Chapter 111 – Breakthrough
The following morning, braving Xiao Feng’s persuasion to retain him at the Peak, Bi Fan left Yu Nu Feng.
His first priority was to enhance his strength as soon as possible; he had no time to tarry.
Once he was away from Yu Nu Feng, Bi Fan quicken up his pace, as he tried to rush his way towards the Yang Shan Peak in the sunny weather.
“Look it’s that kid again, ah.” A cynical, and rather unpleasant voice, came from behind.
Bi Fan turned around to look, and found Luo Sheng standing behind him.
Bi Fan’s face turned ugly as he saw the proud look on his enemy’s face.
He sized Luo Sheng up, and realized that Luo Sheng had already reached the ‘Transformation’ layer, which was probably the reason behind his smug face.
In the months that Bi Fan was gone, Luo Sheng had been mentored by his grandfather, Luo Xiao Tian. His strength had been growing by leaps and bounds, and he was becoming even more confident of himself.
“Are you done? I don’t have time for this, good-bye.” Bi Fan turned around to leave; he really didn’t want to look at Luo Sheng’s smug face, until he had beaten him.
Luo Sheng’s grandfather is a big shot; he is one of the elders at the Quinyang Sect, which is one of the reasons why Luo Sheng carried himself with so much arrogance; and Bi Fan couldn’t stand it.
Luo Sheng said in a cold voice: “I’m just here to see you, what are you afraid of?”
“I don’t have time for this….” Bi Fan simply cast him aside, as he started walking away.
“Stop!” Luo Sheng yelled after him.
In the Quinyang Sect, no disciple had ever treated him with as much disrespect, so naturally, Luo Sheng was quite angry.
Bi Fan repeated himself, and this time, in a relatively colder tone: “I don’t have time for your games, I’m busy.”
“Bi Fan, our contest is approaching, and in a few months, when the time comes, I will personally kill you.” Luo Sheng smiled arrogantly.
“I’ll say it again; I don’t have time for your non-sense.” Bi Fan turned around again, and started walking even faster now.
Luo Sheng’s eyes were cold, as he yelled after Bi Fan: “Bi Fan, I will humiliate you, and then, I will kill you.”
Bi Fan paid no attention to Luo Sheng’s words; he was more concerned with Luo Sheng’s grandfather, Luo Xiao Tian.
Nowadays, Bi Fan had a very different target in his mind. He wanted to oust the like of Ying Tian, Yan Yu Si’s senior.
Only a man of Ying Tian’s strength is regarded as a true leader, of their generation, in the real martial arts world.
Soon after, Bi Fan returned to the Yang Shan Peak. After informing Ling Xin Ya of his return, he started his practice.
This time, his target was to reach the ‘Enormous strength’ layer.
But, Bi Fan had no intention of taking Dan Pellets to support his growth, as he knew that with continued practice, he would be able to make the breakthrough, sooner or later.
Bi Fan wasn’t anxious about reaching the target that had been set for him and continued to practice relentlessly, knowing that he would achieve the landmark in due course of time.
During the day, Bi Fan would practice with Yang Feng, who would teach him more about the ‘Fufeng Double-edged sword’ and the ‘Floating Sword’ techniques.
Yang Feng had been practicing for decades, and had a very profound understanding of the techniques.
Now that Bi Fan was learning under his supervision, his own personal understanding started to improve, and it didn’t take long before he was even able to learn the second form, ‘Flurry Sword’, and the third form, ‘Rainstorm Sword’, of the ‘Floating Sword’ technique.
The Second form of the technique, ‘The Flurry Sword’, is purely designed for speed, and could be used to defeat the opponent by beating his pace.
The third form, ‘The Rainstorm Sword’, is an even more violent technique, which is designed for both speed and strength, and is far more powerful than the first two forms.
Each of these forms is quite different from the other, almost to point, where they could be considered separate techniques altogether.
Up until now, Bi Fan only knew one powerful technique proficiently, ‘The Rainy-Fly Sword’, but with the addition of these two new powerful skills, his strength started to increase even faster.
Not only that, Bi Fan’s understanding of his martial skills also started to deepen.
In the Quinyang Sect, the ‘Floating Sword’ is given the status of a four-star technique, and is regarded as a high-level skill. It is said that the most powerful skill of the Quinyang Sect, is a skill known as the ‘Wave Breaker’, which is regarded as a six-star martial skill.
In the Jiu Yu Da Sects, however, even a Six Star martial Skill is only regarded as an intermediate technique, and most of these Sects are known to even have nine-star martial skill of their own.
