Chapter 73: Spear Will
3 Slaughter Points to go from Advanced to Expert, 6 to enter Mastery, and 9 to finally enter Perfection.
One thing that was intriguing was that most non-daoist arts, which were essentially mortal mundane techniques like those from martial arts, had a flat growth rate when it came to Slaughter Points. They usually cost one point to go from Entry to Advanced, then added a point on top of the initial cost until Perfection.
Yet, the Li Family Spear Technique cost far more to perfect than a normal martial arts technique, which was something interesting to think about.
But for Li Ling, the interesting aspect was actually directly revealed to him the moment he attained Perfection. The Li Family Spear Technique he had practiced day and night since he was a prepubescent teen actually had a level of depth to it, because its advancements at each level gave birth to shocking effects.
At the Entry stage, it only contained the basic moves of Thrust, Sweep, Hook, Block, Wrap, and Flick, along with some combinations and formations one could activate in battle, akin to an ’auto-combo’ in a fighting game. It was steady but not exemplary, but just enough to get Li Ling through his early journey in the jianghu.
At the Advanced stage, the techniques developed even deeper and focused on three new foundational concepts of the spear. The first was the Grip, which espoused that the rear hand drove the spear while the leading hand guided its movement, both hands staying light on the shaft from end to end.
A classic example that most people would recognize was the posture of Cu Chulainn before unleashing his noble phantasm.
The second was the Line, where the idea was to keep the tip on the opponent’s centerline, sourcing power from the waist when striking out, not the arms themselves. After all, the arms were meant to drive and guide the spear, not provide the force behind its strike.
The third and most complex was the Step, or as most people called it, the footwork. Like the basic moves, the Step was split into five main movements: the advance (step-in), retreat (backstep), sidestep (weave), oblique step (feint), and the lunge (leap).
This level caused Li Ling to master these movements, and because he had achieved it a long time ago, it also affected how he controlled his spear using the Object Control techniques back then. It was partly why, aside from the Blood Drinking Spear being peak first grade and the daoist art being at the Perfection stage, that he could continually kill people with ease till now.
That was the thing about basic techniques. Even though they were visually boring and uncool, mastery of them gave way to countless applications that could even enhance advanced methods that were only tangentially related.
Everyone disdained the ki blast, but without it, would the Big Bang Attack exist?
The Expert level of the Li Family Spear Technique gave birth to a new concept, something most people thought was the essence of fighting styles: the stance. At this level, one gained knowledge and access to the three major stances of the spear.
First and most basic was the Zhongping (Middle Level Guard), which required one to place the spear horizontally with its tip level to the chest. Li Ling decided to call this the Middle Stance from henceforth.
The second was the Tanhai (Sea Probing Guard), which was the stance where one would place the spear in a low guard, its tip facing slightly downwards for ankle or abdomen threats. Li Ling decided to call this the Low Stance.
The third and final was the Tiliao (Lift and Pick Guard), which was the stance with a high placement, requiring the tip to be above the head and the shaft to be held either over the back or staunchly in the front. Li Ling recognized this as the High Stance, and he felt amused because it resembled the basic posture of western medieval spearmen.
With these stances, Li Ling’s defensive abilities soared greatly, allowing him to switch between defense and offense seamlessly.
But the true shocker came at the Mastery stage, which came with only one accomplishment: the Spear Will.
The Will Realm was a semi-conceptual state of martial mastery where a martial warrior was able to generate an ’idea’ of their weapon that was infused into their strikes. Depending on the weapon used and the type of idea formed or contained in the technique they practiced, it became the ’Will’ they embodied.
In Li Ling’s case, the spear will obtained from the Li Family Spear Technique was ’attributeless’ because the technique expected its user to form their own Spear Will by this point using its practice as a guideline. However, since the Infinite Slaughter System had advanced him past this point, it was natural that a specific attribute fitting Li Ling had been generated.
The Slaughter Will.
The effect of this was that whenever Li Ling was facing off against a foe without their own martial will, they would suffer effects like intimidation and aura pressure. On top of that, when his weapon connected with the defense of his foe—be it another weapon, their body, or some form of shield—a portion of damage would be transmitted through the defense regardless.
But that was actually when taking in his first realm-level status into question, like his body cultivation.
Li Ling was astonished to find that due to his Foundation Establishment status, there were significant changes to the famed Spear Will of martial artists.
His spirit sense could merge with the spear he refined with his will, causing it to be able to move within the range of his spirit sense without using the Spirit Sense Control technique.
Not only was it smoother this way, he could even sense the status of the weapon and use it completely autonomously of himself, unlike the Spirit Sense Control technique which required manual and fine control.
