After Ye Liuyun and Teacher Fei Jie left, Fan Xian sat alone by the sea for a long time. The shadow of the large ship had long disappeared from the sea, but his gaze was still fixed on the boundless ocean. The meaning of wind and rain on his body did not diminish in the slightest, and he was soaked to the bone. The posture in which he sat was very strange, hugging his knees as if he were a very cute little boy. But in reality, everyone knew that Fan Xian could not possibly be a simple little boy.

The two strands of true qi within his body circulated and flowed slowly. The true qi that had been intentionally stimulated by Ye Liuyun's release of pressure was now running rapidly through the cycles of his body in a relatively calm and harmonious manner. For him, this seemed to be an opportunity, a sudden flash of inspiration that arose from a change in his heart and the surrounding emotions, gently illuminating his mind.

Fan Xian closed his eyes, his palms naturally extended into the rain, allowing the raindrops to beat upon them.

...

...

Long after, Fan Xian's palms remained dry and smooth as ever, as if the rain could never truly fall upon his palms and dampen an inch of his skin.

A faint layer of true qi covered Fan Xian's palms. This true qi emanated from each pore and flowed back in from each pore, forming an extremely thin but interesting circuit. It was the strange and completely useless method that he had cultivated since childhood...

Of course, this method had made him a master climber in this world, having climbed palaces, West Mountain, and many other treacherous places that humans could not imagine. However, compared to the full six years of time and energy he had devoted to it in his youth, the results seemed extremely disproportionate.

Wu Zhu had never corrected him back then—everyone knew that Wu Zhu didn't know internal energy.

But today's feeling was different. There seemed to be a subtle and obscure difference compared to the past. Fan Xian slowly opened his eyes, wiped the rain from his face, and stared blankly at his palms, lost in thought for a long time.

To be able to separate true qi from the body and turn it into a weapon that could harm others was a powerful realm in itself, but not an unattainable one. As long as one cultivated to a certain level and possessed a sufficiently skilled method of qi circulation, powerful individuals could勉强 (mian qiang - barely) achieve this.

Especially since Fan Xian had personally witnessed Ye Liuyun's scattering hands. The Grandmaster's fingers bloomed like withered plum blossoms, and true qi spurted out from his fingertips, piercing the air in an instant. On the beach below the cliff of Danzhou, he had created ten thousand plum blossom-shaped pits. This kind of 指氣縱橫 (zhi qi zong heng - finger qi traversing and crisscrossing), was already the highest realm of humans breaking through the limitations of the physical body and releasing energy outside the body.

However, Fan Xian felt a different flavor today, a completely different flavor. He fell into deep thought in the wind and rain. Rainwater dripped from his smooth hair onto his cheeks and was blown away slightly by the strong wind from the sea.

When the true qi skillfully left the body for a moment and then returned, it seemed to have gained something. With Fan Xian's mental state, he was completely unable to detect what had been gained, but he sensed it.

Surprised, he was immediately puzzled. The total amount of everything in the world is equal. How much true qi is released from the body, that much true qi will be recovered. Being able to recover it was already Fan Xian's unique skill, but... how could there be more? Wouldn't that mean that one wouldn't need to meditate, but only continuously perform this cyclical true qi circulation to increase the amount of true qi in one's body?

Where did the extra true qi come from?

Fan Xian's pupils contracted slightly, and even the tips of his fingers trembled. He vaguely knew that he might have touched a door that no one had ever thought about, imagined, or reached before. And what lay behind that door?

Why did this change suddenly occur? When Fan Xian sensed the opportunity in his mind, he sat quietly by the sea in the wind and rain to seize it. What was this opportunity? Was it Ye Liuyun coming from the sea? Was it the death of Si Gu Jian who had been watching the sea? Was it the feeling of loss when parting with family?

Fan Xian was bewildered, and then he began to calmly sort out the events of the past day and night. He had to find out the reason for this opportunity in order to know what color the door was and who had opened it in front of him.

This work was not difficult because he had come from Shi Jia Village to Dongyi City and stayed in the Sword Hut for one night. The only thing that could have caused the change was the two small booklets, especially the latter one written in strange transliterated words.

