The Azure Heart Sutra Sword Art has five sword arts. The first art is the righteous heart; the second is the wrathful heart; the next is the desperate heart, followed by the vengeful heart, and finally the free heart.
Ye Feng is currently focusing on cultivating the foundation stage of the Berserk Dragon Fiend God body formula. The foundation stage consists of six layers. The first layer is iron skin; the second layer is muscle mutation; the third layer is organ crystallisation; the fourth layer is diamond bones; the fifth layer is blood transformation; and the final layer is golden marrow.
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Three days had passed since Ye Feng fought Zhang Bo. The academy staff announces that the Monster Beasts Hunting Competition is going to be held in two weeks, and the winners of the competition will have access to the library third and fourth levels. All details will be given on the day of the competition.
The academy students got excited, and many students stopped going to classes and started close-door cultivation. In order to prepare for the competition and try to win the prizes that are offered to the winner of this competition.
After Ye Feng heard the announcement, he got excited too, just like the other students. He decided to stop attending Teacher Li classes in the morning and instead go to the library and study there. After lunch, he will start mastering the sword arts from the Azure Heart Sutra Sword Arts, and at night, he will continue cultivating the foundation stage of the Berserk Dragon Fiend God Body Formula.
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In the morning, when Ye Feng went to the library, he started reading many books on mercenaries, monster beasts, alchemy, formations, different kingdoms in the Tian Yuan continent, and cultivation comprehension notes in the Saint Master realm.
After lunch, Ye Feng spent his time in a secluded training ground trying to master the Free Heart Sword Art. He smiled as he remembered how he made up his mind to start mastering the Free Heart Sword Art.
Flashback:
Ye Feng stood in the centre of the secluded training ground. He was closing his eyes and thinking deeply about what he read in the Azure Heart Sutra Sword Art: "In order to cultivate the five sword arts in the Azure Heart Sutra Sword Arts, I need to understand human emotions, desires, and hearts because these sword arts relate strongly to them.".
Ye Feng continues to think, "The vengeful sword art concept revolves around revenge, while the wrathful sword art concept focuses on the cultivator's anger and ferocity. These two sword arts are closely related to each other.".
"The Desperate Heart Sword Art concentrates on the desperation within the cultivator's heart; in order to cultivate the Desperate Heart Sword Art, the cultivator must experience desperation. at some point in their life.".
"The Righteous Heart Sword Art is revolving around the righteous path that the cultivator is walking in. The cultivator must have a righteous heart and nature so that he or she could cultivate the Righteous Heart Sword Art".
"Lastly, the Free Heart Sword Art, the cultivator must possess a free spirit to cultivate the Free Heart Sword Art. The cultivator needs to understand what being free means and experience this freedom.".
"I think I will try to master the Free Heart Sword Art for the time being. I feel the Free Heart Sword Art is most suited to me for the current me because I always wanted to explore the sword cultivation path without restraints and with complete freedom, and because of this desire, I think I possess a free spirit, which is one the requirements for mastering the Free Heart Sword Art, but I am not sure about what it means to be free. Well, I will just go with the flow for the time being and see how things go.".
End of Flashback
Free Heart Sword Art consists of three martial skills. The first martial skill is the Free Beheading Sword; the second martial skill is Free Steps; and the last martial skill is the Free Piercing Sword.
The Free Beheading Sword martial skill is a wild, unrestrained, and unpredictable sword swing. The sword swing is hard to predict from the perspective of the opposing side; it is usually aimed at beheading the enemy.
The Free Steps martial skill is a movement martial skill that focuses on speed and unpredictability. The more the cultivator masters this movement skill, the harder it is for the opposing side to keep track of the user of this martial skill.
The Free Piercing Sword martial skill is a sword thrust. The sword thrust is very hard to read and defend against because of its speed and unpredictable nature.
Ye Feng kept training and trying to master these three martial skills until the sun started to set, then he decided it was time to go back to his dwelling and cultivate the foundation stage of the Berserk Dragon Fiend God Body Formula.
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When Ye Feng returned to his dwelling, he started cultivating the foundation stage of the Berserk Dragon Fiend God Body Formula again. His skin was glowing bright red and grey while he was consuming the energy contained in the saint condensing pills. All of a sudden, his skin vibrated fiercely, and with each breath, he took a black smoke coming out of his nostrils.
Ye Feng then opened his mouth and sighed. A large black smoke cloud comes out of his mouth. Ye Feng looked at the saint condensing pill bottle he was holding, and he sighed again, but this time in disappointment. "I finished more than half saint condensing pill bottle, and I just completed the first layer of the foundation stage. This cultivation method really required a lot of energy to cultivate." Ye Feng then gritted his teeth, and with a determined look in his eyes, he swallowed another saint condensing pill and started cultivating the second layer.
