The morning breeze created a relaxing atmosphere, perfect for a man to read accompanied by tea. A young man clad in white sits down, reading from a scroll as he sipped on a cup of tea from time to time.
The young man is, of course, Wu Dong Yi. After the banquet, the entire kingdom was still bustling. From the looks of it, the kingdom would be in its celebratory state for over a week.
With nothing to do besides reading and cultivating, Wu Dong Yi felt somewhat bored. As someone from the 21st century, a world like this is one that he still hasn't quite gotten used to even after a few months.
Standing up, he had a sudden feeling spout within himself. He left the courtyard and began to wander around the palace.
Wu Dong Yi went around, seeing many eunuchs and ministers as well as palace maids. He watched the palace maids wash the clothes for a bit before heading off somewhere else. Wherever his two feet would take him, he would go.
It wasn't until a while later, that he came upon the soldiers training. From a dozen or so meters away, Wu Dong Yi noticed a familiar figure. A tall and handsome fellow in a general's armor was leading the training of his squadron.
The young man not much older than him, who is also the grandson of minister Gongsun stood up straight and watched his men perform set moves.
Noticing a presence, Gongsun Zhong turned to face the presence and spotted Wu Dong Yi.
"Continue on your own," he told his men.
"Yes sir!" the soldiers yelled.
Gongsun Zhong walked up to Wu Dong Yi and paid his respect. "Your majesty."
"No need." Wu Dong Yi replied.
"What brings you here today?" Gongsun Zhong asked.
From the way he spoke, Wu Dong Yi thought that the man before him was a good man. It was no wonder his wife thought of the man as a good elder brother.
"I'm just here to watch, no need to bother with me," he replied.
"I see, please inform your subject if you have any problems."
"Now, if you'll excuse me." Gongsun Zhong said as he returned to his station.
Wu Dong Yi stayed to watch for a while, the soldiers trained in martial arts to sword training, archery, and even training drills. As he walked out, he noticed a small board that displayed some text.
He got up closer to read the text.
'Recruiting soldiers to be stationed on the borders between the states. Recruiting all men and women, children under 16 allowed. Only those above Body Tempering Stage 7 and above, no exceptions will be made. Salary is ten thousand silver taels a year.'
His eyes lit up, he found something to do now that he is bored. Regrettably, he won't be able to see his wife for a while.
"I'm sure she'll understand." he thought.
"I can't use my real name since general Gongsun knows my real name… I'll have to use something different and not so obvious unlike the characters in novels who have their name backward. How about erm… Li Fan."
Now that he knew what he wanted, Wu Dong Yi headed back to his room to think of a plan.
**********
"Do you really want to go?" Bing Yi Jian asked.
"En." Wu Dong Yi replied.
"That's fine, you can temper your training further while seeing things for yourself rather than just reading from books." Bing Yi Jian agreed.
"Thank you," he said.
"Xinyue, bring the necessities."
"En." Yang Xinyue bowed as she left the room.
"The recruitment will take place in two weeks, you will need to learn some martial arts." Bing Yi Jian informed him.
"En, how many sword arts do you have?" Wu Dong Yi asked.
"Thousands," she replied.
"..."
"I shouldn't have asked." he thought.
"I'll pick a few out then," he said.
"Let's go then."
***********
Standing amongst thousands of scrolls, each containing a sword art within, Wu Dong Yi closed his eyes. He felt as though the sword arts would come to him on its own if he were to have a feel of the space around him.
Bing Yi Jian stood behind him and simply watched without a word.
In this world, Wu Dong Yi had read that, the basic five elements of fire, water, wood, metal, and earth. Beyond that, there are also elements such as ice, thunder, darkness, and light.
Apparently there are no elements such as space or time like they have in some novels. This world is similar to a xianxia novel, but at the same time, it is closer to a wuxia world.
Each person is more suited to a certain element more so than the others. Wu Dong Yi had been tested to be more talented in both the wood and fire element. Actually, all his elements affinity is higher than the average person by quite a lot already, his wood and fire element, in particular, is a level beyond that.
The greater the affinity with an element, the easier and faster it is to learn an art of that element. Not only that, the more powerful the attacks performed by each art also increases with affinity.
Bing Yi Jian had told him that she had an affinity with both fire and ice which is a level above the water element, while Yang Xinyue has an incredible affinity with solely the fire element.
Yang Xinyue's affinity with fire is greater than both Bing Yi Jian and Wu Dong Yi's affinity.
Opening his eyes, Wu Dong Yi noticed the presence of five scrolls floating in front of his eyes.
