4th Trial 2

Even Bai's strongest attack didn't work, not like he expected to it. It was more of a test of his strength, as he already knew that there would be better tactics rather than throwing his strongest attack.

After that, Bai did some tries, all of them pointing the same thing. He couldn't complete this test. At least, as he was now. So he decided to take the maximum of his situation to train himself and try to complete the trial in the least time possible. Bai didn't remember when the war started or Renxue reached godhood, he thought that it would have been 3 years later. Anyway, canon changed with his interference, so he couldn't rely on his knowledge about it, so he pushed himself in reaching the fastest he could, always keeping in mind not damaging his foundation.

Bai started his hellish training absence of any pleasure, completely focused on cultivating his strength. He would step on the platform and let his body resist the strong wind, slowly forging it, increasing his endurance. He would finish all bloodied, but he had discovered that thanks to the rich energy of the air, his Life Intent worked even better, severe injuries healing faster. He also realized that while absorbing the air's energy, he didn't need to eat or drink as it was enough to nourish all his body better than any food could have done.

After he arrived at his body's limit, he would then meditate. Developing his breathing technique that was very close to the next level and meditating about his own intents, trying to increase his own comprehension and discovering a more effective fusion of them.

Then, he would train his swords arts fighting against the wind, steadily swinging his swords, slowly breaking through the wind and approaching nearer Tao Yi.

It could be said that he expended all his time cultivating, even without sleeping. The only break was some talk with the wind.

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"Twisting your different Intents to accomplish a fusion is not a bad start, but..." the wind said "If you want to truly accomplish it, you can force it. It should be something natural and swift. That way you would show the true strength of them, rather than the sum of them."

Bai laid on the ground vomiting blood, a wind blade had pierced his lung and only resisting focusing his Life Intent on the injury.

A breeze passed across him, entering for his mouth and nose, traveling for all his respiratory system, healing it in the process.

"Also, your opponent is only one and you already realized that there wasn't any hole in his defense. Why do you continue doing such big attacks and wasting so much energy?" the wind said "You should focus more your power, adapting it to the situation before you."

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Bai swung his swords cutting wind, all his rings were shining together with his swords that became 5 meters long. "Focus!" Bai shouted as the swords bulged and tried to compress themselves.

"Boooom!" Bai's spirit energy went out of control and exploded, shooting Bai outside the platform.

Bai had all his body covered in blood but his face didn't reflect, any surprise at all. He simply sighed "5 hours of recovery" he sat down and started meditating.

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Bai was laying cultivating. He opened his eyes, turning towards where Tao Yi stood "How did you end up here?"

"Ho, ho!" the wind said "Finally interested in this old man's story?"

"It could be more about the boredom, but yes" Bai answered.

The wind ignored his offensive remark and talked "I lived all my life as I wanted. I thought that the best was being free, not being tied to anyone or anything. I traveled always doing whatever my heart wanted, not letting myself be restrained by anyone. I won't gonna lie, this caused me countless beatings and near-death experience. Ho, ho" the wind laughed "What a good time."

"As someone who treasured his freedom more than anything, why did you finish here?" Bai interjected, "Alone in an inhospitable place, tied to a dead body and taking fun with the people who had the bad luck to fall as your prey like me?"

"I traveled unrestrained, flying what I thought was the open sky. But, I discovered the truth" the wind paused.

"What truth?" Bai asked curiously.

"I was never free. Yeah, I made some decisions, but at final, I was only a little bird who is permitted to move as he wants inside a cage." The wind said "It was only that all these years, I didn't discover how huge was the cage before crashing to it. I tried to continue my path, but I was always stopped by this truth, never able to break the huge cage. We all caged, it might be different cages and some may not be able to see theirs, but we are all restrained. I tried to break mine, going beyond to only discover that I was unable to go forward. I already achieved my limit, of strength and life."

"What makes you keep up?" Bai asked "You lived countless years like this" Bai signaled his surroundings "If you can't escape from here, for why do you continue fighting?"

"It may only be the last wish of an old one, but I wanted my end to have some meaning" the wind answered "Even if it's only increasing someone's strength and comprehension. I want to die by someone other hands, be forced to die rather than extinguish me like a flame. And who would be a better person to cease my existence than someone who walked a similar path?"

"I am not like you." Bai said "I have important people that I want to protect. I want to escape from you the shorter the better, as I can't have the luxury of waste my time."

"You are not wasting it." the wind talked "I have faith in you, your strength is increasing. Until you stagnate, you're not wasting time" the wind explained "There won't be a lot of better places better to train you. My specialty is the wind that you are starting to learn, impressive comprehension speed about the elements, I must say. There's also the huge quantity of Life here, followed by the Death energy around Tao Yi."

"You might be right. However..." Bai pointed a sword at Tao Yi "I'll finish you quickly."

"Ho, ho" the wind laughed "It's the only thing that I want. Anyway, for what we are similar is for the strength that we put to break ours restrains" the wind explained "You might be tied by loved ones that you like to be tied with, but for the others, you will fight them as I do. And more importantly, you are also in the big cage known as Sword. You won't be able to enter my domain if you won't have a high comprehension in the Sword Cultivation. I reached the summit of this world, not being possible to go beyond."

Bai stayed thoughtful "You know the Sword God?"

"Of course!" the wind answered, "He wanted that I was his follower, but like always I denied it, not wanting anyone to make my path."

"Even if you could have attained godhood and the ultimate strength, living forever?" Bai asked.

"Even so. After all these years, I discovered that the sword path is blocked, I doubt that 'God' would guide me beyond." After a silence, the wind started talking again "I already told you some of my stories and experiences. Now it is your turn to talk about you. Entertain me!"

Bai then started talking about himself.

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Some time had passed. Without knowing the date and immersed in his training routine, he couldn't know how much time truly had passed. His strength had increased in all this time, his spirit rank breaking through rank 76, but this was important as his improvement in his swords art. Now he had truly attained the All Sword Realm perfection, he was confident in winning a 1vs1 against his uncle Sword. Moreover, his body reached a new complete level, being refined by the wind and healed by the rich energy.

When he arrived here, he had great difficulties to even standing on the top platform, now he could even cultivate surrounded by the strong winds of the limits.

With all this time, he had discovered the true strength of the platform. The area started 50 meters away from Tao Yi and as he approached him, the difficulty increased. From 50 to 30 meters, it didn't change much, only an increase in the strength of the tornados.

From 30-20 meters, the winds covered all the space. More than wind, it seemed gravity, pushing you away from every direction.

From 20-10 meters, a void it's created. A space absent of any kind of energy were your own energy seemed to leak out, trying to escape from this void.

From 10-5 meters, it's similar to the first 20 meters. However, the strength of the tornados couldn't be compared, the comprehension and pure energy behind them is completely at a different level.

Finally, the last that Bai had reached. After crossing the 5 meters line, the space inside seemed to expand, this 5 meters becoming 100. There, the wind forms an avatar of a person that charged towards him. Bai couldn't last more than 3 seconds fighting it at first. Not only it was incredibly strong, but the exhaustion of arriving there also influenced.

If beyond that 5 meters line there was another increase in difficulty, Bai didn't know. But, seeing that he could finally sense Tao Yi's energy when he was inside that mark, he deduced that there wasn't.

Today, Bai stepped over the platform like many times before, tornados charging towards him. Bai had decisive strong eyes as he opened his arms "Break!" a strong wind surged from Bai direction extinguishing the tornados. Yeah, today was different. Today wasn't training, today he was decided to finish his test.