Ye Feng used the soul-controlling technique like he did when he was cultivating the first layer of the foundation stage, and then he started following the cultivation method to absorb the energy from the pill he swallowed into his muscles.
Ye Feng muscles got bulkier for a second, and the next second they returned to normal. Ye Feng gritted his teeth in pain and kept enduring the pain he felt all over his muscles. He kept swallowing the saint-concentrating pills and absorbing the energy in his muscles until he swallowed all the saint-concentrating pills in the bottle he was holding in his hand.
Ye Feng sighed in relief after he finished absorbing the energy in the remaining saint condensing pills, and a purple smoke came out of his mouth this time. He then threw the empty bottle away. "Oh well, only one bottle left. I should continue cultivating. the foundation stage.".
Ye Feng took his last saint-concentrating pill bottle, and he continued cultivating the foundation stage of the Berserk Dragon Fiend God Body.
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In the following days, Ye Feng kept going to the library in the morning. After lunch, he goes to the same secluded training ground and trains the Free Heart Sword Art, and when the sun sets down, he cultivates the foundation stage of the Berserk Dragon Fiend God Body Formula.
It took Ye Feng only a couple of days to finish his last saint condensing pill bottle. Ye Feng was disappointed because he couldn't breakthrough into the third layer of the foundation stage.
Ye Feng then decided that it was time to use his rank-three monster core to continue his saint force cultivation. He closed his eyes and started absorbing the energy within the monster core. He was advancing in leaps and bound very quickly, thanks to the amount of energy the monster core possessed and the cultivation comprehension notes he read in the library.
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Two weeks had passed since Ye Feng started his close-door cultivation. All academy students were summoned in front of the Azure Dragon pagoda. Ten academy instructors stood in front of the pagoda, waiting for the students to arrive.
Teacher Li saw a lot of students coming to the pagoda, and when he saw no more students coming, he started his announcement: "today is the day the Monster Core Hunting Competition will be held.".
All the students got excited, but Teacher Li faked a cough to quiet the students, and he continued the explanation. " We usually only give one prize to the champion of the competition, but we decided to try something different this time. You will all be given a map of the dragon forest, where the monster beasts we captured over the years reside. The map shows you where first-rank and second-rank monster beasts reside.".
One of the academy staff started distributing the maps to the students after all the students received the maps. Teacher Li continued, "We divide the forest into two sections on the map; the blue section shows you where the first-rank monster beasts reside, and the red section shows where the second-rank monster beasts reside.".
"Your objective is simple: to collect monster cores. The one with the highest number of monster cores is the winner. I don't care how you collect the monster cores; if you want to be the champion, collect more than everyone." All the students got very excited and determined when they heard what Teacher Li said, but he continued, "The Saint Force realm students will collect rank one monster beast cores, and the Saint Master realm students will collect rank two monster beast cores".
"The Saint Force realm student who collect more monster cores than the other Saint Force students will be able to access to library third floor and the Saint Master realm student who collected rank two monster cores more than the other Saint Master realm students will have access to the library fourth floor"
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The students were surprised when they heard what kind of prizes the academy was offering for this competition. They were getting more excited and started proclaiming to each other that they would be the ones who won this competition.
Teacher Li faked a cough again and said, "The competition will last for seven days. Also, each student will be given one flare formation; use it wisely; this formation will send flares to the sky, and the academy staff will come to rescue you. Also, you are allowed to form teams with other students before venturing into the Dragon Forest. The maximum number of students on each team is five. That doesn't mean you are not allowed to go by yourself; you are free to choose. Remember, cultivators need to be wise, so choose wisely; that is all.".
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The students started looking for other students to form teams for this competition. Fu approached Ye Feng, and they decided to form a two-man team together. Many students wanted to join them, but Fu refused all of them.
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Zhang Bo looked at Ye Feng and Fu in anger and hatred, along with Zhang Wei. Zhang Bo looked at his three followers and said, "Listen up, our target is those two; you understand we will hunt them down on the third day." The three students nodded in respect and said, "Yes, young master." Zhang Bo then glared at Zhang Wei. "You remember father's letter? This is your last chance, trash. If you are useless, you will be going back to the clan. Am I clear?". Zhang Wei gritted his teeth and nodded.
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Ye Long and his friends came and invited Fu and Ye Feng to join their group, but Ye Feng declined. He told them that he wanted to venture into the forest with Fu. Ye Long nodded to Ye Feng in understanding and told him they will see each other later in the forest. Both Fu and Ye Feng smiled at Ye Long and his friends and they wished them luck.
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After the students formed their teams and received flare formations from the academy instructors, they exited the academy gate and walked towards the entrance of the Dragon Forest.
The Teams started entering the forest one by one. The last team who entered the forest was Ye Feng and Fu two man team.