Cult of the Sacred Runes

Chapter 148 – Zodiac Sword, Peerless Presence

When the bloodmoon disappeared entirely, Jian Chen’s gaze grew calm again. Accepting his defeat, he wore a childish smile on his handsome face. ‘Although I lost, I must thank brother Ye for allowing me to see the defect in my stance. Now, I can figure out the next step to finalize the Sword Master’s stance, and that is more valuable than winning one match!’

“If there is ever an opportunity, I will definitely fight you again. I hope you won’t mind so that I can learn more from you” Jian Chen curled his lips up gently and said.

“Hahaha! Definitely! I look forward to that moment Let’s reach the peak of our cultivation together! ” Ye Wei easily related to Jian Chen’s eagerness. They smiled both openly, genuinely. Ye Wei and Jian Chen resembled real warriors who did not compete against each other but helped one another in a world dominated by demons and death on all sides.

“Yes…the peak of cultivation!” Jian Chan’s eyes lit up imagining what the peak of cultivation would be like. He looked at Ye Wei with great admiration. “Ye Wei, we’ll make it happen soon! Just you watch! Now, I will not fall behind any further!”

Ye Wei and Jian Chen exchanged smiles, bowed, and stepped away from what was left of the martial platform, officially completing the day’s last fight.

“South Star is victorious again!”

“Ye Wei dominates, and South Star keeps its winning streak!”

“Wow! I could have never imagined the results of this year’s tournament; Zhoutian Sword School lost, and even Galaxy Academy lost! Both of the undefeated teams of last year didn’t even reach the top ten!”

“It’s hard to believe that this year’s champion will either be South Star or Seven Star.”

“Nonetheless, I do look forward to these two dark horses fighting each other! It will surely be exciting even though we haven’t seen much of either school’s big shots!”

“I agree. Even though, Ye Wei only has fought a few times, every time he has outshone himself that even now I don’t know how strong he is! On the other hand, Tu Fu Sheng was just strange, everything, his fighting style, his maneuvers, his attitude…”

“Just thinking about the South Star and Seven Star’s matchup makes me shiver. It will surely be one of the best fights I have seen in my entire life!”

“I totally agree! Actually, when will the fight take place?”

Although still shocked from Jian Chen and Ye Wei’s epic battle, everyone shifted their focus on the two remaining undefeated teams.

This enthusiasm circulating in the audience extended all the way up to the cloud platform where most of the influential figures were now looking at City Lord Chen Yuan.

When it came to the tournament schedule, no one truly knew the order, “Your Highness, when will South Star be fighting Seven Star?” Most of the elites were at the tournament just for the social aspect and recruitment. Nevertheless, they were all excited and interested in the fight between Ye Wei and Tu Fu Sheng.

“The thirty-sixth, the last day! What a coincidence!” The City Lord said with a smirk. His calm tone exaggerated everyone else’s restlessness. However, beneath his serene exterior, he was, in fact, also very excited, he just didn’t reveal his emotions.

Overall, this year’s teams have displayed such superior quality fighting compared to all the other years. The four strongest teams, South Star, Seven Star, Zhoutian, and Galaxy, were able to place themselves into the top ten. In the next stage, the state-wide tournament.

Since the ten years Chen Yuan became City Lord, not once had any of the teams from his region succeeding into getting t into the top ten, This lack of ability had always bothered, haunted him, always been one of his regrets.

After Ye Wei and Jian Chen returned to their palaces; the audience also left the tournament arena to rest and rejuvenate until tomorrow.

Returning to South Star’s temporary residence, all the youngsters were still feeling ecstatic and on edge as if they had drunk a pot of coffee with sugar. They heatedly discussed and debated the fight between their hero and Jian Chen, turning their faces red.

Unlike his teammates, Ye Wei’s attention was not focused on his victory; rather, he concentrated on studying the Zodiac Sword stance and the third evolution of Supernova stance alone in his room.

Out of the fight, Jian Chen was not the only person who grasped more about cultivation. Ye Wei was replaying all the moments from this morning’s battle. Now, during this alone time, he memorized and analyzed what he saw and felt. By applying the inspiration he acquired then, Ye Wei hoped to improve his own cultivating and fighting techniques.

Tu Fu Sheng of Seven Star School was not an ordinary cultivator. Ye Wei easily felt this from the pressure emerging out of Tu Fe Sheng on the few occasions they encountered each other. Because Ye Wei could sense such unusual power and strength from Tu Fu Sheng, his eagerness and competitiveness would not allow him to relax fully.

Thus, Ye Wei decided to dedicate his attention to the Zodiac Sword.

‘Zodiac Sword phase one, Peerless Presence!’

Unlike most sword stances, the Zodiac Sword did not require its user to wield a physical sword. Instead, the stance user condenses his Qi, and then turns the energy into the weapon. This was utilizing the same cultivation technique Jian Chen used to create his sword.

The Zodiac Sword contained three parts. They were the sword’s Qi, sword’s intent and sword’s soul. Each of these aspects were divided into four phases. The chapter obtained by Ye Wei was phase one of aspect one.

When Ye Wei mastered the Peerless Presence, he would be able to express the technique with a powerful sword array.

Although Ye Wei’s current cultivation level hindered him from learning this Sky stance, it didn’t mean he couldn’t start learning the basics and principles. In fact, the Peerless Presence was very powerful on its own, and it applied to many other stances and forms.

