Chapter 15: A Sword That Sings
The next morning, the mountain air was cold enough to keep everyone honest.
The private practice ground behind the eastern ridge lay open given the sight of the moment light of dawn, half-ringed by pine and stone, large enough for movement but small enough that nothing said there could pretend to be casual. It was not one of the public arenas. No students crowded the edges. No instructors pretended to pass by. Even the servants who had prepared the tea had already withdrawn.
That alone told Renyu how carefully this had been arranged.
Xue Qinghe stood at the side of the platform with his hands folded behind his back, white sleeves stirred lightly by the wind. Ning Fengzhi sat at a stone table as though this were a civilized morning visit and not a quiet weighing of a boy future. Beside him, Ning Rongrong had been told to behave with dignity, which in her case seemed to mean sitting still with visible effort. Chen Xin stood nearest the platform, silent, still, and far more intimidating than if he had been openly pressing.
Renyu stepped into the center of the stone court and thought, not for the first time, that he would have preferred another duel.
Crowds were simple. Because they looked for victory, loss, posture, scandal.
Experts looked for truth.
And today, Sword Douluo was here to look at the sword.
"You look miserable," Ning Rongrong said at once.
Ning Fengzhi did not even turn his head. "Rongrong."
"What? He does."
Renyu looked at her.
She looked back with complete sincerity, which somehow made it worse.
"I'm preparing myself," he said.
"For what?"
"For the part where your curiosity becomes my problem."
That made Ning Rongrong grin.
Xue Qinghe, hearing that, lowered his eyes just enough to hide the trace of amusement there. Good, he thought. Let the tension loosen a little. A rigid blade snapped more easily than a flexible one.
Chen Xin did not smile. He only watched Renyu a moment longer and said, "Begin."
No ceremony.
No wasted phrasing.
Of course, Renyu thought. A swordsman like him would have no patience for ornament once the point of the morning was clear.
Renyu inhaled once and let it out slowly.
Summon.
The red converter crystal appeared first before his chest, small and sharp and deep as fresh blood in the morning light. It hovered there with silent certainty.
Ning Rongrong leaned forward immediately.
"So that's it," she murmured.
Not awe, exactly. Interest sharpened by excitement. She had clearly expected something unusual. Seeing it only made her want more.
Renyu focused inward. The sequence answered him at once.
"Imyuteus Ame no Habakiri tron"
Blue crystalline light spread from the converter in smooth, interlocking lines. It began across his chest, then flowed over his shoulders, arms, and torso like faceted ice climbing over skin. Not bulky armor. Not metal. Something stranger than that—elegant, fitted, and precise, as though every shard had been designed to belong exactly where it settled.
The transformation did not stop there.
A weapon took shape in his hand.
Long enough like it command space. Curved enough to feel alive in motion. Refined, not heavy. A sword that looked less like a forged tool and more like a form the crystal had always intended to become.
The moment it fully manifested, the air in the practice ground changed.
Very slightly.
Renyu felt it. So did everyone else.
Chen Xin half-lidded gaze sharpened.
That alone sent a small current of satisfaction through Xue Qinghe thoughts. 'There. I knew you would be interested.'
Ning Fengzhi noticed it too, though his own reaction was subtler. Chen Xin was not a man easily stirred by novelty. If he had truly focused, then the sword had already passed one threshold.
"It really is beautiful," Ning Rongrong said before she could stop herself.
Then, realizing she had spoken aloud, she glanced at her father.
Ning Fengzhi merely said, "Beauty is the least important thing about a sword."
Chen Xin eyes never left Renyu. "But it is not unimportant."
That made Rongrong blink in surprise.
Renyu heard the exchange, filed it away, and tightened his grip just slightly.
The sword felt right.
That was the part that worried him most whenever people like Chen Xin watched. A person who merely liked weapons would praise the appearance. A person who understood them would notice something else—that the sword did not sit awkwardly in his hand, did not feel newly borrowed, did not fight his movement.
It fit his posture, one of the style of his fighting.
And that, more than any glow or transformation, was dangerous to reveal.
"Move," Chen Xin said.
So Renyu did.
He began with the forms Qian Renxue had drilled into him until his body stopped thinking of them as forms and started thinking of them as habits. No flourish. No pointless display. Step, turn, cut, recover. Angle, draw back, re-center. The crystalline armor caught the early sun in flashes of blue as he moved through the sequence, the sword tracing clean arcs through cold air.
He did not go fast.
Not yet.
This was not about impressing people with speed. It was about letting them see structure.
Chen Xin watched the feet first.
'Good,' he thought.
Then the shoulders.
Better.
Then the wrists.
At that, his gaze narrowed by a fraction.
Not shallow, he thought. Not too mature, not too deep, but also not too shallow. As expected of 12 years old.
There was no vanity in the cuts. No childish overcommitment to the blade glamour. The boy had not fallen in love with the sword as ornament. He was trying, clumsily in places but honestly, to understand how it should move.
That mattered.
Quite a lot, actually.
