Walking The Jiang Hu

Day 1

A Quite massive force force was put upon everybody's body. This force could be felt on all of their bodies. Some people were making weird expressions. Nobody was losing their footing because they were all very strong. Yip An was basically having a conversation with Xing Jie who was very calm.

Day 2

Nobody had any complications at all expect a few people started to feel the weight on them.

Day 3

The first person had gone down. The person was actually one of the young master's lackeys.

Day 7

2 more people have fallen and the weight has started to take a toll on everybody including the fifteen year olds. On the other hand , Yip An wasn't feeling anything and he just stood there without a care in the world. Meanwhile Xing Jie actually started to have a serious expression.

Day 14

Almost a half of the initial 150 was pushed down to 80 people now.

Everybody was hanging on by a thread by now. However, the fifteen year olds would probably be able to hang in there for a couple more weeks before collapsing.

Day 21

It was a silent room with many people. People were just waiting for one person to collapse so that they could pass this test. Finally a young boy with a red face had fallen down."Okay , now that only half of you are left you are allowed to sit down and I will get rid of the pressure" Announced the old eccentric as he stood up. Everybody sighed as everybody sat on the ground with a face of satisfaction.

It was kinda unfair because the old eccentric was sitting in a bamboo chair the whole time while having a cup of tea that seemed to hold an infinite amount of tea. He had been sipping on that tea cup for the whole of the 3 weeks while they were feeling the pressure of the weight.

There was only 74 people left after that test.

In the remaining 74 people there was Xing Jie and Yip An.

All of Xing Jie lackeys had failed and had left the cave and went home.

Xing Jie and Yip An decided to sit together because they only knew each other in this small crowd.

Mr Kano then signaled for the crowd to follow him out the cave. They left the cave and went further along the cliff side to see a nine layered pagoda in the side of the cliff wall. The mountain range was actually very breathtaking, wherever you went there would always be greenery everywhere. While walking over to the pagoda they could feel their bodies revitalized by the pagoda.

It was most likely due to the legendary spirit veins under the mountain.

They came closer the pagoda and could see the bamboo door entrance up close. It actually had characters written on ink on the bamboo door! Nobody could even read what it said.

Beside the bamboo door was the white walls. They seem to have hidden patterns inside of them. Anything that was inside this place seemed to have mystical powers or had some secret behind it.

Mr Kano swiped his hand to the right when he came close to the door and it slid open for him instantly. Was this magic or what? He had done so many incredible things already that they probably wouldn't have seen it happened if they didn't try out for the exam. They all had different reasons to become immortal. Some wanted to be respected , some wanted , some wanted to be strong.

However they all had the same ultimate goal in mind. To become truly immortal.

Immortal's weren't truly immortal until they transcended into the immortal realm.

The crowd entered the pagoda and were shocked of the sheer size of the pagoda. From the outside of the pagoda they judged it be not that big. You know what they say. Don't judge a book by it's cover! The pagoda was full of nicely made straw mats on the ground.

Mr Kano sat at the front of the mat and waited for the people in the crowd to sit in front of him with his eyes closed.

Everybody sat together in a semi-circle around Mr Kano waiting for his instructions.

"Now, I'm going to give you each a wooden sword. With sword you are to comprehend the sword art's I give you. I'm going to leave an array of sword arts on the mats. You are to get to the highest stage of success with those sword arts in as 2 hours" , revealed Mr Kano.

Yip An looked to his left and saw Xing Jie smirking at Mr Kano.

It seemed like Xing Jie was pretty adept from the sword he held in that fight with Yip An.

Mr Kano the swept his hand from left to right as multiple sword arts appeared in front of him.

Mr Kano then nodded at them all and closed his eyes once more.

Everybody remain tranquil and carefully observed the titles of the sword arts.

One by one people chose their sword arts. The key to success in this test was being as calm as possible and staying cool. If you rushed and had an unorganized mind then you will have a very hard time comprehending the technique. The people who had immediately grabbed a sword art immediately were such people.

Yip An didn't worry about how the sword arts differed in difficulty to comprehend.

Xing Jie took the Hidden Striking sword art. This art allowed you to hide your strikes and left the enemy with no ability to predict where your hits were gonna come from. If this sword art were brought to the outside to be sold it would probably fetch a couple thousand gold.

Yip An stood there observing the manuals and decided on the the Three Li Sword Slash sword art.

This sword would enable you at the Perfection stage to create a sword slash that could travel three li in an instant and capable of taking down a 2 headed bear in one hit. This sword art was very common because of it's Fierceness. However no mortal could have the strength to have his slash reach three li. Ordinary mortals couldn't even detect people from that far so they only trained the sword art to the stage at which they could strike from one hundred meters.

In the martial world there were 9 stages of success when understanding a sword or weapon art.

In order from lowest level of understanding to the highest.

Initial

Novice

Minor Success

Major Success

Adept

Expertise

Mastery

Perfection

Complete Understanding

It is said that once you reach the stage of full understanding you will know the in and outs of all the techniques within the sword art like it was the back of your hand. Very little people have reached this stage. Reaching this stage in a low grade sword art isn't actually hard. It is just time consuming.

It is said that if you reach the stage of complete understanding of a high level sword art then almost nobody will be your equal match at your current cultivation level. However, it was very tedious and time consuming. Some techniques are almost impossible to get a breakthrough in understanding without fighting against other people with the technique.

It's actually easier to make progress than just practicing it in your own time. The reason why you practice sword arts is to defend yourself or fight. If you don't use it to fight then what's the use of practicing it?

Without further delay Yip An slowly studied the sword art with much consideration.

This technique was very hard to practice in the later stages as i required much strength in your arms.

this sword art could only be used by immortals in the later stages as immortals also had in increase of strength after each stage.

The essence of the technique was to become the sword's strength , become the sword.

Your aura must be that of a noble samurai. Quick and fierce. The trick to the technique to was to flick the sword as if you were cutting an apple falling from the sky.

The sword technique could then be used to sneakily assassinate people who were in power.

This sword technique was most famously known because of how a world shaking cultivator had been assassinated from three li away. Somebody had used this technique to assassinate a pivotal character on the continent. When people heard this the price for the technique skyrocketed. But to the expectations of the buyers they were disappointed.

To practice this technique you would have to have an immense amount of strength which would mean having a powerful body technique. These body techniques were very coveted by high level demon beast who had taken human form. If they allowed the humans to take hold of a large amount of body refining techniques , the advantage the demon beasts had in terms of strength would be quickly lost.

The only high level body refining techniques were only allowed to be cultivated by elders of chief disciples of large sects. Nothing could change their mind.

If a body technique that had a high quality were to appear in the market then the person who bought would most likely be murdered for it.

After Yip An practicing the technique for a couple of hours he had finally gotten a good grasp of the technique. He was confident that he would pass this test.

To pass the test you would have to at least achieve minor success in that technique.

It was soon after that Mr Kano looked around at everyone who was meditating on the straw mats carefully studying the sword arts. Mr Kano had an expression of satisfaction and happiness. Nobody could sense the presence of Mr Kano as everyone was so indulged in their studies.

"Alright! Times up", declared Mr Kano.