Immediately after the system notification stopped ringing in his head, Shenyan felt a strange and mysterious energy depart from his sword as it entered into his body. Soon, he could feel strange characters appearing in his mind. At first the characters were jumbled but after a while, the characters restructured themselves forming the knowledge pertaining to all the seven techniques he had comprehended just now.
The knowledge of the techniques felt like it was being imprinted on his brain as he could not forget them even if he wanted to. A few moments later, a strange phenomenon occurred as Shenyan felt his vision blur for a moment— he felt like his consciousness departed his body, a very strange feeling washed over him, and when he came to, he found himself elsewhere with a steel sword in his hand.
Upon looking around, he could not tell where he was, he felt like he was in some sort of void with no color, only a shade of white everywhere. Soon, the place changed and revealed a different scenery— it was a flowing river surrounded by large stone boulders and he found himself standing on one of these boulders. As Shenyan was confused about what was going on, he suddenly felt his body move on its own as it began to practice one of the techniques he just learned— the [Vertical Slash Technique].
"Swoosh! Swoosh! Swish!" " Swoosh! Swoosh! Swish!"
Shenyan could feel himself swinging the steel sword in his hand while he faced the direction of the flowing river. The river continued to flow unaffected by his constant swing. Shenyan first swung the sword diagonally from the top left to bottom right and then swung from top right to bottom left and finally swinging it from the top to the bottom vertically. Shenyan repeated this process for days and then years until he felt like he was getting better at controlling the flow of the sword as he swung the sword in his hand one last time.
"Whoosh!!"
When he did, he could feel the river below his feet suddenly shook from the wind pressure carried by his swing of the sword. After a while, Shenyan suddenly stopped swinging the sword— his body that is, stopped moving involuntarily.
Soon it started practicing the [Horizontal Slash Technique]. And just like the first technique, he started swinging from left to right then right to left and he repeated this process for years until he was finally able to cut the wind causing the air surrounding him to shake from the impact.
Like before, Shenyan's body stopped moving on its own and assumed a different position and with a single stroke in front of him, the air rippled as it was pierce by his sword. This time it was the [Stabbing Sword Technique] which mainly involves stabbing your sword forward continuously and like before Shenyan practiced piercing his sword forward until he could feel every pierce that he struck out carry with it the wind as he could see the nearby boulder get struck by the wind carried over from his piercings.
And after that, the training session of this technique also came to an end. Shenyan proceeded to start practicing a new technique. Although Shenyan could feel like time was passing by as he practiced his techniques, the weather did not change in this strange space.
The weather maintained a serene and bright environment with the tree leaves that kept fluttering constantly from the wind and birds chirping in the forest. And also, Shenyan could not feel tired or anything of the sort despite swinging his sword constantly— it was a very strange feeling as he was not the one moving his body but nonetheless, he could still perceive his progress into the techniques.
The technique that he was practicing now required him to place his steel sword into its sheath and constantly draw it out with the fastest speed.
Shenyan had no idea why his body was doing that at first but then he remembered one of the techniques was the [Quick-Draw Sword Technique] which requires the gathering of spirit energy into the sword to build energy or strength and then release it with the strongest destructive power depending on how long the power is built.
He assumed that this practice was the foundation for that technique as currently he was not utilizing any spirit energy— only pure strength and technique.
After continuously sheathing and unsheathing his steel and swinging for unknown amount of times. If Shenyan had to guess it could reach tens of thousands of times seeing as how he lost track of how many times that he drew his sword.
But Shenyan could tell that as time went by, the speed at which he drew the sword increased and he could feel his muscles growing accustomed to the technique just like the previous techniques that he practiced before this one.
Shenyan continued to draw his sword for many years mentally and soon, he could feel his sword cut the wind at the speed of which caused the air to tremble and split apart. The river below made a 'splash' sound as it was visibly cut into two; Even the boulders in the nearby could not escape the onslaught of Shenyan Quick-Draw Sword Technique as there were visible marks left on them.
"Swish!!" "Swish!!"
After drawing his sword for few more times, Shenyan's body stopped. But it did not stop practicing as it immediately assumed a different position again. The new position looked similar to when he was practicing the horizontal and vertical slash, but at the same time, it was also different. Immediately Shenyan felt himself practicing both the vertical and horizontal Slash consecutively.
He started out by swinging his sword diagonally from top left to bottom right and immediately switch to swinging from right to left horizontally.
It appears that this is the [Double Slash Technique], which required you to attack fast enough to achieve a crisscross attack pattern. Shenyan practice this technique in both ways— the second pattern was from top right to bottom left diagonally and then switch to swinging from left to right horizontally.
Shenyan could feel himself spending more time on this technique unlike the previous ones. After another few years, more time than the other techniques, Shenyan finally succeeded in achieving the result needed, which was shown as he stroked out his sword so fast it left an afterimage and while it looks like one swing, he had already swung it two times achieving a double slash in a crisscross pattern.
Seeing this, Shenyan was really satisfied with his training, because he could feel himself grow stronger and stronger with every swing of his sword. With this foundation, Shenyan easily blaze through the [Triple Stab Technique] which required three consecutive stabs. With his foundation in the Stabbing Sword Technique and the Double Slash Technique, his muscles were already strong enough, so he was easily able to achieve three successive strikes after a few months or so in practice mode.
The next technique, Shenyan could tell it was different from the rest as it cost more source points than the rest— [Crimson Crescent Slash Technique]. This technique seemed to be high leveled basic sword technique as it could evolve into an advance sword technique depending on your mastery. While Shenyan was thinking about this, his body started swinging the steel sword in his hand.
The position at which the sword was swung looked almost identical to when he was practicing the Quick-Draw Sword Technique as he swung arching into a crescent shaped slash horizontally, occasionally diagonally.
This technique heavily relied on Spirit energy, so it was impossible to practice it thoroughly. However, practicing the basics of the technique is a must, and necessary requirement needed to actually perform the technique accurately and at the same time increasing your mastery over the technique.
After spending an unknown of amount of time inside that strange space practicing his Sword techniques, Shenyan felt his vision blur again as he reappeared in reality feeling out of place as he turned his head around with a dazed look on his face.
'What happened just now, I felt like I was practicing the techniques I just learned at some strange place for countless years.' Shenyan thought to himself.
[Ding! Congratulations to the User for comprehending the foundation of several ⟪[Basic Sword Techniques]⟫. Please check your Status screen for more information.] The mechanical voice rang inside Shenyan's head immediately snapping him out of his daze.