When Renyu finished the first sequence, he reset his stance and looked toward Xue Qinghe.
The crown prince expression had not changed, but his next words arrived with perfect timing.
"The part you dislike," he said.
Ning Rongrong brightened instantly.
Renyu had to fight the urge to close his eyes.
Of course she would react like that.
There was no escaping it, though. Not with Chen Xin here. Not with Ning Fengzhi observing. Not with Qian Renxue standing there making it very clear that retreat is not an option.
He let the blade lower a little.
Then he sang.
Only one line.
Quiet. Controlled. No more than necessary.
The effect was immediate.
Phonic Gain Resonance answered at once. The red converter flared beneath the blue crystalline shell, and a pulse ran through his body, settling into muscle, breath, and thought with brutal efficiency. Strength tightened through his limbs. Speed loosened in his joints. His reflexes sharpened. Soul power that had already been stable under the transformed state suddenly circulated with cleaner intent.
The sword felt more awake in his hand as it hum stronger.
Ning Rongrong forgot all restraint and half-rose from her seat. "It changed!"
Ning Fengzhi gently touched her sleeve, and she sat back down at once—though only physically. Her eyes were practically glowing now.
Renyu moved again.
This time the difference was impossible to miss.
The cuts linked more cleanly. The transitions shortened. Small inefficiencies that would have escaped an ordinary observer were simply no longer there. His movement had not become reckless or wildly faster. It had become denser. More cleaner. As though the song had gathered the scattered edges of his body and mind and forced them to agree with one another.
Ning Fengzhi smile faded as he goes into concentration.
Xue Qinghe watched without blinking.
'Yes,' he thought. 'See it clearly. Admire it. For what is mine. But only this much.'
Chen Xin stepped onto the platform.
The moment his foot touched stone, Renyu spine tightened.
"Again," Chen Xin said.
Renyu adjusted and sang the line a second time, this time holding the rhythm longer while moving through a shorter combat sequence. Step in. Test distance. Turn the blade. Recover without breaking the line.
Chen Xin observed for three breaths.
Then he said, "Attack me."
Ning Rongrong inhaled sharply.
Even Ning Fengzhi fingers paused above his cup.
Renyu stared. "At you?"
Chen Xin expression did not change. "Do you see another swordsman here?"
That answer was so dry that, under different circumstances, it might have been funny.
Under these circumstances, it was merely horrifying.
Still, refusal was impossible.
Renyu moved.
Not with killing intent. Not foolishly. But not timidly either. He entered off the right line, shifted midway, and sent a cut angled to test reaction instead of seeking a direct opening.
Chen Xin raised two fingers.
The sword stopped.
Not against visible force. Not against a manifest weapon. It simply reached a point in space where further advance felt wrong in a way too complete to ignore, as though those two fingers had already defined the boundary of the exchange.
Sword pressure, Renyu thought immediately.
Or something near enough to it that arguing over names would be pointless.
"Again," Chen Xin said.
Renyu withdrew and changed the angle. Lower feint into rising line. The sort of adjustment that had worked well on academy opponents.
It failed before it truly began.
Chen Xin stepped once.
That was all.
One step, and the entire exchange was wrong. Distance, pressure, line, timing—everything that had felt coherent a breath earlier now tilted out of place. Renyu corrected on instinct, but that correction only made it clearer that he was no longer attacking into an opening.
He was attacking into understanding far beyond his own.
Then Chen Xin touched the flat of the blade.
A single tap.
The sword slid harmlessly off line.
Renyu retreated at once, the song dying in his throat without his permission.
Silence settled over the practice ground.
Ning Rongrong blinked twice. "That was terrifying."
Ning Fengzhi took his cup at last. "That is because you recognized it correctly."
Chen Xin stepped back off the platform and looked at Renyu for a long moment.
Renyu held still.
He had been praised before. Evaluated before. Used before.
This felt different.
Because whatever came next would not be politeness.
It would be judgment.
At length, Chen Xin spoke.
"The song is not decoration."
No one interrupted.
"It is part of the sword-state," he continued. "That is the first thing."
His gaze flicked once to the now-quiet space where the blade still rested in Renyu's hand.
"The second is that the sword itself is not empty. He does not merely hold it. He already understands enough not to make it vulgar."
Renyu felt his grip tighten despite himself.
Ning Rongrong eyes widened.
Xue Qinghe remained still, but inwardly the satisfaction was sharp and clean. Good. Say it plainly. Let the weight come from you, not from me.
Chen Xin did not stop there.
"His understanding is shallow," he said flatly. "It must be. He is twelve. He lacks time. He lacks experience. He lacks depth."
Rongrong expression dimmed a little.
"Then let's us increase the intensity." Then Chen Xin decide to be a little serious. This is not just a test but he want to see the extend of his abilities, maybe force the third spirit ring abilities that he heard never use.
Hearing that, Renyu then realized that he need to use the full extend of the Ameno Habakiri.
Maybe show that he has the potential that will make Seven Treasure Glazed Tile clan invest more in Xu Qinghe/Qian Renxue.