Alex made his way to the sect library. At the entrance, he showed his nameplate to the attending elder and walked in. He didn’t have a lot of contribution points, so the best he could get was a low-tier mortal grade technique.

He had an hour to look through the techniques, but it didn’t take him that long this time.

Very soon he found a sword-related technique called [Smiting Blade]. It cost only 200 contribution points, so he happily took it. For comparison, the [Flame Mastery Scripture] would’ve cost him about 800 contribution points.

Mortal grade techniques cost between 100 and 1000 contribution points, while the highest Earth grade technique Alex had seen previously was 4000 points. There might have been some that cost even more.

Alex had tried to read the books in the library but realized they wouldn’t open for some reason. So, he walked out of the library with the book in hand.

He handed it to the elder, along with the nameplate. The elder handed it to him and reminded him to return the book in 7 days. Alex also returned the [Flame Mastery Scripture] at the same time, as he didn’t need it anymore.

He went to a quiet place and took out the book. Under the lantern’s light, he started reading it. He didn’t understand what the book really said, but when he finished it, he got a notification.

<Congratulations, you have learned [Smiting Blade]>

He opened the description of the technique.

———————————-

[Smiting Blade

Grade: Mortal

Infuse Qi into the blade to increase its penetrating power.]

—————————————

“Alright, time to train now.” He said as he looked at his new technique’s description.

He needed to look for a place to train this technique now. And there was no place better for this in the sect than the training hall.

Alex located the training hall a few distances away. Although it was called a hall, it was just a massive open field. He could see a few dozens of disciples training their battle techniques.

Some were shooting out arrows, some were using a sword, some threw fire from their hand, while some just ran around a lot making weird moves.

All of these disciples were far away from each other, so there was no way they could hamper each other’s progress.

There were about a few hundred wooden posts in the field denoting the place for training. Alex walked up to one of the posts that were far away from any disciple.

He looked at the carving on the surface of the post and places his nameplate there. As soon as he did that, about a few meters away from him, the ground opened up and a wooden puppet came out.

The puppet was what the disciples trained their techniques on. Similar to the alchemy room, the training hall too took 5 contribution points per hour, so he needed to get on with it.

He brought out his steel sword and activated focus mode. Once everything slowed down, he closed his eyes and tried to feel his Qi. This was too easy for him at this point.

He thought of the new technique, and the Qi started moving through his meridian. This was the first time, so it was going to take longer to complete the travel through the new path.

It slowly moved all over his body and reached his hands. However, instead of diffusing from his hands, it instead traveled from his palm to the hilt of the sword.

The Qi felt some difficulty in entering the hilt but still managed to enter it at last.

The Qi had visibly entered the sword hilt as Alex saw the hilt’s color change to a slight yellowish hue. The color then traveled up the sword as it crossed the cross-guard, moved along the blade, and stopped at the tip.

His Qi has trouble moving along the entirety of the sword but succeeded in it at last. Now, the sword was glowing a mild yellow.

“I wonder if the Qi is having difficulty because it’s a metal object?” Alex wondered.

Now that he had successfully activated his [Smiting Blade] technique, it was time to test how good it was. He held the sword in a fighting stance and pounced forward to cut the puppet.

BAM

A massive cut appeared on the puppet where Alex had just cut it. The sword had stopped glowing yellow as he stopped the flow of Qi.

He looked back at the wooden post as a few words appeared on it.

<Bone Tempering 1st Realm>

He smiled. His attack just now had been equivalent to a Bone Tempering 1st Realm cultivator’s normal strike. That meant his new battle technique improved his damage by 1 realm’s worth.

Adding to the fact that this 1 realm was an entire minor realm jump, the battle technique returned its worth twice over. He decided to attack once more.

Once more, he did the same damage as a Bone Tempering 1st Realm cultivator.

“Hmm… I wonder how much damage I do without the technique.” He just casually hit the puppet with no technique.

[Muscle Tempering 8th Realm]

“Huh? Why is my damage lower than my actual cultivation base? What is going on?” he was very much confused.

He tried attacking the puppet with his bare hands.

[Muscle Tempering 9th Realm]

“Wait. So I do more damage with my fists than I do with the sword? What sort of garbage was I handed during the tutorial.” Alex couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“Is this the game’s way of balancing things out? Giving me ultra good talents and techniques, but then giving me trash pills that give 10 Qi, or a sword that does less damage than my fists.”

Alex didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He picked up his sword once more. The puppets were part of the sect running formation and had self-mending techniques, so they were back to perfect condition once more.

He infused Qi into the sword once more and started attacking.