Chapter 4: Practicing with Swords

  "Alright, in that case, I'll just practice this first knife thirty-six forms then."

  Ye Lin's mind returned to reality, looking at the treasured sword in his hand, with a face full of joy.

  In this world, the most precious things are the various powerful martial arts.

  It is said that the martial arts of the Grand Emperor level have the power to open the sky and break the earth, and burning mountains and boiling seas are just child's play.

  However, various powerful martial arts are not something that ordinary paper can bear, and they require all sorts of powerful heavenly materials and earthly treasures. As a result, the various martial arts that have been passed down naturally become even more precious.

  Ye Lin can now obtain such a precious sword technique from the Heaven Slashing Sword, and he naturally wants to cultivate it well to increase his own strength.

  "Hmm? Senior wants me to practice my sword first and reach the level where I can cut wood with a single slash, splitting it into threads. This is quite challenging."

  Ye Lin thought of what the one-armed old man had said to him earlier, he felt that this senior would not be in vain, since he wanted to know how to reach such a requirement, it was clear that he must have his own purpose.

  Even if he had obtained a magical knife technique, he still felt that he needed to practice his basic knife techniques well.

  Thinking of this, he didn't think much more and forgot all about "Tianxia 36 Knives", but instead put the trees he had just cut down back up, then cut them into sections one foot long each and piled them up.

  He picked up a wooden pillar as thick as a bowl, Ye Lin stood it upright on the ground, looking at its wood grain.

  "Any tree, all are made up of fibers, to really split these trees into threads, you must identify these fibers, otherwise, no matter how sharp the knife is, it will not be possible to make every fiber into a thread."

  Yelin's previous life was a world of scientific research on tree materials that had reached the level of tiny particles. As for trees, he naturally also had some understanding.

  "The first cut must not damage the fibers within."

  Ye Lin knew that fresh wood fibers are generally straight unless the tree itself is a deformed wood.

  And now what he has to do is to make this knife cut down, and he must not destroy the fibers in it.

  If it were a master of the previous generation, with their control over power, under these conditions, they would naturally be able to do so easily. However, Ye Lin was not up to par; he was just a waste, a waste who only possessed the Scarlet Blood talent, and his control over power was still far from reaching this level.

  Naturally, such a requirement is a huge problem for him.

  However, these could not stump him, because he also had his own advantages, that is, he possessed a pair of magical and mysterious eyes.

  He glared with his eyes, and suddenly, from his eyes, the trees began to undergo a great transformation. First, the entire cross-section of the tree turned into a chaotic mess, then the chaos expanded, becoming endless and boundless, with the fibers inside resembling tubular objects. Then all the tubular objects merged into a ball, forming a Taiji shape. Finally, a yin-yang line split all the tubular objects into two halves.

  "Cut!"

  Ye Lin knew that this yin-yang line was the best dividing line, as long as his knife could make a cut along this line accurately, 100% of the time, without damaging any fibers.

  But dreams are beautiful, while reality is ruthless and cruel.

  Ye Lin had never practiced knife techniques before, even though he was a master of Tai Chi in his past life. However, he also hadn't practiced knife techniques, so how could he easily control the force of the knife?

  No matter how good your eyesight is, if you can't accurately control the force of the knife, in the end, it will still be a blank sheet.

  In his eyes, billions of fibers split open again, the gaps between them would not change, and the knife in his hand was also unchanged in size.

  It was precisely because of this that his knife chopped down and actually chopped obliquely, chopping out a large slanted surface on the entire tree trunk.

  "Awesome, talk big but act small!"

  Ye Lin cursed loudly, after all, he was also a Taiji master in his past life. As for controlling power, Taiji had always been famous for it. He didn't expect that when it came to controlling the trajectory of a knife, it would be just as difficult.

  He even had the nerve to say that this was easy!

  However, Tai Chi masters are known for their resilience. It's not that easy to knock him down with just a little difficulty.

  At this moment, he took out another round wooden pillar and started the most basic skill of chopping wood.

  Don't underestimate the skill of splitting wood. To split a round log in half without deviating by even half a point is a feat that even a top martial artist at the peak of Yuan Dan realm would find difficult to accomplish.

  By doing so, the first step is to control every bit of strength in the body. A warrior's power lies entirely within his own flesh and blood. To control this kind of power, you must control the operation of every muscle on your body, which is fundamentally not something that ordinary people can do.

  However, coincidentally, Ye Lin possessed a pair of mysterious eyes. When he was extremely serious about controlling this physical strength, what his eyes saw was no longer the forest, but a person's body, and every inch of muscle movement in that body.

  Moreover, he suddenly discovered that every inch of muscle in this body was consistent with his own movements, which made him realize that this was not someone else's body at all, but rather his own.

  Introspection?

