Chapter 54: Lightning Source Blade
Liu Wenyan was silent as he slowly gathered his power. He had just achieved willpower materialization not long ago. In truth, writing a profound-grade martial technique so early was slightly beyond his ability.
Su Yu and the others would probably only understand how high a price Liu Wenyan had paid for this writing session after entering the academy. In fact, such lessons would only be conducted by full researchers in the academy.
"Silence!" Liu Wenyan opened his mouth, and the students who had been conversing softly instantly shut their mouths.
Liu Wenyan had a stern expression. His white hair started fluttering while his body glowed with a golden light.
"I am going to start writing now. Observe silently. When you reach your limit, shut your eyes immediately."
Everyone nodded hastily. Su Yu had a look of anticipation. This was a martial technique, a profound-grade martial technique at that. He was looking forward to learning it. A willpower text of this technique would be the equivalent of a master of the technique personally demonstrating their cultivation process and their knowledge to the learner.
The entire process would be dissected and taught to the learner step by step, a process that was much more efficient than a normal teaching process. It was understandable why willpower texts were so valuable.
Rustle. Rustle.
Winds started blowing. Source qi converged. The desks and chairs in the office started shaking. The only exception was the desk before Liu Wenyan that remained motionless. He was not using any writing tool. Since he was using blood essence as the ink, regular writing tools would not be able to withstand its power.
The cultural researchers in the academy had their personal writing tools, but that wasn't the case for him. Instead, he used his finger as the writing tool. After dipping his finger into the blood, he wielded it like a sword and started writing on the beast hide.
"Lightning Source Blade..."
Rumble!
Only three characters had been written and lightning bolts started appearing within everyone's visions.
"Ahhh!"
A female student couldn't control herself and exclaimed in shock. Fear was apparent in her eyes. She seemed to have seen herself getting struck by a bolt of lightning earlier.
Nearby, the principal frowned. He wasn't unhappy because of the noise. Rather, he was frowning when he realized how weak her willpower was. The session had barely started and she was already hitting her limit.
"Sigh. What a pity."
The principal was regretful. He wondered if this student would look back in regret for wasting this opportunity in the future. Since she had met her limit at the very beginning, she had basically gained nothing from the session.
"Shut your eyes!"
Seeing that the student was turning pale, the principal shouted, pulling the student back to reality. She hastily shut her eyes. Her face was still pale and she no longer dared to look at the beast hide.
Of the remaining eleven students, Su Yu and Liu Yue still looked the same. As for the other nine, some were starting to pale while some still looked normal. At the moment, Su Yu was too busy to pay any attention to the others. His attention was fully on the beast hide.
In his eyes, a different Liu Wenyan had appeared on that hide. He was practicing the Lightning Source Blade. Lightning bolts rained down as Liu Wenyan stood with his saber in hand. Ignoring the lightning, he swung his saber one time after another. The speed of each swing was slow, slow enough that Su Yu had the time to get impatient for the next swing.
"Lightning Source Blade, forty opened acupoints are required for the final move.
"There are nine moves in total, with each move being stronger than the previous, and each move requiring more opened acupoints than the previous. At your present stage, even if you can comprehend this technique, you won't necessarily be able to use it.
"At the Source Opening Realm, you will be able to barely use the first move if you have reached the eighth-stage.
"By connecting your eight acupoints, or even better, nine acupoints, a single swing will drain all your source qi. This technique was never meant for those in the Source Opening Realm.
"It's not recommended to use it at the eighth-stage. At the ninth-stage, you are recommended to absorb some external source qi before connecting your nine acupoints and unleashing the move. Using it with eight acupoints might result in injuries."
Those words were not spoken by Liu Wenyan. He was completely focused on writing and his entire body was drenched wet with sweat. The principal was the one reminding everyone, especially Su Yu.
In truth, this Lightning Source Blade was slightly beyond Su Yu's capability. However, there was also a benefit to teaching him early. He would be able to continue practicing this technique until the Great Strength Realm or even the Infinite Strength Realm. This was not a technique that he would need to discard too early.
