Chapter 26: The Sword Saint! Discharged from the Hospital!
Opening the door to an empty, bare room, the scene outside remained exactly as it had the last time Li Xia visited. Under the dim, yellowish light, only the ruins stood, their broken walls exuding a strange, haunting beauty. Li Xia walked along the deserted road, casually chatting with the Hall.
“Hall, you’re back. Won’t the other spaces feel it?”
[The Void Sea stretches endlessly. Even an entity like the Hall can only control a small area around itself. They must tend carefully to their own pastures, so they have neither the time nor means to notice the Hall’s awakening at all times.]
[Moreover, their cores are fused with the ???, which demands over 90% of their computing power and attention. Therefore, it is judged that the Transcendent Hall was safe nearly 100 standard time units ago.]
Li Xia nodded thoughtfully, realizing the Hall wasn’t human and might not perceive his movements. It seemed that the ??? had been taken from the Transcendent Hall, meaning the fusion of ??? with other Halls was currently beyond his concern. Perhaps the other Halls considered the Transcendent one useless, and even if it revived, it posed no real threat.
In any case, that scene of waking up to be surrounded by multiple top-tier experts from the ninth level was definitely not going to be witnessed again.
“How long is a standard time unit?”
[One standard time unit is approximately equal to 60 Earth years.]
Sixty years? That’s a full cycle of sixty. So, a hundred time units would be roughly six thousand years?
Solid.
The desolate square gradually came into view, and the bizarre house leapt into Li Xia’s sight, stirring a fervent heat in his chest. The last time, this room had boosted his breathing technique by two whole levels—from a mere LV2 novice to LV5 mastery.
If he could raise “The End of Technique” by that much as well... wouldn’t that be unstoppable?
“Hall, is this house ready for use?”
[Your Majesty, the Time Chamber accelerates time on a microscopic level through a special method of soul resonance. After use, your soul will enter a pseudo-unstable state.]
[Therefore, sufficient recovery time is necessary. It is estimated that you can use the Time Chamber once every 1–2 dungeon runs.]
Time Chamber? Sounds impressive...
Li Xia’s pace faltered. A cooldown of 1–2 runs wasn’t bad.
He decided to spend his remaining six attribute points as planned: two each to Strength and Dexterity, one to Spirit, and one to Constitution.
Thus, his attributes stood at:
[Strength: 9]
[Dexterity: 9]
[Intelligence: 6]
[Spirit: 8]
[Constitution: 8]
Before gaining the corresponding skills, Li Xia decided not to increase Intelligence; with the breathing technique as an attribute multiplier, focusing on tangible stats was more efficient.
The strange house glowed brilliantly again, and Li Xia felt his blood boiling, a peculiar sensation rising within him. It wasn’t exactly comfortable nor painful—more like every inch of his body was itching, but not really.
...
Li Xia slowly withdrew, wiping sweat from his brow. The attribute boost didn’t feel overwhelmingly powerful, possibly because the increase was modest.
But his Strength had clearly improved. Approaching the large brick he had sat on previously, Li Xia began rummaging through the warehouse items, some of which, bought in the real world, could not be retrieved.
The Hall explained this was because different worlds were involved, and only items containing Transcendence could be taken out of their native world.
This left Li Xia a bit disheartened, having stocked up on many personal living supplies for settling down in the Hall.
A waste...
Taking out the “Pure Ghost Blood” and “Azure Otherworldly Flower” from his personal space, Li Xia asked, “Hall, is there a way to trade?”
[Your Majesty, you may conduct trades through the Auction House.]
[The Auction House is a co-built platform. According to Hall regulations, no Hall can track the transaction data of buyers or sellers.]
Auction House?
A new interface suddenly appeared, presented as a familiar game menu for ease of understanding—somewhat like a hybrid of auction houses from various games such as “Toxic Milk Powder” and “WoW.”
The UI and user interaction were intuitive, requiring no tutorial.
Li Xia quickly browsed through categories: [Equipment], [Materials], [Consumables], and [Unknown Artifacts].
Clicking on [Equipment], he saw further subdivisions: under [Weapons], there were melee and ranged, and melee was further divided into swords, spears, halberds, axes, hooks, forks, and so on.
Armor was categorized into heavy, medium, and light.
Materials were a colorful assortment of items; consumables mainly consisted of one-time-use objects; and the last category, unknown artifacts... better left unspoken.
After a while, Li Xia noticed a problem: he could only see blue-grade equipment, while higher tiers were inaccessible.
He immediately questioned the Hall.
[Your Majesty, according to Hall basic regulations, any transaction or gifting can only acquire equipment of the highest grade you have previously obtained.]
What kind of strange rule was this? Couldn’t you just buy higher-grade gear even if you had the money?
Oh—understood!
It was for balance! If high-ranking apostles casually dropped powerful gear, they could easily arm low-ranking apostles to slaughter within their tier.
That would undermine the Hall’s fundamental interests. It needed apostles to help it achieve Transcendence, not to create combat machines relying on inherited equipment and skills.
It also protected other low-ranking apostles still growing; excluding external interference allows them to develop freely, ensuring a healthier and more valuable growth system.
Having realized this, Li Xia packaged his "Pure Ghost Blood" and "Azure Otherworldly Flower" and listed them on the Auction House.
Seeing them automatically sorted under [Consumables] - [Bloodline], Li Xia then began searching for a suitable weapon.
One of the gains from learning boxing was deciding what weapon to choose in the future.
When Li Xia asked his masters which weapon was suitable for both large-scale battles and one-on-one duels, the answers were surprisingly unanimous.
“The spear!”
The old master who practiced the Eight Extremes spear even bobbed his head and recited a passage from the “Arm Record”: “The spear is the king of all weapons; all others fall before it.”
Master Qi nodded in agreement: “Qi Jiguang wrote in the ‘New Book of Effective Techniques’: Three arrows equal one sword, three swords equal one spear.”
Moreover, the spear’s piercing damage was far deadlier than the cutting wounds of swords.
Among other cold weapons, swords and knives had the advantage of versatility and were easy to carry and conceal.
If you strode into a hotel with a treasured sword, you’d look like a heroic youth.
But carrying a spear, perhaps with a wine gourd hanging from the tip, you’d look more like a thief with an army...
“What if I get close-combat? Wouldn’t the spear be ineffective, putting me in danger?”
“That just means your skills aren’t refined. Do you understand the difference between a monthly staff and a yearly saber? Do you understand spears?”
Li Xia pondered for a moment: “So, hitting someone with a staff gets you detained for fifteen days, cutting someone with a blade means years in prison, but stabbing someone with a spear basically means life imprisonment?”
The masters glared furiously.
“Ahem... well, what if someone really gets close? What do you do then?”
“Simple. If you can’t push them back beyond the spear’s tip, switch weapons. Use a baton, a short knife—anything to force them back. If you can’t, then engage in close combat.
Boy, all those skills you learned aren’t for show. Unless you have a dagger, any weapon is useless up close!”
“If you want to argue that, then just carry a pistol at your waist. If anyone gets close, draw and shoot!”
Li Xia suddenly understood and wholeheartedly agreed.
But something felt off: one hand holding a musket, the other a spear... why did that feel so familiar?
Wait, am I the Sword Saint?
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