Child of Destiny

……

Shing! Shing!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A series of flashes assaulted the Sand General from every direction, attacking from all angles, including the blind spots that were impossible to cover.

Shin had surrounded the Sand General with all his phantoms and the ghost apparitions that they had created through his foot technique.

Shin was continuously bombarding the Sand General with a variety of martial skills and sword techniques while constantly switching places with all these phantoms and ghosts.

His speed reached the point where he created an illusion where all these phantoms and ghosts remained stationary while the flashes of light constantly shuttled through them and launched serious attacks at the Sand General.

These sword flashes neither stop nor slow down. Instead, they continuously picked up the pace and constantly increased their speed and numbers until they completely dominated the entire space surrounding the Sand General.

At first, the Sand General remained unfazed and unaffected by these series of attacks. It just causally blocked most of the attacks, along with a few martial movements that caught Shin off guard from time to time.

It could even throw a few counterattacks that almost disturbed Shin’s rhythm, almost throwing his constant barrage of attacks to be cancelled.

The Sand General rarely threw any attack, but it always found a hole in Shin’s movements, which would also put great pressure on Shin.

Fortunately, Shin never made the same mistakes twice, always fixing all these holes. This way, he was able to further perfect this newly found ability of his and make it even stronger.

It did not take that long for this ability to become Shin’s second nature, letting him control all these phantoms and ghosts without expending that much mental strength and concentration. Even the swapping of positions and switching between multiple sword stances and movements had become a second nature for him.

At the same time, due to these repeated movements, Shin was able to comprehend a new meaning of one of his advanced sword principles.

Among all the sword principles that he had learned from Old Ryong’s training methods, Shin was extremely proficient with all the basic principles, such as the Straight Sword, Flexible Sword, Quick Sword, Heavy Sword, Light Sword, Hidden Sword, Silent Sword, Illusion Sword, Elusive Sword, and many others.

Through these basic principles and by mixing and combining their essence, Shin was able to produce the advanced sword principles.

There was the Destructive Sword, which was meant for destroying everything on its path, and the Domineering Sword, which was supposed to be used when suppressing his enemies.

The Righteous Sword was the combination of Straight Sword, Quick Sword, Light Sword, and Heavy Sword. It was a sword principle that was extremely honest and filled with righteousness, never bending against any kind of injustice and adversity.

Then, there was the Severing Sword, which could rip through the defenses of his opponent, and the Intuition Sword that could sense the intention of his opponents and read through the sword paths of the opposing party, which was also another way to find a flaw in the opponent’s swordsmanship before attacking it.

There was also the Versatile Sword, which could help him switch between all sword forms without any problem, and the Killing Sword that was solely meant for taking the lives of his opponents.

Shin did not know many sword principles he had yet to discover and master, but he heard that there were countless sword principles out there.

The more Shin learned about it, the more he realized that he was still far from fully understanding the true essence of the sword.

There were even quite a few sword principles that Shin had never understood up until now, just like the Stupid Sword, which sounded very silly.

However, from what he heard from Old Ryong’s lectures, this sword principle was among the strongest defensive swords, which sounded truly stupid. After all, who would use a sword to constantly defend when the sword itself was meant for attacking and a tool for killing?

…

At this moment, Shin started to learn a new, highly advanced sword principle. He started to comprehend a new sword principle that he could not fully master before.

The Mirage Sword!

This sword principle seemed to be the combination of the Quick Sword, the Elusive Sword, the Hidden Sword, the Silent Sword, the Illusion Sword, and a few less important sword principles.

By combining all these sword principles and all the other mysteries of Phantom Movements that he recently comprehended, Shin was able to uncover the mysteries of the Mirage Sword.

“The Mirage Sword is the bridge between reality and fantasy. It was the truth within the falsehood, and the lie behind the truth. It sounds like the composite of the Righteous Sword, which is honest and filled with straightforwardness,” he mumbled without stopping his attacks against the Sand General.

After fighting the Sand General for quite a while, Shin was able to adjust his movements to match his opponent. He could now sense the intention of the opposing party and see through its movements.

He could now land a few hits on it, albeit only dealing shallow cuts on its extremely tough armor.