Boom!
Su Yu had been mostly ignoring the principal's words. He was fully focused on the "Liu Wenyan" who was practicing the saber moves on the hide. At that point, Liu Wenyan had written dozens of characters. With that, more "Liu Wenyan" appeared on the hide, each of them with a saber in hand.
All of them were practicing the same move. The first move of the Lightning Source Blade.
"Hiss..."
Someone could be heard inhaling deeply nearby. That person hastily shut his eyes. With this first move, a total of six students were forced to shut their eyes. Apart from Su Yu and Liu Yue, the other three remaining students were greatly pale.
As Liu Wenyan continued writing, the other three eventually reached their limits and shut their eyes as well. At that point, Liu Yue's head was starting to hurt as well. Her willpower had grown recently, but this profound-grade martial technique was really a tad bit too much for her to withstand.
Before long, Liu Wenyan moved on from the first move.
First move: Lightning Strike.
Second move: Rumbling Thunder.
It was as though a storm was really coming. Rumbling sounds resounded as the "Liu Wenyan" on the hide moved even faster. Their acupoints glowed brightly as the rumbling sounds echoed around them. A swing of a saber was akin to a stampede of ten thousand beasts.
"The second move utilizes twelve acupoints. A Great Strength cultivator can start practicing it."
The principal continued his explanation. By now, Su Yu was his sole recipient as even Liu Yue was drenched wet with sweat. She was on the verge of stopping as well. As for Su Yu, although his face was slightly pale, his eyes were brightly lit. He was fully immersed in the writing session and he did not look like he was going to reach his limit anytime soon.
"No wonder Old Liu looks so highly upon him..."
The principal muttered to himself in astonishment. In truth, he was more optimistic about Liu Yue as she had a stronger willpower. However, the gap between Liu Yue and Su Yu was not really that big.
But now that Liu Yue was being directly compared against Su Yu, the difference between the two revealed itself. Directly observing willpower text being written was something that required more than willpower. Tenacity was required as well.
When you were immersed in a willpower text, you would feel as though the people in the text were swinging at you. You would also feel as though the lightning bolts within the text were raining down upon you. You would be scared. You would feel pain. You would not be able to withstand what you see from the text. Willpower strength alone would only give you the chance to see more, but that was not absolute.
"Liu Yue is still an inexperienced girl. Su Yu, on the other hand, is a person who has truly killed someone before."
The principal sighed. Su Yu was someone whose hands were already bloodied. Even excluding what he had experienced while hunting the Myriad Race Cult with Liu Wenyan, that would still be the case. The principal was certain that the kill Chen Hao had claimed previously was actually Su Yu’s work.
A mere secondary school student was actually courageous enough to ambush a seventh-stage Great Strength cultivator at the Source Opening Realm. As far as the principal was concerned, that was courage. That was vitality. Naturally, that was also...rash.
"I hope Old Liu did not misjudge his character."
The principal was not a strong expert, but he had been on friendly terms with Liu Wenyan for forty years. Because of that, he had come to know a lot more than the others. The principal had played a great role in enabling Liu Wenyan to stay peacefully in the secondary school for so many years.
Forty years ago, the principal had retired from the front line due to his injuries and was appointed the principal of Nanyuan Secondary School. At that time, he was a weak ninth-stage Great Strength cultivator. He was also rather clueless about the world at that time. The only thing he knew was that the people working for him needed to be those he could entrust his life to.
He did not care about the past of the people in the Nanyuan Secondary School. They needed to all get in line after entering the school. Slowly, he formed a close friendship with Liu Wenyan who was also working in the same school.
While reminiscing about the past, the principal suddenly moved and pulled Liu Yue aside. With a frown, he said, "Don't force yourself!"
"Principal..." Liu Yue looked distraught. Looking at Su Yu who was still observing attentively, she nearly fell apart mentally. "I can't even...finish the second move...principal...I..."
She had always thought that she was better than Su Yu. Previously when Bai Feng was writing the Source Opening Codex, she hadn't been able to perform better than Su Yu. But she had at least finished the entire text before stopping.