Regardless of whether he gripped it in hand or controlled it remotely, his spear attacks were more than a level more lethal, and he would be able to catch many enemies off guard with a sudden strike compared to before.
At the Perfection stage of the Li Family Spear Technique, Li Ling gained access to the spear technique’s ultimate skill, which was the Will Explosion.
Attach the entirety of your Spear Will into the tip of the weapon and thrust out with an all-powerful strike. If it hit, it was likely to pierce through any conventional defense and extinguish the life of the target of the strike, but it came at the detriment of the user, who would be severely weakened for a long time.
The downtime depended on the depth of one’s will realm, the quality of their mind and spirit, and the strength of the target.
For Li Ling, this was a good ability to have on hand, as its detriments were much less severe for a cultivator like him who had his Sea of Consciousness open and his spatial space in possession of a fully constructed Purple Mansion. He could even unleash this ultimate skill at least three times in one day before entering a period of slight weakness for the next 24 hours.
Li Ling opened his spirit ring and let the Blood Drinking Spear out. Immediately, as it fell into his grip, his spirit sense surged into the weapon and refined it with his Slaughter Will, making the weapon tremble and let out a metallic whine as it came to life.
It was as if Li Ling had divided a portion of his mind and soul into the weapon, as it was completely connected to him in a way that was never possible before. The spear lifted off his arm and floated in the air, pointing its tip in various directions calmly and testing itself out, shooting forward, backward, up and down, making many complex and difficult maneuvers.
"Smooth!" Li Ling couldn’t help but exclaim, because even with the Perfected Spirit Sense Control technique, he had never felt this kind of seamless, physics-defying movement at this level.
He reached out and collected the Blood Drinking Spear back into his palm, feeling unprecedentedly content. The best part about this was that, due to his terrifying spirit sense range and quality, he could refine multiple spears with his Will.
Though, the actual utility would depend on the quality of the spear, not their numbers. A hundred mortal steel spears would be useless compared to just two or three peak-grade spirit artifacts like his flying sword.
Unfortunately, he was currently too poor to afford even a rice bun on the roadside.
Whether it was Blood Credits, Slaughter Points—which were now reduced to 1 point—or spirit stones, Li Ling was scraping the bottom of the barrel. All his assets currently amounted to one semi-magic artifact, the Blood Drinking Spear; one peak spirit artifact, the Mountain Splitting Blade; his void ring; and the clothes on his back.
Everything else had been sold at the Number 5 Joyous Market and he hadn’t recouped anything from that killing as he was focused on Slaughter Points, not looting. After that came a long chase, then capture, then his current predicament.
But the more it was like this, the more Li Ling felt motivated. It was just like when that bastard Razor stole your car after the intro, forcing you to have to start out with the Fiat Punto.
With this starting car, I shall carve out my name on The Blacklist for sure.
Li Ling exited the cultivation chamber to find Bai Ruyi seated at the main table while drinking tea, in the company of two other women. One of them was the familiar Path Lady Ren Xue, who was currently arm-in-arm with Bai Ruyi as if they were long-lost sisters, and the other was one of the other two women who had come with Wang Dong’s group, the one who outed Li Ling’s murderous actions.
Li Ling’s eyes fell upon her and noted that she was actually quite beautiful with soft features, sharp blue eyes, and soft curly black hair that reached her neck. When he exited the cultivation chamber, all three women focused on him with different expressions.
Bai Ruyi’s pupils constricted greatly, not understanding how someone who had been Foundation Establishment level 3 just about an hour ago was now at the Perfection of the same realm, especially when she had witnessed him suffer heavenly backlash and drop one minor level.
Just healing the damage should have taken him weeks, if not months, but he was actually able to grow further.
Meanwhile, the two Path Ladies were surprised but took it for granted. After all, given the fact that Bai Ruyi herself was a double Perfection talent at the second realm, how could her husband be anything less? Not to mention he was the fabled Blood Child, so he must have been concealing his cultivation level previously, something they all did when outside.
Not to mention that the Asura Blood Hall, and even the entire Asura Path of the Six Paths Demon Sect, focused solely on body cultivation. The Blood Asura Descent and its higher-level versions, up to the very peak of mortality and even into immortality, were solely body cultivation methods.
As for qi cultivation, it was up to each disciple if they wanted to practice it, not to mention that one could cultivate almost any qi cultivation technique along with the Blood Asura Descent. However, at the higher levels, most tended to stick to one discipline as double cultivation was not just costly and time-consuming, but also dangerous.
So even though Li Ling had higher qi cultivation than body cultivation, they two Path Ladies did not feel it was weird, rather thinking that in due time, he would also become a full-fledged body path specialist like them, especially given his far superior talents.