Chapter 15 - 11: Seeing Through the Essence, Spiritual Power Oscillation

Chapter 15: Chapter 11: Seeing Through the Essence, Spiritual Power Oscillation

CLANG!

A crisp sword hum echoed throughout the tomb. The sharp sword gleam pierced through the air, aiming straight for Ye Chenglin’s face.

That loud sword hum now carried an indescribable sense of coercion, possessing massive momentum like a descending True Dragon.

Lu Chen originally thought Ye Chenglin would surely retreat in the face of such an attack. However, Ye Chenglin just stood calmly in place and reached out with a single hand.

BANG!

Accompanied by the sound of an airburst, Lu Chen’s full-force sword strike was caught directly in Ye Chenglin’s bare hand. The hard sensation rebounding from the sword blade made Lu Chen feel as if he hadn’t struck mortal flesh, but rather a block of hard hundred-refined fine iron.

"To block my Great Success Level Water Dragon Roar with a single hand... is this the physical strength of a Foundation Establishment Stage Magic Corpse?" Lu Chen thought.

Although shocked by Ye Chenglin’s physical strength, Lu Chen made a split-second decision. He abruptly let go of the sword hilt. The Spiritual Power around his body morphed into ten invisible Qi Swords that hovered in mid-air. Forming a Sword Pointing gesture, Lu Chen aimed at Ye Chenglin right in front of him.

CLINK CLINK CLINK...

The unusually sharp Qianjin Qi Swords struck Ye Chenglin like waves crashing against a rocky shore. Aside from sending up a few sparks, they failed to harm Ye Chenglin’s physical body in the slightest.

Water Dragon Roar didn’t work, and neither did Qi Sword. The resilience of Ye Chenglin’s physical body far exceeded Lu Chen’s imagination. It also made him deeply realize the massive gap between the Foundation Establishment Stage and the Qi Cultivation Stage. Or rather, the enormous disparity between a Foundation Establishment Stage Magic Corpse and an ordinary Qi Refining cultivator.

Lu Chen landed on the ground, silently looking at Ye Chenglin two meters away. At this point, he didn’t have many tricks left. Besides watching, it seemed there really wasn’t much else he could do.

Seeing that Lu Chen was no longer attacking, Ye Chenglin seemingly lost all interest in continuing to play around. With a slight squeeze, he easily crushed the hard Magic Sword in his hand. It shattered into countless metal fragments that scattered into the air.

However, during this process, Lu Chen still noticed a shallow cut on the palm of Ye Chenglin’s hand. His sword strike had ultimately caused a bit of damage; it wasn’t completely without Effect. Although this minor injury meant absolutely nothing to Ye Chenglin, it gave Lu Chen a glimmer of hope for victory, somewhat alleviating his initially despairing mood.

"If he can be hurt, there is still hope," he thought.

Ye Chenglin looked at Lu Chen, his terrifying, rotten face actually revealing a very human expression of appreciation.

"You... are not bad."

Hearing the praise, Lu Chen fell silent for a moment before replying, "But it’s still not enough."

Ye Chenglin slowly walked up to Lu Chen. Meeting his eyes, he said flatly, "What a pity."

"A pity about what—"

Before Lu Chen could finish his sentence, a burst of agonizing pain erupted in his chest. He looked down, only to see that Ye Chenglin’s claw had pierced straight through his chest and ripped out his still-beating heart.

In his dying moments, Lu Chen heard Ye Chenglin’s final words.

"A pity that you’re still a bit too weak."

The one hundred and thirty-first challenge, failed!

...

After resurrecting once again, Lu Chen began his post-battle summary.

"The physical body of a Foundation Establishment Stage Magic Corpse is simply too powerful. Because I couldn’t even get close before, I mistakenly thought I could win as long as I managed to approach him.

"But looking at it now, my thoughts were far too naive.

"True, a Talisman Cultivator’s physical body is vastly inferior to that of a Body Cultivator, making it difficult for them to fight effectively in close combat.

"However, Ye Chenglin is no simple Talisman Cultivator. He is a Magic Corpse brought back from the dead, and the physical strength of a Magic Corpse isn’t necessarily any weaker than an average Body Cultivator. It might even be stronger.

"While Water Dragon Roar undeniably doubles the power of my Sword Skill, my Qi Cultivation Second Level Cultivation is just too low. Even after it’s doubled, I can still only barely manage to injure him.

"Furthermore, in the previous hundred or so battles, Ye Chenglin clearly wasn’t taking it seriously. Only this time did he begin to properly view me as an opponent.

"A Foundation Establishment Stage Magic Corpse that gets serious—even one with a heavily injured body—is not something I can easily defeat.

