Chapter 2: Is This Technique Hard? It's Way Too Easy

A short while later.

The remaining people followed Elder Chen to a secluded location in the back mountains of Sword Demon Sect.

They had no choice in the matter.

Along the way, a few tried to slip away quietly, only to be spotted by Elder Chen in an instant and cut down on the spot.

"Alright, we've arrived," Elder Chen announced.

Arrived?

Everyone was thoroughly bewildered.

There was clearly nothing here.

Could it be... could it be that Elder Chen intended to kill them all and leave no witnesses?

The thought sent waves of panic across every face.

Fortunately, Elder Chen paid them no attention. Instead, he raised his hand and cast a Hand Seal into the empty air.

A transparent barrier shimmered into existence before them.

"Old Geng, I've brought this batch of people for you," Elder Chen said with a respectful tone.

"Understood."

An aged voice drifted out, and two crystalline stones were tossed through the barrier, flying toward Elder Chen.

"Thank you, Old Geng. If there's nothing else, I won't disturb you further." Elder Chen caught the stones with a pleased smile.

"Mm." The elderly voice replied.

In the next instant, Elder Chen's figure flickered and vanished without a trace.

Leaving behind a crowd of utterly dumbfounded people.

Before they could voice their confusion, a tremendous force surged over all of them.

Then they were dragged through the barrier.

The scene changed entirely.

The world here was dim and boundless, saturated with a cold, eerie atmosphere.

All around them stood row upon row of simple Sword Tombs.

Atop each Sword Tomb, a single longsword had been thrust into the earth.

Whoosh! Whoosh!!

Yin winds rose from all directions.

Though it was only the beginning of autumn, this place radiated an air of desolate, bone-chilling killing intent.

A single deep breath was enough to fill one's chest and abdomen with a piercing sensation — unbearably painful.

"Where is this place? Why are there sword graves everywhere?"

"Ahh!! It hurts — it hurts so much!"

"There must be poison in the air. Sword Demon Sect is trying to kill us!"

"I can't accept this. I don't want to die!"

As panic spread through the crowd, an aged voice reached every ear.

It was soft, yet every single person heard it with perfect clarity.

"This place is the Pyre Heaven Sword Tomb of Sword Demon Sect. I will now pass on to you the Qi Nourishing Art. Only those who successfully complete three full cycles of circulation will be permitted to become Tomb Guardians."

The elderly voice then recited the Qi Nourishing Art aloud.

The people present, as though grasping at a lifeline, endured the searing pain and listened intently to every word of the Qi Nourishing Art.

Lin Xiao was no different.

He had originally assumed this situation was more likely to end badly than well.

He hadn't expected there to be another layer to it.

Tomb Guardian!?

What kind of position was that?

It didn't sound particularly impressive.

But a bad life was still better than a good death.

Besides, he had finally come into contact with a cultivation technique of this world.

Lin Xiao endured the sharp, stabbing pain in his chest and abdomen, sat cross-legged, and focused his mind to listen carefully.

The Qi Nourishing Art, which would have been cryptic and difficult for an ordinary person to grasp, sounded to his ears like celestial music.

Gradually, Lin Xiao fell into a deep state of focus.

The Spiritual Qi that had been chaotically surging through his body began to flow along a fixed circuit.

One cycle.

Two cycles.

Three cycles.

"Those who have completed three full cycles of the Qi Nourishing Art today may proceed to the Sword Pavilion to the south and claim the identity of a Tomb Guardian."

The aged voice said no more and vanished without a trace.

The old man did not know.

In the thirty minutes after he departed.

A faint, sharp light gleamed within a pair of eyes.

Across the surface of that body, a thin halo of dim dark-gold light flickered.

But the radiance was so faint that no one could possibly notice it.

"Hm!? Is this Spiritual Qi inside me?! So this is the Qi Nourishing Art? It feels incredibly simple," Lin Xiao thought to himself in astonishment.

He felt extraordinarily comfortable right now.

His entire body was filled with strength, and every trace of the piercing pain had completely vanished.