Fan Xian had already given this booklet to Teacher Fei Jie and asked him to take it back to that mysterious Western continent, but he had completely memorized the contents of the booklet. Although he still didn't know the meaning of many of the words on it, he still understood the meaning of a few sentences.

Those sentences didn't sound like incantations, but more like poetry he had seen in his previous life, something like Dante's *Divine Comedy*.

Italian is derived from Latin? Fan Xian frowned, sitting troubled in the wind and rain, but he couldn't recall those long-forgotten pieces of knowledge. He only remembered that there were many dialects of Italian, and the establishment of its written form was inseparable from Dante's *Divine Comedy*.

Could it be that those few sentences were imprinted in his heart, causing him to subconsciously mobilize his mind in the process of circulating true qi, thus creating the current strange situation?

Spells? Fan Xian slowly stood up, frowning, and looked at the empty blue water surface with only sea wind and rain, as if he wanted to keep looking at the continent on the other side of the sea.

...

...

I love you, this bright spring wind.

With all my heart, I perceive every leaping spring xx in the air.

To be close to you, to be united with you.

...

...

This is poetry, not a magical incantation. Fan Xian stood blankly in the rain, still adhering to his judgment, but it was clear that these poem-like languages had allowed him to learn something and sense something. Was there really so-called天地元氣 (tian di yuan qi - heaven and earth primordial qi) in the air outside the body, which should have been empty? And had he previously added a trace of a mood similar to poetry during the exercise process, thereby absorbing something during the return flow?

His footsteps were somewhat hurried as he stepped on the beach. He turned around twice on the coast of the East Sea in the wind and rain. He looked at the surrounding air and the surrounding rain, squinting his eyes and shining, as if he wanted to find that elusive thing from all these transparent or natural things.

But there was nothing.

Too many guesses, doubts, and judgments poured into Fan Xian's mind in an instant, making him somewhat overwhelmed. He groaned and rubbed his brow.

The book was a relic left behind by Grandmaster Ku He. From a sentence that Si Gu Jian occasionally revealed, it could be known that this former national teacher of Northern Qi was extremely interested in the chicken-rib spells of the West, and even showed a hand on Da Dong Mountain.

But it was all in Italian. No matter how talented the national teacher was, he shouldn't know it. So how did he master it? What did he actually master?

And the collection of poems that recorded things perhaps related to magic was also strange in itself. Judging from the age, it was very old, even predating Ku He's birth. It was probably a senior on this continent who had occasionally come into contact with the essence of spells on the Western continent and forcibly memorized these words.

Fan Xian suddenly felt a little regretful that he shouldn't have given this booklet to his teacher so hastily to take to the distant Western continent. He should have studied it further. With the power of the Monitoring Office, he might have been able to dig out who that senior who had long turned to bones was, and then dig down into history along that line.

Rainwater streamed down his face. Fan Xian suddenly laughed with relief and shook his head self-deprecatingly, thinking that he was indeed a little possessed under the great pressure. The victory or defeat on Da Dong Mountain had already proven that no matter what level Grandmaster Ku He had cultivated to and how much mastery he had over this strange method, there was still no essential change, and he still lost to His Majesty.

Spells, spells, may not be the chicken ribs that people imagine, but they also cannot be the sharp weapon that changes everything.

Fan Xian looked back with some disappointment, left the seaside, and walked towards Dongyi City in the rain. Si Gu Jian had passed away, and the entire Dongyi City must be plunged into sorrow and despair at this moment. Now he had to go back, meet with the disciples of the Sword Hut, and control the situation there.

He didn't know that he had missed a very precious opportunity, an opportunity that might have opened that door. Such opportunities are extremely rare and only occasionally appear, whether on this continent or on that continent. Once lost, one would have to wait who knows how long to seize such an opportunity again.

Fortunately, the ethereal things of opportunity and luck are always related to human perseverance and curiosity. With Fan Xian's diligence and desire to explore, he should be able to touch that door again in a shorter time.

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Deep within the thatched cottage, white smoke rose. This white smoke was not cooking smoke, nor was it the pungent smoke that came from burning fallen leaves in late autumn. The white smoke heralded a fact, so the common people of Dongyi City who could see the white smoke and heard about the white smoke looked at that direction in fear and unease, and some people had already knelt down and kowtowed repeatedly in that direction.

