Demon Sword Sect’s Undercover
Chapter 288 - 288 287 The Final Choice 1

288: Chapter 287: The Final Choice 1 288: Chapter 287: The Final Choice 1 Hou Niao strode decisively to the fourth floor of the Cultivation Technique Building.

After days of weighing and contemplation, his hesitation was no more.

Standing at the stairwell and looking around, how many had come to this place with the impulse to take it all in?

Unfortunately, cultivation was not a feast—you couldn’t just sample a bit of everything.

He reached out and took the first cultivation technique, also his primary one, the Three Night Thunder Law Regular.

All along, he had been rather frustrated with his Five Elements Attribute because his was of the most common, balanced type.

In the Cultivation World, one’s own attribute determines the direction of cultivation, a widely accepted principle; you can’t be of the Fire Attribute but insist on cultivating Water Element System Techniques.

Defying the heavens and changing one’s fate comes with conditions, as the Cultivation World places more emphasis on following the natural order, which allows for achieving twice the result with half the effort.

Those cultivators with a distinct attribute inclination are in the minority; the more pronounced the attribute characteristics, the fewer the people who have them, making them anomalies or freaks.

In this world, most people are normal, which makes those with such attributes stand out as having innate potential, as if they were specially favored by the heavens to pursue cultivation.

It was exactly this dilemma that delayed Hou Niao from settling on a direction for his Flying Sword; he belonged to the most common category of balanced attributes.

Of course, this balance referred to a dynamic biological equilibrium, not a simple equal division among the Five Elements.

Balance is never absolute.

Generally, when a cultivator’s attributes of the Five Elements are restricted within a range of ten percent, they can be considered balanced.

They can learn anything—they have no particularly suitable or unsuitable fields.

During his previous cultivation practice, Hou Niao had vaguely felt an affinity for the thunderous path.

However, this feeling had no theoretical basis, and more crucially, the path of thunder was one of the hardest to master, and it seemed not to be part of the Innate Great Dao?

According to countless Daoist Records in the sect, studying the thunderous path seemed too early for the Tongtian Realm—the best stage to begin this technique with mutated attributes of the Five Elements was after reaching the Golden Core.

This consensus in the Cultivation World holds true for many Daoist Methods: it’s not that you can’t learn them now, but that doing so is counterproductive, consuming an immense amount of time, energy, and resources for slow progress and minimal advancement, which doesn’t suit cultivators who value their time like gold.

Cultivation also stresses timeliness—whatever can be learned fastest and shows the most effect at a certain realm stage, that’s what should be pursued, rather than blindly aspiring for something too high or far away.

But now, his Flying Sword told him it was this one!

Not only did he feel an affinity for thunder, but it was also thanks to the Sword Grinding Meteorite.

He finally understood what years of sword grinding had incorporated into him—it was the thunder element.

At this point, there was no possibility of change.

Instinct said thunder, chance encounters said thunder, so it could only be thunder; no other options were left, no matter how bitter or difficult the path, he had to go on.

Another technique to complement the major one needed to be selected—a standard and supplementary one.

This was a customary practice and a result of thousands of years of experience in the Cultivation World; complementing and compensating for each other, he could be adept at both cultivation and combat.

His gaze swept over two stellar methods, then moved away; lacking star affinity, he chose not to join that fray.

Pure Yang One Qi Heaven, Six Meridians Huangting Decision—all tempted him to choose.

Theoretically, with thunder as his main offence, he should choose a major supplementary technique.

Neither of these techniques required a Five Elements Attribute and were applicable to all, being somewhat mild and suited for detailed, meticulous work—a slow-grinding method.

However, he was not a person who favored the mundane.

Deep down, he was like Gao Jianli, possessed of a personality that sought extremes and courted danger.

The Three Night Thunder Law Regular itself was already slow to cultivate; if he chose another even slower method like Pure Yang or Six Meridians, how would he endure the early stages of Tongxuan?

Never leaving the sect nor stepping outside its boundary?

Yin Yang?

Too abstract!

He preferred something more concrete.

Frankly speaking, techniques like the Yin Yang Cultivation Technique were also best to start after reaching the Golden Core.

Having chosen the Three Nights, it wouldn’t be appropriate to base both his primary and supplementary techniques on Yin Yang, which would better suit the Golden Core Stage.

That left only the most basic, most common, and most popular Five Elements Cultivation Technique.

Popular not because it was a low-tier technique, but because it has been acknowledged throughout time by cultivators in the Tongxuan Realm.

What right did he have to doubt a technique that had been proven by countless cultivators over a millennium?

He reached out and took the Earth Element Escape into his hands.

It was a very unexpected choice because, among the Five Elements Cultivation Techniques, Earth Element Escape was notoriously unsightly; it didn’t have the direct penetrating power of the metallic sharp insight, no area attributes like Kan Li Fire, none of the nourishment and fortification of the cultivator’s own body like the lucid clarity of the wood element, nor the unrestrained infiltration of the water elements deep mystery.

Overall, this technique seemed rather scorned, usually preferred by lower-class rogue cultivators and thieves because of its practicality.

At the Tongtian Realm level, just burrowing underground meant there was little chance of being found, whether for surprise attacks, ambushes, or escaping; it had its own merits.

But almost no Sword Cultivator would choose it, because once underground, Flying Swords become useless—or even if they could be used, they would be incredibly slow.

What’s a Flying Sword without speed?

Hou Niao chose it for many practical reasons; if asked, he could list a slew of them.

For example, among his balanced attributes, only the Earth and Water Elements were slightly above the standard line of balance, yet not exceeding ten percent compared to the other three elements.

Earth and Water give rise to thunder; this was the reason for his affinity for thunder.

Strictly speaking, practicing Earth Element Escape was still true to his situation, albeit the advantage wasn’t pronounced.

It might take a long time for his thunder abilities to become practical.

In the meantime, to stay alive, he would need an exceptional Escape Skill.

The sky was too dangerous, and occasionally borrowing underground like a rat wasn’t the worst strategy—as long as one didn’t mind the loss of face.

In his self-assessment, how far he could advance his Flying Sword abilities was unknown, so for the time being, close combat remained his trump card for overcoming adversaries.

If only he could stealthily approach his opponent…

Given a cultivator’s Divine Sense capabilities below the Golden Core Stage, in the Tongxuan Realm, the sensing range in the air could reach several miles, the God Sensing Realm over a dozen miles, and those with profound skills in the Natural Realm even tens of miles.

With such early warning ranges, there was almost no chance he could sneak up unnoticed; everything would be out in the open.

Although he had now forged a Flying Sword, the combat skills he had honed tirelessly were not something he wished to abandon.

Earth Escape seemed to be the only technique that could unexpectedly close the distance to the opponent.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best choice available.

Different from the Mansion Masters, You Sunzhi’s choice was focused on pursuing Longevity, Gao Jianli favored maximum output to the extreme, and Li Chuping started from his own innate specialty; each had their own reasoning.

His choice was actually a kind of reverse engineering, first selecting the Flying Sword, then looking for the best supplementary techniques to complement it.

After the proclivity for thunder in his Lonely Sword came to light, this was the only path left to him.

So to say what exactly he had gained from the three insights—it would have to be a combination of Gao Jianli and Li Chuping’s approaches, tied to his own characteristics, all in pursuit of the greatest combat strength.

As for Longevity, he figured he could worry about that when he gets there.