15: Chapter 15 Exam Experience

The heavy alloy door of the training room closed silently behind him, sealing off the noise of the outside world.

The air inside was cool, filled with a faint scent of mixed metal and sweat.

Li Wen performed a few simple stretching movements, loosening the slightly stiff joints of his body.

His mind had been heavily taxed in the morning, so the physical fatigue was not very noticeable.

He adjusted his breathing slightly and rested for only about ten minutes before his condition had basically recovered.

"Snap!"

His fingertips tapped lightly on the virtual control screen, and the holographic projection instantly activated.

Soft light coalesced in the center of the training area, and the image of the middle-aged man—who was composed, capable, and holding a long saber—from yesterday afternoon appeared vividly before Li Wen once again.

Reviewing what has been learned brings new understanding.

Although the passive skill 【One Proof, Eternal Proof】 granted by the System ensured he would always remember the nuances of the Moves he had mastered, preventing forgetfulness, true mastery and continuous refinement could only be achieved through hundreds or thousands of observations and practices.

Yesterday, he had only superficially gone through the entire sixty-four Moves, forming a preliminary overall concept.

Today, he needed to dissect and understand them more meticulously, integrating them into his muscle memory.

He changed his strategy; instead of finishing an entire set before practicing, he would watch one Move, pause, practice and imitate it several times, striving to grasp the subtle movements of the middle-aged man in each stance, the trajectory of his Qi circulation, and that unique Aura, as if a Long Rainbow Piercing the Sun.

Time flowed quietly amidst focused imitation and contemplation.

When the after-school bell rang in the afternoon, Li Wen finished practicing the last few Moves planned for the day almost simultaneously.

Sweat drops rolled down his clearly defined jawline, dripping onto the glossy, mirror-like composite floor.

He walked to the control console and brought up the training settings panel.

He still needed to reserve about an hour in the evening to enter the 【Absolute Focus】 state to Cultivate the "Splitting Edge Golden Fiend Method," so the time allocated for practicing the Blade Technique had to be compressed.

After a brief thought, he set a one-and-a-half-hour countdown reminder.

"Hoo..."

Taking a deep breath, Li Wen stood firmly in the center of the area, his gaze sharp as a blade's edge.

"Activate—【Absolute Focus】!"

The moment the command was issued, the world seemed to instantly hit the mute button, yet it also felt like being thrown into a rapidly spinning kaleidoscope.

All irrelevant sensory information was stripped away and shielded; his mental clarity and information processing ability soared violently, as if riding a rocket.

Buzz—!

An indescribable surge of heat and cold exploded simultaneously from the depths of his brain, instantly activating a thirty percent boost to his Comprehension Ability.

In his vision, only the standard-issue alloy saber that had accompanied him for many days remained; every subtle texture on the blade, the cold, hard sheen of the alloy forging, were infinitely clear at this moment.

In his mind, the decomposed images of the sixty-four Moves of the "Rainbow Light Saber Technique" seemed to have the slow-motion button pressed, playing, analyzing, and comparing simultaneously at high speed.

The vague or difficult points from his previous observations were now unraveled under his overclocked thinking; sparks of inspiration sizzled like overloaded circuits, gushing forth ceaselessly.

The key nodes for generating force, the subtle shifts in center of gravity during body movement transitions, the rules governing Qi attraction when the blade cut through the air... those practical essences hidden beneath the exquisite Move diagrams poured into his cognition like decrypted codes.

When this highly concentrated realization reached a certain critical point, Li Wen's entire musculature coordinated to exert force, and his gaze locked sharply onto the invisible 'target' ahead.

First Move—Long Rainbow!

"Clang—!"

The crisp ringing sound of metal friction tore through the silence of the training room.

Li Wen violently stamped his right foot on the ground, his figure shooting out like an arrow loosed from a bow; his wrist suddenly exerted force, and the saber light slashed out diagonally like a silken ribbon from his waist.

"Whoosh—!"

The heavy alloy saber sliced through the air at high speed, creating a low, sharp sound of breaking air.

The Intent of the blade had not yet dissipated when the tip of his charging foot touched the ground, his waist twisting like a drawn and instantly released bowstring.

Second Move—Rainbow Shadow!

The saber followed the body, the body Advanced with the saber!

Li Wen's figure instantly became elusive in the spacious training room.

One second the sharp blade was pointing directly at the eastern corner wall; with a shift of his footing, a heart-palpitating saber light had already turned toward the west.

His footwork was no longer simple foundational maneuvering but incorporated the "Rainbow Light Saber Technique's" unique curved dash and instantaneous directional change, achieving astonishing speed.

The angles of his strikes were also tricky and bizarre; seemingly broad and forceful, they secretly contained multiple follow-up variations. Whether it was the speed of the strike or the swiftness of his overall body movement, both far surpassed the limits achievable by the Advanced Blade Technique at the Perfection Realm he had attained previously.

This was the terrifying potential of a Top-tier Saber Technique.

And this was only the 'Not Yet Entered' state, where he hadn't fully integrated the technique.

The fluidity Li Wen exhibited now was only separated from truly grasping the introductory Realm of the "Rainbow Light Saber Technique" by a thin sheet of window paper.

Even if he couldn't fully pierce it today, after this afternoon's high-intensity comprehension and practice, he was certain that tomorrow it would come naturally.

"Jingle jingle jingle jingle"

The half-hour timer alarm he had set sounded its sharp and urgent beeping right on time.

The rapidly flashing and moving figure in the training room suddenly paused; all the overclocked thoughts and extreme perceptions receded rapidly like the tide.

Intense mental fatigue pressed down heavily upon Li Wen's mind and body like a massive lead block.

"Hoo—!!!"

He forcefully expelled a breath of scorching, stale air, as if trying to purge all the residue left after burning.

Li Wen leaned on his long saber, panting slightly, sweat pouring down his forehead and neck.

He summoned his character panel immediately, his gaze locking precisely onto the 【Skills】 column:

【Skills: Blade Technique - Advanced (Perfection), Blade Technique - Top Tier (Not Yet Entered)】

"Hoo..."

Seeing those three words, Li Wen was not discouraged; instead, his eyes shone even brighter and sharper.

"Only the last dozen Moves left! I finished the first fifty-plus Moves this afternoon. Tomorrow afternoon will be enough to completely digest the essence of these last dozen Moves and connect them seamlessly!"

The clear and definite standard for judging entry into a Top-tier Blade Technique was:

Whether one could execute all sixty-four Moves completely and fluently, without interruption, without obvious errors, and based on understanding their core essence.

Today, under the overclocked state, he had thoroughly grasped the subtlety of the Moves themselves; what he lacked was only integrating the final dozen or so relatively more difficult 'variation Moves' and the 'explosive' finishing Moves into the continuity of his body.

One day? That was enough!

Li Wen walked toward the weapon rack beside him, his movements slightly slow but imbued with satisfied determination.

The sweat-soaked sportswear clinging to his back provided a cool sensation that paradoxically brought him a sense of relaxed pleasure.

He carefully placed the saber that had 'fought' alongside him for two days securely into its slot, turned around, and left the training room that had witnessed countless drills and Breakthroughs.

At the end of the corridor, the twilight glow filtered through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows, casting a long shadow on the ground.

Though the shadow looked slightly weary, it contained the power of a being about to break out of its cocoon and transform into a butterfly.

The pressure of the exam in two days had not crushed him; instead, it acted like a whetstone, making this newly formed 'sharp blade' even more eager to be drawn from its sheath to test its edge.