Upon reaching his room, Yue Huang finally went through his cultivation manual.
...
The [Jade Script] basically used the sword forms as basis for refinement of the body.
There were twelve sword forms mentioned in the manual, although they looked simple, Yue Huang knew that they were far from it as they seemed to hold a mystery within itself.
Yue Huang didn't have a sword, so he just made do with a broom that was there in his room. He knew this wasn't the right way as he needed an actual sword as per the manual, but right now Yue Huang just wanted to know whether he could properly execute the sword forms or not.
The first sword form was 'Fish jumping into the sky'.
The stances involved in this form were easy to execute one-by-one but Yue Huang noticed that the moment he tried to execute them together at once, there was some sort of restrainment felt in his body that made it harder for him to execute the form altogether.
The 'Fish jumping into the sky' was a defensive form that could defend as well as counter-attack. This sword form, although seemingly simple, was difficult to execute with precision and speed. Everything mostly focused on speed, If one wasn't fast enough then the form itself would crumble apart,making the user vulnerable to being fatally attacked.
As Yue Huang tried to continuously execute the first sword form, he found it increasingly hard to execute the form together at once. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes turned to hours and without Yue Huang noticing, five hours had already passed away.
Yue Huang truly felt tired and exhausted as he laid on his bed, panting profusely. His whole body was drenched with sweat.
Suddenly, Yue Huang heard some knocking sounds at his door.
*Knock* *Knock*
"Come in.", Yue Huang said. He was too exhausted to even move from his bed as his whole body was aching as if he just did some insanity workout.
Yue Yi stepped inside the room, and looking at his exhausted son, he felt more pleased.
[Looks like he has started cultivating the moment he went back to his room-eh? why is he holding a broom?], only then did Yue Yi realize that his son had no sword and had to resort to using a broom for training.
Yue Yi's chuckled silently as he thought the scene of Yue Huang training with a broom would surely be comical.
"Huang'er, you could have discussed with me if you didn't have a sword! Why resort to using a broom?"
Only then did Yue Huang realize that he was still holding up a broom in his right hand as he lay on his bed, feeling embarrassed he quickly threw the broom away.
Yue Yi couldn't help but laugh seeing such a scene, he threw a bag of coins towards Yue Huang who caught the bag with ease.
"Huang'er, there are a thousand gold coins within the bag, go get yourself a nice sword and remember these words: Sword doesn't define the man, It is the man who defines the sword!"
Yue Yi was about to take his leave then he suddenly remembered, " -almost forgot what I came here for, Huang'er get dressed properly, we are leaving to witness the finals of the martial tournament!"
" Finals..?", Yue Huang inevitably asked.
" What more do you expect? you missed the preliminaries, qualifiers and the semi-finals.."
Yue Yi shrugged as he continued, " Well, the finals will definitely be a show worth watching. Get ready, we will leave in an hour."
...
An hour passed by in a flash, Yue Huang had already taken a bath and gotten dressed in white robes that were embroidered with the words 'Yue' behind them.
He soon accompanied his father and the Yue family crowd to the 'Sigai stadium' where the martial tournament was being held.
Being from one of the four prominent families of Tingxin empire, the Yue family were allotted a large VIP room to view the tournament.
Yue Huang sat beside his father and looked through the huge glass screen at the stage below.
There was a huge gathering of the crowds below and Yue Huang knew that the battle between the finalists would begin soon.
...
On the most prominent stage which stretched for about a hundred meters in diameter, two youths stood facing each other.
A commentator's voice echoed through the stadium as he introduced the two youths.
"Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see the one on my left, is the 'rising dragon of east', Zing Shan! "
" Zing Shan is well-known throughout the Lushu empire for his sword skills! It was even said by a formidable recluse expert from the Lushu empire that among the younger generations below twenty years of age, there probably isn't anyone who can compete with Zing Shan when it comes to sword skills! "
The crowd echoed with a round of cheers.
"On my right is the 'dark horse' of this tournament, Cue Dong! Being only an illegitimate son of the Cue family, he has done well to reach all his way to the finals, even ruthlessly defeating his own Cue family disciples! Although his cultivation is similar to Zing Shan's being at lv 1 Qi Condensation Realm, can he take on the future successor of the Zing family head-on?! "
As it came till here, the crowd errupted with greater number of cheers. It was a given, since the crowd always liked the 'dark horses' that appeared in the tournament.
But Cue Dong's mouth twitched at the commentary, clearly he didn't like referred to being called as an 'illegitimate' son.
Zing Shan, who stood at 5"7, with his devilishly charming face looked with contempt towards Cue Dong.
This was the natural contempt that one from a main family had towards the branch family descendants, let alone someone who was illegitimate.
"Match, begin!", The judge shouted out.
...
"I don't need my sword to defeat you!", Zing Shan spoke with disdain as he saw how Cue Dong carefully approached him with his eyes fully trained onto his sword.
Cue Dong, who was just trying to carefully plan out his attack didn't expect such a taunt by his opponent, this was practically disgracing him even though they were both fellow-finalists!
"You will regret this!", Cue Dong spoke as he shot right towards Zing Shan while the stage cracked under his quick footwork.
"Strong!", Yue Huang muttered, he could almost imagine a scene from Dragon-Ball Z where he saw Goku shouting out and the ground around him cracking apart. Although the scene before him wasn't so exaggerated, it was still awe-inspiring.
Yue Yi chipped in when he saw his son's awe-struck face, "Cue Dong is a lv 1 Qi Condensation Realm cultivator who has already finished refining his body, this is only to be expected. But that kid, Zing Shan is a rare surprise. "
Although Yue Huang was impressed with Cue Dong, he didn't understand why his father sounded more impressed with Zing Shan? The latter was just retreating about in front of Cue Dong's assault!