This time, the gap between them was too obvious. She couldn't even finish the second move. Meanwhile, Su Yu was only slightly pale. His eyes were still bright as he continued observing.
Meanwhile, Liu Wenyan was starting to write the third move. At that point, he was sweating all over and was starting to turn pale as well.
"Lightning!"
At that moment, Su Yu stopped observing the third move. He found himself somewhat unable to comprehend what he was looking at. Furthermore, the "Liu Wenyan" on the hide was moving too fast for him to see. But at the same moment, one of the characters in the text suddenly came alive for him.
Lightning!
The "lightning" in the Lightning Source Blade. In fact, the lightning character had the highest number of appearances in the text, surpassing even the blade character.
The Lightning Source Blade was a saber technique an expert had created through observations on lightning. Lightning was powerful, fast, and destructive. After witnessing a mountain peak being turned into scorched land by lightning, the expert decided to create the technique.
Su Yu was also looking at lightning. Only lightning remained before his eyes. Lightning was destroying everything. It was blasting a mountain peak. It was flooding the universe.
"Lightning...is truly powerful..."
That was Su Yu's conclusion, but he wasn't feeling any fear. Lightning seemed capable of inciting fear in others, but Su Yu was unaffected. That was because he still remembered the lightning monsters that had appeared in his dreams while he was younger.
Back then, he was incredibly scared. But he was no longer the same person. Over the years, he had experienced being struck by lightning, being torn apart by claws, being swallowed, having his heart dug out, being torn apart inch by inch, and so on. He only needed to get used to it. He had experienced over three thousand dreams and over three thousand methods of death.
After experiencing over three thousand deaths, if one was still mentally stable, that signified that one had matured. The price of maturity wasn't low. When he was younger, he had nearly killed himself from the lack of sleep. But after getting used to being killed, he was able to handle his dreams better.
Thus, when the lightning character tried to intimidate him, he only found it comical. So what if it could strike him to death here in this illusion?
'It's not like I haven't been struck to death by lightning before...'
With his previous experience, he knew that he had discovered yet another Divine Character that was suitable for him.
Su Yu proceeded to capture the character, and he managed to grab its...leg? Yeah that part of the character looked like its leg. Then again, this was just a character. He wasn't exactly sure if a character actually had legs. In any case, he felt like he had grabbed its leg and was dragging it into his mind.
Liu Wenyan, who was busy writing, trembled as he looked up. Despite his tired eyes, he couldn't help smiling at what he saw. This kid had once again discovered a suitable Divine Character. Not all characters could serve as a Divine Character. And not every willpower text would provide one with a Divine Character.
First and foremost, the character must be compatible with the cultivator. Even a genius like Bai Feng had only been able to form his first Divine Character after studying willpower texts many times.
Some students had to pay a high price to study dozens of willpower texts and numerous original myriad race texts before they could form their first Divine Character.
And many more had only been able to form their first at the Mental Tempering Stage or beyond. All that was because they weren't able to find any compatible Divine Characters fast enough.
As for Su Yu, he had only studied willpower texts twice and he was able to find a compatible Divine Character each time. Liu Wenyan was pleasantly surprised to see that.
‘Incredible…’ Liu Wenyan praised inwardly. Suddenly, he realized that the short distraction had caused him trouble.
He had exhausted too much of his willpower and was having a hard time continuing to write. He was nearing his limit after writing the third move. But he could still force himself to continue.
After thinking about it, he clenched his teeth and decided to finish the fourth move. That would be enough for Su Yu until the peak of the Great Strength Realm or even the Infinite Strength Realm.
As for the rest of the text, he would just pretend they were willpower imbued as well. He would still write the correct content, but he would just not add any willpower to the characters. In any case, this kid wouldn't be able to use the fourth move before reaching the Infinite Strength Realm. He could always write a new willpower text for this kid at that time if he had the opportunity.
Liu Wenyan continued writing while Su Yu repeated what he did with his previous Divine Character: beating up his little brother. This little brother was much harder to deal with. It kept striking him with lightning. I