Chapter 39: A swordsman’s past [2] End.

Chapter 39: Chapter 39: A swordsman’s past [2] End.

Chen Yuan noticed his expression and slowly sat down on the cold stone floor. Chen Yan approached and followed suit, sitting beside him.

"Care to tell us your story?"

Chen Feng looked toward them for a few seconds, his expression still somewhat dazed.

At that moment, Chen Yan spoke again.

"Your true story..."

Chen Feng remained silent.

He looked down at the ancient sword in his hand before slowly nodding. He approached the two and sat down beside them, placing his sword on the ground by his side.

The three figures sat quietly within the cavern, surrounded by the gentle light of the Flaming Fireflies. Chen Feng lowered his gaze, his fingers resting loosely against his knees as he seemed to gather his thoughts.

"Where should I begin?"

Chen Yuan smiled.

"Anywhere you want... We have all the time in the world. We wouldn’t want to waste it by not getting to know you better."

Chen Feng nodded and lowered his gaze toward his hands.

For several breaths, he remained silent. His fingers slowly tightened against his knees as memories began to surface, one after another.

"When I was born, I was already an orphan."

His voice was quiet.

"My parents died before I was old enough to remember their faces. I don’t even know how they died. By the time I was old enough to understand what people were saying around me, I was already living in the Chen Family."

He paused briefly.

"Back then, the Chen Family was nothing like it is now."

His eyes became distant.

"It was a cultivation family, but we were constantly caught in the middle of wars between other families and sects. The southern lands were especially chaotic during that period. Cities changed hands, villages were burned, and cultivators would sometimes return from the battlefield with barely enough strength to stand."

"I grew up seeing people leave with weapons in their hands and come back covered in blood."

Chen Feng gave a faint smile.

"And I was completely useless to them."

Chen Yuan and Chen Yan remained silent.

"I had no spiritual root."

Chen Feng looked down at his palm.

"When I underwent the spiritual root examination, the result was nothing. No spiritual root, no talent for cultivation, nothing that would allow me to gather spiritual energy."

He let out a quiet breath.

"For a cultivation family, being born without a spiritual root wasn’t exactly something worth celebrating. Some people pitied me at first. Others simply ignored me."

"But as I grew older, the pity disappeared."

His expression became slightly bitter.

"They started laughing."

Chen Feng’s gaze drifted toward the ancient sword.

"I remember watching the other children practice swordsmanship. They could swing a real sword, circulate spiritual energy through their bodies, and perform techniques after only being taught a few times."

"I couldn’t do any of that."

"So I picked up a wooden sword."

A faint smile appeared on his face.

"I was probably five or six years old when I first started swinging it."

"Every morning, I would take that wooden sword and practice in the courtyard. After everyone else finished their training, I would still be there. When the sun went down, I would continue. Even when my hands became swollen and the skin on my palms began to peel, I would wrap them in cloth and keep going."

Chen Feng chuckled quietly.

"People thought I was an idiot. They would walk past me and laugh."

"’What are you even practicing for? You don’t have a spiritual root.’"

"’Even if you swing that piece of wood until your arms fall off, you’ll never become a cultivator.’"

"Some of the children would even deliberately knock the wooden sword out of my hands just to watch me pick it back up."

Chen Feng’s smile faded.

"I never fought them. Instead, I would just pick up the sword and continue."

He lowered his head.

"I don’t know why I kept doing it. Perhaps I was jealous. Perhaps I simply wanted to become like everyone else."

"Or maybe..."

He paused, his fingers slowly curling into a fist.

"...I just wanted to be useful."

The cavern fell quiet.

"At that time, the family was at war. Every cultivator who could fight was eventually sent outside the family grounds."

"I watched my seniors leave one after another. Some returned, some didn’t. And every time someone died, everyone would gather in the ancestral hall."

Chen Feng’s eyes lowered.

"I remember standing at the back of those gatherings with my wooden sword still hanging from my waist. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t protect anyone, and I couldn’t even avenge them."

His voice became quieter.

"So I practiced every day. Again and again until the wooden sword broke."

He paused.

"Then I made another one."

Chen Feng looked toward Chen Yuan.

"That continued for years."

"People eventually stopped laughing whenever they saw me. They simply thought I was strange, crazy, a lunatic. A mortal born into a cultivation family who spent his entire life swinging a wooden sword."

He gave a faint smile.

"Some even started calling me the useless sword fanatic."

Chen Yan’s expression softened.

"And you never stopped?"

Chen Feng shook his head.

"Never."

"Even when I was exhausted, even when my hands were bleeding, even when I knew that I could never cultivate. I kept swinging."

His eyes slowly closed.

"Because the sword was the only thing I had."

He remained silent for a few breaths before continuing.

"Then, when I was around fifteen, the war reached our family’s territory. This time, it wasn’t some distant battlefield, as the enemy came directly to us."

"The family ordered everyone who could fight to defend the estate. Even the children were moved into the inner residence."

"I remember that night very clearly."

"The sky was red. The buildings were burning. I could hear explosions outside the walls, and every few breaths, the ground would shake."

