Solitary Sword Sovereign

Chapter 22- Water Sense

Chapter 22 Water Sense

Sword Intent. Will wasn't quite sure what this was, or what it could do. All he knew was that this was necessary for a true strike to occur. According to the SSS manual, a true strike needed three things; technique, intent and qi. Will was first polishing his technique because as far as he was concerned that was the easiest to do. However it was also the most time consuming.

The only way to improve one's technique in Will's situation was to practice. So for who knows how long, Will had been doing ten thousand repetitions of the same sword strokes over and over again. Seasons came and went. As far as he could tell this was the third time it was snowing, so Will was guessing that he had spent three years practicing.

It wasn't all boring. As soon as Will started to practice, Modus started sending Will some 'guests'.

"Roar!"

A deafening roar echoed out across the snowy flat lands. It was so violent that the trees nearby Shook's and the snow that had collected on them fell off immediately. Even after the roar the trees still continued to vibrate slightly, showing the impressive might of the beast to come.

"Ah it seems today's guest is here." Will said with a grin. "Well then let's see what we have." After doing one more sword stroke Will turned his head to the direction from which the sound came from. After a few moments, a large creature with the head of a lion and what seemed to be the body of a snake appeared in sight.

[Lion Snake: An intelligent solo hunter that never gives up on its target once it has chosen. It is very fast and has a highly toxic poison.

Rating: E+

Class: Sector Boss Candidate]

As Will read this he couldn't help but smirk.

It probably has high attack and movement speed coupled with incredible agility and flexibility. Odds are it has a poor defense. Tsk, this looks like an easy one!

Will shook his head in disappointment; nevertheless, he took his stance and got ready for his opponent to attack. Ever since his battle with the Storm Wolves Will has been developing his abilities to the fullest, after he started cultivating he was met with a surprising development.

Cultivation did not increase his yuan whatsoever! No matter how long Will cultivated his yuan quantity never increased, although there were noticeable differences in the yuan itself. As time went on it seemed to become thicker and thicker. If at the beginning we could say it was a thin gas, now we could say it was on the verge of becoming a liquid within is dantian.

Will surmised that the experience he gained from killing demonic beasts increased his yuan quantity but not his quality. In other words his foundation had been too poor. The longer he cultivated the higher quality his yuan became. The effects were quite obvious as time went on in terms of his abilities.

As the Lion Snake approached, it opened its mouth, revealing a pair of lethal fangs that would no doubt be able to penetrate steel. The head was the size of a car, and the body was about 30 meters long. It was an odd looking creature, and this strange appearance only served to make it seem more frightening.

Swoosh!

With a lunge it attempted to maul Will in one fell swoop, but Will moved to the side just in time. As the head passed him, Will unleashed a water blade toward the beast. Being surrounded by snow, Will had no issues with water supply. One of the boons of having higher quality yuan was his ability to manipulate water's state increased drastically.

The water blade landed on the beast's body and made a small dent in the scales before dissipating. Will grinned at the result of his little experiment. "Just like I thought." the enemy was not kind enough to give Will time to relax; it quickly circled around and attempted to attack Will from behind. Little did it know that Will could see every single one of its movements.

Once more Will dodged in the nick of time as the creature lunged at him. At the same time he quickly rotated his body and got into position at the creatures neck. He then lifted his sword; afterwards he quickly covered his sword in water and struck down like lightning.

Swoosh!

What happened later held no suspense. The creature was immediately beheaded and blood sprayed like a fountain from its throat. Will nodded his head in approval at his performance. "It looks like I have improved quite a bit. That was quicker than I expected."

A current of energy entered his body, and Will quickly compressed it into higher quality energy before converting it into yuan and sending it straight to his dantian.

Will's improved yuan also boosted his water blade by quite a bit. He discovered that if he produced it from his sword the effects would be multiplied. This pleasant surprise led Will to call it mizuken, although it was not a custom technique recognized by the system, that didn't stop Will from naming it.

Another ability he gained after cultivation was what he called water sense. He would convert large amounts of water into vapor and cover his surroundings. Similar to the blood fog, it allowed will to constantly monitor his environment, except unlike the fog it was much more sensitive and had a wide range of almost a kilometer if Will stretched it. However, that's all he could do at that distance: he could only sense not control. The closer the water was to Will, the more information he got.

If Will was to use his blood fog in such a manner he would not be able to control it as well since it was not pure water. Not to mention Will wanted to avoid using bloodlust as much as possible. Although it was his ability, he was reluctant on being dependent on a particular ability. Will had the feeling that depending on it continuously would be a bad thing for him so he avoided using bloodlust and the blood mist as much as possible.