The higher the ‘star’ rating of a martial skill, the powerful it is supposed to be, so naturally, acquiring these skills is very crucial for any martial artist.
“Young one, you are too perceptive. I really have nothing more left to teach you.” Yang Feng was quite excited.
In the past, when Yang Feng had learned these techniques, Ling Xin Ya had personally trained him, and it had taken him over a year to learn these forms properly.
But Bi Fan had learnt the second, and third, form of the ‘floating sword’ technique in only a few days, and had even become quite skilled with their usage.
“Big Brother, the credit goes to your teaching ability; otherwise I would never have been able to learn these skills so quickly.” Bi Fan smiled.
The ‘Floating Sword’ technique even has a fourth form, but for the time-being, Bi Fan wasn’t capable of practicing the form, but regardless, Bi Fan felt quite satisfied with his progress.
In the evenings, Bi Fan would dedicate his time to practicing the methods which were described in the battered jade book, and his physical strength was also seeing steady progress.
Bi Fan’s schedule was jam-packed with training, and he barely had any time for sleep.
In a blink of an eye, a month pa.s.sed by, and he finally reached that critical stage for making the breakthrough.
The leap from the peak of the ‘Spiritual Intelligence’ layer, to the ‘Enormous strength’ layer, was a very painful one, but Bi Fan didn’t mind the process.
Bi Fan was only concerned about his progress, and had already deleted the word ‘pain’ from his dictionary a long time ago.
Once he had acc.u.mulated enough energy, he prepared to make the breakthrough, and was able to achieve his goal without facing any hiccups.
Now that he had successfully reached the ‘Enormous Strength’ layer, Bi Fan could sense the increase in his energy, and even his physical strength had increased to twelve Yun Shi.
If he applied his entire strength, then Bi Fan could notch a force of twenty-two Yun Shi, which was equivalent to the force achieved by an ‘Emerging from the Womb’ layer pract.i.tioner, at a stable state.
However, ‘Emerging from the Womb’ layer martial artists, are backed by their body’s Aura, which is why their fighting ability would easily exceed Bi Fan’s.
Once he had made the breakthrough, Bi Fan continued to practice in order to stabilize the state.
After making the breakthrough, Bi Fan started practicing the entire range of his skill set, as he wished to explore his new abilities.
Bi Fan had no time to sit idly; he was busy, ever moment of every day.
Another month pa.s.sed by, and Bi Fan had learnt a lot of new thing about his skills, and had even managed to stabilize his new state, as he continued to prepare for the approaching Jiu Yu Hidden Dragon tournament.
Whatever time remained in his daily schedule, Bi Fan would usually spend it studying the book of Seals, which he had purchased from the Ting Feng valley. (A seal is basically like a charm, or a rune.)
The book which had purchased, only contained the most basic information, and only spoke about the most basic runes.
But Bi Fan had always felt that a book with a golden cover, like his, must have something special about it.
Bi Fan had gone over the contents of the Book several times, but hadn’t found anything useful, yet.
But Bi Fan wasn’t the kind to give up easily, and continued to study the book over and over again, hoping that he might have missed something out.
At present, Bi Fan had studied the book more times than he could remember, but still hadn’t found anything useful.
“What a completely useless book, I’ll tear this to pieces.” Bi Fan was quite angry. He opened the book again, and started removing its binding, out of anger.
His anger had gotten his better of his patience, as he started ripping out the book’s binding.
Suddenly, something fell to the ground, and Bi Fan bent over to pick it up.
“Hey, this seems like a Charm, why was it hidden inside the cover?” Bi Fan couldn’t help but wonder.
He guessed that the Rune must be something of value, or else it wouldn’t have been concealed inside the book’s cover.
Bi Fan looked at the rune again and again, but was unable to identify it. He couldn’t see anything special about the rune; in fact, it seemed quite ordinary to him.
“d.a.m.n it! I thought this might be something good after all. But no, this book is still completely useless, ah!” Bi Fan tried several times, but was simply unable to identify the Rune’s use.
He tried using the Rune by employing the various methods which were descried in the book, but to no avail.
“That’s it!” Bi Fan threw the Rune on the floor, along with the book.
It seemed that he was out of luck this time. The object which had ignited his pa.s.sion, since he thought that it was a treasure, was now the reason for his disappointment.
A While later, after Bi Fan had calmed down, he started reorganizing the Book again. He could always sell the book back; after all, it did have a golden cover.