Chapter 40: Lightning Sword, Dual Wield!

Upon seeing that Li Jing was utilizing Palm Thunder rather than a spiritual strike, Dai Hong lost interest.

However, after giving it some thought, he came to understand.

Eliminating this group of white rats with a spiritual strike was not difficult, but even he couldn’t destroy the bodies. He realized he had been expecting too much.

Looking again at the Palm Thunder spraying from Li Jing’s hand, Dai Hong nodded in approval.

The fist-sized Palm Thunder that was undoubtedly of Great Perfection Level embodied some unique techniques.

A mere Great Perfection Palm Thunder couldn’t achieve such thickness.

Critically assessing the situation, Dai Hong’s impression of Li Jing grew even more positive.

How rare it was to attain Great Perfection in Second Realm Magic, especially at such a young age as Li Jing?

Even though the technique he perfected wasn’t a spiritual strike, he considered Li Jing a fellow enthusiast.

As he was waiting for Li Jing’s next move, Dai Hong suddenly furrowed his eyebrows.

He had been too busy evaluating Li Jing’s Palm Thunder that he hadn’t paid much attention.

Only now did he discover that the Palm Thunder discharged from Li Jing’s hand was flickering, far from disappearing.

?

Dai Hong slowly formed a question mark.

Wasn’t Palm Thunder supposed to be a one-hit-wonder with no aftermath?

Before he could collect his thoughts, Li Jing’s arm abruptly vibrated and the Palm Thunder in his hand swelled by a third, sweeping away as he swung his arm.

The substantial Palm Thunder wiped out nearly a hundred white rats in one hit, then collapsed.

???

Dai Hong stared, wide-eyed.

He couldn’t quite believe his own eyes.

What the hell kind of move was that?

A thunder sword?

Could Palm Thunder be used like that?

When Li Jing noticed the Palm Thunder collapse, his eyebrows furrowed.

His idea was inspired by Dai Hong condensing his spiritual strike into the form of a flying sword.

He couldn’t change the form of the magic skills.

However, he could control the intensity of the output.

A fist-sized Palm Thunder didn’t burden him at all.

As his level increased, his Spiritual Power Intensity multiplied. A full-strength Palm Thunder had already reached the thickness of a water bucket.

Compared to a water bucket, what was a fist-sized volume?

As long as the magic skill didn’t burden him, he could absolutely achieve rapid instant Palm Thunders.

However, applying it was much more difficult than he had imagined.

He did achieve rapid instant Palm Thunders.

The series of instant Palm Thunders in his hand kept dispersing and concentrating, looking visually like a flickering, super-long thunder sword.

However, the rhythm of the instant activation was hard to grasp.

The time from each Palm Thunder’s explosion to its disappearance was approximately one second.

Up to here, Li Jing was still able to continue his "thunder sword" with his perception of rapid instant activation of Palm Thunder.

However, after hitting real targets, the natural dissipation time of Palm Thunder became extremely unpredictable, with durations varying.

Keeping the "thunder sword" up to date became incredibly difficult.

If a Palm Thunder dissipated faster, the thunder sword would dim and experience momentary interruptions.

If a Palm Thunder dissipated slower, it would collide with the following Palm Thunder, affecting the stability of the thunder sword.

The interruption didn’t pose a huge issue for the thunder sword.

As long as he was fast enough at activating Palm Thunders, momentary interruptions wouldn’t matter much.

However, collisions between subsequent Palm Thunders that hadn’t dissipated in time were the main cause of the entire thunder sword’s collapse!

This was almost unsolvable.

The variability of Palm Thunder’s dissolution time was due to its nature as a construct of electric energy, which involved a process of being conducted when hitting actual targets.

Electricity dissipating into conductors was a natural phenomenon.

Conduction speeds were influenced by many factors and were unpredictable.

Looking at the hints of blue smoke rising from his palm due to consecutive rapid instant activations of Palm Thunder, Li Jing sighed internally.

The thunder sword was merely an immature idea after all.

The only commendable aspects were that it looked rather intimidating in actual use and had low consumption.

Had he gone all-out, he couldn’t produce a continuous instant activation of Palm Thunder and his in-body stored spiritual power would continuously deplete.

The thunder sword was different.

The instant activation was effortless and the consumption was so small it could almost be ignored.

