This Sword Cultivator is Somewhat Dependable

Lin Yao's heart was uneasy, fearing it might be bad news. With an anxious expression, she took the jade slip that contained the message from an attendant of the Great Xia Commercial Firm and read the information inside.

Afterward, an extremely complex expression appeared on Lin Yao's face, which contained joy, surprise, and other indescribable special meanings.

Regaining her composure, Lin Yao quickly paid a sum of Spirit Stones and left a message, entrusting it to the Great Xia Commercial Firm.

The Great Xia Commercial Firm would use its own channels to quickly send this message back to Zhenjiang City.

Later, personnel from the Great Xia Commercial Firm in Zhenjiang City would personally deliver Lin Yao's message to the Lin Family.

...

Shortly after Lin Yao had left, Lu Qingshan's courtyard welcomed a new group of visitors.

It was Tiger Squad's Su Shu and Xu Hao.

Lu Qingshan looked meaningfully at the man and woman in front of him, whose hands were intertwined in what seemed like an excessively intimate gesture.

Under Lu Qingshan's scrutinizing gaze, Su Shu still maintained her composure with a smile.

On the other hand, the tall and burly Xu Hao felt very uncomfortable under Lu Qingshan's intense gaze, and his face even stiffened a bit.

Nevertheless, Xu Hao didn't dare to withdraw his hand, which was being held, and he just awkwardly touched his nose.

Su Shu rolled her eyes at Xu Hao and explained to Lu Qingshan, "Xu Big Brother and I specially came here to thank you for saving our lives last time."

Lu Qingshan raised an eyebrow nonchalantly and teased, "Apart from being your captain, he is also my captain."

"When the captain is in trouble, helping out is just part of being a team member. There's nothing to thank me for."

Xu Hao, who was straightforward by nature, didn't bother with formalities with Lu Qingshan and took out a green jade slip from his storage ring, handing it to Lu Qingshan.

Lu Qingshan was somewhat surprised, "What is this?"

Xu Hao said in a grave voice, "After I reported the details to the Tower, the vice Tower Master personally stepped in to support us and confronted the Black Ice Platform for accountability."

"Under pressure, the Black Ice Platform had to bleed heavily this time to settle things down. This is one of the costs they had to pay."

"It's a technique that I think you will like."

"Oh?!"

A thought crossed Lu Qingshan's mind.

Currently, his sword technique system, at least in his own view, was extremely rudimentary and simplistic.

As of now, what he could boast about the most was his explosive power, which far surpasses that of cultivators of the same cultivation level.

The Crying Soul Sword's ability of Soul Shock, coupled with the instant binding effect produced by the Secret Sword: Wind Slash and the Falling Bright Sword Technique, formed a series of chain control that would allow Lu Qingshan to instantly kill most cultivators at the initial stage of Foundation Establishment.

Powerful as such!

This set of explosive techniques for slaying could already be considered an independent system of offensive techniques.

However, Lu Qingshan also knew that although his sword technique system seemed invincible for now, he still had many major issues to resolve when facing cultivators with different approaches.

His battles during this period seemed very smooth, but that was only because he had not encountered any cultivators who could exploit his weaknesses.

In fact, even in his best area of offense, there were still many deficiencies.

Firstly, all his skills were single-target attacks, making him extremely fearful of being ganged up on.

In the Cultivation World, not to mention others, just speaking of Beast Cultivators, they were largely considered his natural nemesis.

If it were like Xiao Zhi from the Tiger Squad, who followed a route of having fewer but stronger beast pets, he was not particularly afraid; at worst, he would just end it with one strike.

But once he encountered a Beast Cultivator who used the swarm approach, with strange tactics like swarms of bees, insects, or similar creatures overwhelming by their numbers, Lu Qingshan would really be at a loss.

—No matter how strong his sword techniques were, or how fast his Flying Swords were, he simply could not slash through swarms that large.

Therefore, learning a group attack technique to deal with this kind of situation was an essential requirement for a Sword Cultivator.

The best and most common mass attack skills for Sword Cultivators totaled two.

Sword Light Differentiation, and Sword Qi into Threads.

The issue was that to reach such a level with Sword Light and Sword Qi, the Sword Cultivator's Divine Soul must not be weak, nearly needing to meet the standard of a Golden Core Cultivator.

Before obtaining the spell to train one's Divine Sense, or reaching Golden Core, researching Sword Light and Sword Qi would be extremely inefficient and the gains would not compensate for the losses.

Thus, he could only put aside these two skills for the time being.

Beyond this, he also lacked an Escape Technique.

Although he already possessed the Sword Control Technique, an Escape Technique, it was mainly used for kiting combined with Flying Sword Technique.

What he needed was a specialized close-range Escape Technique to fulfill the mobility requirements when executing close combat sword techniques.

Last and most importantly, he needed a set of Defensive Sword Technique.

If anyone believed that as a Sword Cultivator, the best at fighting among the six types of Cultivators, one could neglect defense and devote oneself entirely to offense, they certainly hadn't been brutalized by the real world yet.

In his past life, Lu Qingshan had seen plenty of such people.

At the start of the game's public test, there was a considerable number of Sword Cultivator players who advocated one view: as a Sword Cultivator, even if it means death, one should not learn defensive skills, as it went against a Sword Cultivator's faith.

The result was that these players, after dying dozens of times, finally admitted, "Ah, it's really necessary for a Sword Cultivator to learn a defensive skill."

...

Generally speaking, professions with low health, like Dharma Cultivation and Spiritual Cultivation, have one thing in common: during Magical Combat, they need to control the distance, attacking from afar with Techniques and Spirit Arts to avoid damage.

But Sword Cultivators are different.

In "Nine Heavens", Sword Cultivators are seen as a major trap for rookie players because, as frail as they are compared to Dharma and Spiritual Cultivators, they often need to recklessly engage enemies up close to deal damage.

Moreover, unlike assassins who sneak up silently behind their target and strike, successful or not, to then quickly escape thousands of miles, Sword Cultivators tended to dive headlong into throngs of enemies.

As long as the target isn't dead, there is no talk of retreating.

The difficulty of these operations goes without saying.

Sword Cultivators, with their low health and often dancing on the edge of a knife, has made them one of the most highlighted and skilled classes in "Nine Heavens".

But, for this reason, defensive swordsmanship became critically important for Sword Cultivators.

If you want to show off, first get your Defensive Sword Technique to max level.

It might be manageable in single combat, but once it comes to massive battles, lacking a refined Defensive Sword Technique would only describe a Sword Cultivator's participation with two words:

A complete waste!

So it's strangely enough that, as a profession known for high damage output, the depth of defensive skills paradoxically became a crucial yardstick to differentiate rookies from advanced players.

Merely attempting to initially build a swordsmanship system showed just how many Techniques needed to be learned.

Moreover, considerable time was required daily to practice Cultivation Techniques, enhance Cultivation level, and also to spend time nurturing one's Life-bound Sword.

Thus, most Sword Cultivators faced a severe issue—there simply wasn't enough energy to go around.

And for players, the problem transformed into—not having enough Experience Points.

To cover all aspects and strengthen oneself in every area, one needed too many Experience Points; thus, players generally had to make sacrifices among these various skills.

...

Lu Qingshan received the Jade Slip and sent his Divine Sense into it.

A row of data information came into view.