Saeko Busujima found the current situation quite perplexing.
In her memory, her father had always been steady and composed, a stoic pillar of the family who would remain unmoved even if Mount Tai collapsed before him. Now, however, he seemed incredibly… restless? Impatient?
Indeed. The Patriarch of the Busujima family was truly anxious now. He was so anxious that the veins on his forehead visibly bulged as he desperately tried to confirm his theory.
The family annals… the charcoal drawings…
He flipped through the thick parchment pages very quickly. The faster he flipped, the more nimble his hands became, and the brighter the manic glint in his gaze grew.
"Saeko! You take a look too! Be quick!"
Saeko silently picked up her printed copy and imitated her father's rapid, continuous flipping through the pages.
In an instant, a sudden palpitation surged through her, her body tensing in shock.
'This, this… This is a smoothly animated sequence?'
If it were just a simple, clever flipbook, she could at most praise the artistic wisdom of the ancients. But… Saeko stared intently, her eyes almost radiant with awe. The content of the animation was brutally simple. It depicted a burly man wielding the Murasame sword, executing different types of deformed demons.
There were ten distinct forms in total, each corresponding to a different, flowing method of slaying.
Was this the true sword technique inherited from her ancestors?
'Impossible…' Saeko thought, her breath catching. 'How could these inhuman, impossible sword techniques be used by a mortal body?'
And when her ancestor executed his swordsmanship in the moving drawings, there was a fluid, water-like flow depicted around the blade… Wait… water? Murasame?
A sudden, pounding excitement welled up in her heart. She remembered Murasame's physical abilities: killing without shedding blood, condensing mist, and… controlling water.
Could this be the key?
No. It shouldn't be this simple. Details. Were there details she hadn't noticed?
Saeko forced herself to be cautious, vaguely feeling that she hadn't yet discovered the core mechanical truth. The swordsmanship forms were indeed powerful, but even her father couldn't replicate such impossible, fluid techniques with pure muscle alone.
Would relying on Murasame's magical abilities make it work? That was even more unlikely. Master swordsmen… or rather, proud samurai like her ancestor, were far too arrogant to allow themselves to rely entirely on a magic sword instead of their own honed skill.
In the heavy silence, Saeko flipped through the drawings one by one, much slower this time.
Found it…
The Patriarch was the first to stop reading, slamming his hand on the table. His gaze was fixed intently on the still frames, specifically on his ancestor's chest. In some drawings, the chest was highly expanded, the lungs drawn full of air; in others, it was deeply sunken, exhaling forcefully with the strike.
Why?
Breathing!
This was clearly a highly specialized method of breathing!
'So that's it. So that's it!' the Patriarch thought, his eyes wide with revelation. 'Ancestor… You kept this hidden from us descendants for so long in plain sight… Why didn't you just write it down plainly? This is the true secret of our lineage. This is the secret to wielding Murasame!'
As a contemporary master swordsman, the Patriarch had naturally practiced various breathing techniques. This wasn't a rare concept. Most Olympic athletes utilize specific breathing rhythms to maintain high-intensity activity for longer periods and maximize oxygen to the muscles.
But this was vastly different.
Eagerly trying to apply the extreme, rhythmic breathing method shown in the drawings to his own body, the Patriarch almost violently choked on his own breath halfway through the cycle.
'No… this breathing method is entirely unique and dangerous. It requires a long period of grueling practice and physical adaptation.'
His gaze shifted to the mist-shrouded Murasame on the stand. A wild guess formed in his mind.
"Saeko, take the Murasame. Draw it, and then try to mimic the ancestor's breathing pattern while holding it."
Saeko immediately complied. She was deeply interested in her ancestor's breathing technique. If it were true, the Busujima family's martial legacy would be completely revolutionized…
The two took Murasame to the spacious dirt courtyard in the backyard. The open area would prevent any accidental property damage.
Saeko pulled Murasame from its scabbard. Closing her eyes, she focused entirely on her lungs, quietly following the bizarre, intense breathing rhythm she had just memorized from the flipbook.
The Patriarch watched his little darling with bated breath and great anticipation. Success or failure of their entire legacy depended on this moment…
However, in an instant, a very subtle, heavy fluctuation seemed to spread out from Saeko's core.
