Extreme Spirit Chaos Technique

"Bing’Er, Mother won’t force you. If you don’t want to..."

"I do!" Before Bi Wan could finish, Mu Bingling’s head shot up. She looked at Bi Wan with determination in her eyes and spoke hastily.

A gratified smile spread across Bi Wan’s face. She took Mu Bingling’s hand and placed it in Mu Chen’s. "Hearing you say that, a weight has finally been lifted from my heart. We don’t have much time now, but once you two graduate from the academy, I’ll prepare your wedding."

At the mention of a wedding, Bi Wan’s face flushed red, her joy spilling out uncontrollably. "No, no, I have to tell your father this good news and make him happy." With that, Bi Wan quickly stood up and walked outside, disappearing from their sight in just a few steps, leaving Mu Chen and Mu Bingling sitting together in awkward silence.

Having lived alone for three years, Mu Chen was much more mature than his peers, so he adapted quickly. Just as he was about to speak, he saw Mu Bingling suddenly let out a long breath. Blinking her large eyes, she gave Mu Chen a sweet smile and said, "Finally, it’s out in the open. I feel so much more relaxed."

Mu Chen rubbed his nose. "Uh... Sister..."

"Are you still calling me ’Sister’?" Mu Bingling rolled her eyes at him.

Mu Chen called out, a bit stiffly, "Bing’Er."

It had to be said that a habit formed over more than a decade was difficult to change. But when he called her "Bing’Er," he suddenly found it felt incredibly natural, as if he had practiced it tens of thousands of times in his heart.

"Mm..."

Mu Bingling responded softly and slowly rested her head on Mu Chen’s shoulder. This moment felt like a dream. In her dreams, she had wished more than once to be able to relax like this in his arms. She loved him...

Late at night, Mu Chen was tossing and turning in his bed, unable to sleep. Mu Bingling’s smiling face kept appearing in his mind. In the past, even when he was all alone, he had never missed someone so much. Now, separated by only a few rooms, he longed for her intensely. It was the excitement of having their relationship confirmed. Slowly sitting up, Mu Chen glanced at the Snow Qilin already fast asleep beside him. He shook his head, pulled the blanket up a little higher over it, and then got out of bed.

He gently pushed open the window. The world outside was clear and bright after the rain. The view was always most expansive after a storm, the rainwater having washed the dust from the air. The bright moonlight spilled down from the sky, draping everything in the nightscape with a silver cloak. Gazing at the reflection of the trees in the puddles on the ground, Mu Chen’s Mental Realm gradually calmed.

With a flick of his wrist, a rusty dagger appeared in his hand. This was the very dagger Mu Chen had found in the academy’s armory. At the time, he hadn’t examined it for any special features and had just tossed it into his Storage Ring, not looking at it since.

Now, by the light of the moon, Mu Chen could finally sense what was different about this dagger. The blade was two inches long and two fingers wide, with sharpened edges on both sides, making it look more like a small sword. However, as the strongest of short-range weapons, a dagger should have at least one blood groove forged into it; otherwise, its lethality would be greatly diminished. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

But this dagger was different. It had no blood groove at all. Even its edges were extremely dull, without the slightest hint of sharpness. Furthermore, daggers used by Dark Attribute Martial Artists were typically black—a pitch-black that absolutely did not reflect light. This dagger, however, was golden. If not for the patches of rust, one could easily assume it was forged from gold. But as everyone knew, objects made of gold reflected light. Using a reflective, grooveless, dull-edged dagger as a weapon... whoever did so had to be out of their mind.

That left only one possibility: this dagger was purely a collector’s item. But why would a collector’s item be in the academy’s armory? And why would it have caught the attention of Broken Star? It was all an unsolved mystery.

An odd symbol was carved onto the dagger. It was neither Ancient Literature nor a Sealing Rune. It looked as if it had been casually scratched on with a sharp blade. After staring at it for a while, Mu Chen still couldn’t find anything. With a soft sigh, he returned the dagger to his Storage Ring.

Mu Chen, who never needed much sleep to begin with, felt particularly energetic tonight. He slung the Profound Jade Box from his bedside over his back and glanced again at the sleeping Snow Qilin. ’Maybe it’s time to introduce this cute little guy to Bing’Er,’ he thought.

After thinking it over, Mu Chen still couldn’t bring himself to leave the Snow Qilin alone in the room. Having merged with his bloodline, the Snow Qilin was like his own child, constantly tugging at his heart. He gently picked it up, held it to his chest, and quietly left the room.

Outside, the air was filled with the chirping of insects. This was something that central towns could never compare to the fringe towns. Central towns were prosperous and lively, but they lacked the peace and serenity of the outskirts. Between the two, Mu Chen much preferred the latter.

He walked slowly toward the back mountain, the one place where he could always relax. Lingyun’s teachings from the afternoon made him eager to practice. Since he couldn’t calm down enough for Cultivation in his room anyway, he might as well come out and train his basic forms.

