Chapter 47: Had Heaven not given birth to me, the Turnip, the path of the sword would have remained an eternal night through the ages.

At this moment, Baicai had been stuck at Xiaozhi’s side for half an hour. She had already tried switching her divine skills and secret techniques once, experimenting multiple times with the most effective combinations, but always fell just short. After all, the game had only been released recently; it naturally took some time and practice to truly become a master player.

Now, Baicai’s operation was just a breath away from matching the expert NPCs on normal difficulty. Saying she was only a breath away was actually an understatement. Xiaozhi, when pushed to his limit without holding back, could still unleash a surge of power. At a higher difficulty, there were very few people in the world capable of defeating him.

Some knowledgeable viewers in the comment stream had already warned Baicai. She shouted, “Chinese players are tricking me!” but didn’t believe it. Only after barely forcing Xiaozhi down to half health did she realize the comments were true—Chinese players were not always deceiving her.

Xiaozhi said, “Young master, since you possess such skills, I cannot fault this humble monk!”

Then—BOOM! He exploded with energy, his special effects growing ever more extravagant, like a battle among immortals.

Oh, but Baicai was no immortal herself. Her sword techniques weren’t absurdly flashy; it was more like an immortal fighting a child.

While screaming, Baicai frantically controlled her character to roll wildly: “Daddy Xiaozhi, please give me another chance! The second phase is so terrifying!”

What a desperate plea!

She scrambled and crawled, narrowly dodging the first two strikes of Xiaozhi’s ultimate move in a clumsy posture. Having died at Xiaozhi’s hands too many times, her character’s moves had been optimized for easier operation, but unfortunately, she couldn’t avoid the last three blows.

Slash, slash, slash—

It was the five-turn consecutive flaming blade!

The wrathful lotus of Buddha ignited!

The fiery lotus bloomed!

“Awesome! Xiaozhi! Awesome!”

“Done for, Baicai, done for!”

“Pathetic!”

“The flaming blade truly lives up to its reputation as Xiaozhi’s rare divine skill to sweep away the Black Sect and dominate Tibet!”

“The Vow King’s wrath, sweeping through the V circle!”

“Victory and defeat are common in warfare; hero, please try again.”

This time, Baicai was defeated.

Though Xiaozhi hailed from Tibet, his Buddhist cultivation had advanced, and he practiced different Buddhist sects to avoid needless killing—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t strike decisively. After entering the second phase, when unleashing his full strength, he sometimes couldn’t hold back. For example, if a player’s health emptied during his ultimate, they might actually die and have to reload their save.

“Ahhhh—Really! What do I do now?”

Baicai finally wanted to quit. The overwhelming pressure of the fully unleashed Vow King was too much; she didn’t know how to get close. There was no chance at all. Even on normal difficulty, this wasn’t something she could beat—there was a thick barrier in between.

Better to train for a couple more years and come back.

She reloaded her save, planning to switch to the pure speed Sunflower style that could easily kill minor monsters and go show off elsewhere.

When she unequipped the Lonely Nine Swords, she noticed a new character, "Enlightenment," had appeared on the Evasion Sword Technique. Curious, Baicai asked, “What’s this now?”

The comment stream quickly responded:

“Is this the legendary one?”

“That’s right, it is…”

“Could Baicai really be a genius?”

“She’s a one-in-a-million supreme master, desu!”

“A lucky max-level turnip!”

“So, what exactly is it?”

Baicai playfully dodged the question.

“Well played, I don’t want to explain.”

“Check out the latest guide; I suspect the game developer has sneakily played ahead, otherwise how could the guide come out this fast?”

“Maybe it’s from Youxuan’s partners.”

“I’m Pa Qingji, loyal and true, here to explain!”

“This is a sudden enlightenment of the martial spirit. I’ve only seen it in the top players’ guides. I’m ahead of Baicai, having completed two and a half volumes of the Heavenly Scriptures, didn’t waste time missing early high-yield side quests, yet Baicai managed to produce this before me.”

“Is there really a breakthrough in combat?”

“Since the protagonist holds the Heavenly Scriptures, it’s normal for him to have such abilities.”

“So this is the martial spirit enlightenment. I heard there are only a few mechanisms for it, quite rare.”

“I also saw the guide. Besides some self-realizations given by late side quests, the most common way is to seek fateful locations or establish a sect and close oneself off to study martial arts, producing martial spirits of varying qualities.”

“This time it’s gold?”

“Yes, the Evasion Sword Technique is already a purple-grade supreme martial art in the martial world. Baicai’s perfected ultimate evasion technique can be considered a legendary golden-grade martial art even among offshoots. To create a new golden-grade divine skill based on an evasion foundation is extremely rare—this kind of divine skill can awaken and reinvent itself. Difficult, difficult, difficult!”

“Now Baicai has no choice but to train evasion (dog head).”

“It’s got nothing to do with evasion, just pure Baicai’s luck.”

“My evasion sword technique is truly unbeatable.”

“Actually, Baicai has been stubbornly fighting top experts, so it’s no surprise this appeared.”

“Stubborn fights need luck to appear. This probability is very low, especially since Baicai’s current realm is low. Having a grandmaster’s level self-created golden divine skill is like winning the jackpot.”

