Chapter 200: Traditionalists and Reformists
[Path: Erudition]
The true essence of this newly forged sword spirit was, in reality, a highly advanced swordsmanship archive—a sentient database capable of autonomous learning, analyzing, and summarizing combat data in real-time. Its primary function was to instruct its wielder in the absolute pinnacle of swordplay.
When placed in the hands of someone like Yanqing—a prodigy possessing the mythical innate talent of a 'Sword Embryo and Martial Bone'—the result was nothing short of catastrophic for his enemies. It was the equivalent of acquiring a perfectly tailored signature weapon. The moment his fingers wrapped around the hilt, his combat prowess violently shattered his previous limits, instantly elevating him to a major tier above his usual strength.
, this ethereal, holographic sword spirit fairy wasn't just incredibly sweet-tempered and helpful; she harbored a vicious tactical advantage. Right before her structural integrity failed, she could initiate a self-destruct sequence, applying a massive, adrenaline-fueled berserker buff to her wielder. This sudden surge of power carried a distinct probability of forcefully triggering the 'Life-Death Equivalence' state—a extraordinary world of focus where the boundaries between survival and destruction entirely blurred.
A few streets away, a young girl leaned heavily against the massive flat of her greatsword, chest heaving as she caught her breath.
"You're good..." she panted, wiping a smudge of dirt from her cheek. "I can't beat you right now... but don't get cocky! I'll come find you again!"
Yanqing merely blinked, completely unfazed by the strange girl who had spent the last hour relentlessly pestering him into a duel. He turned his head, addressing the glowing projection hovering near his shoulder.
"Teacher, let's just continue our patrol."
Deciding to treat the entire chaotic encounter as a collective hallucination, Yanqing turned on his heel and strolled away, acting as if absolutely nothing had happened.
Yunli gritted her teeth, dragging her heavy blade three blocks away before finally collapsing onto a stone bench at a quiet street corner. She glared down at the massive iron greatsword resting against her knees, then snapped her gaze back in the direction Yanqing had disappeared. The longer she sat there, the faster her blood boiled.
"Laotie," she muttered, kicking at a loose pebble. "Don't you think he's being particularly excessive?"
Laotie, being a giant slab of iron, remained entirely silent.
"You think he's excessive too, right!" Yunli huffed, crossing her arms.
Laotie continued its stoic silence.
"That sword of his..." Yunli's brow furrowed, her bare toes curling against the pavement. "There's definitely something wrong with it. I've never encountered a blade that feels like that... No, I have to figure out what's going on with that thing."
Yunli's deep-seated obsession with tracking down and destroying so-called 'cursed swords' wasn't just a hobby; it stemmed directly from the heavy psychological shadow cast by her family's legacy.
"Laotie, do you think he's being controlled by that sword?" she whispered, leaning closer to the cold metal.
Laotie offered no opinion.
"True, you make a good point," Yunli nodded seriously. "If he were being controlled, his eyes wouldn't be that lucid. And Grandpa would have definitely stepped in and smashed the thing to pieces long ago."
Laotie maintained its quiet dignity.
"Then he must have been bewitched! Yes, that has to be it!" Yunli slammed a fist into her open palm, her eyes lighting up with misguided realization. "The evil entity hiding inside that sword filled his head with strange, corrupting ideas! It's tricking him into thinking the sword is a righteous weapon, when actually..."
Laotie remained silent.
Yunli's shoulders slumped. She let out a long, defeated sigh and buried her face in her knees.
If she were being entirely honest with herself, the young swordmaster simply refused to admit she was wrong. Accustomed to having her way and crushing her peers with raw talent, this was the very first time Yunli had suffered such a clean, obvious setback.
One could say she was finally receiving a small, overdue lesson from society. A single, sharp warning that there was always a higher mountain.
"But that guy is really too much!" she grumbled into her kneecaps. "He clearly has an amazing sword already, yet he's still out there looking for new ones every single day..."
That guy is just a sword-playboy, Yunli thought viciously, mentally stamping on Yanqing's face.
"I just added this new function to your Diggertron..."
A casual voice drifted from around the street corner, instantly snapping Yunli out of her brooding. She peeked around the edge of the brick wall, her eyes narrowing.
"If I use this, will I really become stronger?" a loud, childish voice demanded.
"Yes, you'll beat anyone easily. Total domination."
Yunli's ears twitched. Beat anyone easily?
"Thank you, Big Brother Dan Heng!"
"I'm Rekka, not Dan Heng."
"Got it!" Hook cheered, completely ignoring the correction. She hoisted her massive mechanical arm into the air, her eyes sparkling with dangerous ambition. "Now that Hook the Great has a modified Diggertron, does that mean I can finally conquer the world?!"
Rekka stared at the small child, his expression entirely flat. "..."
"Hook, stop thinking about nonsense all the time," Natasha sighed, stepping out from the shadow of a nearby awning. She offered a polite, apologetic cough.
"No, no! I want the world! I want the world! I want the world!" Hook immediately dropped to the floor, kicking her boots against the pavement in a spectacular tantrum. "Give me the world! Give me the world!"
"Hook." Natasha's voice didn't raise in volume, but the temperature in the alley seemed to plummet. "Don't force me to make you lose that smile while I'm taking you out to play."
Natasha's smile was as warm and gentle as a spring breeze, yet Hook instantly froze mid-kick, shrinking her neck back like a frightened turtle.
"It's fine, I installed a Parental Mode," Rekka said smoothly. He reached into his pocket and thoughtfully handed a small, sleek remote control to Natasha. "Without parental permission, the Diggertron's core won't be able to bypass the safety limiters and reach those high power levels."