While standing to the side, Dai Hong watched Li Jing deep in thought without interrupting him. He looked at him with admiration.

Dai Hong had figured out how the thunder sword in Li Jing’s hands had formed after his initial surprise.

At the very least, he was also a master of the Four Realm.

Even if he couldn’t tell that Li Jing was perpetually using Palm Thunder to materialize Lightning Swords, did he still need to pretend?

If he had mastered Palm Thunder at the Great Perfection Level, Dai Hong could easily do the same thing too.

But he was different from Li Jing.

Li Jing was only at the Second Realm Cultivation Level. For him to be able to effortlessly, and frequently, unleash Palm Thunder that packed quite the punch – it just meant his internal Spiritual Qi greatly surpassed regular people.

This kid, he was a monster!

Dai Hong’s unmasked scrutiny of him was too obvious for Li Jing not to notice.

And honestly, it was quite uncomfortable.

After all, Dai Hong was quite a roughian...

Pretending to be oblivious, Li Jing attuned his ear to the continuous ding-ding of notifications that showed no sign of stopping.

"Experience Points +1."

"Experience Points +3."

"Experience Points +1."

"Experience Points +2."

The continuous chime of notifications was a bit annoying, but hearing it was truly a joy to the ears and heart.

His gaze sweeping the room filled with still-living white rats, Li Jing presented a friendly smile as he held out both his hands.

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

Two crashes sounded off as if thunder had struck.

Two Lightning Swords were born with a bang.

Li Jing held one in his left hand and one in his right.

At this sight, the corner of Dai Hong’s lips twitched incessantly.

He had thought he was adventurous enough, but Li Jing clearly was no less than him.

It wasn’t enough having a single Lightning Sword; actually deciding to dual wield...

Wasn’t this kid scared of overdoing it?

Little did Dai Hong know that the Lightning Sword was no burden at all for a cultivator like Li Jing who had Spiritual Power.

...

Moments later.

All the white rats with health bars in the room passed away. The rat cages that were originally locking them up also turned to ashes.

Li Jing wasn’t sure if it was because the individual experience gained in one go was too much, but the ding-ding notification fell silent after it played almost a hundred times, paused for a moment, before announcing the subsequent total number.

"Experience Points +1767."

"Level Up, 11. Spiritual Power Intensity +22, Skill Points +2."

"Level Up, 12. Spiritual Power Intensity +24, Skill Points +2."

Hearing the notification that his level had risen two levels, a smile spread across Li Jing’s face.

Host: Li Jing

Experience Points: 103/1640

Level: 12

Skill Points: 4

Spiritual Power Intensity: 156

Equipment: Standard Steel Knife (Ordinary Level 4, 47%)

Passive Skills: Momentary Space, Clothing Protection Spirit (5/5), Vanishing Skill (5/5)

Active Skills: Palm Thunder (5/5), Spirit Strike (5/5)

As he pulled up and glanced at the Panel, Li Jing felt incredibly content.

Adding to what the system had already announced beforehand, the rats in this room had given him close to two thousand experience points in one go.

Even though the health bars of the white rats typically ranged from only 1 to 3 points.

But this loot was far better than any he had acquired from killing a monster before!

If he were to calculate the rat demon he killed at the seafood market in the evening, then the experience points he had accumulated from the Evil Cultivator case alone had exceeded two thousand five hundred!

Considering the Evil Cultivators were still keeping a bunch of controlled monsters, Li Jing felt a sense of anticipation he couldn’t put into words.

Even if he didn’t do it for the highest reward of a million, as a public servant, wasn’t it his duty to rid the people of monsters?

Upon seeing Dai Hong, Li Jing spoke with a serious expression.

"Captain Dai, the criminal Evil Cultivator is very devious and despicable. We need to find a way to catch him soon to prevent him from harming others!"

Hearing these words, Dai Hong actually didn’t find anything wrong with it.

The case was getting more and more complicated.

If they don’t catch the Evil Cultivator soon, who knows how things will turn out.

Nodding, Dai Hong glanced over the room of ashes one last time to make sure everything was fine, then turned around and said.

"We will definitely catch the criminal. But we can’t rush some things. Investigations require methodical progress. We need to start with the clues first. This residence is clearly the place where the Evil Cultivator breed the rat demons. Let’s go check the other rooms to see if there’s anything to find."

...