With each breath, the Qi Nourishing Art circulated automatically within him.

Of course, the automatic circulation was quite slow.

When he actively controlled it, the speed increased dramatically.

In just the past thirty minutes, he had already completed ten full cycles.

"Circulating Spiritual Qi with a Hand Seal, with stable meridians and energy channels — does this count as stepping into the entry level of the Qi Refinement Realm?" Lin Xiao wasn't entirely sure.

Recalling that the aged voice had said completing three cycles was enough to claim the Tomb Guardian identity, he had completed ten — well beyond the requirement.

With that thought, Lin Xiao rose to his feet, intending to go claim his identity.

But at that moment.

He noticed something that made his blood run cold.

Of the people who had remained, more than half were now lying in pools of blood, utterly lifeless.

A rough count confirmed it — well over half were gone.

This... what had happened?

Lin Xiao's eyes widened in shock.

He had been so absorbed in cultivating the Qi Nourishing Art that he hadn't noticed anything happening around him.

"Ahhh!!!"

Suddenly, several agonized screams rang out nearby.

Lin Xiao spun around to look.

He saw fierce streams of Spiritual Qi bursting outward from within those people's bodies, punching gaping holes through them as blood gushed freely.

Within a few breaths, those people had breathed their last.

Holy shit!

Lin Xiao stood frozen.

That was no ordinary Spiritual Qi — it was sharper than Sword Qi itself.

Seeing that no one else had stood up, Lin Xiao decided not to rush to the Sword Pavilion to claim his identity either.

He understood the principle of not sticking out — the bird that pokes its head up gets shot first.

Without absolute strength and a hidden ace, standing out was never a good idea.

Especially not here in Sword Demon Sect.

Though he had only been here for a little over two hours, Lin Xiao had already experienced firsthand what cruelty and brutality truly meant.

He sat back down, closed his eyes, and resumed cultivating the Qi Nourishing Art.

With each completed cycle, the Spiritual Qi within him grew a fraction more solid and dense.

After Lin Xiao completed another ten cycles, his brow furrowed slightly.

For some reason, the circulation path of the Spiritual Qi within him felt slightly off — as though it was taking unnecessary detours.

There were also several similar issues within the technique's formula itself.

Let me adjust this part.

And this part too.

And so, guided purely by instinct, Lin Xiao began refining his own "personalized Qi Nourishing Art."

In an instant, the speed at which he absorbed Spiritual Qi began to double, then double again.

Faintly, a vortex of Spiritual Qi began to slowly revolve around him.

Meanwhile, those nearby who were straining to cultivate the Qi Nourishing Art suddenly found that the already turbulent Spiritual Qi had grown even more violent and erratic.

Ahh!!!

Screams erupted in an unbroken chain.

People collapsed faster than they could be counted.

Two thousand remained.

Then one thousand.

Six hundred.

Three hundred.

The number didn't stop falling until it reached just over one hundred.

Lin Xiao opened his eyes again.

The survivors scrambled to their feet, every face etched with fear, each heart gripped by the surreal sensation of having narrowly escaped death.

They hadn't been unwilling to move earlier — they simply couldn't.

It had felt as though some invisible force was holding them in place, rendering them immobile.

But they had endured.

They had made it through, and successfully completed three full cycles of the Qi Nourishing Art.

"What in the world is this place? There were tens of thousands of us, and now only a little over a hundred remain?"

"I'd heard that Sword Demon Sect was ruthless beyond measure, but I still underestimated them."

"What do we do now?"

"What do we do? We have no other choice — we follow what that person said and head to the Sword Pavilion in the south to claim our Tomb Guardian identities."

After a brief discussion, everyone realized there was no other option.

They wanted to escape, but there was simply no way back.

Left with no alternative, the group set off together toward the distant Sword Pavilion.

When they arrived at the Sword Pavilion, someone was already waiting for them.

It was a lean, tall middle-aged man.

Upon seeing that over a hundred people had arrived, the middle-aged man's eyes filled with astonishment. He asked in puzzlement:

"How many tens of thousands came in with this batch of yours??"