With a single thought, the Profound Jade Fan shot from behind his back with a WHOOSH. It unfurled on its own in mid-air, emitting a faint, ghostly light under the moon. With a SNAP, Mu Chen caught the fan’s ring. Having lost his right arm, he could no longer use the Profound Jade Fan’s Dual Blade Mode. A sigh of regret escaped him at the thought.

With a slight tug of his arm, the Profound Jade Fan sliced through the air under his control, leaving behind a trail of afterimages. From a distance, the dance was a pleasing sight. Black shadows of the fan continuously overlapped and crisscrossed around Mu Chen. As his speed increased, the black shadows around him grew denser, layer upon layer, until it seemed as if a huge black sphere was enveloping him.

Accompanied by the SWISH SWISH SWISH of the fan cutting through the air, the space it touched actually sparked from the friction. Streaks of fire trailed behind the Fan Blades, drawn along by their attractive properties. The sight was absolutely stunning in the dark of night.

Mu Chen didn’t know that, in a place he couldn’t see, a figure had appeared in the middle of the woods. A pair of sharp, gleaming eyes stared straight at him, as if trying to see right through him.

"TSS TSS TSS TSS...!"

Sensing he had reached his maximum speed, Mu Chen abruptly snapped his arm, and his movements came to a halt. Inertia caused the Profound Jade Fan to fold shut with a crisp, metallic scrape.

After the Profound Jade Fan closed, the black shadows around Mu Chen continued to spin. These were the afterimages created by the fan’s passage through space. Just as they had layered and thickened before, they now slowly faded, until the very last afterimage circled Mu Chen once before returning to the body of the Profound Jade Fan.

’I wonder if you’ve really found the right master,’ Mu Chen thought, sighing faintly as he looked at the Profound Jade Fan with affection.

He gently raised his arm, and with a burst of wrist strength, the Profound Jade Fan shot upward. Mu Chen’s expression hardened. With a flick of his wrist, a Fan Blade descended with a SHING, tracing a black arc through the air.

Mu Chen frowned. The strike was clearly clumsy. The force, angle, and technique all felt wrong. It was like the swing of a novice Blacksmith’s hammer compared to a veteran’s. Swinging a hammer is a simple action; anyone who can lift one can bring it down to strike. But put a piece of iron in front of a novice, and he might not even be able to hit it. A veteran Blacksmith, however, could strike the ore with his eyes closed. Not only that, a veteran could control the force and angle to forge even purer refined iron.

More importantly, it was about skill. Practice makes perfect. ’If I can’t figure anything out from one strike, I’ll do ten. If I can’t grasp it in ten, I’ll do a hundred. If a hundred isn’t enough, I’ll do a thousand.’ Mu Chen’s determination reappeared on his face.

Under the hazy moon, the thin young man stood on the hill, relentlessly swinging the Giant Fan in his hand. The intense movement had long since drenched his clothes in sweat. Now, he was bare-chested, his fair skin exposed to the hazy moonlight, revealing a kind of robust beauty. It was a beauty full of contradictions: his frame was slender, yet he possessed streamlined muscles. And across his skin, a network of hideous, crisscrossing scars covered his entire torso.

"SHING... SHING... SHING..."

The clear, rhythmic sound of the swinging fan echoed across the silent back mountain. His only companions were the calm stream, the cold moonlight, the countless chirping insects, the quiet, secluded forest, and... the dark figure deep within it.

"Nine thousand nine hundred ninety-seven... Nine thousand nine hundred ninety-eight... Nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine... Ten... thousand!"

"Huff... huff..."

Two and a half hours. Ten thousand consecutive swings. During the process, Mu Chen had indeed discovered many of his shortcomings, but he couldn’t correct them in such a short time. His left arm was now so sore he couldn’t even lift it. He set the Profound Jade Fan aside and gasped for breath, his vision blurring. He had clearly exhausted his stamina.

A breeze blew past, sometimes light, sometimes heavy, sometimes slow, sometimes fast. Mu Chen subconsciously matched his breathing to its shifting rhythm. But as his breath synchronized with the light wind, a ripple suddenly went through his Mental Realm. As if drawn by an invisible force, his body straightened up bizarrely. Everything around him fell silent. Mu Chen stood on the spot, his eyes tightly closed, his expression as serene as a tranquil ancient well.

In that moment, Mu Chen felt as if he had merged with nature itself. Every leaf, every flower, every dewdrop felt intimately close to him.

"PLINK..."

The calm surface of the stream was broken by a dewdrop that had gathered on a leaf. Ripples spread slowly outward. Mu Chen wasn’t deliberately observing any of this; it was as if he himself were a breeze passing through the area, clearly transmitting every detail deep into his mind.

His blurred vision shifted to the clear, star-filled night sky. It was as if clusters of fog shrouded the countless points of starlight, making them appear both real and illusory. The bright moon was veiled in a layer of light gauze, and everything around him became dreamlike. Mu Chen’s heart slowly settled. As he gazed upon the phantasmal scenery, a peculiar feeling suddenly emerged in his mind.

And as this peculiar feeling arose, countless motes of Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi gathered around him as if they were exceptionally fond of him. They circled and danced, leaping and darting about like schools of fish that had found a clear lake.