What he is mocking is that the Edwin family and the Sword Way sect focus on the sword and only the sword. He finds the lack of variation lacking.
He can admit that swords are very powerful. This is especially so when the user of the sword has mastered the sword to the extreme.
But barring that, those who fight with swords are easy to deal with because everyone knows what they rely on and can prepare for it. They are just too straightforward in their means of attack.
That solution has been discovered to be powerful shields. The solution is simple yet effective.
Because the techniques of the Sword Way sect lack variation and adaptability, they will require overwhelming raw power in order to break harm others. And even if they manage to hurt someone, the injuries they cause will be easy to heal too.
For example, the Beast Training sect and their use of pets have granted them certain immunity based on variation. Their beast training techniques grant them various benefits in terms of strength, defense, speed, and lethality.
Even though everyone knows that the Beast Training sect raises beasts and fights with them, no one can prepare for every disciple of the Beast Training sect because there are endless types of beasts.
The same is true for the Purple Flower sect. Even though everyone knows that they have mastered the power of poisons and toxins, no one can be fully prepared because the Purple Flower sect has too many poisons at their disposal.
According to what he read about the Purple Flower sect, most of the people who forge their bodies with poisons are capable of producing poisons that even they don't know about because of the mixture of random poisons.
So if the Purple Flower sect can't produce antidotes for their own poison, it is unlikely that anyone else would be able to prepare the antidotes. So everyone has to be careful of death around disciples of the Purple Flower sect.
The Black Bones sect and the Blood Skull sect also have the advantage of unpredictability through their death mana and armament, respectively. But this is not so for disciples of the Sword Way sect.
All they know is to cut down the obstacle in front of them with a sword. They don't even have body forging techniques that match their sword cultivation techniques.
Sure, the disciples of the Sword Way sect are fast and capable of sharp, lethal attacks, but after so long, their methods have since become familiar, and some people have even cracked it.
This made him look down on them. He can't be afraid of them because he knows exactly what they are capable of and is confident of dealing with it.
Eventually he said, "Maybe I should cut them some slack. They are the youngest sect after all. They are the runt of the litter."
He amused himself some more until the rest of the families came over. One of the latecomers was people from the Dyson family. He recognized their ship and the trademark blond hair and blue eyes.
He didn't see Elder Calcetti, but he did see that the golden bow is very common in the family. There were 29 people with blond hair and blue eyes that he saw in the group. 21 of them had golden bows strapped to their backs.
As usual, the elder that accompanied them was shining brightly. He can tell now that the reason the cultivators of the Dyson family at the third mortal coil are shining like light bulbs is because there is a bright light within them that is leaking out through their bodies.
After staring at the mana within them for a while, he looked at their faces next. Among the 29 of them, he only recognized 3 people.
These three were people that he had seen on the airship that took him to the regional sect examination. If he hadn't seen them briefly back then, he wouldn't have recognized any of them.
He thought to himself in jest, "Would it count that I came from their family if I don't recognize any of them?"
After the Dyson family came, two other families arrived. This marked the arrival of all 25 cultivation families. The elders also finished talking and decided to begin the inter-sect competition immediately.
There were 43 elders in total. 6 of them were from the Sword Way sect, 3 from each of the other 4 sects, and 1 from each of the 25 cultivation families.
The elders split everyone into five groups. Each of the groups will take one of the five entrances into the secret realm.
The Blood Skull sect took the people from the cultivation families under their control. They control 7 cultivation families, so 280 followed them.
The increase to the number of cultivators at the second mortal coil wasn't much. An extra 280 simply couldn't compare to the 2,000 disciples of the Sword Way sect. But the increase to the elder level power was more than significant.
Since there are 7 cultivation families, there are 7 elders working together with the 3 elders of the Blood Skull sect. This made a total of 10 elders on one side.
On the side of the Sword Way sect, they have 3 cultivations under their control. This provided an extra 3 elders and 120 disciples.
The additional 120 disciples don't matter much to their original 2,000 disciples. But an extra 3 elders is an increase of 50% to what they originally had.
Even so, the Sword Way sect only has a combined manpower of 9 elders. So the Blood Skull sect still has an advantage in the quantity of manpower.
This is despite having twice the number of elders that the Blood Skull sect has. It made Arthur wonder how the Sword Way sect would have fared if the secret realm that was about to be harvested wasn't in their territory and it wasn't their turn to double their entry number.