Dragon Heart: Iron Will. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 2 Page 26

  Soon after she died, he set out on his journey, which lasted many thousands of years. His only goal was to become as strong as he possibly could. His sword had to be the fastest and the sharpest.

  He achieved Immortality, but after three thousand years, he lost a duel and had to run back to the place where he had fallen in love with the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. Upon his return, he found that his Kingdom had been replaced by another. Where his home had once been, there was now a mountain range of solid black stone.

  “Tell me about the Land of the Immortals,” Hadjar requested later that day after he swung his blade and, realizing that he didn’t have enough strength left to hold the sword, collapsed onto the grass.

  “I’ve already told you about it.” The Spirit seemed to audibly sigh.

  “Yeah, but I want to hear it again.”

  The Shadow looked at his disciple. He never shirked, never complained. He trained harder than the Spirit himself had trained during his life. Yet, without the Laws and without his heritage, the Shadow’s ability to teach him was very limited. In fact, he didn’t really teach Hadjar, instead, he inspired him.

  “The Land of Immortals lies many millions of miles away. You’d have to spend a million years traveling through some of the most hostile lands if you wanted to walk there, and seven hundred thousand to ride there. Nevertheless, even if you became a mindless ghost when you got there, it would all be worth it.”

  Hadjar propped himself up on his elbow, lit his pipe, and looked at the Shadow. The Spirit had once again gotten lost somewhere deep within himself and his old memories.

  “There, the cities are as vast as what you refer to as the Darnassus Empire. The sky is always clear and pure, filled with both flying beasts and Immortals. Their palaces are far more beautiful than my tomb, and inside them, they study the very laws of the universe and the world around them. The sages, whose schools are second to none, instruct young Immortals. After all, a million years are nothing to them as they live for maybe twenty million years.”

  A being that could live for twenty million years. It sounded so absurd that Hadjar had almost laughed at first. Only his respect for his mentor, and his own hope that it was true had kept him from being so rude.

  “Life is always in full swing there, and everyone has devoted themselves to the path of cultivation. They know things that neither of us can imagine. The Land of Immortals is a paradise for those who follow the path of cultivation, who despise the will of Heaven, and who forge destiny and freedom with their own hands.”

  Hadjar closed his eyes and smiled. He imagined himself, Serra and Nero going on a long journey someday. Past deserts and mountains, through seas and oceans, and after thousands of misadventures and scrapes, they would one day reach the Land of Immortals. They’d get there and... Go even farther. To the place where even the strongest of Immortals had never been before.

  To the edge of this world... if it even existed.

  What would they find there? Maybe the Gods themselves? Hadjar didn’t know, but he could hear the cheerful spring wind beckoning him to find out.

  Chapter 122

  The Spirit returned to the Treasury, leaving Hadjar alone with the statue. About once a month, the Shadow had to return to the palace to nourish himself with the energy of the core hanging under the cave’s vault. Without it, he would have disappeared, melting away like an early morning fog.

  At first, Hadjar had thought his mentor was just a ghost. However, it was unlikely that a mere ghost could cut a piece of rock or water in half using only one finger. Yes, recently, when the disciple had finally managed to damage the statue, the ancient cultivator had pointed at the pond. As he’d done so, the water contained in it had split in two, as if a gigantic and insanely strong sword had struck its surface, effortlessly splitting the water in two.

  Upon witnessing this, all the pride immediately disappeared from the disciple’s eyes, which meant the demonstration had served its purpose. As his own teacher had used to say, every genius needed modesty. The Shadow had no doubt that the young warrior was a genius. Maybe he wasn’t as talented in cultivation as most who had come here before him, but his swordplay inspired real terror.

  The Spirit then said that Hadjar taking four months to inflict just one cut wasn’t fast enough. He’d never lied so blatantly in his entire life. The best disciples of his sect had needed to spend a dozen years on cutting such a statue.

  The Spirit himself had spent seven years on it, and he was the very best swordsman of his generation. His achievement had been considered a heroic defiance of the laws of both Heaven and Earth.

  Unaware of this, his disciple had succeeded in just four months. If someone from the Land of Immortals had known about his achievement, they would’ve sent their best assassins to get rid of a possible future threat without delay.

  Hadjar didn’t know what he’d done, and so he just complained about how slowly he was progressing. Of course, after these four months, he was also better able to understand his sword and what he could achieve with it. Thanks to this understanding, his ‘Strong Wind’ and ‘Calm Wind’ stances had become much stronger. The first one now created not just a tornado, but a miniature, full-blown storm that was ten feet in diameter. Similar to a tsunami, but made up only of wind. The swords hidden in it had also become thicker and stronger than Hadjar had previously been able to create.

  His ‘Calm Wind’ could now deflect the Spirit’s casual strike. While that may not sound like much, the Shadow could cut through a stone the size of a house with that same attack.

  Hadjar noticed the most progress in his third stance, the ‘Spring Wind’. He still couldn’t fully comprehend its depth and mystique, but even his newfound scant knowledge that he currently possessed was enough to turn his ‘simple’ steel beam into a dragon’s silhouette. In his earlier attempts, Hadjar had had to use almost his entire power reserve to accomplish this, and now he used no more than one quarter.