The Patriarch's pupils dilated instantly.
Splash—!
Water! Waves!
Two or three massive, concentric waves of physical water spontaneously condensed out of thin air, surging around the blade in a streamlined, crescent shape!
The rapidly rotating torrent concealed a terrifying, razor-sharp edge that made the Patriarch's scalp tingle with primal fear! Those liquid waves, two or three meters in diameter, seemed to form defensive, cutting rings around Saeko as she swung the sword in a test arc.
The Patriarch watched in awe as the water waves touched the ground. Wherever the water swept across the dirt, a deep, clean trench was instantly carved out without any physical obstruction. It was as if the earth had been sliced open by a dozen invisible, slender blades.
But almost as quickly as it appeared, the breathing rhythm broke, and the waves dissipated into harmless mist.
Only a weak, heavily panting, and pale-faced Saeko remained standing, leaning heavily on Murasame.
However, neither of them cared about her temporary exhaustion right now.
The Patriarch acted almost impulsively. His hands, clasped tightly behind his back, clenched into trembling fists. The expression on his face—desperately wanting to laugh, desperately wanting to shout—was impossible to suppress.
'Ancestor. Ancestor...' he thought, tears of sheer awe welling in his eyes. 'I originally thought you were just a delusional old man boasting and making a fool of our name. But you actually meant every single word... The true teachings entrusted to Murasame are enough for the Busujima family to reign supreme for centuries to come. You really are a god among men...'
Why had the ancestor treated his descendants like outsiders, hiding the technique within a flipbook animation? Such a priceless, world-shaking thing...
If it weren't for Saeko's accidental good fortune in gaining Murasame's approval with her blood yesterday, it would probably have been completely lost to history in the face of increasingly pragmatic, "unworthy" descendants...
Because he, the current Patriarch, was precisely that kind of unworthy descendant. Because he had actively considered abandoning the family chronicles, burning them, and rewriting them to remove the "embarrassing" magic.
Thinking of this, the Patriarch wiped his forehead, a profound, lingering fear gripping him. Cold sweat trickled down his spine as he recalled his past arrogance.
'If I had truly thrown away the true teachings, how would my ancestors and future generations view me?' he shuddered. "Prodigal son" wouldn't even begin to describe him. He would be the ultimate, despicable traitor to the bloodline.
Just thinking about the karmic consequences made him feel a vague, unbearable shame, as if his very soul had been pierced by a blade.
Therefore, at this moment, the Patriarch looked at the precious Murasame in his daughter's hands with extreme, paranoid caution, suddenly fearing that his clumsy daughter might accidentally drop and damage the divine artifact.
"Saeko, you… cough… from now on, you should practice the ancestral breathing method on your own with a wooden sword," the Patriarch said strictly, stepping forward. "You can't rely purely on Murasame as a crutch. Here, give Murasame to me. The Busujima family needs to worship it securely for generations. You know what Murasame symbolizes to us; we absolutely cannot allow any mishap to befall it out here."
Saeko's heart tightened somewhat subtly as she gripped the hilt.
'How dare my unfilial father speak to me like that and try to steal my sword?' she thought, giving him a deeply suspicious side-eye. 'Besides, didn't Father literally want to break our Ancestor's legs just yesterday...?'
According to their current combat analysis of the water waves, the Ancestor's fighting power was probably off the charts. If they met in the afterlife, who would break whose legs was really hard to say...
As if completely oblivious to his daughter's deadpan, judging gaze, the Patriarch was determined to safely enshrine Murasame. He carefully took the sword from her tired hands and practically sprinted back to the main hall.
The usually composed, stern grandmaster couldn't help but squeeze out a few fawning, highly ingratiating expressions as he placed the sword back on the velvet stand. He had no choice but to fawn. If the Ancestor was watching from heaven and had heard his unfilial descendant's rebellious complaints over the years, he'd probably manifest in a dream and break his legs tonight.
He respectfully, meticulously lit and offered three sticks of premium incense.
The Patriarch stared blankly at Murasame, his eyes burning with devotion. He needed to calm his racing heart.
'Genuine goods. An authentic, magical martial tradition. True ancestors…'
He sighed, his heart filled with extremely complex, reverent emotions.
'Ancestors… please forgive my ignorance.'
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