Spirit Ruin, Sword Coffin, Blind Swordsman

Snow drifted down on a quiet afternoon. Around the desolate peak, lightning continued to rage. A figure covered in snow sat as motionless as a monk deep in meditation. The surrounding rocks had sunk roughly three chi. The entire summit was scorched black, and the boulder beneath him was so thoroughly saturated with lightning that it had become a rare material for forging artifacts.

The seasons had shifted. Fall had yielded to the biting chill of winter.

Buzz!

A powerful, mysterious pulse of energy swept across dozens of li like a shockwave, jolting the cultivators at the edges of the lightning dungeon out of their meditation.

Over a hundred cultivators stared up at the summit in disbelief. The snow covering the figure above began to fall away, finally revealing his appearance.

His white robes had long since faded to a dingy gray, stained with layers of grime. His unkempt hair hung loose, and a beard about three cun long had grown on his chin. He looked thoroughly disheveled.

The surrounding lightning seemed to freeze before rushing back into his body at blinding speed.

Boom!

Rock fragments flew from beneath the man’s feet as the blast swept away the snow for hundreds of zhang around him. He slowly rose and opened his pure white eyes, then narrowed them as he surveyed his surroundings in a daze. He noticed the cultivators watching him but paid them no attention.

As he examined himself, his thoughts began to clear, and a wry smile crossed his face. Li Guanqi had never expected that learning the basics of a single technique would keep him in seclusion for so long. He gazed thoughtfully at the falling snow.“Winter is here already…”

Li Guanqi had gone so long without speaking that his voice came out rough and hoarse. Even he barely recognized the sound of his voice.

He glanced down at the ground. Wind and lightning had eroded the surface until it had caved in more than three chi, with only the spot where he’d been sitting remaining like a stone pillar.

Li Guanqi looked at the thick layer of dust caked onto his Daoist robes and channeled his vital force to shake it all off.

Rumble rumble!!

Thunder rolled across the sky. The moment his vital force stirred, it sounded as though thunder itself was booming inside his body.

Boom!

Li Guanqi raised a hand and brought out a hundred thousand high-grade spirit stones, filling the air with them. The watching cultivators swallowed, their eyes glinting with greed, but none dared move. The pressure emanating from him was unbearable, forcing them to one knee and pinning them in place.

Li Guanqi activated his technique and murmured, “Divine Punishment!”

Boom!

The sky darkened, and a fierce gale lashed the onlookers’ cheeks like blades. A vortex formed around Li Guanqi and extended dozens of zhang in every direction. He furiously refined the surrounding spirit qi, which had already condensed into spirit elixir. Lightning crackled as his aura soared.

“Is… is this senior about to break through to the Mahayana Realm? This burst of power is unbelievable!”

“Let’s fall back. As long as he doesn’t view us as enemies, we should be fine.”

“Hiss… D-doesn’t he look kind of familiar?”

A small smile tugged at Li Guanqi’s lips. Even the first level of the Divine Punishment Technique matched the full power of his previous technique. If he hadn’t recently improved his spirit comprehension, he would have struggled even more with this first level.

Li Guanqi’s constitution had always been extraordinary. In the past, a single reading had been enough for him to grasp almost any cultivation technique or sword art. He’d never expected just the first level of this new technique to take him nearly three months. He had entered seclusion at the start of fall, and now it was winter.

Boom!

A faint crack seemed to sound from within Li Guanqi’s body as his aura surged to the late Combined Body Realm. He stroked his chin, amused that he had grown a goatee in just a few months. He sliced it off with a flick of his hand, secured his long hair with a jade crown, and moved several hundred zhang in a single step.

The surrounding cultivators hastily bowed. Li Guanqi turned toward the summit and waved a hand. A massive, pitch-black boulder broke free from the earth and hurtled toward him.

Thud!

He smiled at the sword coffin, wiped the dust from its surface, and slung it onto his back. He exhaled slowly, then ‌glanced at the cultivators around him and frowned.

They all trembled inwardly, thinking he was displeased with them for using his residual lightning to cultivate. They hastily bowed again. Leading them was a gray-haired man in the early Illusory Refinement Realm. He had been cultivating closest to Li Guanqi.

His heart lurched at Li Guanqi’s frown, but he stepped forward with a deep bow. “Greetings, Senior. I am Yue Dianhong, an elder of Qinghe Mountain Manor. While seeking enlightenment, we… have made sure to stay away from the lightning dungeon. I hope we haven’t disrupted your cultivation. If we’ve caused any offense, please forgive us.”

Li Guanqi understood. The lightning dungeon he had inadvertently created during his seclusion had become a place where cultivators with lightning spirit roots sought enlightenment. His residual vital force was nothing special on its own, but his profound comprehension of lightning and sword intent had long since become part of it. Even meditating at the edges had benefited them.

Li Guanqi didn’t mind at all. He waved a hand dismissively. “No harm done. You haven’t disturbed me by cultivating here.”

The old man sighed in relief. He had set the rules for this place himself. When he first arrived, he had sensed someone on the summit and understood what was happening, so he had settled down to cultivate and barred anyone from entering the lightning dungeon. They could only meditate along its edges.

Such a place was a rare find for cultivators with lightning spirit roots, so they had all agreed to stay away from the lightning zone. Anyone who broke the rule would have to answer to everyone else.

Li Guanqi closed his eyes to sense his surroundings, then frowned and turned to the old man. “What year is it?”

The old man blinked, then realized that Li Guanqi must have lost track of time. While the old man considered his answer, a young man beside him spoke up.

“Senior, this year is… 2024.”

Li Guanqi froze and murmured, “2024? Then… over two whole years have passed?”

He took out Lu Kangnian’s jade slip and saw it flashing incessantly. It appeared that Lu Kangnian had sent him quite a few messages over the past two years.

Li Guanqi called out to the Sword Spirit in his mind but still received no reply. With a wry smile, he glanced back at the summit, then took a single step and vanished.