  It would be possible, with this in mind, to presume that Hadjar had become over four times stronger, but that wasn’t the case. He hadn’t become physically stronger, but he had begun to use his abilities more intelligently and efficiently.

  Now, as he sat down and placed the Ice Bear’s core in front of him, Hadjar decided to try something that was long overdue. He was going to attempt to reach the next Stage of Formation.

  Closing his eyes, Hadjar calmed his breathing. He slowly sunk into the bottomless river of energy that washed over everything. In its depths, he could see the steel glare more clearly now. Somewhere in those bottomless waters was the quintessence of all knowledge, Laws, Techniques, and paths associated with the Sword. It emitted its own energy.

  According to his mentor, when Hadjar had approached it before, he’d been lucky to get away with his life. Only someone that had reached the level of a true cultivator could begin to explore such energies. Trying it before that was akin to signing one’s own death warrant, and so the Spirit was once again surprised by what the Warrior was capable of.

  Glancing at the distant, steel star, Hadjar began to gradually absorb the energy of the world. With each new breath, he felt the five fragments in his soul become even brighter.

  They blazed with power and energy.

  If Hadjar had had to make an effort to bring them closer to each other before, now they were trying to merge with no encouragement from the General.

  The only thing they lacked was a suitable explosion of power. That’s why Hadjar had put the beast’s core in front of him. In the raging flow of the world’s energy, it looked like the ghost of a huge bear. It was a shadow of the shadow, only a spark left after its death. But even as a shadow, it looked at Hadjar with a fury that would’ve stopped the hearts of many mere mortals. But Hadjar had long ago stopped being a mere mortal.

  “We’ll fight again,” Hadjar growled.

  He mentally reached out to this energy. As he did so, the bear growled, turned around, and tried to hide in the river’s depths,
but Hadjar’s unbreakable will held it down. The beast struggled to free itself as Hadjar pulled it closer and closer to his fragments. Their struggle was like a tug of war. Only, instead of ending up in the mud, the loser faced a much more terrible fate.

  If the beast failed to escape into the depths of the river, it would become food, consumed by Hadjar. If Hadjar didn’t win the fight, he would be pulled into the darkness, doomed to sink into it for all eternity. His body would sit in the Lotus position, but his consciousness would never come back to him.

  From the outside, their struggle looked very different.

  The young man sitting on the stone was wrapped in a smooth, gray-blue glow. Opposite him, there was a stone that looked like amber and agate simultaneously. It was as big as a walnut, and it emitted a fierce stream of white light that illuminated the cavernous surroundings.

  The air whirled around him. It played with his hair and his old, ragged clothes. As if the man’s very breath had summoned the wind.

  A wave of frost emanated from the stone and the air around Hadjar howled with the cold as the first snowflakes fell on the young man’s hair.

  Two lights, blue and white, swirled in an eerie dance. They fought each other, trying to absorb their opponent as they rose and fell, twisted and turned.

  Large drops of sweat rolled down Hadjar’s face. This was the second time he’d tried to get to the next Stage of cultivation with the help of a beast’s core. Many practitioners didn’t dare to attempt such a thing even once. It was too painful and dangerous. Usually, they used different ingredients or, if they had the money for it, special alchemical pills.

  Grinding his teeth, Hadjar continued his fight against the shadow of the ferocious Ice Bear. He wasn’t going to accept failure a second time.

  He cried out in pain, the likes of which he’d never felt before. It felt like someone had pierced every cell of his body with a sharp needle, torturing his very atoms. Hadjar’s entire body ached, including his hair and the nails on his fingers.

  Falling from the boulder, he crawled to the pond and greedily drank the cool water.

  “Status,” he croaked.

  Name

  Hadjar

  Level of cultivation

  Formation (Core)

  Strength

  2.6

  Dexterity

  2.85

  Physique

  2.3

  Energy points

  6

  After having his fill, Hadjar rolled onto his back. He breathed heavily, unable to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and yet his face shone with a carefree smile. After almost six months, he’d taken another step on the path of cultivation. It was a small one—not even beyond the Stage of Formation—but it was a step nonetheless.

  That was still enough to strengthen Hadjar’s willpower and heart as he sat up and smiled.

  Chapter 123

  Ten months in the cave passed as quickly as a week on the parade ground. Distracted by his endless training and meditation, Hadjar didn’t notice how close he’d gotten to the threshold that separated the Stage of Formation from Transformation. Moreover, Hadjar had learned so much about the sword and now understood why all his past knowledge had seemed so fragmentary and incomplete.

  His swordsmanship was faster than it had ever been, and his strikes were now capable of inflicting such deep cuts on the statue that the moment when he would be able to actually slice into it was getting closer by the day.

  If he’d felt the world around him before, now he just felt the sword in his hand. It was no longer a soulless lump of steel used only to take a life. It was an integral part of Hadjar. Not a friend, not a brother or a lover, but a part of him, as much as his right arm or left leg were.

