Chapter 49: Chapter Fifty‑One: Dual‑Heart Flow

After leaving the gravity chamber, it was time for their temporary separation.

Chén Chén needed to go to the Challenge Tower to verify and review his progress, while Jiāng Jiāng had to attend a lesson for a while.

The second public building in Dragon Gate, the Martial Lecture Hall, as the name suggests, is a place for martial instruction and study.

Unlike at the martial hall, the instructors here are all world-top experts.

(Jiāng Jiāng: At least on the surface, that's true.)

In Jiāng Jiāng's martial journey, aside from daily practice and sparring with Chén Chén, his sword and dagger techniques relied solely on the guidance of two secret manuals; although, like Jī Hēng, he could see his own principles in Chén Chén's "Having a Name," his accumulation was clearly insufficient.

After all, Jiāng Jiāng never received the early instruction from several martial arts grandmasters like Jī Hēng did; his foundation came solely from figuring things out with young Chén Chén.

Therefore, it's still necessary to listen to the seniors' experiences.

Jiāng Jiāng today came to listen to a lecture on swordsmanship.

Indeed, it's still swordsmanship.

The reason he started spending time painstakingly practicing swordsmanship was certainly not just for show; Dragon Gate lacks privacy, or rather, the allure of public spaces is too strong—if he gave up training in public to conceal weapons, that would be putting the cart before the horse.

But holding back isn't Jiāng Jiāng's style; fortunately, he found inspiration in Chén Chén's Myriad Paths Singular and devised a way to have the best of both worlds.

Speaking of realms, one need not be limited to weapons; Chén Chén can use one method to infer myriad methods, then use those myriad methods to reverse-infer the realm of the one—so why must he cling to bright and dark weapons?

Having too many weapons might be burdensome, but if it's just two, perhaps it's not that difficult.

Jiāng Jiāng uses twin daggers and practices twin short swords; they differ and resemble each other—using the Dao to infer the Dao, they complement and enhance each other, the same principle as Chén Chén.

That's why Jiāng Jiāng needs more insight into swordsmanship to strengthen his foundation.

Of course, he could also listen to a dagger master's class, but unfortunately none are available for now.

In all of Dragon Gate, the number of martial artists who use short weapons under sixty centimeters is so small they can be counted on one's fingers, and they only gather to test each other once or twice a month.

Inside Lecture Hall Number Seven.

Jiāng Jiāng chose a high-ranking War God who had earned the Perfect War God title, thirteenth on the Black Dragon Ranking—Aoduoluoman's lecture hall.

Indeed, it's a lecture hall opened by a student on the Black Dragon Ranking.

In Dragon Gate, not only teachers but also students are qualified to give lectures.

However, while students have the right to open a class, they are not obligated to do so; yet in Dragon Gate, lectures initiated by students are not uncommon, and the daily schedule often has more student-led lectures than teacher-led ones.

By the way, in Dragon Gate one must reach the Planet Rank to become a teacher, so the teachers here are actually few.

The reason students can and choose to give lectures relates to another scarce resource in Dragon Gate, called Contribution.

Dragon Gate Contribution cannot be obtained through rankings or outstanding performance; just as the words "contribution value" suggest, only by making a certain contribution to Dragon Gate can one earn it.

The three most common contributions are: first, slaying monsters, which must be lord-rank or higher; second, contributing one's own martial dao comprehension; third, breaking through challenge tasks like the Challenge Tower.

The simplest ways to contribute one's martial dao comprehension are two: first, creating one's own secret manual and sharing it in Dragon Gate; second, giving a lecture in the Lecture Hall.

Upon entering the classroom, Jiāng Jiāng gradually realized that opening a Martial Lecture Hall to teach martial arts was not merely about imparting knowledge to others; the lecturer on stage directly shared his own recent swordsmanship comprehension process, the insights gained, and his research direction with everyone.

Everyone could personally imagine immersing themselves in this process, and some could find doubts within it, which in turn pointed the martial lecturer toward a direction.

Rather than saying it's martial instruction, it's more like proving the Dao.

Jiāng Jiāng couldn't immediately blend in, yet he also learned a great deal; after the martial lecture ended, many remained in the room discussing, while some said their goodbyes and left.

The lecturer on stage, Aoduoluoman, approached Jiāng Jiāng and asked in somewhat halting Chinese:

"How are you? Fellow cultivator Jiāng Jiāng, I see you've been silent—do you have any thoughts?"

