Alex and Du Yuhan walked into the training hall behind Wen Cheng’s manor. Alex had asked Wen Cheng for permission to use this building and Wen Cheng had allowed him to use it without a second thought.

“There was something like this here all the time?” Du Yuhan asked in surprise. He had been training in the Training hall where he would have to pay an hourly fee. Even though it was mostly discounted for him due to him being at Rank 2, it still cost him quite a few in total.

“Yes, this is where I’ve been practicing for a while now,” Alex said.

Du Yuhan didn’t speak after that and simply looked around. “You don’t have to worry about breaking the walls or making too much noise. The walls can handle even True realm attacks and the whole hall is sound-proof, so no one will hear us train outside,” Alex said.

Du Yuhan nodded and brought out a common sword. Alex smiled seeing that he was ready and brought out his own common sword.

Du Yuhan stopped and asked, “Don’t you have a better sword?”

Alex was confused and said, “I do. Why?”

“Then take it out. It can’t be that you want to fight with that right?” he asked.

“Huh, but that’s what you are doing,” Alex said.

“Don’t try to copy me; You are not me. Every person is different, every intent is different. Someone might have more intentions about attacking, some might have more intentions about defending. Everyone is different, and their weapon intent manifests differently.”

“It’s quite unnoticeable at Sword Intent, but when Sword Qi appears, you can start seeing your own personality into the Qi. My intent is to cut down everything and make my way to the top, and so my Sword Qi manifests to defeat everyone. Yours might be different than mine.”

“So you should stop copying and try to find some on your own,” Du Yuhan said.

“So… I have to find my own form of Sword Intent?” Alex asked.

“Something like that,” Du Yuhan said. “First of all, stop using the bad swords. The first part of having a sword intent is to have the sword and the person be one. If you use different swords each time, how can you ever truly become one?”

“The fact that you can use sword intent means that you already have the correct mindset. Now you just need the correct sword to go along with it,” Du Yuhan said.

Alex felt enlightened about something he hadn’t thought of before. But then he thought of something else.

“Wait, then that means that… you have a proper sword too,” Alex said.

“Of course. But it’s a little different for me. I put in twice the effort as anyone would need to. I first put in all my effort to learn the sword with a common sword, and then move on to my proper one and learn it all over again.”

“That way, I can not only put in more practice for the same thing, I can also slowly understand my own sword better and better,” Du Yuhan said.

“Then the reason you never pulled out your true sword in the competition was that?” Alex asked.

“Those people in the competition were not worth me putting in that much effort. If I could win against them at my worst, then I saw no reason to do my best in front of them,” he said.

Alex’s eyes went wide when he realized that he was most likely looking at the strongest person in the empire that was not in the True realms. He could only imagine what sort of name Du Yuhan would make for himself once he truly got to shine.

“Take out your sword,” he said.

Alex nodded and kept away his common sword before taking out his Steel sword.

Du Yuhan looked at the sword and nodded. “Good sword,” he said. “Let’s start.”

“Wait,” Alex said. “One moment.”

Du Yuhan looked with a confused face as Alex took a deep breath and started taking in all of his cultivation bases.

Finally, once no more aura remained, Alex got into his fighting stance and said, “Ready.”

“What? No. Why did you take in your cultivation base when we are just going to start our training?” Du Yuhan asked.

“Eh? You won’t use Sword Qi, right?” Alex asked instead.

“Of course not. That is dangerous,” he said.

“Yeah,” Alex said. “Same thing. If I use my cultivation base, then it’s dangerous for you. Don’t mind it though, It won’t be a detriment in our fight at all.”

Alex got into position and his sword slowly started glowing white.

“Well, if you have a death wish then I can’t help you there,” he said as he held his sheathed blade next to him. “However, it does seem you’ve improved quite well on your own as well.”

“Thanks,” Alex said and immediately charged forward. He slashed straight in front of him and tried to hit Du Yuhan.

CLANG

A sound appeared out of nowhere when Du Yuhan’s sword clashed with Alex’s, blocking his sword on the spot.

Alex was beyond surprised when he realized that he couldn’t see Du Yuhan unsheathe his sword. The single motion of pulling out his blade, swinging at Alex, and hitting his sword was so smooth that it didn’t even register in his mind.

At the same time, Du Yuhan was quite surprised as well. Given that Alex had no cultivation base at the moment, he expected the sword to escape from his hands and fly away. Yet, the sword remained right where it was in his hand, and Alex didn’t even look the least bit hurt.

Du Yuhan started getting confused before a possible answer started appearing in his mind. “You’re a body cultivator?” he asked.

Alex had no reason to hide that anymore as anyone who had seen him fight in the fighting hall would have made such a guess by now.

“Yes,” he said.

“Interesting,” Du Yuhan said, finally showing a curious face. “It seems that you really weren’t lying when you said you were stronger than me with your cultivation.”

“Finally I feel more interested in teaching you.”