Most people already knew the news of the Sword Saint's passing.

Fan Xian walked to the entrance of the Sword Hut. All the disciples around the periphery of the Sword Hut glared at him, the fire of hatred burning in their eyes completely enough to melt him. Even with Fan Xian's strong will, he could not avoid feeling palpitations in this situation.

He knew where the hatred of the Sword Hut disciples came from, because Si Gu Jian had originally died under the treacherous double-teaming of His Majesty the Emperor of Qing and Grandmaster Ye Liuyun of Qing. And he, this powerful minister of Qing, had undoubtedly become a substitute for hatred.

However, Fan Xian had no time to think about how to ease the emotions of these Sword Hut disciples. He just looked at the white smoke deep in the thatched cottage, a trace of worry flashed in his eyes, and he pushed the door open, went directly to the open space next to the sword pit of the thatched cottage, looked at the raging firewood, and very simply walked forward and sprinkled something into the fire.

The color of the flame changed suddenly, and the remains of the Grandmaster in the fire could no longer be seen.

With Fan Xian's movement, Chi Chi sword intent traversed deep within the Sword Hut. Eleven long swords surrounded him, the sword intent spitting out like snake tongues, ready to stab Fan Xian to death at any moment.

Of the Thirteen Swords of the Sword Hut, everyone except Yun Zhilan and Wang Shisanlang, who were kneeling in the front, was enraged by Fan Xian's actions.

...

...

Fan Xian felt the bone-chilling sword intent penetrating his body and did not dare to make any big movements, because he knew that facing the encirclement of eleven ninth-rank masters, even if His Majesty came in person, he would have to consider whether to temporarily avoid their edge. As for himself, he didn't even have a chance to fight back.

He looked at Yun Zhilan, who was kneeling in front, and said, "There is poison in the smoke. I don't want this white smoke to kill half the people in Dongyi City."

When Fan Xian saw the white smoke, he was startled. He had not expected that the Sword Hut disciples would so simply cremate Si Gu Jian's remains after he had sat by the sea for a while. After all, in his memory, this continent did not have the habit of cremation.

There was poison, a deadly poison, in Si Gu Jian's remains. Without the deadly poison laid down by Fei Jie, it would have been impossible to僵化 (jiang hua - stiffen) the body and resist the damage from the Emperor's 王道 (wang dao - Kingly Way) punch for a full three years.

Of course, this poison, when burned by the flames and carried by the white smoke, was not as terrible as Fan Xian said, but it was best to be careful.

And Fan Xian had secretly prepared some methods for Si Gu Jian's injuries, and those medicines were precisely the things that were needed at this moment.

Hearing Fan Xian's explanation, Yun Zhilan, who was kneeling in the front, did not stand up, did not look back, but just raised his right arm.

The sword returned to its sheath, and the sword light returned to its calmness. In just an instant, the atmosphere around the Sword Tomb returned to a calm and sorrowful one. Several sword pages wept as they added firewood to the fire. The thirteen second-generation disciples of the Sword Hut knelt before the fire.

Fan Xian was deeply moved by this scene, knowing that after Si Gu Jian's death, Yun Zhilan undoubtedly possessed the highest prestige in the entire Sword Hut.

Thirteen swords, what a terrible force. How wonderful it would be if the hands holding these swords were his own.

Fan Xian frowned slightly, looking at the fire, thinking about this question in his heart.

...

...

At dusk, Yun Zhilan entered the house, holding a small urn wrapped in cloth, and handed this small urn to Fan Xian with an indifferent expression, saying, "Although I don't understand Master's meaning, since he wants me to give it to you, I will give it to you."

Fan Xian solemnly accepted it with both hands and found that the small urn was still slightly warm. Thinking that it contained Si Gu Jian's bones that had not yet cooled, he felt very strange in his heart.

Yun Zhilan slowly knelt down in front of him and said, "The twelve swords of the Sword Hut are handed over to Your Excellency according to Master's orders."

Fan Xian's pupils contracted slightly, shining with light.

...

...