"Do you know me?" Jiāng Jiāng said, puzzled, since he seemed never to have met the other.

"Hahaha, of course, certainly. You all in this cohort are outstanding; everyone knows the names of the top few."

"Fellow cultivator Jiāng Jiāng, what are your thoughts or doubts about my new idea? If you have any, feel free to raise them—I can also answer."

Jiāng Jiāng rarely chatted with strangers, but he exchanged a couple of sentences and asked one or two questions about Aoduoluoman's swordsmanship.

Not surprisingly, Aoduoluoman is also a person of the World Tree.

Recently, as his contact with World Tree people increased, Jiāng Jiāng felt that they all possessed a certain inexplicable feeling, though he couldn't quite specify what it was.

If he hadn't been constantly reminding himself, Jiāng Jiāng would probably find it hard to muster any hostility toward the World Tree.

Speaking frankly, so far the World Tree has done nothing harmful to him or Chén Chén.

Even so, Jiāng Jiāng must constantly remind himself to maintain his hostility toward the World Tree, for once that hostility vanishes, his inner guard will naturally lower without him noticing.

After finishing his training at the Martial Lecture Hall, the next step was to rush to the Challenge Tower to meet up with Chén Chén again.

At this point, the drawback of owning only a personal flyer became apparent, but fortunately the autopilot function could still be summoned; within Dragon Gate, even this short distance wouldn't take long.

Since the last time in the illusion realm, Jiāng Jiāng has subconsciously feared Chén Chén leaving his side; this symptom may persist for a while, and before then he didn't want to buy a new flyer.

Flying, he arrived at the Challenge Tower.

Although the Challenge Tower is also a public venue, the number of rooms is limited, and each room's use requires advance reservation.

Fortunately, the Challenge Tower isn't a particularly hot spot; compared to daily essential training, verifying gains doesn't need to be very frequent, nor does it require much time.

Because of the secret manual contribution system, the vast majority of Dragon Gate martial artists attempt to create their own secret manual and combat technique.

Jiāng Jiāng is no exception; of course, it's not just for the so-called contribution value—his self-created combat technique suits him better and can give him greater fighting power.

The three foundations needed for a self-created combat technique are: first, a basic grasp of inventive combat; second, knowledge reserves of the Dao; after these two days of effort, he has accumulated some; finally, it's entering actual combat to seek and verify his inspiration.

He entered the pre‑booked challenge room.

"Beep, please adjust the combat mode on the control panel."

As an official member, entering the Challenge Tower grants access to all its functions.

First is combat mode, which splits into free mode and challenge mode.

Challenge mode is a preset tower‑climbing trial; different levels award different Dragon Gate coins and points, which can be exchanged for items in the points shop—most of which can also be bought directly with Dragon Gate coins.

Challenge mode further divides into two kinds: war mode and enemy mode—plainly, group versus single.

Free mode is also called self‑select mode; one can freely choose the venue, simulated conditions, monster strength, type, venue, and so on.

"Enemy mode, frenzied."

Choosing the enemy mode directly means choosing a single monster; the frenzy mode means that after a monster is defeated, another monster will refresh inside.

Half-virtual state

This is the half-virtual state; although the monster's attack cannot truly harm the body, the body's feedback to the virtual can achieve the closest real effect.

Monster strength, Lord-level.

The rest, all random.

Setup complete; please confirm readiness, the challenge is about to start.

Jiāng Jiāng's currently studied dagger and sword arts both pursue offense and defense compatibility; the dagger art Bloodstrike, which uses attack as defense and seems crazy, but the path it follows is not truly the ultimate path.

To achieve technique merging with the Dao, one must unify technique with instrument, instrument with body, body with mind, and mind with spirit.

The so-called union of form and intent, intent and qi, qi and spirit.

It cannot be said that Bloodstrike took a wrong turn; it's just that the path Jiang Jiang envisioned in his heart has deviated somewhat. Jiang Jiang wants to combine sword and dagger, but if both remain balanced as their strength, the resulting combat method is highly likely to become mediocre.

Therefore, one must abandon the original intention of initially choosing Bloodstrike and enter the extreme killing path that forsakes defense.

This is also the technique Jiang Jiang wants to verify today, summarizing the killing aspect of Bloodstrike and his own insights from these times of slaughter.

The scene slowly emerged, and the hostile monster slowly appeared: a sea beast tens of meters in size, and a dragon turtle with thick armor.

