Proofreader & Editor: Peter Pan
"Elder Lin?" Meng Fan asked with curiosity.
Senior Disciple Luo smiled, "Elder Lin is upstairs. You'll meet him when you have time. Go ahead and practice the Spirit Wind Profound Art without any worries."
"Alright, thank you, Senior Disciple Luo."
"No need to thank me. Even if I hadn't taught you, Elder Lin would have eventually. After all, you are a disciple of the Sword Pavilion."
***
In the afternoon, someone visited the Sword Pavilion.
"What brings you to the Sword Pavilion?" Meng Fan inquired of the visitor.
"Are you Meng Fan?" The visitor glanced at him with a displeased expression.
Meng Fan raised an eyebrow.
He knows my name?
And this tone, it seems he's here specifically for me.
Meng Fan had a good guess of who the visitor might be.
Probably Yang Shi, the true owner of the broken sword that Yang Fei dropped yesterday.
With an expressionless face, Meng Fan said, "I am Meng Fan. What do you want?"
"Where is my sword?"
"What sword?"
"Yesterday, I sent Yang Fei to exchange my sword. Not only did you beat him up, but you also took the sword. What's the meaning of this?"
As expected, it was Yang Shi.
Meng Fan smiled coldly.
"Yang Fei attacked me first and got taught a lesson. He left the sword in the Sword Pavilion in a panic and fled. That's his problem.
The sword was lost by him. If you want to find it, you should ask him for it.
If you want to retrieve a sword from the Sword Pavilion, then you must pay ten Spirit Stones. That's the rule!"
Yang Shi glared at Meng Fan with anger, his voice icy, "My sword is clearly with you, and it only costs three Spirit Stones to exchange it."
"Indeed, exchanging a sword costs three Spirit Stones, but where is your sword?" Meng Fan's tone was chilly.
"You know very well that my sword is with you!"
Meng Fan looked at Yang Shi impassively.
"Then you are without a sword, and without a sword, you cannot exchange it, only retrieve it. Retrieving a sword costs ten Spirit Stones."
Yang Shi stared at Meng Fan, his face full of rage, and coldly said, "Are you playing with me?"
Meng Fan replied, "I'm just telling you the rules of the Sword Pavilion."
Yang Shi retorted, "You, a menial disciple, dare to disrespect me like this. Do you wish to die?"
Meng Fan shook his head, looking at Yang Shi coldly.
"I am now a Guarding Sword Disciple of the Sword Pavilion."
"Still a piece of trash!"
At that moment, Senior Disciple Luo emerged from his room, shouting discontentedly, "What's all this noise? This is the Sword Pavilion, not the dining hall!"
He approached Meng Fan and asked, "What's the situation?"
Meng Fan explained everything from start to finish, including how Yang Fei initiated the attack and ended up being defeated by him, ultimately losing his sword.
After listening, Senior Disciple Luo looked at Yang Shi coldly and said, "One should take care of their own sword. How can you just hand it over to someone else? Losing it and then having the audacity to blame others?"
Yang Shi replied with reluctance, "But the sword was clearly lost in the Sword Pavilion."
Senior Disciple Luo coldly said, "No matter where it was lost, it was your responsibility. To retrieve a new sword, it costs ten Spirit Stones. If you don't have the stones, then get out!"
After speaking, Senior Disciple Luo turned back to Meng Fan and said, "You too have an issue, being too kind. That guy dared to attack you yesterday, haha, causing trouble in the Sword Pavilion, you could have killed him without any repercussions!"
Although these words were directed at Meng Fan, Yang Shi, overhearing them, broke out in a cold sweat.
He felt the old man was threatening him.
And he was indeed intimidated by the threat!
So without another word, he turned and left.
If it had been just Meng Fan, he would have certainly argued his case.
But this old man looked like trouble, and it was better not to ask for more trouble!
After Yang Shi left, Meng Fan followed up with a question to Senior Disciple Luo.
"Senior Disciple Luo, if I had killed Yang Fei yesterday, would I really have faced no punishment?"
Senior Disciple Luo chuckled.
He glanced at Yang Shi's retreating figure, then turned to Meng Fan and said, "You, being new to the Sword Pavilion, don't know how fearsome it can be. Those who dare to cause trouble here are as good as dead! "
"I can responsibly tell you that if anyone dares to cause trouble in the Sword Pavilion in the future, you can kill them without any issues."
"Even the Enforcement Hall of the Shu Mountain Sword Sect has to tread carefully around the Sword Pavilion!"
"Of course, the prerequisite is that you have the strength. Otherwise, if you die at someone else's hand, there will be nowhere to seek justice."
Senior Disciple Luo's words left Meng Fan feeling exhilarated.
He hadn't expected that being randomly coaxed into the Sword Pavilion would lead to such a strong backing.
However, the strong backing he referred to wasn't Senior Disciple Luo.
***
It was the "Elder Lin" upstairs that Senior Disciple Luo had mentioned!
Soon, as the sun set, the Sword Pavilion closed its doors again.
Meng Fan returned to his room and began practicing the Spirit Wind Profound Art.
This was his first time formally practicing a cultivation technique, and he was a bit excited.
The wind-attribute technique might not be the strongest in attack, but it granted incredible speed.
Meng Fan was already quite satisfied.
If he had practiced the Shu Mountain Qi Refinement Art, not only would the attack power be weak, but the speed would also be slow, offering no advantage whatsoever.
During his practice, a warm current emerged again in Meng Fan's lower abdomen.
This current clearly accelerated Meng Fan's cultivation speed.
Normally, with Meng Fan's Mixed Spiritual Root, his cultivation would be excruciatingly slow.
One could even say that practicing all night would yield almost no results.
But now, with the boost from this warm current, Meng Fan could clearly feel a strand of True Qi within him slowly growing stronger.
However, this growth only lasted for half the night, and then the effects ceased.
The warm current in Meng Fan's lower abdomen had been completely depleted!
Meng Fan opened his eyes, clearly feeling unsatisfied.
After experiencing accelerated cultivation in the first half of the night, the near-zero speed of cultivation in the latter half was quite disheartening.
"That warm current is clearly the same energy that flows into me every time I draw a sword. I didn't expect it to actually speed up cultivation!"
Meng Fan was filled with determination and decided to start cleaning forty swords every day from then on.
The most frightening thing for a person is to see no hope. Once there's hope, one is filled with motivation.
***
Early in the morning, Meng Fan began cleaning the swords.
When he reached the thirteenth sword, the long-absent Malevolent Aura appeared.
While cleaning the swords, Meng Fan deliberately avoided the ones that seemed powerful, planning to clean those when he became stronger in the future.
But there were always exceptions.
Occasionally, some unremarkable-looking swords would also harbor Malevolent Auras.
After all, even the most ordinary Ordinary Sword, having drawn much blood and taken many lives, could be filled with Malevolent Aura.
Just like the White Night sword Meng Fan had cleaned before, which was suspected to be Lord Eternal Night's first saber as a youth.
The sword Meng Fan was cleaning this time, like the White Night sword, appeared unremarkable but had been through countless killings and was stained with innumerable blood.
【Sword Name: Dark Wind.】