Chapter Forty-Seven: Tempering

  "Unbelievable! You're only at the fifth stage, how can you possibly wield sword energy?" Chen Tao looked at Ye Chen in astonishment, shouting loudly.

  "I cultivate swordsmanship, and compared to you, I can naturally cultivate sword energy earlier. Moreover, my situation is a bit special, this isn't even real sword energy, it can't be far away from the sword, and compared to true sword energy, it's far inferior." Ye Chen said.

  "Look out!" Chen Tao said, moving his hand away from Ye Chen's pointing finger. The leaves on the ground suddenly flew up, and Chen Tao plucked one of them with his index finger, flicking it with his middle finger. The leaf shot out and hit Ye Chen's eyes directly.

  Chen Tao's sudden move was swift and left Ye Chen completely unprepared. Faced with this sudden attack, Ye Chen swung his palm, and the long sword that had been stuck in the ground was pulled out.

  With the long sword in hand, Ye Chen's entire being became sharp and agile. His body remained still, his long sword eerily straight, as if the leaves had eyes and directly crashed onto the tip of the sword.

  Wow!

  The leaves burst forth, and the dust of the leaves formed a circle in mid-air, blocking all the debris. With a flick, the debris fell to the ground.

  "Come again!" Chen Tao's skills had improved greatly, and he wouldn't admit defeat with just one move. Seeing his own move being neutralized by Ye Chen only piqued Chen Tao's interest.

  Pinhua refers to the Buddhist "Buddha's smile at Mahakasyapa" anecdote, and when practiced to its highest level, it can be used to strike acupoints from a distance or even harm people from afar.

  Chen Tao has only practiced for more than half a month, of course, he can't reach the highest state, at most, he can only practice to the state of "bottle flower falling on the inkstone".

  Lightly grasping and releasing, everything was gentle, not like fighting, but rather like old friends reuniting. It was a pleasure to watch as Chen Tao executed the only complete first move from the remaining chapter.

  The flower falls on the inkstone, what is needed are fragrant petals, which also conform to the finger-picking flowers. The lighter it is, the more difficult it is to practice. However, there are only leaves here, so Chen Tao uses petals instead of leaves.

  Like a blooming flower on the table that suddenly falls onto an inkstone placed underneath, lightly and softly, without any hardness.

  A few fallen leaves are like those disorderly falling flowers, lightly floating, defying the earth's gravity, and drifting down to the dust of leaves.

  Ye Chen's face turned solemn, these few pieces of seemingly harmless fallen leaves were more difficult for him to grasp than the previous burst of fallen leaves.

  Appearing to have no lethal power, but Ye Chen knew that once these fallen leaves fell within his own range, the explosive power would be astonishing.

  Ye Chen's long sword transformed into a wall of swords, layer upon layer of sword shadows blocking all the incoming attacks from the leaves.

  But how can a sword wall block one of the 72 great Shaolin techniques, the "Flower Picking Finger"? Just as the falling leaf is about to touch the sword wall, Chen Tao shoots out another leaf.

  This piece of leaves quickly and swiftly caught up with the front leaves, like a gust of wind blowing away those few pieces of lightly falling leaves, changing their direction.

  Those rapid leaves collided with Yexin's sword wall, causing his sword wall to pause for a moment. In that instant, the few falling leaves suddenly broke through Yexin's sword net at high speed.

  Ye Chen couldn't stay still this time, spinning in mid-air, those few soft leaves brushing past Ye Chen's body.

  Ye Chen stood up and laughed: "You want to murder me? You actually made a ruthless move!"

  Chen Tao looked at himself and finally gained an advantage over Ye Chen, also smiled and said: "You kid has always been stronger than me, now my realm is higher than yours, of course I want to regain some confidence."

  Ye Chen looked at his clothes and saw that they had been slashed with several gashes, almost cutting into his body.

  "Haha, looks like you want to bully me a bit, well, let's see if you can take one of my moves!" As he spoke, Ye Chen's body twisted and quickly moved towards Chen Tao, a sword flower appearing in front of him.

  "Ah, you little scoundrel, you're also good at sneak attacks!" Chen Tao shouted loudly, his hand moved slightly, and the leaves in mid-air were suddenly pinched in his hand.

  An inch short, an inch dangerous. Facing Ye Chen's long sword, the leaf in Chen Tao's hand was obviously very short, but for Chen Tao who had been wanting to give Ye Chen a good beating for a long time, this opportunity was not going to be missed either.

  The leaves left his hand and circled around in the sword light, this time not giving Chen Tao any chance. The long sword followed a strange trajectory, directly dispersing the leaves.

  The long sword's momentum didn't change, still directly pressed against Chen Tao's throat. Chen Tao was greatly shocked, his foot stepped on the ground and his body retreated straight back.

  Ye Chen's body followed closely, his long sword still straight. Chen Tao's body turned around, leaving Ye Chen's sword momentum behind. Ye Chen's long sword carried a sharp aura, if he continued to retreat, Chen Tao feared that his throat would be slashed by the sword momentum.

  Ye Chen's toes lightly touched the ground, and he flew up with one leg. Chen Tao was not an easy opponent either. Thinking back to when his strength was still low, he could already navigate the underground world with ease, showing how agile his mind was. Chen Tao sprang up and pointed a finger at Ye Chen's calf, confident that after these days of bitter practice, his fingers were much harder than Ye Chen's calf.

  Xiaoxue watched from the side as the two exchanged blows. For Xiaoxue, whose cultivation level was higher than both of theirs, watching the two fight was also a kind of experience.

  Xiaoxue was self-taught and rarely had the opportunity to see others fight, so she didn't know how to apply what she had learned. Her older brother was always someone Xiaoxue admired, so she watched the two of them duel with wide eyes.

  Chen Tao had just been promoted to the sixth stage of the Mortal Realm, but his actual combat experience was really insufficient. At first, he could still rely on his own cleverness to withstand Ye Chen's attacks for about ten moves, but after ten moves, Chen Tao, who lacked actual combat experience, could only defend himself.

  But Ye Chen's attack was really too strange, one moment it was swordsmanship, the next moment it was leg technique, and after a while, a long sword appeared strangely again.

  Under this strange attack, Chen Tao didn't support many moves before being pressed against his throat by Ye Chen's long sword.

  "Alright, alright, I give up!" Chen Tao hastily raised his hands in defeat.

  "Hehe, Chen Tao brother, let's exchange a few moves too." Before Ye Chen could speak, Xiao Xue walked over, her eyes shining brightly as she looked at Chen Tao.

  "Stop, stop, Little Snow. You should go find your good brother to have a match instead. This time's match has benefited me greatly, I need to consolidate it." Chen Tao hurriedly ran away. Little Snow had made great progress in her strength, and his own strength had also increased significantly. One day, the two of them unintentionally wanted to spar and test each other at the same time.

  At first, Chen Tao was still in the upper hand, but as soon as Xiaoxue's Ice Soul Palm came out, in the icy and snowy land, Chen Tao didn't even have a chance to fight back, and he cried out that he had been deceived.

  Later, Chen Tao never sparred with Xiaoxue again. If two people's strengths are similar, they can spar with each other, but if the difference in strength is too great, it's called bullying.

  Chen Tao didn't want to be played with or abused, so he could only fight against Xiaoxue. Unfortunately, Xiaoxue had always wanted to improve her combat experience but it was impossible.

  Ye Chen smiled and glanced at Xiaoxue's cunning gaze, rubbed Xiaoxue's head, said he was going to find ingredients to cook and eat, and left here.

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