As humanity's most troublesome enemy, the sea beast, and the dragon turtle, which is among the hard-to-handle types, the defense that exceeds level belongs to the hardest-to-slay category among monsters; in large-scale wars, it can often pin down a powerful war god.

If it were the previous idea, Jiang Jiang would also fear this type of monster the most.

But the reason for creating this move is to make up for this shortcoming.

Jiang Jiang always thought that short weapons lacked power compared to long weapons, but after delving into martial arts and truly studying the ultimate path, he realized that the power short weapons can release is not insignificant.

The strength of a weapon lies not in the weapon itself, but in the person wielding it.

The power of short weapons diminishes with distance, but it can be made up for in the expression of force.

Jiāng Jiāng, using a unique method of exerting force, concentrates it in his limbs; even at full explosion, his speed is barely different from that of a Lord-level dragon turtle, but this is already enough.

Only Jiang Jiang's body and the sword tip were seen piercing through the dragon turtle's body together; the remaining light and shadow resembled an arrow piercing Dragon Return.

Instrument unites with heart; Bloodstrike One-Heart Flow.

One strike is full force; after one strike, there is no second strike. This time, Jiang Jiang's body is covered in blood, all of it the enemy's.

However, it's not over yet; in the enemy mode's frenzy mode, after defeating an opponent, the next one will immediately refresh.

And the next monster, the Eight-Tailed Shadow Cat, its rear claw strike has already aimed at Jiang Jiang's neck.

The speed cannot be seen; in the next second, the green claw is only half an inch from the neck, but that half inch cannot be tightened further, as it is directly blocked by the black blade.

The Eight-Tailed Shadow Cat's speed is very fast, much faster than Jiang Jiang; in the moment of colliding with the blade and borrowing power to fly out, it immediately organizes the next attack.

However, the first sudden attack can be blocked, and the second can naturally be blocked as well.

After three consecutive days of listening to lectures, researching, and practicing, integrating Eight Trigrams Sword, Taiji Sword, Blocking Position Sword, Thought Flow, and many other sword techniques, utilizing another advantage of short weapons to create.

Defense Sword One-Heart Flow.

The defense sword, from nothing to something, has just taken shape; it perfectly blocks the Eight-Tailed Shadow Cat's full-force attacks eight out of ten times, more than enough.

However, there's no need to use that many times.

The next strike will be stained with blood.

The corpse of the Eight-Tailed Shadow Cat flying out was cut into five pieces by the double blades.

One attack, one defense—both follow the ultimate path; this is the Sword-Dagger Two-Heart Flow that Jiang Jiang intends to cultivate.

In the Challenge Room, trying various scenarios repeatedly to verify; after confirming everything's feasibility, it also symbolizes the viability of this path.

Then it's just going to the Review Room to thoroughly review and summarize.

Whether to say or not, Dragon Gate's technology level has opened Jiang Jiang's eyes greatly; the gap between Dragon Gate and the outside world is likely as large as the one or two industrial revolutions mentioned in history books.

The Review Room's projection technology can restore the combat process to 99.99% of a hundred winds in image form, just like a video file that can be freely manipulated; it can even virtually integrate into reviewing the true 'original perspective' process, simulating the perception of the entire process.

Moreover, this process hardly requires any time preparation; if such technology were applied to other fields, it would probably still be unable to pass review.

And for Jiang Jiang, this Summary King, the Review Room is even more like a fish in water; the time spent immersed in the Review Room is more than that spent in the Challenge Chamber.

Training time is tight; Jiang Jiang also has no spare time to do nothing, but fortunately, the Nameless Pavilion and the Community Center both have meal delivery services, which can be sent directly to the door of the training facility.

In a blink, it's afternoon; after the summary, the two of them again went together to the third public venue of Dragon Gate, the Great Library.

However, unlike other places, the Great Library is not established in the real world but entered through virtual technology into a virtual world.

In the Great Library are encompassed all general textual and visual materials that humanity can find on Earth, and it also includes a portion of martial arts secret manuals.

Thus this 'portion' is quite scholarly; the secret manuals or insights that can be borrowed from the Great Library, or are ownerless objects donated, or whose developers have relinquished so-called intellectual property rights and entrusted them to the Great Library for management.

What's more worth mentioning is that the Great Library itself is actually a part of the World Tree's 'Heartnet' virtual realm; seven or eight percent of its 'books' also come from the World Tree. And the remaining two or three percent are exactly what other forces use to exchange for the Great Library's access to Dragon Gate via a special link.