After Cao Xuan left, Chu Xisheng sat in his wooden chair immersed in his thoughts for a while before he got up to tidy up the tea set on the table.
There was not much water left in the yard, so Chu Xisheng had to pick up the shoulder pole and fetch two buckets of water from the well outside.
At this time, he particularly missed Chu Yunyun, who was condensing her Spirit Seed in the Daoist Temple.
It wasn't the hard labor he missed; rather, the miscellaneous yard was too remote, surrounded by eeriness and quiet, too desolate for one person.
Chu Xisheng also took the opportunity to clean the two rooms, roughly washed up, and then went back to lie on his bed.
Filled with anticipation, he used one Martial Arts Point to exchange for a session of "Virtual Practice" from the Martial Arts Treasure Vault.
Of the remaining eleven items in the Martial Arts Treasure Vault, only this one greatly interested him.
Previously, Chu Xisheng had been holding on to those few Martial Arts Points, afraid to use them.
Now he had no more reservations, although he had not completely figured out where these Martial Arts Points came from, he had a rough idea,
Moreover, the number of Martial Arts Points was as high as 26, so he could afford to be extravagant.
At the moment of the exchange, Chu Xisheng felt his mind waver, and suddenly the world in front of him changed.
He found himself in an exceedingly vast Han white jade Square.
The square was at least a thousand feet long and wide, with a huge white light orb in the center, extremely eye-catching.
When Chu Xisheng focused on the light orb, a message appeared in his mind.
——Would you like to pause the Virtual Practice and end the dream?
Chu Xisheng then looked around and discovered that the perimeter of the Han white jade Square was filled with palaces, all hidden in the mist, only their outlines visible.
Chu Xisheng pondered briefly, then walked toward the east direction.
He wanted to see what these palaces, hidden in the mist, actually looked like.
But what he found next was strange; no matter how he walked, he could not get more than fifty yards away from the white light orb.
The palaces were right ahead, yet remained unreachable.
Chu Xisheng shook his head in resignation and gave up on his desire to explore.
He then reached down to his waist to practice with his saber, but his hand grasped at air.
Chu Xisheng blinked and then remembered that his Hundred-refined Light Steel Saber could not be brought into the dream.
Just then, countless clouds of smoke gathered around him, forming into weapon racks, appearing row after row before Chu Xisheng.
They were filled with every kind of weapon imaginable: swords, spears, hidden weapons, bows, and crossbows—eighteen types of weapons all told.
Each type of weapon offered hundreds of choices, ranging from the lowly Ten Refinement Steel Blade to the First-grade Sun-blocking Blade.
When Chu Xisheng took a "Hundred-refined Light Steel Saber" from the weapon rack, all the racks disappeared into mist as if they had never existed.
The touch of the Hundred-refined Light Steel Saber was cold, and its handle, weight, and texture were exactly the same as his accompanying sword.
Chu Xisheng marveled, unable to believe that he was dreaming.
He then gathered his thoughts and began practicing the sword skill.
That very afternoon, when the system had awakened, Chu Yunyun had adjusted his sword-drawing posture to further enhance his fast sword talent, but he had not yet had the chance to practice it.
The first technique Chu Xisheng practiced was "empty wind."
This was part of the Chasing Wind Saber's Draw Sword Style, a simple technique, similar to the Qi Family Blade's Sword Drawing Skill and Japan's Iaido.
It merely involved the use of True Yuan, which then doubled the sword speed.
Chu Xisheng followed the instructions to the letter, adhering to the points Chu Yunyun had laid out, consistently practicing the drawing and striking of the sword, repeating the process over and over.
Low-rank martial cultivators like them don't need to consider variations when using a sword.
In combat, a martial cultivator faces changes in the blink of an eye, who has time to think?
Most of the time, they must rely on instinct to respond.
Only when their instincts are sufficient to handle most fights do martial cultivators have the leisure to think and use their Martial Arts more rationally in battle.
So now, he just needed to make his sword movements instinctual, forming muscle memory.
The practice process was incredibly tedious, yet Chu Xisheng relished it.
In the past, limited by his physical condition, Chu Xisheng could not practice with the sword for more than half an hour each day.
When that time was reached, Chu Xisheng would feel his heart ache and his limbs go numb, making it impossible to continue.
But now, Chu Xisheng had been practicing for an entire hour and hadn't felt any irregularities in his body.
Only his physical strength and True Yuan were being consumed bit by bit.
Chu Xisheng gradually felt tired, and his muscles were somewhat sore and soft.
He had to exert his full strength to keep the sword movements standard, not allowing fatigue to cause any variations.
To Chu Xisheng's surprise, when his physical strength was nearly eighty percent depleted, it stopped decreasing.
His eyes brightened; he knew that practice was often most effective when one's physical strength was low and muscles were tired, which also closely mimicked the conditions of real combat.
Chu Xisheng felt even more anticipation, looking forward to the moment he would wake from this dream.
According to the product description of "Virtual Training," the training effect in the dream was the same as that in the real scenario, and it neither consumed physical strength nor mental energy.
But how would this effect manifest itself?
※※※※
In the early morning, a beam of sunlight entered through the window.
Chu Xisheng felt his skin burning and suddenly woke from his sleep.
Then he felt an intense pain, as if countless ants were biting him, all his muscles were sore to the maximum, mixed with an almost tearing sensation.
Chu Xisheng was in such excruciating pain that he couldn't help but roll around in bed until he eventually eased up a bit.
Once the pain completely subsided, Chu Xisheng caught his breath and fell into a thoughtful speculation.
His 'Six Yin Soul Revival Spell' usually manifested as heart pains, numb limbs, and a fear of light, but he had never experienced something like today.
Chu Xisheng suddenly realized something and, holding his accompanying sword, went to the courtyard to try the "empty wind" move.
With a flash of bright sword light, the three falling leaves in front of him silently split in two.
Chu Xisheng stared at his right hand, a look of astonishment appearing in his eyes.
He distinctly felt that his sword was faster!
It seemed as if he had practiced it tens of thousands of times, extremely proficiently.
Chu Xisheng came to a realization, the pain he had suffered was presumably due to the system infusing the results of his dream training into his body.
Surprisingly, after enduring such intense pain, Chu Xisheng felt completely energized, without a trace of fatigue.
Indeed, just as the description had mentioned, it did not consume physical or mental energy.
Chu Xisheng's lips slightly curled up, feeling as if a vast road had been laid out before his feet.
He did not need to rely on system points, and he didn't even need talent.
As long as the system allowed him to practice Martial Arts like a normal person, he was confident that he could reach the endpoint of a martial cultivator.