1590 Shan Wangjiu

"Uhh…"

Alex wasn't sure how to respond to such a preposterous request. The obvious answer was to reject him, but the man was down on his knees. Heck, his head was slamming into the ground.

He was too taken aback to say anything immediately.

"Master?" he looked up after getting no response.

"Don't call me that," Alex said. "I'm not your master. I haven't taken you as my disciple."

The young man looked disheartened and went back to kowtowing with his head to the ground.

"Stop! I'm not going to accept," Alex quickly said, realizing the man still held hope.

The young man quickly looked up. "Why not? Please. You're so good at it. Teach me," he said. "Just one technique. That technique you used earlier. Just that. I just want to learn that technique."

"I can't teach you that. I'm still working on it," Alex said. "I haven't developed it to its fullest potential."

"Huh? You're developing it?" the young man asked. "Don't tell me you created that technique by yourself."

"Yes, I did," Alex said with a sigh. "Can you leave, please? I'm not taking any apprentice."

"Can I follow you at least?" the man asked. "I promise I won't interfere. And I will stay away if you want me to."

Alex frowned. He didn't think much about letting a man follow him if all he wanted to do was learn his sword. He already had so many people see him fight, so there wasn't much to it.

"Fine, you can follow," Alex said. "But if you ever disrupt me, I will beat you until you are gone from this secret realm."

"Yes!" the young man said excitedly. "Thank you, master."

"I'm not your master," Alex said.

"Haha, then you can't tell me what not to call you. Can you, master?" the young man asked.

Alex failed to see a flaw in his logic. 

"What if I told you to call me that instead?" Alex asked.

"You'll be my master?" the young man asked excitedly.

"No," Alex answered quickly.

"Then you can't tell me what to or not to do," the young man said grumpily before crossing his arms.

Alex felt a headache coming. "As long as you don't lie to people you are my disciple, do whatever you want," he said and walked away.

He set up a barrier formation and sat to deal with a few things. It hadn't been more than 3 days since he last did this, so he didn't need to cultivate. As a result, this would be quick as well.

Alex went to his Soul Space to deal with the trees before leaving back outside. After all this time, he was finally free to rest for as long as he wanted to, and there was one thing he knew he needed to do.

His technique had come a long way, so he needed to evaluate it, learn from it, and see if there were ways to improve it.

He closed his eyes and thought through the process of how it was made. 

He would gather Qi into a sword and optionally add Sword Qi or Aura into it. Then, he added the Dao of Malleability into it.

Dao of Malleability was normally used to make metals thin and flat, so using it on Qi alone was not something he could casually do. He had to force the Dao to work for so much Qi.

The Intent that he had to use on that alone was not normal, but on top of that, he needed to add the Dao of Sharpness to it too, to make the attack sharper than it was.

Because of the two dao working together, the result became a very thin and flat slash that was incredibly sharp. On some occasions, he even felt it distort space or even cut it when he attacked.

He had some ideas on what he could do thanks to that, but that was for some other days. For now, he just wanted this to be the base version.

He did not make a regular slash with bright colors, or one that took the shape of an object or animal that told the enemy when the attack was coming. 

Instead, his was a thin and sharp slash that his opponents wouldn't be able to anticipate. Even when they were looking for it, they would have a hard time finding it.

He didn't yet know how he could hide the attack's aura. That was the one thing giving the attack away when he used it. However, he didn't have any idea of how he could conceal it.

There wasn't any possibility of using the concealment technique for this either. So, he had to let go of it.

"Advantages, it is incredibly powerful," Alex told to himself as much as he did to Pearl and Whisker who were around him. "Due to the incredibly concentrated size, the attack has ended up being stronger than it could ever be."

Techniques were weaker when they had to spread their damage and stronger when it was concentrated. There was also the amount of Qi that it depended on, but regularly, the area of the damage was the determining factor.

As a result, by making the damage area so much smaller, Alex had managed to concentrate that damage on one area, making its effect stronger than it was.

"The downside is that it's too reliant on me heavily spending my Intent on it," he spoke softly. "I have to spend my Intent twice on two Dao, both of which use it heavily. Can I lower it in any way?"

Pearl and Whisker didn't know what to suggest. He had to think all for himself.

"Could I remove Dao of Sharpness?" he thought. "No, but then it wouldn't be sharp. What am I thinking? I need the sharpness. Hmm, what about adding Dao of Cutting instead of Dao of Sharpness?"

He found that idea to hold a little more potential than the other one. But this too he quickly got rid of.

"Dao of Cutting is good, but I'm already using a Metal Dao with Dao of Malleability. Using Dao of Sharpness is much easier than Dao of Cutting under this scenario."

That idea was shut down as well. He came up with some more, but none were good enough. 

"No, I guess this is it," he thought. "This is the best I can come up with. Which means I will have to stick to it."

He sighed and nodded to himself. "I will just have to suffer through this for now. Once my Intent becomes stronger, I won't have to work as hard to use this technique."

Having decided that, Alex decided to spend some time cultivating just to rest himself from all the fight he had been through.

His rest period came to a stop when his talisman buzzed and it was time to go look for a fight again.

Alex stood up and took down the barrier. The river he had arrived at 6 months ago was still to his left, and the uneven ground was looking much more open without any people.

Any except Shan Wangjiu. He happily waved toward Alex as he walked out of the barrier.

Alex sighed, turned around, and then walked away.

The young man followed close behind.