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Within the Serene Palace Painting.
Arthur sat beneath a tree on a mountain peak.
Beside him, lay four books which were the martial arts techniques that he received from the Sword Tower.
He had never gotten the chance to practice them since he received them.
But it was finally time to learn these powerful techniques, and have in possession what he would call his trump cards that no one would know of.
The four martial art techniques were:
~ |[ The Sword Dance Technique ]|
~ |[ The Sword Control Technique ]|
~ |[ The False Sword Domain Technique ]|
~ |[ The Heaven Severing Sword Technique ]|
The sword dance technique was a martial arts technique that combined exquisite footwork with swift and unpredictable sword attacks.
Arthur decided to learn this technique first, so he picked up its manual and began to study.
The book was filled with drawings of the stances for the technique called 'Sword Dance'.
As Arthur looked and memorized them along with the little descriptions that were at the bottom of each page, the drawings seem to come alive to him.
When that happened he entered a trance-like state where he visualized a man performing the technique with smooth and clear actions.
Arthur forgot the passage of time as his comprehension of this technique increased at an alarming rate.
The Sword Dance technique was not just any random sword technique.
It was one at the peak of the Heaven Rank!
A peak heaven-ranked martial arts technique may not be found in any sect in the Mortal Emperor Realm.
And this particular technique was greater than the average peak heaven-ranked technique since it came from a sect in the Upper Realms.
At the same time, due to its high rank, such a technique has high requirements for comprehension and sometimes cultivation level.
Because those of higher-ranked cultivations have a much greater understanding of martial arts and would find it easier.
But at Arthur's current realm, most would find it excruciatingly hard to even learn the basics.
But Arthur was no normal cultivator.
He had in his soul a myriad of experiences with the dao.
Even though his memories are lost, the growth of knowledge was still etched deep into the core of his soul.
So his speed was understandable and needless to say, Arthur faces no bottlenecks in learning this technique.
Three hours later...
Arthur awoke from his trance-like state and dropped the martial arts manual.
Without saying anything, he brought out a sword from his spatial ring and began to practice the sword dance technique.
The sword dance technique had six moves.
Arthur began with the first move.
'Sword Dance of the Earth!'
*swoosh!*
The sword in his hand moved in unison with his body, steady and silent like the earth.
Time passed and soon Arthur's moves became smoother and eventually, he reached perfection.
'First move, mastered!'
'Next...'
'Sword Dance of Water.'
Arthur's sword moves and footwork became flowing like water and flexible as well.
And in a shorter amount of time than the previous move, Arthur reached the perfection of the sword dance of water.
'Sword Dance of the Wind.'
Arthur's stance changed and his body moved swiftly like the wind and so did his sword.
*swish!*
Just like the previous times, Arthur quickly attained mastery of this move, achieving perfection.
'Sword Dance of Fire.'
This time the combination of his movement and sword attacks became explosive like fire.
*puff!*
A mighty wind accompanied his sword strikes due to their explosiveness, as Arthur quickly mastered this move and took the stance of the fifth move.
'Sword Dance of Lightning.'
This time his movements and sword strikes became fast and deadly. It was the kind that the opponent would never see coming until he is dead. Even then he wouldn't know how he died.
Soon after, Arthur mastered this move.
'The sixth and final dance...'
'Dance of the Heavenly Sword!'
This final move was an incorporation of all the previous sword moves.
Arthur had to combine all five moves into one seamlessly flowing sword dance, which would make and dangerous unpredictable sword technique.
This was something that was extremely hard to do and would be impossible for someone at the same cultivation stage as Arthur to attempt.
Even a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator would face difficulties and may take years before learning even a tiny bit.
*Swish!*
Arthur began his practice with no delay, as the images of how the moves were to be combined appeared in his mind.
With that understanding, Arthur began to move according.
His movements were a bit stiff in the beginning as combining the moves was hard.
For example, how can you be steady as a rock like the earth and flexible like water at the same time?
It was hard and Arthur's speed was not as fast as it was when he mastered the other moves.
still, he was relentless in his practice, and slowly, the results became positive.
Being ignorant of the passage of time and his surroundings Arthur began to gain mastery of the final move.
Each move was beginning to flow into each other and complement one another at the same time.
'Steady as the earth, but as flexible as water...'
*Swoosh*
'...flexible and flowing like water but as explosive as fire...'
*Boom!*
'...explosive as fire but as swift and silent as the wind...'
*Swish!*
'...silent like the swift, but as fast and deadly as lightning!'
"Dance of the Heavenly Sword!"
Arthur roared as his moves were seamlessly combined into one and the result was an unpredictable sword attack and movement technique that can be anything at any point in time.
It can be steady like the earth and appear slow, and in the next moment become swift like the wind.
Soon after, Arthur mastered the final move, and when he did, he stopped abruptly and stood still.
Unknown to Arthur, Cora had appeared a distance away and was watching him practice his sword techniques.
With her experience, she saw through the rank of the technique that he was practicing.
At first, she thought he would fail, or at most Arthur would learn the basics due to his abnormally powerful soul.
But Arthur proved to have a god-like comprehension ability and right before her very eyes, a technique that would take a Nascent Soul Realm Cultivator years to learn and even more years to master...
"He mastered it in just a day..." Cora whispered with disbelief.
And just when she felt the shocking experience was at least over, Arthur moved.
Arthur took a step forward and a steady-like aura surrounded him.
Cora widened her eyes as she recognized what that meant.
"1st level Earth Concept..."
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