“Yes, I expected as much. You’ve already made several odd remarks about the ninety-ninth floor—”
“Ah, you talk a lot, Zombie! Eat this!” the Sword Emperor shouted.
The clouds in the sky split in two, and the sky itself cracked. The cracks grew toward me, thickening fast. I—
“Freaking he—!”
The moment I raised my dagger, a blast erupted.
Boom!
The aura I had infused into the dagger died like a fire struck by sand. I pumped more aura through the hilt but soon saw it was pointless.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
It was like trying to raise a shield against a rushing tsunami. Perhaps I was just another Don Quixote instead of a hero. Since I was once called a hero, the most basic requirement of a hero was to do something that yielded actual results. To do that, I changed the grip on my dagger as I deflected the attack, gritting my teeth.
“Enouuuuuuuuugh!”
As the angle of attack shifted, the Sword Emperor’s strike lost some of its momentum, but given its great force, deflecting it like that didn’t change the fact that it was unstoppable. Still, it gave me a moment to take a breather, and that was enough.
“Enough alreeeadyyyyyyyy!” I yelled.
The ground tilted and shook. The roots under and the plants above—sunflowers, anemones, daylilies, daffodils, hepaticas, birdsfoot deervetch, snowball bushes, marigolds, and morning glories—swayed in unison. Their pollen scattered, spreading their vitality and will.
Despite all this, I stood my ground, even as it shook under my feet. Instead of a pillar, I imagined a tree as great as a World Tree. The roots were my feet, and they extended endlessly deep. Even if the ground shook, I didn’t waver because my roots reached to the other end of this world. Not only did I stand firm, but the ground’s trembling was caused by the vibrations of my roots.
The grain stored in termite nests, the breath of nameless insects fallen into hibernation… I drew in the vitality and nutrients that spread across the earth. Energy poured into me like a reversed waterfall, but I didn’t store that energy. I sent it all to my left hand, where my dagger was. I was now a waterway. Boundless energy flowed through me, pouring toward the dagger, and exploded.
Booooom…!
My attack burst out from the ground, knocking back the Sword Emperor’s strike that had come down from the sky. Like a spring butterfly, the Sword Emperor spun in the air and landed on the grass.
He grinned. “Yes. You’ve learned how to use outer aura.”
“What was that for?” I shouted, huffing and puffing.
“Well done,” he said, without losing his smile.
“Huh? Umm, if you praise me like you just did, it feels a bit embarrassing. I’ve just been practicing what you taught me in the Truth Heaven Realm and on the ninety-first floor. I mean, your hint was obvious. Wait, wait, that’s not it. Why did you suddenly attack me?”
“Knowing and using are two things. Since it’s you, I thought you might not know how to use it in real combat yet.”
“Oh, please…” I scratched the back of my head. “If I think about it, there were many clues even before you told me. The usual way to manifest reinforced aura is to accumulate aura. And the common way to build that amount of aura is to get into the lotus position and meditate in a place with clean water and air.”
This was called aura cultivation.
“Basically, most of the aura that martial artists accumulate comes from the outside. Only after digesting, refining, and melting it into oneself does it become what we call internal aura.”
Melting the aura that existed outside oneself into one’s own was called aura cultivation. That was how things like Eternal Snow Ginseng, Thousand-Year Tuber Fleeceflower, Azure Life Essence, the Chemist’s medicines, the giant aura turtle, and others could work as elixirs.
“But I’m not separate from the world.”
In the Demonic Path, I was the rope binding this world, but I was separate from each element in the world in the Righteous Path. Still, because of that, I was also part of the world. Subjectivization and objectivization. Their strengths and weaknesses were shown in each path’s martial arts.
The Demonic Path was seen as easy to reach a certain level, yet was difficult to go beyond. Meanwhile, following the Righteous Path was believed to be more difficult to reach a higher level, but the path was considered to have more martial artists who had reached the peak and gone beyond.
“Therefore, there’s no need to obsess over increasing the amount of aura within me,” I said, withdrawing my mental image of the roots spreading under my feet. “No matter how much the aura within me increases, even if it’s enough to go through metamorphosis, I’ll still have limits as a vessel.”
As the image of the roots retracted, the channel receiving outer aura closed.
“Turning myself into one pathway is more efficient.”
Naturally, the world’s aura that had flowed through me and reached my dagger also dispersed. I took a deep breath.
“Of course, to solidify that pathway, I need to become somewhat more durable as well.”
The remainder of my inner aura, part of which had been carried away by the outer aura as it dispersed, joined my vital energy.
“Even that isn’t a requirement. That’s why Teacher could split the snow mountain without any qi left within her.”
The Sword Emperor nodded. “Yes. The two main parts of aura cultivation are meditation and circulation. Whether it’s the Nine Yang Divine Art, the Purple Mist Heart Method, or the Valkenheim Mana Cultivation Style, it’s just the difference in their depth of meditation and the paths they use for channeling aura. They all should still have two parts. Meditation is about drawing outer aura into oneself. By deeply understanding the world, one breaks down the barrier between oneself and the world, channeling the entire world’s aura. Circulation then guides that aura into their dantian. As you said, it’s about drawing and blending a new aura into one’s old aura, making it part of themselves.”