills appeared in the Dao Ancestor’s hand.

Chu Huaixu didn’t even need to guess—inside were Qi-Opening Pills.

The Dao Ancestor muttered:

“Only then can the cultivation path of the world be considered complete.”

The entire cultivation system of the Xuanhuang Realm had been changed by a single person.

The scene shifted once more.

When Chu Huaixu could see clearly again, the Dao Ancestor was already speaking:

“This step shall be called the Qi-Opening Stage.”

“And this step will perfectly fill the flaw in my sword path.”

After saying this, he raised his head and looked at the sword floating behind him.

This place was actually the summit of Hidden Spirit Mountain.

At this time, the bronze sword had already been sealed here, but it seemed to be in slumber—not yet as arrogant as it would be later, looking down equally upon every climber for a thousand years.

At this moment, the Dao Ancestor began speaking to himself again.

Chu Huaixu thought: Every time you start talking to yourself, I feel a bit uneasy…

“Bronze can be a sword,” the Dao Ancestor said.

He glanced at the sword scabbard placed beside him and recalled the broken black wooden sword.

“Black wood can be a sword.”

“In truth, for a master of the sword path, once a certain realm is reached, all things in the world can become swords.”

With a wave of his hand, the surrounding wind gathered into a sword.

“Wind can be a sword.”

With another wave, droplets formed in the air and condensed into a sword.

“Water can be a sword.”

With yet another wave, earth rose and gathered into a sword.

“Earth can also be a sword.”

“Since all things in the world can be swords, then…”

“Why can’t a person be a sword?”

After saying this, he opened his palm.

The black bead floated over and hovered in his hand.

Then, the Dao Ancestor slowly turned his head and looked at Chu Huaixu, who stood nearby in shock.

With a gentle smile, as if chatting casually with a junior, he said:

“Chu Huaixu, what do you think?”