Chapter 44 Upper Courtyard Mission
"Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords? Alright, please hold on." The attendant thought for a moment before nodding with a smile. Then he turned and walked into the secret chamber, disappearing from Lin Yi's field of vision. After a short while, the attendant reappeared from the secret chamber with a manual in his hand and passed it to Lin Yi.
On the front page of the manual, several large words were elaborately written: Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords.
"Thanks, Senior Brother." Lin received the manual and said his thanks.
"Go learn it quickly, I hope to see the results of your training as soon as I can!" The attendant waved his hand, his eyes shining with curiosity.
Lin Yi smiled before turning to leave the sect library. Then he kept the manual carefully and rushed back to his residence using a movement art.
System notification:
Obtained skill book: Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords
Do you want to learn it?
Lin Yi replied yes silently.
A bright light flashed in his eyes and a huge amount of information rushed into his brain. In just a blink of an eye, a sea of knowledge had been imprinted on Lin Yi's memory permanently.
Although this wasn't the first time using the game system to learn skills, but Lin Yi felt emotional each time he used it.
Just the ability to instantly remember and understand everything about a superior sword art alone placed him far above a great many people.
In order to learn the same sword art as him, the others had to first spend much time reading the manual. While he was already far ahead, starting on his sword training.
Each move from Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords appeared vividly in his mind.
Other than the basic information, the game system also provided the records of the knowledge gathered by the seniors who had practised this sword art before him.
Compared to the information on the techniques, Lin Yi valued this knowledge even more.
This knowledge would allow him to assimilate the sword art much faster, and the knowledge was highly detailed, containing information on every aspect.
How to use the sword art under different circumstances, how to chain attacks when using the first move, and how to let your opponent be unable to dodge the attack, eventually dying in a chain of attacks.
There was an abundance of content, and by simply looking through it once, it had already greatly increased Lin Yi's understanding of the sword art.
Very soon, he was able to discern the strengths and flaws of the sword art, even making use of his rich battle experience to easily incorporate the sword art into his own style of fighting.
A sword art could only be mastered when one was able to train it to the point that it belonged to oneself.
Lin Yi's understanding of Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords reached the intermediate stage in no time.
Of course, this only pertained to the usage of the sword art, it wasn't recognised by the game system.
He had not even reached the initial stage of the sword art.
In this kind of situation, the game system was inflexible. It only recognised the effect of training a sword art when it increased one's stats.
Knowledge of usage and other tricks were not recognised.
This was the reason why many players despite reaching a high stage with their sword arts, did not know how to use them properly.
Simply killing mobs and completing quests was sufficient to increase the stage of sword arts, but knowledge of using the sword arts did not increase at all.
With an equally powerful sword art, one who knew how to use it will always greatly surpass one who did not.
The situation was better for the natives in this regard since they had to increase the stage of their sword arts without the assistance of the game system.
Their understanding of sword arts would be better in comparison even if they did not have much talent at it, while those slightly smarter were able to display the intended power of the sword arts.
System notification:
Learnt Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords successfully.
Opening the skills panel, Lin Yi searched for the sword arts section and saw the information he was looking for.
System notification:
Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords (Gold) : Huashan superior sword art, inherited from Huashan Sword School. Beginner (Attack +0), 10,000 experience required to reach initial stage (Attack +7.5).
Lin Yi nodded in satisfaction.
The attack stat added by a gold grade superior sword art was 2.5 times that of the iron grade basic sword art, while the silver grade Huashan Sword Art was 2 times that of the basic sword art.
Although it seemed like a small increase in stats, the required experience was greatly increased.
Once it reached perfection stage, a superior sword art would increase the attack stat by 50, 10 points higher than Huashan Sword Art.
And this was an increase to the base stat.
After factoring in the doubling effect of internal arts, that was 100 points of attack, 20 points higher than Huashan Sword Art.
When one managed to clear the 8 extraordinary meridians and become a first-rate expert, the strengthening effect was increased by another 100%.
50 points of attack was boosted three times to 150 points.
That was 40 points higher than what Huashan Sword Art could achieve.
The greater your progress in internal arts, the greater the difference became.
This was the importance of learning superior martial arts.
If one became a first-rate expert or peak expert without learning superior sword arts but simply due to internal arts, their difference from similarly ranked experts who learnt superior sword arts would only become more and more apparent.
This was the reason why major sects could rule over the entire Shenzhou.
Without inheriting divine skills or superior martial arts, one could never reach the peak of existence.
No matter how much effort or hard work one put in, it was useless.
This was why whenever a divine skill manual or superior martial art manual appeared, a bloody storm would ensue.
In Jianghu, countless minor sects and schools or lone martial artists pursued superior martial arts to the point of madness.
Of course, Lin Yi chose Huashan for that reason.
After personally experiencing the difficulty of obtaining superior martial art manuals, he longer wished to go through the same path again.
It was much more convenient and comfortable to choose a major sect like Huashan and get hold of superior sword arts easily.
......
In the blink of an eye, 4 months had passed.
