Mystic Eyes: My Eyes Steal the Laws of Cultivation Chapter 513: Path of the Saber (4)

Kyrian remained motionless for a few moments after unleashing the Mountain-Cleaving Slash.

The blade still pointed toward the enormous scar carved into the stone floor, its tip glowing with the last traces of violet energy.

Tiny strands of lightning slowly ran along the saber’s edge before disappearing completely, like electric serpents retreating into their burrows.

The air around the blade still trembled with the residual heat of the strike, nearly invisible waves of energy gradually dissipating into the cold night.

The mark on the ground was impressive, a deep fissure stretching several meters, its jagged edges still smoking from the heat of the impact.

Small cracks spread outward from the center, like spiderwebs etched into the stone.

The night breeze swept through the courtyard, carrying with it several crimson leaves from the nearby tree. They slowly spun through the air, dancing in gentle spirals before settling upon the stones fractured by the strike. The contrast between the delicacy of the leaves and the violence of the scar was almost poetic.

Only then did Kyrian lower the weapon.

His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Despite training continuously for nearly three hours, the fatigue was almost insignificant. His body, strengthened by cultivation and the reconstruction of the Bone of Heaven, endured the effort with an ease that few cultivators at his level could match.

Only a slight tension remained in his shoulders and forearms, the result of countless repeated movements.

With a single thought, he stored the Peak Spiritual Saber inside his spatial ring. The blade vanished in a flash of light, its weight disappearing from his hands.

The violet glow faded completely. The courtyard fell silent once more, with only the whisper of the wind and the murmur of the fountain breaking the tranquility of the night.

Kyrian slowly walked toward the stone where he had studied the manual earlier. His footsteps were soft upon the grass, nearly silent.

He sat down once more in the lotus position, resting his arms on his knees. The stone was cold beneath him, but his internal energy quickly warmed the surface.

Instead of cultivating immediately, he closed his eyes.

His mind began revisiting every movement he had executed throughout those three hours. His memory was crystal clear, every detail preserved with the precision of a spiritual record.

The first strike had been wrong. Too elegant, too controlled. A sword strike disguised as a saber strike. The flaw had been obvious the moment the movement ended, a dissonance between intention and execution.

Then came the second, better but still shackled by the habits of the sword. The blade moved with greater fluidity, yet there was hesitation in his shoulders, and tension in his wrists that should not have existed.

Then came the third, the moment he finally grasped part of the saber’s essence. The feeling of allowing the weapon’s weight to guide the movement, of leading rather than forcing it. It had been only a glimpse, brief but transformative.

After that came hundreds of repetitions. Vertical slashes, horizontal slashes, diagonal slashes. Changes in stance, transferring force between his feet and waist, adjustments to his breathing. Every repetition eliminated a small mistake, every movement drew a little closer to the perfection described in the manual.

Every detail resurfaced in his mind with absolute clarity. Thanks to his special eyes, not a single piece of information had been forgotten. It was like watching his own training again, every angle, every fraction of a second, every vibration of every muscle.

He analyzed each movement, identifying the small imperfections that still needed correction. A slightly incorrect angle here, breathing out of sync there. Nothing serious, but small details that, when accumulated, made the difference between good and excellent.

’My stance improved quickly.’ He thought, reviewing the progression of his forms.

’The first hour was difficult, but afterward the movements began to feel much more natural.’

’My coordination improved as well. At first, I was overly aware of every part of my body. Now the flow is much more automatic.’

’The circulation of Qi now follows the movements almost naturally. There is no longer any separation between the physical motion and the flow of energy.’

The results were obvious. In three hours, he had progressed further than many saber practitioners would in weeks. The basic manual had been fully absorbed, its teachings internalized.

Even so... Kyrian remained silent for several seconds, his eyes still closed, his breathing calm.

Then he shook his head almost imperceptibly, a movement so subtle that any casual observer would have failed to notice it.

’But... it wasn’t exceptional.’

That was his true conclusion.

As far back as he could remember, ever since the beginning, because of his special eyes, almost everything he learned had seemed to happen naturally.

Alchemy, formations, blacksmithing, the spear, the sword. In all of those paths, he only needed to understand the fundamentals once. After that, everything seemed to fall into place on its own.

It was as though his mind already knew the answer before the question had even been fully asked. His understanding advanced in leaps, skipping stages that others needed months or years to overcome.

Others required months. He required days. Sometimes... only hours.

That was exactly how it had been with alchemy. Even during his very first attempts, he had already been able to identify mistakes that experienced alchemists could not perceive.

The subtleties of the process, the nuances of the reactions, everything was immediately obvious to his special eyes.

With blacksmithing, a single lesson had been enough for him to grasp the essence of hammer strikes. The rhythm, the force, the transfer of energy, he had internalized it all in less than an hour.

With the sword, it had been even more extraordinary. After absorbing the remnant sword intent left behind by the founder of the Verdant Sword Sect, his understanding of the Sword Path had grown at a terrifying pace. Every technique, every movement, and every principle fit together perfectly.

Everything had seemed easy. Natural. Like breathing.

The saber... was different.

He had learned quickly. In fact, absurdly quickly. Any ordinary cultivator would have been utterly shocked to discover that someone had managed to step through the gateway of the Saber Path in only three hours using nothing more than a basic manual.

Even geniuses would rarely accomplish something like that. Most would need days to understand the fundamentals, weeks to execute the movements correctly, and months to internalize the weapon’s philosophy.

But Kyrian did not compare himself to others. He compared himself to himself. His standard was what he had achieved in other fields, the almost supernatural leaps his eyes allowed him to make.

And by that standard... the result was merely ordinary.