"I was told to hide. But I didn’t."

His fingers tightened.

"I picked up my wooden sword and went outside like an idiot."

A faint, almost embarrassed smile appeared on his face.

"I thought I could help."

"I couldn’t."

"The first enemy cultivator I saw knocked me to the ground without even looking at me. He probably thought I was already dead."

Chen Feng looked at his hands.

"But I got back up. And the first thing I did was pick up my sword."

"And I swung it."

"Again."

"And again."

"I don’t remember how long I fought. I only remember waking up beneath a collapsed wall the next morning."

"By the time I knew it, the family had won." Chen Feng’s voice remained quiet, but there was a faint heaviness behind those words.

"The enemy was driven away, but we paid a heavy price for it."

"Many cultivators of the Chen Family died that night. Several buildings were reduced to ruins, the outer walls were damaged, and even the ancestral hall suffered from the fighting. By the time the surviving members returned to the family grounds, the place that I had known since childhood was almost unrecognizable."

He lowered his gaze toward his hands.

"And then they found me."

Chen Feng’s lips curved into a faint smile.

"I had been buried beneath the rubble throughout the entire night. When they finally moved the collapsed stones, they thought they would find my corpse."

"But instead..."

He chuckled softly.

"I crawled out. They were shocked to find that I was there."

"I still remember the looks on their faces. Some of them simply stood there staring at me, while others rushed over to check whether I was actually alive. They couldn’t understand how a mortal who had been caught in the middle of the battlefield could survive beneath a collapsed building for an entire night."

"One of the elders eventually laughed and said that I must have been too stupid to die."

Chen Feng smiled.

"Another elder called me the miracle of an idiot, and the name somehow spread throughout the family."

He gave a quiet laugh.

"The miracle of an idiot. For someone who had no spiritual root and spent his days swinging a wooden sword, surviving that night was probably the greatest miracle I had ever accomplished."

"But I didn’t think much about it. The family had survived, and that was enough for me. The rebuilding began soon afterward."

"The damaged houses were repaired, the defensive walls were rebuilt, and the remaining cultivators began restoring what had been lost during the war. It took years before the family finally returned to some semblance of normality."

Chen Feng’s fingers rested loosely against his knees.

"And throughout all of that..."

"I continued practicing. Every morning, I picked up my wooden sword. Every afternoon, I picked up my wooden sword. Even after everyone else had gone to sleep, I would still be outside beneath the moonlight, swinging it until my arms became too tired to lift."

"The wooden swords kept breaking. So I kept making new ones. Eventually, nobody bothered to stop me anymore. They had already accepted that this was simply who I was."

Chen Feng gave a small smile.

"The useless sword fanatic. That was what some people called me."

He looked toward the ancient sword resting beside him.

"But I didn’t hate them for it. I knew they weren’t completely wrong. I really was useless. I couldn’t cultivate. I couldn’t use spiritual techniques, and I couldn’t protect the family."

"All I could do was swing a wooden sword."

His gaze slowly lowered.

"So I swung it year after year until I reached nineteen."

Chen Feng’s expression changed, "And that was when everything changed."

He leaned slightly forward, his eyes becoming distant as he recalled the memory, "It was an ordinary morning. The sun had only just risen, and the dew was still clinging to the grass in the training courtyard. I remember the air being particularly cold that day. I was holding the same kind of wooden sword I had used for years."

"It was worn down from countless swings. The edges had become smooth, and there were already several cracks running across the surface."

"I remember taking my stance."

"Then I swung."

Chen Feng slowly raised his hand, unconsciously recreating the motion.

"And something moved."

His fingers tightened around it.

"At first, I thought I had imagined it. There was a strange sensation running through my arm. It wasn’t spiritual energy. I knew what spiritual energy felt like from watching the other cultivators all those years."

"It was as if an invisible blade had passed through my body."

Chen Feng’s eyes slowly widened as he remembered that moment.

"I stopped, and the sensation disappeared. When I swung again, it came back."

A faint smile appeared on his face.

"That was the first time I felt it. Sword intent."

The words were spoken with a quiet reverence.

"I didn’t understand what it was. I only knew that after fourteen years of swinging a wooden sword, something had finally answered me."

Chen Feng looked down at his hands.

"I spent the rest of that day experimenting. I wanted to understand that strange power. But there was a problem. I still couldn’t cultivate. Sword intent wasn’t spiritual energy. No matter how strong it became, it couldn’t replace a spiritual root."

Chen Feng smiled faintly.

"But then I discovered something. Sword intent could interact with and guide spiritual energy. Whenever I brought the two close together, they didn’t repel each other. Instead, they resonated."

His eyes gradually brightened.

"That was when I realized there might be another way. If I couldn’t cultivate like everyone else, then I would simply create my own path."

Chen Yan’s expression became serious.

"You used your own body as an experiment. Isn’t that rather dangerous?"

"But am I not sitting in front of you now?" Chen Feng laughed. "To be honest, it was probably the most reckless thing I had ever done. But by then, I had already spent fourteen years being told that I could never become a cultivator."