  With that understanding had come a new power. While his strikes had once been able to strike a target at a distance of thirty steps, now he could do it at a distance of almost forty.

  Maybe he was still extremely far from the level of a ‘Wielder of the Sword’, but now, at least, he could see the path he should take on his journey.

  “If you were to choose the legacy, then in ten thousand years, your name would resound throughout the Land of Immortals.”

  As usual, the Spirit was sitting on the boulder and trying to tempt his disciple. They both knew that it was useless, but they were in no hurry to give up their conversations. For the Shadow, it was an opportunity to talk to someone, and for Hadjar, it was a chance to learn something new. Each time he attempted to persuade the warrior, he would approach it through the telling of another story.

  These stories helped the young man expand his understanding of the world. His knowledge deepened and became more profound. It seemed like it was taking root in still-hidden mysteries and secrets.

  Like roots fed a tree, these roots fed Hadjar with knowledge, which made him not only stronger, but also calmer, wiser, and freer.

  “Maybe after I help Nero, I’ll come back to you for the legacy,” Hadjar said.

  “Alas,” the Spirit replied, “the entrance to my tomb is like a river that can only be entered once.”

  “Then I’ll bring you a worthy warrior to whom you can give all these treasures,” the General replied.

  The Spirit didn’t say it out loud, but he knew that Fate didn’t make a choice twice. It had brought him this man, this General of a miniature kingdom. But in spite of all the hardships he’d been through, the General’s heart was bigger and stronger than he could’ve ever imagined. And the Spirit knew that the most important thing on the path of cultivation was one’s heart and the strength of their will.

  Talent, ability, money, artifacts, Techniques—all of this was nothing more than road dust. A wind blew in one direction, and the dust followed the wind. It blew in another direction, and the dust followed it there as well. But no matter what storm arose, no matter how much the Heavens wept and the Earth trembled, they could never break a truly iron will and a strong heart.

  The Shadow knew that nobody else would ever be able to pass his tests.

  The gods had a very poor sense of humor when it came to these things.

  They had given him an heir without any desire to become stronger. Or rather, one who refused to become stronger at the cost of someone’s life.

  “What do you think, Hadjar, how did all the Techniques and the path of cultivation first appear?”

  Hadjar, who was currently practicing his swordsmanship again, froze in the middle of an attack. His sword never touched the stone statue before him.

  To be honest, he’d never thought about this question for some reason. He’d taken the existence of Techniques and cultivation for granted. His life, and the lives of many others, were devoted to it. Legends and songs were composed about it. Cultivation permeated the very essence of people’s lives in this world. It just was.

  “Were they invented by the Gods?” Hadjar asked uncertainly.

  The Spirit only smiled.

  “The sages in the Land of Immortals say that the Gods appeared thanks to the path of cultivation.”

  “Well, I don’t know, then. Maybe they came to be along with the universe? Just like the stars in the night sky… They just appeared?”

  “Nothing in the universe just appears or disappears, Hadjar. Everything has its reason for existing and its goal.” The Spirit got up and walked to the edge of the cliff. He looked at his palace, at the dragon and the stork circling the golden roofs before him. “I just hadn’t realized it before.”

  Hadjar sheathed his sword and sat on the grass.

  “If an Immortal wasn’t able to understand this after six hundred thousand years, then I surely can’t.”

  “Still, I’d like to talk to you about it. Consider it my final lesson.”

  Hadjar didn’t mind having a little distraction from his training. It was a good opportunity to not spend his time idly, and instead learn something new that could further fuel his insatiable thirst for knowledge.

  “When the sage told me this story, I didn’t und
erstand its point. Now I’ll tell it to you. Maybe one day you’ll understand its true meaning, as I understand it now. Alas, I had to die to finally grasp it. ”

  The Spirit returned and sat back down on the stone near his student. He put his sword across his lap and absently ran his fingers over the sharp blade.

  “Humans weren’t the first inhabitants of this world,” the Spirit began. “When people first appeared, there were monsters and beasts already here. Many of them could destroy us with just a look or a single breath. Then, locked in an endless struggle for survival, we found a way to become stronger, to live. The humans found the river of world energy, bathed in it, and turned into the world’s first practitioners.”

  Hadjar listened in silence, only occasionally nodding in understanding. It was logical to assume that evolution hadn’t produced people right from the start. While humankind was still relatively young, all sorts of powerful beasts lived in the endless expanses that seemed older than time itself.

  “All my life, I’ve thought that the path of cultivation is the only way to gain power and the freedom to control your destiny, but... ” The Spirit looked at the fiery core burning under the stone arch. “I was wrong, Hadjar. So very, very wrong.”

  That’s where the conversation ended.

  For the remaining two months, the Shadow tripled Hadjar’s training. He pointed out even the smallest flaws and mistakes in any movement the Warrior made, even his breathing. When the last day of the allotted period arrived, and Hadjar managed to cut the head off the statue, the Shadow sighed quietly.

  They said their farewells in a way that befitted true warriors.

  “Live free,” the Spirit wished his apprentice.

  Hadjar stood near the entrance to the long corridor.