Lin Yi had spent more than half a year in Huashan.
He experienced the spring and summer in Huashan, and now autumn had arrived.
In 4 months, Lin Yi was able to reach the intermediate stage in Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords.
The power of an intermediate stage superior sword art had surpassed Huashan Sword Art.
Besides that, Lin Yi also practised internal art diligently every day to increase his internal strength. Right now, he had obtained 100,000 experience in his internal art, leaving another 100,000 experience more to go before he could clear the second standard meridian.
This was the result of 4 months' training.
It was not easy to train internal arts, and if not for the game system, Lin Yi was not really that much better than other upper courtyard disciples.
Every time he practised Huashan Sutra he could only earn a small amount of experience.
Accumulating 100,000 experience so far was the result of arduous training.
The biggest reason for the slow progress of both Huashan Sutra and Deadly Chain of Three Celestial Swords was the fact that Lin Yi could no longer obtain any easy experience points in Huashan.
The method of challenging the top 100 no longer worked in upper courtyard.
All the upper courtyard disciples were aware of his obsession with challenges and they unanimously refused Lin Yi's challenges.
There was also no top 100 ranking in upper courtyard so there was nothing Lin Yi could do about their refusals.
Without a source of battle experience points, Lin Yi's progress slowed down naturally.
4 months in Huashan with no source of battle experience nearly drove Lin Yi crazy.
He was constantly thinking of receiving a mission to leave Huashan and seek adventures in Jianghu.
Only by going forth into Jianghu could he easily earn large amounts of battle experience and thus raise the levels of his sword arts and internal arts quickly.
At this moment, Lin Yi received a message from Yu Zecheng.
"I finally got it!" Lin Yi sighed a breath of relief.
He could not bear to stay in Huashan any longer.
Even if it was peaceful and safe in Huashan, this kind of life did not suit Lin Yi at all.
He quickly got up from his bed and rushed to the Hall of Internal Affairs.
......
Once he entered the hall, the first thing he said upon seeing Yu Zecheng was: "Senior Brother Yu, I formally issue a challenge to you. If you are a man, will you accept the challenge?"
"Challenge? I refuse!" Yu Zecheng quickly shook his head.
What a joke, how could he not know Junior Brother Lin's personality?
The title of challenge maniac was already widespread in lower courtyard.
Initially when Lin Yi arrived in upper courtyard, Yu Zecheng was worried that Lin Yi would similarly create a commotion.
Fortunately, there was no top 100 ranking in upper courtyard, only missions.
Thus, upper courtyard disciples were uninterested in rankings and only carrying out missions interested them. By carrying out missions they could seek adventures in Jianghu and spread their name along the way.
As a result, every single upper courtyard disciple refused Lin Yi's challenges.
Yu Zecheng nearly died from laughing when he first heard the news.
Of course, Lin Yi had heard about the matter of him laughing, which was why the first thing he said whenever he saw Yu Zecheng was to challenge him.
The people in Hall of Internal Affairs were tired of hearing it.
Yu Zecheng always refused with a wide smile.
"Ai, this again. Senior Brother Yu, are you still a man!" Lin Yi replied angrily.
Seeing Lin Yi's dispirited face, Xiaoliu and others beside Yu Zecheng covered their mouths and laughed.
Peng, peng, peng!
Yu Zecheng knocked on the table to silence them, then smilingly said to Lin Yi: "Junior Brother Lin, Sect Master has agreed to your request for a mission."
Lin Yi perked up and showed interest immediately: "To where?"
Ever since the mass refusals, Lin Yi constantly thought about going on missions.
Yu Zecheng reported this to Sect Master numerous times, but Sect Master always refused with the reason that Lin Yi was still insufficiently skilled.
This time, Sect Master finally gave his approval, and Lin Yi was greatly excited by this.
Yu Zecheng smiled and shook his head. This Junior Brother Lin of his, must have been nearly stifled to death. Resuming a serious look, he said: "The most important part of doing missions in Jianghu as an upper courtyard disciple is not the mission itself, but the experience you get from wandering Jianghu. Simply training in seclusion will no longer achieve much of an effect and progress in this manner is extremely slow. Junior Brother Lin, you should be well aware of this fact."
Lin Yi nodded in agreement, what Yu Zecheng said was right.
"Therefore, upper courtyard came up with the system of missions for the sake of allowing disciples to gather real world experience." Yu Zecheng paused before continuing: "The place you will be going to has a certain amount of danger. Lanzhou is located at the border of Ming Cult's area of influence, and various types of demonic cult members often appear. It is one of the best places for high quality disciples from major sects to gather experience and temper themselves."
"There are disciples hailing from Shaolin, Wudang, the Five Mountain Sword Sects and many other major sects, who are stationed in Lanzhou. Together, they serve as the Great Constables Corps for the local government in Lanzhou, and their responsibilities are mainly to patrol within the borders of Lanzhou. Disciples sent there are all among the best in their cohort. Junior Brother Lin, Sect Master sent you there because he thinks highly of you, and he is hoping that you can achieve a breakthrough from the harsher experience."