The Romantic Cultivator

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. 𝗳𝒓𝙚e𝓌e𝚋𝙣𝚘𝐯𝙚𝙡.𝑐૦ｍ

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."

He was not lying. Even since he had regained his profound strength to the seventh realm level, he was dying to try his Major Heavens Sword which was the secret sword art of the Orthodox Sword Sect.

His Major Heavens Sword was an advanced sword energy art that contained several epitome sword energy techniques. Altogether, the Major Heavens Sword had a total of nine levels. The last three levels contained all the epitome sword energy techniques.

He was previously on the 6th level. But when he had attained as a saint, he was now able to use the 7th level.

Sword energies attacks are actually based on the recovery rate rather than profound strength of the practitioner. It is because recovery rates affect the how well the sword energy can be channeled.

Yuan Ji was grinning to himself, "Ling Feiyue, Ling Feiyue. The result of faking your profound strength will only result in your public humiliation!"

Major Heavens 7th Sword, Multiple Sword Waves.

All of a sudden Yuan Ji had channeled all his profound strength into unleashing three waves of sword energy waves that sped rapidly toward Ling Feiyue.

The tiles on the ground that the three sword energy waves had sped through were all completely destroyed.

Ling Feiyue was startled as she quickly imploded one sword energy wave with her fan and she used her body to tank the other two sword energy waves with her profound aura.

The sword energy waves had struck her with a thunderous impact, causing her to cough out a bout of golden blood and sending her to fly seven steps backward. 𝗳𝗿𝐞ℯ𝙬𝗲𝗯n𝗼νel.𝒄𝑜𝘮

Ling Feiyang and the onlookers were quite startled that Yuan Ji was actually this powerful.

"Young Master Ling is injured?"

"Is he alright?"

"I hope that he is not seriously injured…"

"I am still betting my everything on Young Master Ling…"

Ling Feiyang threw away her broken fan before she had taken another fan out as she heaved a soft sign before she said to Yuan Ji. "If I've decided to concede, will you let these two maidens go?"

Yuan Ji was actually thinking how many fans that she had got when she had suddenly asked him the question.

He replied coolly, "These two maidens can naturally go as they pleased. I won't stop them from leaving."

Ling Feiyang nodded lightly before she raised her hands to bow respectfully, "I've lost. You're the superior fighter. Therefore we can only leave."

There was no hatred or icy look on her countenance. There was only a nonchalant look.

She turned to apologize to Hua Wuwu and Hua Baiyue, "I'm sorry that today I'm unable to win back your honor. I'm truly sorry."

Hua Wuwu looked pitifully at Ling Feiyang, "It's alright. You've already done your very best."

"That's right." Hua Baiyue nodded almost tearfully. "He is a bully and he has an unfair advantage with a divine sword. Moreover, he is also a high level sword energy practitioner. He doesn't even dare to engage in a fair fight with you."

Ling Feiyang smiled weakly, "I'm truly sorry."

After she had said that, she had turned to walk away.

Yuan Ji was slightly startled. It was because he did not expect that the duel would end so fast. It was obvious to him that Ling Feiyang still have plenty of fights left in her eyes and he had not humiliated her enough.

He could not understand why she had conceded so fast and so early?

Li Ye was also startled, "We've won?"

All the onlookers were dumbfounded as well.

Although Yuan Ji's sword energy techniques were formidable but they could all see that Ling Feiyang was able to tank his attack. As long as Ling Feiyang could hold onto her defenses, Yuan Ji was bounded to exhaust his profound strength sooner or later and she could counter-attack.

Moreover the weakness of a sword energy practitioner is obvious; their defensive profound auras are much weaker as they have to channel all their profound strength to the offensive. It did not seem to the onlookers that Ling Feiyang has lost his advantage yet.

All of a sudden Yuan Ji shouted, "Young Master Ling, please wait!"

Ling Feiyang turned around and asked curiously, "Yes? You have additional demands?"

Yuan Ji sighed softly, "You have not lost. I've lost. Therefore please allow me to apologize to everyone."

When he had said that, he gave a respectful bow before he had turned around to walk away.

Everyone: ???

Ling Feiyang: ???

The reason why Yuan Ji had suddenly conceded was because he had realized that Ling Feiyang was tanking all his sword energies because she did not want the dangerous sword energies to hurt the onlookers.

And she had conceded early because she did not want any of the onlookers to be hurt during their duel.

He had been too eager to win Ling Feiyang that he had overlooked his martial honor.

He was left muttering to himself, "How can an unorthodox be more orthodox than a true orthodox like me? Is she really the same Ling Feiyang as a hundred years ago?"

The Ling Feiyang that he had recalled a hundred years ago had used trickery to defeat Sacred Maiden Xue Qianxue during their duel. Therefore he did not have a good impression of her.

The only good impression that he had of her were her enchanting enticing smiles that were so soul-snatching that he had a hard on while looking at her.

"Wait!" This time it was Ling Feiyang who had called out to him.

Yuan Ji turned around to look curiously at her, "Yes? You have additional demands to make?"

Ling Feiyang returned a gentle smile, "If this hero does not mind, I will like to invite you for a drink?"

Yuan Ji was startled by her invitation but he quickly said, "I don't mind at all as long as someone else is paying the tabs."

Just as he was about to sigh secretly how he should approach Ling Feiyang to ask her about Xia Jiajia, she had actually invited him to a drink.

This was a good opportunity that he could not waste!