Just by feeling their auras, he could tell that they were amongst the best within the entire library.
The auras being emitted have different colors that indicate the grade of them. A white aura is the lowest grade, yellow is low grade, purple is middle grade, black high grade, red is higher than black and gold is the highest grade.
The grades are referred to by their color.
In front of him, three of the scrolls were red, one gold and the final one was white.
Bing Yi Jian felt an odd sensation when she noticed the white grade sword art. She felt that it shouldn't be white, but at the same time, it should be white. This caused her to frown her delicate eyebrows as she looked.
Within the entire library owned by the kingdom, there were only three gold grade arts. With two being a sword art, and the last one being a movement art.
The three red scrolls each belonged to the water, earth and metal element, while the gold was of the fire element. The final scroll belonged to the wood element.
Of the scrolls that came to him on their own, Wu Dong Yi felt the greatest affinity with the white grade sword art.
He opened the three red scrolls first, which were all offensive techniques. The water element art was both an offensive and defensive art which made it stand out amongst the three.
Black Swan dance is the name of the water art. It doesn't go into much detail about it but rather showed different techniques within the scroll to mimic.
The same was with the Earthen chain art which is a chain of unending chain attacks that lead to one another.
The final of the three is an array art. To be more specific, it is a sword array art that combines the other elements with the metal element at its center to create an endless torrent of swords.
Reading this technique, Wu Dong Yi knew that he was close to realizing his dream of controlling thousands of swords and raining them down on his enemies.
The fire technique which is of the highest grade contains a single attack. That's right, a single attack. Basically, one would generate flames within their sword and send out a single lash at their enemy.
The final sword art is a series of various techniques. Together there are nine different techniques used in various situations. The name of the art is the Peach Blossom art.
Wu Dong Yi imagined himself killing his enemies while peach blossoms would flow from his sword like blood.
Once he had a brief read over the scrolls, the put his hands forward as the sword arts landed on his palms. Placing them in his belt, he turned around to leave.
**********
Whoosh! Whoosh!
A young man held a sword in his hand as he practiced. The young man put down the scroll in his hand and mimicked a set of forms that he had just read.
His form was perfect, but he knew that he didn't get the essence in the techniques down. He spent hours within the room perfecting his technique as he began to feel the essence contained within each move.
His movements not only resembled a swan, but a shadow of a swan, as well as water element Spiritual Qi, was roused from his movements.
Even as the movements became smoother and the feeling he felt was right, the young man who is obviously Wu Dong Yi continued repeating this set of moves over and over and over. He had skipped dinner and continued practicing without an end.
Even if he was talented, a short span of two weeks is nowhere near enough for him to make much progress in the five techniques.
There are also levels of mastery in techniques. With the lowest being Minor proficiency, Greater proficiency, and Perfection.
Wu Dong Yi's goal in these two weeks is to reach Minor proficiency in at least two of the five sword arts. He also didn't have any time to learn a movement technique which meant that if he met with danger, he would have no means of escape.
Knowing that was the case, Bing Yi Jian imparted him with the same movement technique that she used. It is called the Ice Empress' Road.
As the name implies, with each step, a road of ice would be formed. One might think it would be useless for escaping since the enemies would just follow the road of ice right? Well, the road would quickly melt away into the atmosphere and return to the Heaven and Earth, leaving behind nothing.
He focused on the Black Swan art and the Ice Empress' Road art while the rest was secondary. Amongst the six arts he practiced, he found the Peach Blossom art was the most difficult to grasp even though it was a white level art.
When he first noticed it, he had the same feeling Bing Yi Jian felt. When he informed her, she frowned slightly as she didn't explain further.
After two weeks, it was approaching the day that Wu Dong Yi would leave for the army. Even as he practiced the sword arts, he didn't neglect his cultivation and is knocking on the door to the Qi Condensation Realm. With just a little push, he would arrive at the stage, making him one step closer to realizing his dream.
On the night before he would leave, he spent his time telling Bing Yi Jian some stories of Earth and a little bit about himself. He didn't know when the next time he would see her would be, hence he spent his time with her.
The next morning, he wore a disguise and headed straight for the recruitment location on his own. He had made sure to leave his belongings inside a storage ring which he could keep hidden using his Spiritual Qi so that no one could tell his identity.
Of course, this would be an exception for general Gongsun and Gongsun Zhong if they were to see him. He hoped that he wouldn't be seeing them until he successfully made it in, if he's already on the borders they can't send him back now can they?
When he arrived, Wu Dong Yi's expression darkened.