Three years was already a short time, and just to finish reading all the martial arts in this passage would take at least several months, not to mention that there were tens of thousands of such rooms in the sanctuary. In martial arts, quality is valued over quantity, so to select the one most suitable martial art for oneself was no easy task.

For a whole month, Brian Sutton spent his time browsing these martial arts, and he had only managed to ascend a thousand steps. However, after spending so much time, he finally discovered a trick. These martial arts manuals did not seem to be the work of a single person; each person’s handwriting and writing style were different. After realizing this, Brian Sutton simply closed his eyes and began to touch the martial arts diagrams on the wall with his fingers pressed to his eyes.

Everyone who carved their own martial arts into the wall left behind a trace of their own aura when inscribing the words—the higher their cultivation, the stronger the aura. By sensing the aura left between the lines by the creators of these martial arts, Brian Sutton quickly began to filter through them. In just one day, he climbed three hundred stone steps.

In the passage, Brian Sutton was not the only one browsing. When he descended to the thirtieth thousand step, he encountered a down-and-out martial artist, clutching a rusty sword, obsessively poring over the secret records on the wall. Seeing Brian Sutton walk quickly past him without even glancing his way, the man snorted softly, seemingly quite disdainful.

After three months, Brian Sutton finally reached the end of the passage. At the end of the dark corridor was a bare stone wall, with nothing else upon it. Along the way, Brian Sutton had sensed hundreds of thousands of different auras, some strong, some weak, all distinct. After browsing all the martial arts secrets in this passage, Brian Sutton closed his eyes and hurriedly made his way back.

On the fortieth thousand step on his way back, he found what he was looking for. It was a short passage of only a few hundred characters, carved not on the wall like the other martial arts manuals, but on the side of a stone step. The aura emanating from this small inscription was extremely strange, completely different from the aura of any other writing in the passage. This finally caught Brian Sutton’s attention.

At the beginning of this short passage was the name of the martial art: six ancient seal characters, “意念剑体大法.” At the end of the text, the creator of the manual had left a note.

—This mental method is only the introductory stage; the later stages must be created by the practitioner themselves. Whether one succeeds or not depends entirely on one’s own fortune. Even I myself have not mastered this art. I originally intended to destroy it, but could not bear to erase the fruit of my efforts. Whoever practices this art and reads these words, remember: be cautious, extremely cautious.

Chapter Three: 意念剑体大法

Half a year later, Brian Sutton finally stepped out of the dark underground passage. Lowering his head to cross the threshold of the sanctuary, the moment he looked up and saw daylight again, Brian Sutton felt as if a lifetime had passed.

“I thought it would take you a year to come out from there, but I didn’t expect you to emerge so soon.” The attendant on the right, with his back to Brian Sutton, said calmly.

“So, have you chosen the martial art you wish to practice?”

Brian Sutton looked up at the gloomy sky. Above, thick clouds lingered year-round, casting a vast shadow over the land, shrouding even the earth in darkness. Striding past the attendant, Brian Sutton replied indifferently, “Yes.” Then he disappeared from the attendant’s sight.

The plaza outside the sanctuary resembled a boundless plain. However many bluestone slabs made up the plaza, that was how many people there were. Every day, some would rise from the bluestone slabs and walk down the mountain, while others would come up from below and sit upon the slabs.

After waiting half a day, Brian Sutton finally found an empty bluestone slab beneath a giant banyan tree dozens of meters tall, and sat down upon it.

On the adjacent bluestone slab, four cultivators sat cross-legged, fully immersed in their own cultivation, paying no attention to Brian Sutton’s arrival.

The Spiritual Intent Sword-Body Grand Method, first level, is divided into three stages: Broken Sword, Sword Control, and Sword Command. To Brian Sutton, these were all legendary sword techniques, and in the context of the Spiritual Intent Sword-Body Grand Method, they were only the lowest level of attainment.

In ancient times, every martial art, when cultivated to a certain level, possessed earth-shattering, ghost-weeping power. None could be compared to his original creation, the “Demon-Slaying Heart Sutra.”

Having already made his name with the sword and entered the Dao through martial arts, these three forms—Broken Sword, Sword Control, Sword Command—though obscure and difficult to grasp, still gave Brian Sutton some clues. The greatest difficulty was that the true energy within his body, which might have been considered abundant in his original world, was utterly insignificant here. The four experts beside him, immersed in their own cultivation, exuded an aura so powerful that it awed him even unintentionally. One of them seemed to be practicing an extremely yin internal force, making him feel as if he had fallen into an icy pit.

Broken Sword, Sword Control, Sword Command—these three were the ultimate sword arts in the mundane world, but here, after becoming familiar with the Spiritual Intent Sword-Body Grand Method, as his thoughts spread out, Brian Sutton discovered that at least three thousand people in the field possessed supreme sword arts, and several had already mastered Sword Control.