Yuan Ji and Ling Feiyang were immediately entangled against each other as they displayed their attacking strokes and their profound auras could be seen bursting to and fro rapidly.
When Yuan Ji saw that Ling Feiyang had really limited her raw profound strength to the peaked fifth realm level to match against his peaked fifth realm profound strength, he was delighted.
It was because they were almost evenly matched now.
He was not about to give up an opportunity to humiliate her in a fight. This was a payback time for her trickery a hundred years ago.
"I'm sure that you are unable to use any of your unorthodox profound arts or you will risk exposing your true identity in public. But I'm different. All my sword arts and techniques are orthodox in origin. Therefore I can freely use my profound skills but you are different."
They had quickly exchanged more than a hundred swift strokes in a few blinks of an eye to test each other out and Yuan Ji was soon growling; it was because he was expecting his divine sword to slice off her fan but it did not happened.
When high level cultivators fight, their profound strength will create an invisible animus to the weapons that they are channeling forth for their attacks. This invisible animus will also has the added effect of strengthening the weapons against damaging blows and enhancing the profound power that are displayed at the same time.
Morever Ling Feiyang did not use his fan to take the sharp edge of his sword directly but had used one additional stroke to parry off his thrusts and slashes from the unsharpened surface.
To the eyes of the outsiders, it was obvious that Yuan Ji clearly had the advantage as Ling Feiyang was using two strokes for every single stroke that he had used.
But to Yuan Ji, he knew that he did not have a big advantage because Ling Feiyang had a higher recovery than him. Therefore she was not going to exhaust her profound strength or vital breath any time soon.
When top cultivators fight with each other, they are extremely mindful of their vital breath cycle. This vital breath cycle is actually the vital profound energies that are drawn from their soul sea at every breath cycle at which they must distribute carefully into maintaining their profound aura, profound strength and breathing at the same time in perfect harmony.
If they use too much of their profound strength (for attacks, speed, evading etc.) or profound aura (for defense, absorbing blows, lightless skill etc.), their breathing will be quickly thrown into disharmony if they use up their vital breath too fast.
And when breathing is affected, their vital profound energies in their soul sea will be consumed very quickly. The same stroke will then also consumed more of their profound strength when their vital breath cycle is in disharmony.
Usually the golden celestial cultivators have a longer vital breath cycle than the lowly realm cultivators, often ten times or and more. This is to say that while a normal cultivator may need to breathe every 3s to 5s, the golden celestials only need to breathe every 30s or longer depending on their internal profound arts.
In terms of energy level and the vital breath cycle of a golden celestial alone, any cultivator that is below the fourth realm level will find it hard to defeat a golden celestial on a one to one duel.
And if the golden celestials are to run away, they can usually run ten times or longer than any non-golden celestials without even getting tire.
Therefore attacking speeds are measured in the blink of an eye rather than breathing time. It is because the more powerful their cultivation and internal profound arts are, the better that they can control their heartbeats and vital breath cycle.
It is common for many of the powerful cultivators to breathe only once every ten minutes and the more powerful they are, the longer that they can hold onto their vital breath without losing it. It is because to lose their vital breath would mean that they will end up losing their precious profound energies in their soul sea.
Therefore unlike the normal cultivators, the golden celestials can often go on days without sleep and even perform physically taxing activities without getting tire because of their longer vital breath cycle.
Yuan Ji knew that their fights would take a long time to finish at this rate. They could even fight for three days and three nights without getting tired. It was because the two of them were actually saint level cheaters. That would be as good as exposing their fake cultivation level if they really fought for this long.
Therefore Yuan Ji had decided that the warm up strokes were now coming to an end.
There was a gentle smile on Ling Feiyang as well. She could tell that Yuan Ji was now increasing his profound strength to the offensive and he was about to get serious.
"Sword Energy Wave!" All of a sudden Yuan Ji had swung his sword from a downward cut to a forward stance that immediately exploded a wave of sword energies that ripped through the ground like a wave of soaring dragon toward Ling Feiyang.
The onlookers were all startled by this high level sword energy technique as it sped toward Ling Feiyang.
"This is…a sword energy wave!"
"This is a profound sword energies technique…"
"This Li Yuan is actually a sword energy practitioner?"
"Sword energies combined with a divine sword is extremely lethal to block…"
"Even if Young Master Ling can block off this attack, he may get injured…"
"This Li Yuan is such a badass…"
"He is such a bully!" Hua Wuwu and Hua Baiyue were shouting at the same time.
Sword energies are a special profound technique that can only be used by less than 3% of the fourth realm cultivators and above. In order to display sword energies techniques, the cultivator must first attain to the fourth realm immortal celestial level first which is also called the energy level.
Knowing how to use sword energies techniques has nothing to do with talents or cultivation realm level. It has to do more with the special constitution of the practitioner and hence cultivators that can use sword energies are also known as sword energies practitioners.
The main reason why Yuan Ji had chosen Shangguan Yan and Fairy Ye Chengxi to be his core protégés were because they all had the special constitution to realize the sword energies techniques.
Unlike profound power which is the resultant of profound strength, sword energies are directly formed from the profound energies of the cultivator. Usually sword energies are much weaker than profound power at the start because sword energies lose power over a distance quickly. But as the internal profound strength of the sword energies practitioner improves, the lethal power of the sword energies will also improve.
Most sword energies practitioners are actually weaker than pure profound power practitioners as sword energies techniques are too demanding to perfect. There are many powerful cultivators that are gifted with the constitution to use sword energies but they have limited it to the basic sword energies fingers so that they can focus on their profound power instead.
It is because transferring the profound energies to an intermediate like a sword will mean that they will lose 70% of their profound energies strength. The better grade their weapons, the better is the profound energies retention.
As for profound power practitioners, the loss of their profound energies to a weapon is only 30% profound power loss.
But sword energies have its distinct advantage as it can home onto the target because sword energies are attracted to the profound energies signature of its target, making it very hard to miss. Moreover sword energies are more effective against the formidable defenses of the profound aura of the cultivators if it is not blocked or evaded.
Ling Feiyang gasped softly when she saw the incoming sword energy wave. Because Yuan Ji had unleashed it all of a sudden at point blank, she could not evade it in a timely manner.
Therefore she imbued all her profound strength into her fan as profound power to implode upon the sword energies, dissipating it but not before she was forced to take two steps to the back.
Yuan Ji was perplexed as he thought, "She could have used her profound strength to divert the course of my sword energy wave. But instead she has decided to take it in the face directly. Is she stupid or what? Is she trying to show off her superior profound strength? But she had failed because my attack has forced her to take two steps back. Therefore I have the superior profound strength."
Sword energies are extremely lethal and can even penetrate through profound aura defenses of most cultivators.
Ling Feiyang had channeled all her profound strength into profound power to her fan to implode his attack.
"Is this your most powerful attack?" Ling Feiyang questioned him as she threw away her broken fan before she took out another undamaged fan. "This is just so and so only. If you have an ordinary precious sword, you may not be able to gain an advantage over me."
Yuan Ji was grinning, "It is not all yet!"
Ling Feiyue expressed a look of surprise, "Oh?"
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Author Note:
1. Your spirit stones are crucial for motivations and releases. Thank you all in advance, many love! ლ(⌒▽⌒ლ)