The booming voice of Sect Master Ling Wuji rolled over the mountain peaks and echoed through every single pavilion. The declaration of Li Yu becoming the Holy Son of the Heavenly Sword Sect crashed into the visiting delegations just as they were packing up their camps. The grand event was officially over and the cultivators were already preparing their ships to leave the holy domain. This sudden news brought the entire packing process to a halt.
Confusion swept through the vast courtyards. Cultivators from different empires and sects exchanged bewildered looks as they paused their work.
"What exactly is a Holy Son?" A young disciple asked his elder.
"I have absolutely no idea." The older man replied while rubbing his chin. "The Heavenly Sword Sect has not had a Holy Son in my entire lifeti and I have never even read about one in the recent historical records. It must be a title not used often."
"Wait, isn't Li Yu that brute from the Li Clan that doesn’t follow the sword path?" Another cultivator pointed out from a nearby table. "The one who fought with the staff but had flying swords?"
"Yes, that is him." A woman in violet robes nodded as she packed her spatial ring. "Regardless of whatever this position entails, he does not seem like a person that would fit in with this sect at all. These people worship the pure path of the sword. That Li Yu doesn’t fight like them at all and drinks with rcenaries."
Down in the sprawling courtyard assigned to those very rcenaries. The Freeblade Alliance mbers stopped their packing. Boran dropped a massive wooden box onto the stone pavers and stared up at the sky in disbelief. Lead Envoy Ren stood beside him while holding a jug of wine. The entire camp was silent for a few seconds as the Sect Master's booming threat of war processed in their minds.
Then the courtyard erupted into booming laughter.
"The Holy Son!?" Boran roared with amusent. He slapped his thick thigh and laughed so hard that tears ford in the corners of his eyes. "I have absolutely no idea what that title ans but those rigid orthodox zealots just threatened the entire world for a person who wants to throw anvils at people!"
"He is an interesting character." Ren chuckled loudly as he took a deep drink from his jug.
A female rcenary nad Lin shook her head while a wide grin split her face. "Our new 'Holy' friend is full of surprises. We will definitely need to prepare a proper feast when he visits us. We have to be accommodating for a ‘holy son’ after all."
The rcenaries all gave a good chuckle but then went back to packing their equipnt with renewed energy and cheerful banter. They did not care about the political weight of the title or what it ant. They only cared that their friend had sohow been elevated.
The atmosphere inside the Li Clan pavilion was entirely different.
The mbers of the delegation processed the undeniable threat issued by the Sect Master. The Heavenly Sword Sect had just placed their protective shield over Li Yu. It ant that any internal clan politics or assassination attempts against him would now trigger a war or retaliation with the Heavenly Sword Sect.
Inside her private quarters, Li i stood in the center of a ruined room.
Sothing fundantal had changed within her after she exited the Temple of Purity. The perfect and calculating mask she usually wore was completely shattered. She breathed heavily while her eyes darted around the room in a state of paranoia. Her sword was drawn and the elegant furniture around her was reduced to scattered splinters.
"The Holy Son." She whispered to herself. Her voice was raspy and laced with venom.
She swung her blade violently and shattered a large jade mirror resting on the wall. The glass rained down onto the floor but she did not even blink. She reacted much more violently than normal to the news. The temple trial had shown her Li Yu standing as an impossible mountain blocking her path to the position of heir.
Now reality was actively reinforcing that exact nightmare. He possessed two of their ten great swords and he now commanded the respect of the Heavenly Sword Sect. She felt her lifelong ambition slipping through her fingers and the lack of control terrified her.
The scene shifted back to the icy stone stairs winding down the mountain.
Li Yu and Ancestor Cangyuan walked side by side as they made their way back to the Li Clan ship. The freezing wind whipped at their robes but neither of them paid it any attention. Cangyuan had a wide smile on his face and he occasionally let out a soft chuckle. He found the entire situation incredibly amusing and his junior kept giving him so many surprises.
"You are a walking contradiction." Cangyuan laughed as he glanced over at the young man. "It is truly fascinating to watch."
"I am just trying to survive and make my way, ancestor." Li Yu replied with a weary sigh. "I did not ask for the temple to give a token."
"That is exactly what makes it so interesting." Cangyuan pointed out as they descended another flight of stairs. "You have two of our most powerful swords, yet you do not technically walk the sword path. You rely on force and weapon control instead. Now you are the Holy Son of a sect known for their religious belief that the sword is the greatest weapon in existence, yet you still do not even swing a sword yourself."
Li Yu rubbed the back of his neck as he realized how ridiculous it all sounded when spoken out loud. He used Star Crusher as a staff for his primary weapon and he planned to use flying weapons of all kinds for added offense. He was the exact opposite of an elegant sword saint.
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"You even get along better with the Freeblade Alliance rcenaries than your own kin." Cangyuan continued with a knowing smile. "Fate is truly strange sotis. It weaves paths that no one could possibly predict. But the choices one makes always make a difference as well."
Cangyuan stopped walking for a mont and looked out over the vast expanse of the realm stretching below the mountain.
"Things are within your hands to control." Cangyuan said with a profound tone. "It is not just blind fate guiding you. Fate only gently pushes you along the river. You are the one who chooses whether to swim or let the current take you. You chose to sit with the rcenaries and the token chose you."
Li Yu took in the wisdom and thought about his own actions over the past fifteen days. He had actively distanced himself from his family because they felt foreign to him.
