Devour: Can you also draw entries from clone projection worlds?

[The thirteenth year has passed, and the entry is being extracted... Congratulations, host, for obtaining the white entry: Steady Steps]

You glanced at it, saw it was a white entry, and didn't pay much attention to it; you just accepted it.

In the fourteenth year, you did something daring: you ventured into Blackwood Cliff at night.

It wasn't about stealing anything; I just wanted to test just how powerful my various attributes really were when combined.

Blackwood Cliff is a rare forbidden area in the martial arts world. Not to mention the large number of top-notch masters on it, the difficulty of the path to the top alone is evident.

You spent two days traveling from Mount Hua to Black Cliff, waiting at the foot of the mountain until dark, then changed into your night clothes and quietly made your way up the mountain.

The defenses at Blackwood Cliff are more stringent than you might imagine. There are sentries on the mountain paths, disciples patrolling around the main hall, and several hidden hiding places on the back mountain.

But the effect of "concealing your aura" was even better than you expected. As you passed the sentry post, the sentry hiding behind the rock yawned without you noticing.

Just as you were climbing over the cliff, the patrolling disciple turned to look in the other direction. It was a few seconds too late, but that was enough.

You hid in the back mountain of Blackwood Cliff all night, figuring out the entire sect's layout and patrol patterns.

Before dawn, you quietly descended the mountain.

This trip went unnoticed by anyone.

[The fourteenth year has passed, and the entry is being extracted... Congratulations, host, for obtaining the white entry: Night Vision]

In the fifteenth year, you began to focus your cultivation on internal energy.

Previously, you focused on swordsmanship and movement techniques, and internal energy was just something you cultivated as an extra skill, enough to get by. After so many years, you've only barely reached the mid-stage of first-rate.

But as your swordsmanship improves, you find yourself hitting a bottleneck. It's not a problem with the moves, but rather that your internal energy can't keep up.

Top-tier swordsmanship requires top-tier internal energy to support it.

Your internal strength is still at the mid-first-rate level, which means you can't sustain a prolonged fight in actual combat and will start to tire after a few dozen moves.

You found some fragments about internal energy cultivation in the secret cave of the Cliff of Contemplation. They were left behind by the ten elders of the Demonic Sect.

Although these fragments are not systematic, the passages about the "circulation route of internal energy" have given you great inspiration.

You tried adjusting your internal energy circulation route according to the method in the fragment, and the effect was surprisingly good. With the same internal energy cultivation method, after changing the circulation route, the speed of internal energy circulation increased by nearly 30%.

You applied this method to your daily practice, and your internal energy began to steadily improve.

[Fifteenth year in total, in the process of extracting terms... Congratulations, host, for obtaining the white term: Enduring Inner Energy]

[You couldn't help but laugh. This entry, combined with your newly discovered method of circulating internal energy, was a perfect match.]

In the sixteenth year, you met Feng Qingyang.

It wasn't something I deliberately sought out; it was truly a chance encounter.

That day, you were gathering herbs in the back mountains when you came to a valley you had never been to before and saw an old man in gray sitting by the stream fishing.

You recognized those eyes at a glance; they were exactly the same as the ones you saw on the Cliff of Contemplation ten years ago.

Feng Qingyang recognized you too.

"That kid who secretly learned stone carving." The old man put down his fishing rod, looked you over, and said, "You've really improved a lot in ten years."

You bowed and said, "Greetings, Senior Feng."

Feng Qingyang waved his hand: "Stop with the pleasantries. I'm asking you, have you used what you learned from the stone carvings?"

"I used it."

"How do you use it?"

"It's meant to cover your own weaknesses, not to break someone else's sword."

Feng Qingyang was silent for a moment, then nodded: "That's right. Knowing your own weaknesses is more important than knowing others' weaknesses. Your Senior Brother Linghu just doesn't understand this principle."

You didn't respond. Feng Qingyang glanced at you again and suddenly said, "Your approach to sword practice is correct, but it lacks the element of 'life.' A sword is inanimate, but a person is alive. If you train a person to be inanimate, the sword will be inanimate; if you train a person to be alive, the sword will be alive."

It took you several days to understand what Feng Qingyang meant.

You're still too "proper." You practice every move to perfection and take every step correctly, but it's precisely this "correctness" that makes your swordsmanship lack vitality.

You need to learn to "make mistakes"—not really mistakes, but deliberately breaking the rules to make your swordsmanship less perfect.

When you start practicing swordsmanship, you deliberately "make mistakes": the arc you draw isn't round, the angle of your thrust is a little off, and the speed at which you retract your sword is a beat slower.

At first, I wasn't used to it at all, and I felt like I was just fooling around.

But after practicing for a few months, you find that your swordsmanship has changed. It hasn't become stronger, but more "flexible".

Each move possesses an inexplicable, fluid quality, leaving the opponent completely unpredictable as to where your next strike will come from.

[The sixteenth year has passed. Entry extraction in progress... Congratulations, host, for drawing the white entry: Effortless Mastery]

"Take this and continue practicing your swordsmanship."

In the seventeenth year, after you adjusted your focus, your internal strength finally broke through to the late stage of the first-class realm.

This is not due to any genius or innate talent, but rather to the accumulation of knowledge day after day and year after year.

"Body Refinement Genius" grants a 30% growth speed bonus, "Long-lasting Inner Breath" allows your inner strength to recover faster, and "Persistence at the Beginning" ensures you never stop.

The three terms combined compressed more than ten years of cultivation time into seven years. You completed in seven years what others took more than ten years to achieve.

On the day of the breakthrough, you feel something inside your body make a "click" sound.

It wasn't a real sound, but a feeling, like a blocked passage suddenly opening up.

The internal energy surged through the meridians instantly, more than twice as fast as before.

You casually swung your sword, and the wind from the sword left a deep mark on the stone wall.

With first-rate late-stage internal energy, first-rate peak swordsmanship, and first-rate peak movement technique, you finally deserve the title of "first-rate master."

[The seventeenth year has passed. Entry extraction in progress... Congratulations, host, for extracting the white entry: Control and Release]

[The eighteenth year has passed. Entry extraction in progress... Congratulations, host, for drawing the white entry: Tranquility and Concentration - Initial]

In the nineteenth year, after a brief absence, you quickly returned to Mount Hua.

It's not that you're homesick, but you've heard something: the Huashan Sect is about to rise again.

After Yue Buqun's death, the Huashan Sect "dispersed" for nearly ten years. Now, some of the former inner disciples say they want to hold some kind of grand event to revitalize the Huashan Sect's prestige.

You stand at a distance, watching those familiar yet unfamiliar faces bustling about in front of the main hall of the Huashan Sect.

You recognized several of them at a glance; they were your fellow disciples who practiced swordsmanship with you back then, and now they were middle-aged.

Their faces are wrinkled, their hair is gray, and their eyes are filled with the marks of time.

You didn't go up to acknowledge him; it would be too troublesome to explain the sudden appearance of someone who had disappeared for ten years.

You only glanced at it from afar, then turned and went back to the Cliff of Repentance.

The Huashan Sect may truly be on the rise again, but the Huashan Sect you spent ten years in is long gone.