Hiding behind the wall, Yunli's eyes widened in horror.
In her mind, the absolute defining characteristic of a cursed sword was its ability to allow someone who didn't understand the first thing about martial principles to execute devastatingly powerful attacks. The weapon did all the work, effectively controlling the wielder.
And now, she had seemingly stumbled right into the secret lair of the mastermind manufacturing these terrifyingly upgraded cursed weapons.
Tracking in progress, Yunli decided, gripping Laotie's hilt.
Even from a distance, as she trailed the group through the bustling market district, Yunli could vaguely detect a strange, hazy resonance radiating from Rekka. It felt similar to the dark artifacts she hunted, even if she couldn't hear a distinct voice whispering from him.
To Yunli, who viewed the universe through a very specific lens, absolutely any weapon could be classified as a 'sword.'
"Rekka, speaking of that sword you gave Yanqing that can project holograms..." March 7th skipped up to Rekka's side, bringing up the exact topic Yunli had been agonizing over.
No mistake about it! Yunli thought, pressing her back against a fruit stall. This guy is definitely an evil artisan who specializes in creating demonic artifacts to bewitch people's hearts!
The little theater inside Yunli's mind immediately began to run wild.
In her vivid imagination, Rekka was the type of sinister villain who sat hunched before a dark, damp, subterranean furnace. Purple-black flames would churn and spit as he hammered away at cursed iron, wearing a cracked half-mask to hide his scarred face. He would let out a raspy, eccentric cackle while forcibly injecting screaming Heliobi into innocent metal.
She absolutely could not stand by and watch such an atrocious thing happen in broad daylight!
"Hold it right there!" Yunli leaped out from behind the fruit stall, pointing an accusing finger at Rekka. "I know what you're doing! Stop making cursed swords!"
Rekka paused mid-step, slowly turning to look at the fiery girl pointing at him. He blinked.
"What do you mean, I make cursed swords?" Rekka asked, genuinely curious. "Please explain specifically what your concept of a cursed sword is. I'll wait."
Caught slightly off guard by his calm, analytical tone, Yunli puffed out her chest and launched into a rapid-fire explanation about malicious sentience, corrupted iron, and the unnatural domination of the wielder's mind.
"Ah. So it's about striking a Heliobus into ironware." Rekka nodded slowly, processing the data.
To the uninformed, her explanation sounded exactly like beating a fiery energy parasite until it couldn't take the pain anymore and obediently hid inside a weapon.
"Hmm..." Rekka rubbed his chin. "Then by your specific standards, do those mass-produced flying swords from the Xianzhou Artisanship Commission count as cursed swords?"
Yunli was stunned. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she found her voice. "That... that's completely different! Those flying swords are just simple mechanical devices! They have no sentience and won't bewitch people!"
"And if the flying swords did have sentience?" Rekka countered smoothly.
"That depends on the situation!" Yunli argued, her face flushing. "But anything that actively bewitches the human heart and bypasses hard work is definitely a problematic sword!"
She was stubborn, but she didn't flatly label every single smart-weapon as a cursed sword. She had some standards.
"Since you think the swords I make are so problematic," Rekka sighed, gesturing down the street, "why don't you just watch how I make them?"
Yunli sized Rekka up suspiciously, her eyes narrowing into slits. "Fine! Then let me see how you forge a sword! Show me your dark arts!"
A few minutes later, Yunli stood with wide, unblinking eyes as Rekka casually walked up to a cheap roadside stall, handed over a few credits, and bought a brightly colored plastic toy sword.
He then sat down on a nearby crate, pulled out a holographic keyboard, and began typing.
Clack-clack-clack-clack.
What followed was an intense, high-speed, and utterly baffling period of coding. Holographic screens surrounded him, lines of glowing text scrolling faster than the eye could track.
"Alright, that's about it." Rekka hit the enter key with a flourish, dismissing the screens. He picked up the poorly made plastic toy sword and stretched his shoulders. "Forging complete. Man, my fingers are tired."
"Where was the forging?!" Yunli shrieked, pointing at the plastic toy.
"I just did it," Rekka said, tossing the toy sword lightly in his hand. "Isn't it usable now?"
"No... you... huh?" Yunli stammered, her brain struggling to process the sheer absurdity of the situation. She strongly suspected Rekka was just messing with her. "You... you are insulting the sacred art of forging!"
"Oh?" Rekka's eyes narrowed dangerously. "This is just a different methodology. Is writing complex code somehow less difficult than swinging a hammer? Just because I wasn't sweating buckets next to a thousand-degree furnace, my labor doesn't count?"
Having been slapped with the heavy label of "insulting the art of forging," Rekka immediately went on the offensive, pointing a finger right back at her. If she was going to throw labels around, he was more than happy to return the favor.
"You...!" Yunli gasped, clutching her chest as if physically struck.
As everyone knows, vicious factional infighting is an essential part of the intelligent life experience.
On a large scale, there are massive academic wars that span centuries. On a small scale, people can argue until the heat death of the universe over the proper filling of a simple pastry. Wars have been fought over whether red bean paste is superior to salted egg yolk. The eternal, bloody battle between salty, sweet, and spicy flavors... The Great Dumpling War.
Up until this exact moment, Yunli had actually believed her own style of forging was part of the modern Reformist faction.
But standing here, staring at Rekka holding a plastic toy sword infused with god-tier programming, she suddenly realized she was a Traditionalist.
She never thought the words 'how scandalous' would ever pop into her head, but here they were.
Grind... grind...
The sound of Yunli's teeth grinding together echoed in the quiet street.
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