“There is only one extreme, one method…” Ye Wei read the first chapter out loud, slowly trying to understand the meaning behind these combinations of abstract words.

Although the Zodiac Sword’s text was obscure and at times incomprehensible for the average mind, Ye Wei, because he had a great cultivation foundation, was able to understand these abstruse concepts that could not be written any other way.

‘Trash, trash, trash! Why do you even bother putting in such effort? It’s just a stupid Sky stance!’ The Progenitor dismissively chuckled, ‘I was as strong as a human returned prime Warrior when I was born, and after two years of cultivating, I became as powerful as a god’s prime Warrior!’

Ye Wei rolled his eyes and unwillingly asked ‘So why did you act so pathetic both times you sensed the Combat Master’s presence in my mind?’

‘Human sages are shameless! As I said before, they take advantage of innocents, and harvest energy from loyal, civilian supporters!’ The Progenitor was irked just by the name of human sages; he could not let the historic defeat go.

Although there was some truth to what the Progenitor said, demons were born stronger than humans, if the sages did not take advantage of runic magic and use the whole race’s accumulative energy, humanity would be extinct.

‘More than a million demons are walking this planet, they compete against each other, every day they have to fight to survive, the weaker clans quickly died down. Centuries after the first demons were born, natural selection had made strengthened our race. In contrast, look at mankind, toleration, sympathy, all those contributed to your pathetically comfortable lifestyles, and that’s why humanity will eventually become weak, so weak we will consume all of you!’ The Progenitor laughed mischievously.

Ye Wei comprehended the logic behind the Progenitor’s argument. He understood competition was necessary for growth as a fighter, especially after his battles he fought.

‘Ye Wei, you know, you should convert to us. Stop wasting your time with these pathetic humans. You will get access to eternal power, and, furthermore, we have a lot of beautiful and exquisite demon females…’ The Progenitor chuckled.

‘Stop patronizing and sugar-coating your disgusting race! Humankind will not go extinct! What we lack in strength we make up for in intellect. Moreover, we adopt and learn from our shared history and experience in our quest to become stronger than you demons! Maybe centuries ago demons ruled, but everyone knows demons now fear mankind! So, we don’t have demon blood or stances that contain power already ingrained, but we use our wisdom to manipulate the power of runes, creating and using stances. Humanity’s intellect gives it power. Dare I say, it won’t be long until another super stance like the sages’ will be created.’

‘Then, you demons can all beg for your lives!’ Ye Wei argued coldly, ‘do you know why we are protected by the heavens? That’s because we are wise, and we have empathy, I hope you see how foolish you sounded, I am a teenager, and I am already smarter than you stupid dog!’

The Progenitor choked on his words. He was confronted with the truth, and could not fight back. Deep inside, he did know that his intellect was not comparable to humans’ and this infuriated him. He couldn’t think of a way to win the argument against a mere teenager.

Ye Wei remained stubborn since he was confident of winning the argument against the Progenitor. So fearless under the protection of the Combat Master, he sarcastically shot back. ‘You are just the consciousness of an old, stupid dog!’

The Progenitor did not argue back. He had noticed the recent development of the human race was fast. Contrastly, the very first demon that walked the earth had been a hundred thousand years ago in a primal form. People, on the other hand, had only inhabited the earth a few thousand years ago. Additionally, he observed that the recent attacks against human beings were becoming less and less successful.

‘Okay, whatever wisdom, that’s your advantage, so what?! The Corpse Progenitor has already called upon the six Ghost Emperors who have started invading the human dynasties, and Zhou dynasty is one of their targets.’ After illogically spitting out this classified information, the Progenitor realized he spoke too much.

‘The Corpse Progenitor? Six Ghost Emperors?’ What does he mean?!

Ye Wei frowned, worried about the Zhou dynasty he desired to tell someone of importance immediately about what he just heard. Although he did not enjoy talking to the black scale Progenitor, once in awhile, he was grateful for the tips the Progenitor accidentally spurted out.

‘Zodiac Sword!’ Ye Wei realized panicking wouldn’t be beneficial to anyone. So, he ignored the black dog in his Sentient and continued training, learning the Sky stance’s foundation.

Ye Wei lifted his finger and drew the runes as instructed, forming one Qi sword in the air. Instead of watching the tournament, He focused on his training. None of the remaining fights interested him except the very last one – his battle against Seven Star.

In the evening of the second day of training, Ye Wei was able to form two Qi swords.

Before the sunset on the third day, he was able to create seven Qi swords.

Although the progress was slow, Ye Wei was none the less satisfied by the speed.

What Ye Wei did not know was how ridiculous his progress was. A significant portion of the cultivators, lucky enough to learn this stance, formed only Qi Sword from the complex, specialized runes at the end of their lives not during the beginning.

Ye Wei hit an obstacle as he figured out how to get the tenth sword from the runes. For a change in his environment, he decided to put aside perfecting the Zodiac Sword and spent his time memorizing all his stances he had learned. Then he took notes on runic knowledge for extra benefit.

After repeating this schedule for some days now, he upgraded his Selenic Triple-Primal Sword with Jian Chen’s Bloodmoon stance.

The sword dominated and ruled over all the other weapons. Thus the sword was the king over its subjective weapons, and Ye Wei finally comprehended why this was so.