Even though he could tell that he was still far from completely defeating this troublesome opponent, who seemed to possess a powerful martial prowess, Shin could tell that he would be able to reach the initial level of mastery of the Mirage Sword with its help.

“Is my guess wrong? Is the true requirement of passing through this floor mastering all these skills and abilities from the Phantom Swordsman Class?” he mumbled, having little doubts.

Based on the current progress, he could tell that the Mirage Sword was the core of the Phantom Swordsmanship, or even the Phantom Assassination, which meant that another requirement was added to the list that he needed to clear on this floor.

If that was truly the case, then the trail for this floor had become even trickier to deal with.

“Well, it is not like it was going to be that much complicated, given that I already gained the initial understanding for the Mirage Sword,” he mumbled while pausing his attacks for a moment to make a few adjustments.

“Aside from creating illusory movements, misdirection is also one of the cores of Mirage Sword, which is the combination of quickness, elusiveness, and stealthiness in movements.”

“Tsk! It is more troublesome than I had expected,” he complained a little before shrugging his shoulders. “I guess I just need to deal with it one step at a time.”

***

Pssh!

After getting out of the gaming cabin, Shin quickly went for a quick shower to get rid of the sweat on his body before going for his morning training.

Today was Sunday, so there were no school activities for the group.

They all decided to stay home, planning to have a quick training session together, along with a little sparring match with one another.

…

Bang! Bang! Bang!

While Alice and Jilian were having a match against each other, the rest of the team were currently sitting on the sidelines and enjoying the show.

After a while, Shin suddenly entered the training room and immediately saw the ongoing match. He slightly raised his brows, finding the matchup a little interesting, especially since each side represented the strongest Mentalist Families of the Soaring Continent.

“A match between the Stuart Family and the Potter Clan, huh?” he mumbled before walking toward the others, who were gathered at a certain corner of the room.

Right after taking a seat between Arthur and Leonard, Shin immediately asked. “How’s your progress in your commission?”

“It is much more troublesome than we have anticipated,” answered Arthur while raising his brows. “That dungeon is a bit trickier than what that brat has described.”

He was clearly talking about Lawrence, who had partially inherited the legacy left behind by Dark King Tang Hyeon.

“He said that everything will be under control once he has taken control of the core of the dungeon,” Arthur gritted his teeth while complaining. “But who would have thought that there is another series of trails waiting for him there, which put us in such an awkward situation.”

“We are now stuck inside that dungeon because he triggered a series of restrictions along the way.”

“The most troublesome thing about it is we are not thrown into different parts of the dungeon, facing multiple challenges the whole time we are online.”

“Fortunately, these trials give us a decent amount of experience points, which compensate for the time that we have wasted during the time we have spent there.”

“If not for the brat messing up with everything, then we would have most likely challenged those so-called four generals of the ancient Tang Clan! Or even escaped that hell hole altogether!” he added, clenching his fist, imagining giving Lawrence a good smack in the head. “Fortunately, we can log out safely whenever we want. Or else, I will be giving that kid a good beating once we meet.”

Shin pursed his mouth a little when he heard this before asking. “Speaking of which, what about the operation concerning the rescue of little brother?”

Arthur suddenly unclenched his fist when he heard this before replying. “I have already mentioned it to Grandfather and Uncle Nathan. But they just say that we don’t have to get involved with it.”

“It seems like the organization that brat has gotten himself involved with is a bit tricky to deal with, so Uncle said that they have to polish the plan first before making their move.”

Shin nodded before turning to Leonard. “What about you, Leo? Still playing a cat-and-mouse game against that expert from the Hydra Guild?”

Leonard just shrugged his shoulders as he replied. “That guy is quite patient. It seems like he is planning to let me clear all the challenges on our side before making his move.”

“I can’t relax even for a moment since we will always seize that opportunity to launch an ambush on me. Fortunately, there is a safe zone that we can use whenever we want to log out of the game.”

He then turned to Shin before asking. “How about you, Shin Bro? Do you have any progress in that trial tower of yours?”

Hearing this, Shin could not help but give a mysterious grin along with an inviting gesture. “Do you really want to know? How about we give it a try later?”

……