However, Xu Su was quite unfamiliar with the voice of the other spy. He must have never met this person before. However, judging from the spy's voice, his age must be relatively young, around 20 years old.
Unfortunately, in order to insure his own safety, Xu Su didn't dare to steal a glance. He feared that these two men practiced martial skills that could detect his spying gaze, enabling them to be aware of nearby outsiders. The potential gains were not worth the potential losses.
After this slightly dangerous event, the trip after became quite safe.
Xu Su finally returned home after his regular supper time.
As always, Physician Wu mysteriously paid him a visit and gave him a glance that lacked any interest. Aside from delivering a few concocted medicines, he normally left Xu Su to do as he wished.
Xu Su seemed as if he had not noticed the medicines that Physician Wu had delivered. They were all created from rare medicinal ingredients that were gathered from his previous expedition away from the mountain. Xu Su believed that Physician Wu had abandoned his expectations of him and had some other malevolent scheme prepared.
For now, Xu Su completely disregarded the precious medicine Physician Wu had delivered. But in order to avoid raising suspicion from Physician Wu, he pinched his nose and swallowed it down.
He threw away any suspicion that the medicines were laced with poison. Currently, any harm Physician Wu inflicted onto Xu Su would only be hurting himself.
With regards to seeing the Feral Snake Gang spies, Xu Su thought of the best method to deal with them on the way back to his residence.
Although he wasn't deeply passionate towards the Seven Clouds Sect, he was halfway to becoming an Inner Disciple. How could he possibly be impartial toward a harmful affair toward the Seven Clouds Sect before his eyes and ignore it completely?
He had long thought of a best candidate to handle this matter——Lie Feiy, the famous Senior Disciple Lie.
According to Xu Su's observation, perhaps the reason Lie Feiy consumed the Essence Extraction Pill was because he greatly valued being in the center of attention far greater than a common man and possessed no small amount of ambition. He had always dreamed of entering the upper divisions of the Seven Clouds Sect, further becoming the focus of attention.
Xu Su had previously suspected that Lie Feiy probably thought he was in the last stage of his life, and thus he became even more frantic and hungry for fame.
If Xu Su allowed Xu Su to perform a large contribution to the Seven Clouds Sect, Lie Feiy would certainly be excited to no end. This way, Xu Su would be able to repay Lie Feiy for stealing the sword manuals.
Thinking of the Blinking Sword Art, Xu Su felt a wave of emotion.
Xu Su did not tell any lies regarding the Blinking Sword Art to his good friend. This sword art truly did not suit Lie Feiy. However, Xu Su did not reveal many of the details.
An essential rule of survival was that one should always keep a few secrets, regardless of who they were being kept from.
Although Lie Feiy and Xu Su seemed to have a close relationship, it was hardly exceptional.
However, the contents written in these secret manuals were quite different from common martial teachings.
It seemed to Xu Su that, rather than to say it was a sword art, it would be more appropriate to call it sword ingenuity. It was a complete integration of weather, timing, favorable positioning, and secretive assassination techniques against all kinds of factors and people; such a skill was rarely seen. It was pure killing skill; as soon as the sword was drawn, death approached.
These books described different environments, times of day, and the utilization of diligently practiced secretive sword skills. There were all kinds of sure-kill techniques that would cut down an enemy in a single strike.
The manuals taught those that learned these sword skills to make use of every tree and strand of grass in the terrain, as well as light rays of all intensities and angles, in order to hinder the opponent's vision. During the split second the opponent was weakened, the user would take advantage of it and kill them in an instant.
This was a mysterious technique that required much attention and skill to execute. Without the slightest talent, it would be impossible to understand this sword art.
Therefore, those who learned this mysterious technique must excel in the five senses. Their vision and hearing must far exceed that of an ordinary person by many levels if there were to be the promise of even the slightest results.
Even if they had the requirements to achieve that stage, there would inevitably be a few disciples who would covet the Blinking Sword Art's formidable power and choose to cultivate it immediately after reaching the minimum requirement.
However, mastering the sword art required an excessive amount of effort. In addition, it had even harsher requirements. Those who cultivated this mysterious technique could not possess pure inner strength. Otherwise, their body would suffer from complications when trying to execute the technique. This made cultivating the sword art quite difficult.
Even if someone with True Qi was lucky enough to succeed, if the True Qi in their body became too vigorous during actual combat, the sword maneuvers would unwittingly produce deformations. These deformities left large gaps for the opponent to take advantage of, thereby causing life-threatening calamities.
These requirements basically severed away the majority of those attempting to cultivate the technique. In Jung Hu there was a common saying: "To practice the fist and neglect skill will end with one's effort in futility."
To not practice inner strength was an enormous taboo. Anyone who would abandon their cultivation of True Qi and spread their name with ineffable sword swordplay would truly be the laughingstock of Jung Hu.
Therefore, only the remaining few still had the intention to continue cultivating the technique.
However, even if those individuals had plenty of talent and had no problem with abandoning True Qi, the final difficult barrier would thoroughly dispel their intentions of continuing down this path.
The final obstacle was the excessively complex nature of the Blinking Sword Art and the painstaking memorization of the meticulous conditions in which each of the sword maneuvers within the sword manuals could be applied.
Seeing such a large pile of thick secret manuals would intimidate any average person at first glance.
Each sword manual represented a sword maneuver, and each sword maneuver could be broken into hundreds of sword forms. Every sword form must be carefully selected for different environments and different times of the day. To fully master the Blinking Sword Arts, one had to make complete use of different techniques for every situation.
The tremendous quantity of sword skills, let alone cultivation, could make one's head ache. Not to mention that this further required the complete memorization and comprehension of every sword maneuver and sword form.
The previously mentioned abnormal requirements have obstructed an innumerable number of motivated disciples, making them endlessly curse in their hearts at the Elder who had established this sword art.
With the passage of time, the Seven Clouds Sect gradually lost interest in this sword technique. Believing it impossible for someone to train in this martial technique, many disciples thought that the Elder had baselessly and casually fabricated these martial teachings as he was facing death's door. Otherwise, why would there be these excessive requirements? This was deliberately designed to be difficult for disciples that were unaware of how things stood. As a result, these secret manuals were put away on a shelf, no longer catching anyone's interest.