Chapter 349 — Weaknesses Everywhere

He glanced at Li Zheng again and said sheepishly, "My sword art has a few flaws.

. . no, it is not that it has a few flaws—it is flaws everywhere!

Especially lately, the flaws have been growing more and more. " Long Yu, Mu Qingdai and Wang Muran were dumbstruck, and even the Hermit of Qingyou was astonished: "He has moments of genuine humility?

" Shen Mu's face showed shame. "My strongest sword art was defeated by Grandpa Li Zheng's hand—I have never won. Then I met my father, and never won against him either.

. .

Some time ago, when the Jingping Imperial Preceptor awakened to the Dao, I spied upon his awakening, and since then the flaws have only multiplied.

" Those months aboard Qin Hanzhen's treasure ship had been the months of Shen Mu's heaviest blows; the Qin Hanzhen in the painting fed him moves, again and again beating Shen Mu flat to the ground. Had Shen Mu not given Ban Gongcuo a thorough beating, he could never have recovered his confidence.

And at Qingmen Pass, when the Jingping Imperial Preceptor awakened to the Dao, Shen Mu had spied on him, intruding into the Imperial Preceptor's Dao-heart and watching the whole process of his awakening—a shock beyond all measure. But this brought another consequence: his vision and understanding soared, reaching a height the former him could never have attained.

When Shen Mu looked again at the sword diagrams and sword art he had improved, he found the flaws multiplying! Li Zheng too showed surprise.

"Shen'er," he said, "display this sword art of yours, riddled with flaws.

I would like to see it.

" Shen Mu hesitated, then said, "Then I shall make a fool of myself. " He stilled his breath and gathered his spirit; the Carefree Sword rang as it left its sheath.

Shen Mu held the sword in hand; at a single stir of the Carefree Sword's light, countless flying swords streamed from the Taotie Pouch at his back, one after another flying into the Carefree Sword.

Three thousand swords merged with the Carefree Sword. The Carefree Sword was the mother sword, and all the others were child swords, able to merge into the mother sword. As a master refiner of treasures, he knew the sword-core had two forms, and the merging of child swords into the mother sword was one of them. But limited by his dharma power and his strength, Shen Mu could fuse only three thousand swords with the Carefree Sword; any more, and he could not wield them so easily—rather, it would hobble the exercise of his true strength. Shen Mu fixed his eyes on the sword's tip, as though nothing else existed in the world, then drove his sword art; in his hand the Carefree Sword began to move, clumsily.

Whoosh—a surging wind rose. Shen Mu's Carefree Sword moved with great slowness, yet it gave off the sound of some unimaginable weight in motion, crushing the air!

As his sword art unfolded and the Carefree Sword moved, child sword after child sword flew out from within it, like phantoms of the Carefree Sword; the sword light split again and again, and every child sword that flew from the Carefree Sword performed a different sword move.

The seventeen base sword moves showed themselves in the trajectories of these flying swords, moves thrown into confusion and laid one over another, until the sword art seemed a chaotic tangle. What he performed was the move called Sword Treading Mountains and Rivers, yet in its sword principles it was now wholly different from the Sword Treading Mountains and Rivers that Li Zheng had taught him.

His sword art was clumsy, without any sense of nimbleness; only as the Carefree Sword's speed quickened did a nimbleness gradually come, and the child swords flying in the air grew more and more numerous, the sword art faster and faster, dancing in attendance on the Carefree Sword in his hand! The Hermit of Qingyou's face grew graver and graver, while Long Yu, Mu Qingdai and Wang Muran found that they could no longer follow it at all. The sword principles involved in Shen Mu's art grew more and more complex, more and more profound. Above this immortal mountain, the three thousand flying swords now gathered and scattered like clouds, like grey clouds massed and rent; now became towering mountains that broke the cloud vapors apart; now became a long river in the empty sky, rushing down until one could almost hear the sound of water; now became a thousand trees and ten thousand more, rank with green, so lush that one could see every vein upon every leaf and blade of grass! After a while, all the sword light vanished.

Shen Mu shook the Carefree Sword, and the flying swords flew out from it one by one, dropping into the Taotie Pouch at his back. "There is no need to compete!

" Mu Qingdai came to herself and said hurriedly, "My cultivation is a shade below Senior Brother Long Yu's; better that I not compete at all! " Wang Muran shook his head. "I could not withstand that move either.

No need to compete—I concede. " Long Yu's face was pale.

He opened his mouth, found his throat dry again, hastily gulped two mouthfuls of water and said, "Your sword art—I can no longer understand it. " The Hermit of Qingyou was dazed. He looked at Shen Mu, then at Li Zheng, and suddenly sighed: "Old brother of the Dao, you have taken a fine disciple. Your sword art has entered the Dao. " Li Zheng shook his head.

"I did not teach him to refine the sword this way; he comprehended it himself.

Shen'er, your sword art still has many flaws—like a broken sieve leaking wind on every side.

You must keep working at it.

If you meet someone whose insight surpasses your own, you will die without even knowing how. " Shen Mu shuddered with cold.

"I see the flaws too," he mumbled, "but I still cannot mend them.

" "Is this any way to teach a disciple? " The Hermit of Qingyou did not know whether to laugh or cry.

"This sword art could already reign supreme under heaven, could it not? Anyone who surpasses it must be a figure who has attained the very Dao of the sword!

"