  Yelin's first thought was that this was an inner vision that only warriors could possess, but he soon discovered that it wasn't an inner vision at all. Inner vision can only be achieved by focusing one's mind inward to see changes within the body, but what Yelin saw now was definitely not seen with his mind, but with his eyes.

  Secondly, introspection can only see the whole, and conduct a comprehensive scan. It is impossible to zoom in on specific parts like Ye Lin does now, where he can clearly see even the smallest particles inside, and then make adjustments based on what he sees.

  It was like that, on the one hand, using the Heaven-Slaying Sword to chop wood, and on the other hand, Ye Lin controlled every inch of muscle change in his body according to what he saw with his eyes.

  In the blink of an eye, three days had passed. Now, what Ye Lin held in his hand was no longer the Heaven-Slaying Sword, but a wooden sword.

  Two days later, when Ye Lin could already control every inch of his muscles, he knew that using the Heaven-Slaying Sword to practice swordsmanship would no longer bring about any significant progress.

  Even to this extent, Ye Lin has basically been able to achieve a level where he can make a cut without damaging a single fiber.

  But that's only when the fibers are straight. If there is a curved fiber in a log, then the knife will not turn either. The final result is still being chopped and cut by one knife.

  At this time, the sharpness of the Heaven-Cutting Sword was no longer beneficial to Ye Lin's need for practicing swordsmanship, so he used the Heaven-Cutting Sword to whittle a wooden sword.

  Compared to the Heaven-Cleaving Blade, it has three major advantages. Firstly, it is not sharp. Made of wood, when the wooden blade cleaves through fibers, it will not cut off immediately like the Heaven-Cleaving Blade would. Instead, there will be some resistance, requiring Ye Lin to use a certain amount of strength to cleave it apart. At this moment, Ye Lin can quickly control his physical muscles, allowing the wooden blade to rotate along the fibers, thus avoiding any damage.

  Two, the wooden knife is made of wood and does not have a sharp blade. To split open a similarly wooden log, unless one uses the powerful force of their body to shock it open, they can only follow the trajectory of each fiber of the log with the wooden knife. This way, the wooden knife can successfully split open the log; otherwise, the most likely outcome is that the wooden knife will be broken in two.

  The so-called swordsmanship practiced to the extreme can make all things into weapons, roughly speaking, it's this principle.

  Three, wooden knives are made of wood and the force cannot be too great. Thin wooden knives, to split a thick round log with a mouthful of coarse wood, if you can't control the force to a certain extent, the wooden knife is likely to break in half due to being unable to withstand such a strong force.

  By doing so, Ye Lin can grasp every bit of strength on his body at any time, and not let every bit of strength be wasted. The benefit of doing so is that in battle, he can exert his limited strength to the greatest extent.

  However, Ye Lin's comprehension was too strong. Even though he had never used a knife before, under his super-strong comprehension, the first move of the Tian Gang 36 Knives, the 36th style, he basically grasped it.

  Originally, for the knife law power method, Ye Lin was very unfamiliar, but now he has mastered the first 36 knives of Tian Geng's 36 knives after mastering the 36 styles of the first knife, and he is already self-taught.

  Originally, the Thirty-six Knives of Heaven's Wrath first knife thirty-six moves were all about various techniques for exerting force with a knife. As long as one could master these techniques, it could be said that from then on, any knife in his hand would be able to unleash enormous power.

  "Alright, let's try the first move of the Thirty-sixth Style now."

  Bring Xing Tian here and let him call out the first 36 moves of the knife technique. See how proficient you are with your knife skills.

  Xing Tian nodded and said, "Good."

  As he spoke, Xing Tian suddenly grabbed a round log and threw it out, shouting: "First move!"

  Ye Lin suddenly, as if conditioned reflex, made a knife chop out, cutting the flying round wood in half.

  "Technique number nine!" "Technique number eighteen!"

  Two consecutive knives were cut out, but they were to split two logs that had already become completely different in position into two halves at the same time, with a difficulty increase of more than a little.

  However, Ye Lin's two knives chopped out, and the two round logs were actually split in half again, splitting open from the middle.

  "Form 8, Form 9, Form 11, Form 36!"

  This time, however, the wooden bars had already turned into four pieces of wood floating in mid-air. If Ye Lin wanted to break them again, he would have to wield these four blades extremely skillfully; otherwise, it would be impossible for him to break them apart.

  It was like this, a total of thirty-six knife methods were called out in succession by Xing Tian, while Ye Lin used a wooden knife to connect and throw the circular wood into the air, cutting it accurately with one knife at a time without damaging its fibers. Only when the circular wood had been cut into 128 pieces of wood did Ye Lin confirm that he now truly grasped all thirty-six knife methods of the first knife.

  From then on, it is necessary to continue practicing until the 36 forms of knife techniques can be truly combined into one knife. Only when his first knife reaches this level can he be considered to have successfully practiced.