“May the god of evasion protect Baicai.”

“Are you sure it’s not the god of pachinko?”

“This opportunity only comes from fierce battles with strong opponents. Hurry and use it! The Heavenly Scripture records the duration, only a few minutes in real time. In the game’s lore, it’s called the moment of soul and spirit enlightenment. Even rebooting or rewinding the game time can’t interfere. You can’t repeatedly use the save and load trick; there is only one chance for enlightenment. If you don’t use it fast, it’s gone.”

“Better save a backup just in case. Some top players combined a bunch of divine skills as materials and ended up with junk. Save your progress just in case.”

Baicai saw the comments. Though she didn’t fully understand, it seemed very powerful. Perhaps she could finally defeat Daddy Xiaozhi!

She saved the game and prepared to try using it. If it failed, she would reload and abandon the quest.

“Baicai, don’t get your hopes up too high. The guide says that these golden legendary divine skills are already at the top tier. No matter who reinvents them, it’s hard to upgrade further.”

“Right now, even if Baicai didn’t create a junk skill but truly forged a supreme divine skill better suited to her, it still wouldn’t close the gap with Xiaozhi.”

“That’s attribute crushing.”

“Is there really nothing stronger than golden legendary divine skills?”

“There shouldn’t be. They’re already supreme martial arts, unless you find something like the Roaming Wind or the Supreme Classic, but those don’t feel like skills for humans.”

“You mean Gou Ge isn’t human?”

While the commenters debated the guide and game mechanics, Baicai had already awakened the ultimate True Evasion Sword Technique.

She chose to awaken in the middle stage, creating a new divine skill.

There was only one chance. Saving and loading would cause the martial spirit enlightenment to disappear. Since she had already saved, at least her current stats could be preserved. Baicai decided to pour all her blue-grade and above skills into it.

Baicai smiled: “Activate! Fusion Summon!”

A long progress bar appeared.

At this moment, the system skill tree code was generating a new exclusive skill that would exist only in this save file. The new martial art’s action modules would vary due to randomly derived skill codes and might even include silly moves like broadcast calisthenics—pure black technology.

Below the progress bar, the screen showed the protagonist repeatedly fighting and respawning, suddenly awakening into an enlightened state, with time frozen around him.

“Is it done?”

“Done with what? It’s over!”

“Forgot to remind you.”

“Baicai’s hands are too fast.”

“Baicai, no! Don’t do this!”

“Top players have already tried this. The more skills you invest, the higher the failure rate! Just a few skills of the same level will do!”

“Baicai only has a few purple-grade and three golden-grade martial arts: True Evasion, Six Vein Divine Sword, and Innate Skill. She should just put in those purple and above skills.”

“Could you stop theorizing? Isn’t the most important mechanic that sword techniques can only fuse with sword techniques? Baicai is throwing in all sorts of inner power and palm techniques.”

“I think pure self-creation is the true Taoist path. Later stages involve finding feng shui treasures or letting a grandmaster-level protagonist perceive heaven and earth, or read all Daoist, Buddhist, Confucian, Mohist, and martial classics to create an ultimate divine skill. That’s the genuine Taoist way.”

“Why read books? Why perceive heaven and earth? Just focus on martial arts, see only yourself to become stronger, practice boxing wholeheartedly without concern for worldly affairs, and with a childlike heart create an invincible wild baseball punch.”

“In the mini-game ‘Heroes Legend Zero,’ self-created martial arts can only point to a fixed set of techniques and have limited strength. It should be awakening of willpower; the divine in martial arts is supreme. The simplest method is to protect the homeland and unify knowledge and action.”

“You guys debating in the void is useless. No one has reached that realm yet. Probably only Youxuan and professionals who played ahead know which is stronger.”

“My uncle works at Youxuan. I can only say martial arts have no end; the Dao has three thousand paths. In this game, any method might yield supreme divine skills. Even my uncle, the game maker, doesn’t know all the mechanisms. I heard the skill tree for ‘Heroes Legend True’ is managed by Dragon King, and only he knows.”

“Enough nonsense. Baicai, quick, reload! Reload! This save is doomed.”

Baicai seemed to realize she had messed up but laughed heartily: “Haha, looks like I messed up.”

“By the way, Baicai’s progress bar is so long…”

“Huh? It’s stuck at the end without moving. That’s unusual. I’ve seen top players’ fusions fail and degrade to incomplete purple-grade supreme martial arts or stronger golden legends, but never this reaction.”

“Could it be a game bug?”

Bang—!!!

The screen suddenly began to spin!

Like a washing machine drum, the visuals became chaotic.

“???”

“What’s happening?”

“I don’t know!”

The comment stream was filled with question marks; no one had ever seen this before.

The world flipped upside down, but the protagonist’s model remained intact.

Lin Pingzhi moved inside this frozen world.

Suddenly drawing his sword, he looked around and chanted:

“Never cultivated goodness in life, only loved killing and arson.

Suddenly breaking the golden shackle, here tearing the jade chain.

Outside the Tianlong Temple, a white steed passes; today I finally know that I am myself!”

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