"So what did I have to lose?"

"I began filling my meridians with sword intent. And right off the bat, the first attempt nearly killed me. Every meridian felt as though it were being sliced apart from within. The sword intent was too sharp, and my body had never been prepared to contain something like that."

"Sometimes, I couldn’t even stand after an attempt, but I learned from every failure. I changed the amount, the circulation, and the way I allowed the sword intent to interact with spiritual energy."

"Little by little, I began understanding my own body."

Chen Feng’s voice became more animated as he spoke.

"I discovered that sword intent could act as a bridge. It could resonate with the spiritual energy around me and guide it into my body. At first, only a tiny amount entered, but that tiny amount alone was enough."

"I had found a possibility of a brand-new path."

He placed a hand against his chest.

"So I pushed further, and I came upon a crazy idea of refining my own meridians with sword intent. I used the sword intent to reshape the way spiritual energy moved through my body."

"I spent months repeating the same process. And when it finally stabilized, I realized that I had actually succeeded."

"Spiritual energy is the essence of cultivation. The soul is the mind and consciousness, while the physical body belongs to the Body Law."

"I had spent years thinking about how the three were connected. In the end, I realized that I didn’t need to follow the same path as everyone else."

His fingers slowly tightened against his knees.

"I forged a spiritual root..."

Chen Feng stopped and shook his head.

"No."

A faint smile appeared on his face.

"I forged a Sword Intent Root, and from that day onward, I embarked upon the path of a cultivator. The path of a sword cultivator."

The cavern became quiet. Chen Yuan’s expression remained calm, but there was a noticeable change in his eyes. Chen Yan, on the other hand, stared at Chen Feng with barely concealed disbelief.

Neither of them had expected this. They had assumed that Chen Feng was simply another cultivator who had cultivated swordsmanship to an extraordinary level.

But that wasn’t what he was. He hadn’t followed the conventional path at all.

He had actually created his own path, one that had never appeared in the past in this kingdom. Chen Yuan felt, he might’ve exaggerated a bit too much about the stories he told in the beginning about Chen Feng.

Chen Yan finally broke the silence.

"Wait..."

He looked at Chen Feng carefully.

"You formed Sword Intent before you could even cultivate?"

Chen Feng nodded.

"That’s right."

Chen Yan’s expression became even more complicated.

"But... that’s backwards."

"It is."

Chen Feng laughed.

"The conventional path is to first cultivate spiritual energy, establish a foundation for cultivation, and then spend years honing your swordsmanship. As your understanding of the sword deepens, sword intent may eventually emerge."

"That’s how all swordsmen walk the path."

He tapped his finger lightly against his knee.

"But I did the opposite. I developed sword intent first and then I used that sword intent to interact with spiritual energy. Finally, I used the two to create a Sword Intent Root."

Chen Yuan’s gaze became thoughtful.

"So the sword intent wasn’t the result of your cultivation."

Chen Feng shook his head.

"My cultivation was the result of my sword intent."

Those words made both Chen Yuan and Chen Yan fall silent.

Chen Feng smiled in return.

"That’s why I said I created my own path."

Chen Yan stared at him for several breaths before slowly rubbing his chin.

"That shouldn’t be possible."

Chen Yuan, on the other hand, remained silent. His eyes stayed on Chen Feng, and after a few breaths, he finally asked,

"Do you realize the weight of the path you created?"

Chen Feng looked toward him.

Then he laughed.

"Of course I do."

His smile slowly faded, replaced by a quiet seriousness.

"Otherwise, why would I have told you?"

He looked down at his hand.

"When I first succeeded, I thought I had simply found a way for myself to cultivate. But as I continued down this path, I gradually realized that what I had done was fundamentally different from conventional cultivation."

Chen Yuan’s expression became increasingly serious.

Chen Feng continued.

"Most cultivators begin with spiritual energy and use it to strengthen themselves."

"Most swordsmen cultivate their bodies and spiritual energy before gradually understanding the sword."

"But I began with an understanding of the sword itself. I made the sword intent the foundation, and spiritual energy became the power that supported it."

He looked toward the ancient sword resting beside him.

"That was the moment I stopped being a mortal trying to become a cultivator. I became a swordsman who had created a way to cultivate."

Chen Yan slowly exhaled.

"Absurd..."

Chen Feng chuckled.

"That’s exactly what I thought when I first succeeded."

Chen Yuan looked at him for a long while, the faint light of the Flaming Fireflies reflecting in his calm eyes. A small smile gradually appeared on his face as he seemed to make up his mind about what he wanted to say.

"Now then... I have a surprise for you."

Chen Feng raised an eyebrow, his hand still resting lightly against his knees, "Surprise?"

Chen Yuan nodded and slowly touched his chin, deliberately taking his time as though considering how he should reveal it.

"What if I told you..."

He paused, allowing the silence of the cavern to settle between them, "Your descendants are still alive today."

Chen Feng’s fingers suddenly stopped moving. His eyes widened slightly, and the relaxed expression he had been wearing disappeared, "What are you talking about?"