"Thinking it over, if I truly want to defeat a Foundation Establishment Stage Magic Corpse like Ye Chenglin, I either need to increase my Cultivation or raise the Skill Level of Water Dragon Roar."

If he had a choice, Lu Chen didn’t want to spend his precious Experience Points on increasing his Cultivation. Unless it was absolutely necessary, he would never waste even a single point of his Experience Points. As a result, the key to defeating Ye Chenglin still lay in the Swordsmanship known as Water Dragon Roar.

But how could he raise the Sword Technique Level of Water Dragon Roar?

Sitting in the open space before the Bronze Gate, Lu Chen began to think calmly. He had already discovered earlier that if he wanted to rapidly increase a Skill Level, simply using the Skills wasn’t enough. He also needed to gain a deeper comprehension of the Skills.

The reason he had been able to elevate Flowing Cloud Step to the Breaking Realm level was that through repeated usage, he had discovered its true nature: it was essentially borrowing the Power of Water Mist from Water Attribute Spiritual Power. This realization allowed him to make his footwork far more weightless and agile.

After understanding this, he began to constantly ponder how this Power of Water Mist could be applied to Flowing Cloud Step. Following hundreds of real-combat trials, Lu Chen eventually figured out the technique of walking on air.

After all, the moisture in the air was still water. When he executed Flowing Cloud Step, he appeared to be treading on air, but in reality, he was treading on water.

By the same logic, if he wanted to increase the Skill Level of Water Dragon Roar, he had to apply a similar approach. He first needed to figure out the true essence of Water Dragon Roar. And on this point, Lu Chen figured it out in a very short amount of time.

It was vibration.

The essence of Water Dragon Roar lay in first coating the sword blade with Water Attribute Spiritual Power, and then causing the blade to generate a Vibration Power akin to rippling water. The sword hum that sounded like a Dragon Roar was nothing more than a byproduct of this vibration.

Therefore, if he wanted to enhance the power of Water Dragon Roar, he needed to start with the concept of "vibration."

Currently, he was able to make the sword blade vibrate fifty times within a single second, thereby creating a staggering amount of high-frequency damage. If he could make the blade vibrate hundreds, or even thousands of times a second... then the power of his Water Dragon Roar would undoubtedly climb to a whole new level.

Unfortunately, the current Lu Chen was no longer able to increase the vibration count. The biggest reason for this didn’t stem from him, but rather the weapon itself.

An ordinary Magic Sword used by a servant disciple, though of decent quality, was already pushed to its absolute limit withstanding fifty stacks of Vibration Power in a single second. Any more than that, and before Lu Chen could even use it to slay an enemy, the Magic Sword in his hand would shatter on the spot from being unable to endure further Vibration Power.

Consequently, Lu Chen’s Cultivation of Water Dragon Roar had hit a bottleneck. If he wanted to raise the level of the Swordsmanship, he had to increase the frequency of the vibrations. However, the intrinsic quality of the Magic Sword couldn’t support him applying any more Vibration Power.

"This is tricky..." he thought.

Frowning, Lu Chen began to consider whether there was a flaw in his comprehension of Water Dragon Roar.

"Vibration... Vibration..."

As Lu Chen pondered over it, his eyes suddenly lit up.

"Wait, why am I so fixated on only applying Vibration Power to the Magic Sword? Isn’t my own flesh and blood an excellent vessel too?

"What if, while executing Water Dragon Roar, I also make the Spiritual Power within my body vibrate at high frequencies?

"Then, the moment I strike with the sword, I can release this built-up energy.

"That way, the vessel for the Vibration Power changes from the physical Magic Sword itself to the Sword Qi clinging to the blade!"

Right as Lu Chen came to this realization, a notification suddenly popped up on his game interface.

[Your comprehension of "Water Dragon Roar" has deepened. You have gained 300 points in Skill Proficiency.]

[Water Dragon Roar: Great Success 301/4000]

Seeing the sudden 300-point spike in Skill Proficiency for Water Dragon Roar, Lu Chen felt increasingly exhilarated. This was undoubtedly telling him that his hypothesis was correct.

The essence of Water Dragon Roar was Vibration Power. And the true source of that vibration was Spiritual Power itself. Therefore, the genuine Dragon Roar of the technique was meant to be the shrieking of Spiritual Power.

A physical weapon’s capacity for vibration might have a limit, but Spiritual Power did not. Theoretically speaking, as long as his Spiritual Power was abundant enough and his meridians were resilient enough... then the number of vibrations he could achieve when casting Water Dragon Roar... would be infinite!

At this very moment, Lu Chen felt as though he had pushed aside the thick clouds to finally see the sun, experiencing a brilliant flash of enlightenment!

...