"Do you think it is wrong?" Li Yu asked quietly as he looked at the ancestor for guidance. "Do you think it is wrong that I fit in better with the Freeblade Alliance than the Li Clan?"
Cangyuan laughed again and patted Li Yu firmly on the shoulder.
"Not to worry." Cangyuan reassured him warmly. "A clan is a family but you never grew up within this family. You are a stranger to our halls and our customs. You still treat the clan as a stranger still and they also treat you as a stranger. That is a perfectly natural reaction to your circumstances. These things take ti."
They resud their walk down the mountain while the sun began to peek through the heavy clouds.
"You might never truly feel a place within the clan." Cangyuan stated honestly. "Or you could eventually feel like it is the best ho in the world. Only ti will tell which outco is true but that is not important right now. What is more important is to be comfortable, to be free, to follow your own instincts and your gut."
Li Yu listened closely as the words brought a great sense of relief to his mind. He had felt a slight burden of guilt for honoring his father's wishes while secretly preferring the company of lawless wanderers.
"That is the true way." Cangyuan explained while looking ahead. "You do not need to follow your father's path of the sword. You do not need to follow your mother's path of brute force either. You can follow your own unique path and what is to say that the Freeblade Alliance is not the best place for you to grow? Many people leave their clans and go off on their own to find their true Dao."
Cangyuan turned his head and locked eyes with Li Yu.
"The clan is like an anchor." Cangyuan said firmly. "It is a safe place you can always return to if you ever need to rest or hide from a storm. However, an anchor is not ant to tie you down forever, only when you need it to. You can always pull it up whenever you want and you can also drop it when needed."
"Thank you." Li Yu said sincerely as he processed the ancestor’s words. He felt a deep appreciation for the old man. Cangyuan was the one of the highest authorities in the clan but he possessed a very open mind. The fact that he was even chatting so casually with a junior was telling enough.
They finally reached the base of the mountain and walked across the sprawling stone courtyards toward the ship of the Li Clan. The disciples were busy preparing for the long journey back to their territory. As they approached, Cangyuan casually reached into his spatial ring and he pulled out a smooth piece of green jade and held it out toward Li Yu.
"Take this." Cangyuan said with a casual tone. "This is a technique that I stumbled upon while I was much younger. It seed highly suitable for your specific fighting style and your massive Qi reserves. Consider it a greeting gift since I never gave you one when you first arrived at the estate."
"Thank you, Ancestor." Li Yu replied happily. He accepted the green jade slip without any hesitation. The casualness that Ancestor Cangyuan had given it to him had disard him.
He had absolutely no idea that the jade slip was not so random technique found in a forgotten cave. It was the life work of Ancestor Cangyuan and his proudest achievent in his life.
The old man had spent a lifeti refining the theories hidden within the jade. It was a highly advanced and extrely dangerous additional Qi cultivation technique called the Boundless Source Scripture.
Li Yu pushed a small sliver of his soul sense into the jade slip as they walked up the ramp. The information flooded into his mind and he nearly stumbled over his own feet as he realized how powerful the technique was as the jade slip itself shattered into pieces.
The Boundless Source Scripture was not an offensive attack or a movent skill. It was a foundational rewriting of the human body.
It allowed a cultivator to create a second, third and even fourth storage of Qi at each major step in the technique. It essentially allowed a person to build multiple overlapping Dantians to hold an ocean of energy. There were a total of four complete steps outlined in the manual right now. However, the technique placed extre physical demands on the human body in order to achieve this impossible storage.
The demands also scaled exponentially.
To form the second storage of Qi, the physical demand on the body doubled. It was a painful but manageable process for soone with a strong physique. However, the true terror of the technique revealed itself quickly.
To successfully form the third storage, the physical demand increased by sixteen tis. To attempt the fourth storage, the demand skyrocketed to one hundred and twenty eight tis the base limit.
It did not just crush the physical body though. The Boundless Source Scripture placed the exact sa exponential demand on the soul. The soul had to be strong enough to compress and contain the multiplying oceans of Qi without shattering.
Ancestor Cangyuan walked up the ramp with his hands folded behind his back. He did not tell Li Yu that he himself had only ever gotten to the third step after his entire lifeti of cultivation. The fourth step was sothing Cangyuan only thought was theoretically possible in his mind. His physical body could probably barely handle the strain but his bottleneck was his soul strength.
Li Yu read further into the jade slip and noted the major drawback of the technique. While it would give him a massive amount of extra Qi to use in a protracted battle, it would also take significantly longer to recover the Qi afterwards. Filling the reservoirs required pulling an absurd amount of ambient energy from the world.
It was a great technique to have though. The advantage to having even more Qi than soone else was easy to understand. Li Yu glanced over at Ancestor Cangyuan and no longer believed his story that this was so technique picked up on the side of the road. He had never even seen such a technique before, it was clearly special but the ancestor had intentionally not said so. They both stuck to the story told but Li Yu was imnsely grateful.
Cangyuan watched Li Yu study the jade slip out of the corner of his eye. The old man felt a surge of genuine hope in his chest. Cangyuan truly hoped to see the day where the Boundless Source Scripture could be taken to the fourth step before he died. He even secretly believed that Li Yu might be the one to figure out the theoretical fifth step.
They stepped onto the main deck of the golden ship as the engines roared to life. The Heavenly Sword Sect conference was over and Li Yu was returning ho with a new title, a new combat theory and a technique that would change his future.
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