"I think this place is good!" as soon as Mac said these words, he eagerly began to prepare the training area.

Sitting cross-legged, Mac made himself comfortable so that he wouldn't feel the unevenness of the floor and began to practice the Energy Core Formation cultivation technique.

Although this technique was difficult to master at the tree level, which was the lowest level, it was the most suitable for the 3rd stage of Energy Core Formation.

The cultivation technique consisted of using world energy, which the cultivator, thanks to the peculiarities of his body and various techniques, had to absorb and, in the process of absorption, combine with his body by moving world energy in the body and, as a result, form spiritual energy in the lower abdomen in the form of a nucleus of energy.

And although in the process of this absorption spiritual energy was generated in the body, the physical strength, reaction, speed and overall strength of the cultivator's body increased.

However, such absorption was unusual for the human body, because it went against nature itself, so quite often during cultivation, cultivators suffered painful sensations that ranged from general exhaustion to unbearable pain accompanied by loss of consciousness.

At the same time, when cultivators advanced to the next stage or level of cultivation, they experienced an incredible surge of strength, which increased their physical strength, endurance, agility and body strength, and sometimes even healed injuries in the body, both external and internal.

Moving one step forward to the next stage of cultivation, namely Stage 4, Mac took an old scroll out of his shirt pocket and opened it.

This old scroll was a sutra called the Wild Beast Heart Sutra. The sutra was made of a large rectangular piece of wild beast skin.

The edges of the sutra were frayed and even torn in some places, and the outside of the sutra was silver, like the colour of the skin of the animal from which it was made.

The letters in the sutra were small and golden in colour. Mac did not know the rank of the sutra, or where it came from. He had taken it from his grandfather's room. It was in a locked chest at the very bottom of the closet in his grandfather's room, where he usually kept all sorts of junk.

Without being distracted by the movement of spiritual energy in his body, Mac began to read the sutra carefully. He did so as he had done on previous occasions, slowly and gradually.

For when he first took the sutra out of the chest and began to skim through it, he had felt the incredible hidden power contained in the small golden letters.

He continued to read without paying any attention to it, and when he had finished reading the first sentence, he felt weak in his legs, and the next moment his legs gave out and he fell to the ground.

But in time he grabbed the edge of the table and thus avoided falling.

Realising the connection between the sutra reading and the weakness in his legs, he took the sutra from Elder Strai's room and carried it with him from then on.

The next day when he decided to read it again, Mac sat down cross-legged and gradually began to read the first sentence. And from that day onwards, he gradually increased the number of words in the sutra each time he read it.

And so he did for the last two weeks.

Not only did this approach allow him to avoid exhaustion in his body and increase the size of the text from one sentence to one paragraph, but Mac also began to feel certain changes in his body.

The changes were in the spiritual energy itself, which gradually ceased to be light and airy, as it usually was after the cultivation technique. Instead, it was more and more like molten metal, moving slowly and smoothly through the energy channel of his body.

With each sentence recited, the spiritual energy became heavier and heavier in Mac's body.

And at the same time, the energy became purer each time, as if each sentence of the sutra was burning the impure energy out of Mac's body with fire.

Mac did not know the whole meaning of the sutra, because he could not read it completely, because he felt that only gradually, sentence by sentence, the meaning of the sutra would be revealed to his mind.

Mac also did not know what it could be used for or where his grandfather, Elder Stray, had gotten it from, but after each reading, his spiritual energy became more stable.

Although the sutra was not a cultivation technique, it could improve the quality and purity of energy, which made the spiritual energy itself stronger.

But on the other hand, it also slowed down the process of accumulation and movement of spiritual energy in Mac's body, which in turn only widened the gap between him and his classmates.

After practising for an hour, a dozen drops of sweat slowly trickled down Mac's tense face, and the same was true of his body. Although this was not a problem compared to the feeling of molten metal slowly spreading over your body, even so, Mac continued to read the sutra.

There was a hole in the upper right corner of the roof of the room where Mac was staying, through which you could see the large trees of the dense forest that surrounded the house. Or, from the branches on the tree, one could see what was happening in the ruined house.

At this time, an unknown person was standing on a tree branch a few steps away from the house. He was wearing a long white robe, and his thick grey beard was hanging loosely, swaying in the wind. The person's gaze was directed exclusively through the hole in the roof of the ruined house at the young disciple of the Sect.

Its eyebrows were raised and its mouth was open in surprise when it saw the Sutra. She involuntarily said.

"Hm! So he has found it after all. How wonderful! What will you achieve now?" the person said excitedly, rubbing his thick beard. The person standing on the tree branch was Mac's grandfather, as well as a Sect Elder, and his name was Elder Stry.

He looked interested, but his duties as a Sect Elder required him to be elsewhere. In an instant, Mak's grandfather disappeared, leaving only a stream of strong winds behind him.

At this point, Mac quickly looked away from the sutra and looked around, as if sensing that someone was watching him. Looking up at the ceiling, Mac noticed a hole through which he could see the forest, but he could not see anything but a ruined house and large trees.

Not seeing anyone, Mac continued to read the golden letters of the Sutra. Mac continued to read a part of the sutra as long as he felt strong enough to continue reading.

When he finished reading, he put the sutra away and got to his feet. Rubbing his stomach with a smile on his lips, Mac felt that he had reached the limit of the 3rd stage and would soon be entering the 4th stage of Energy Core Formation.

Looking around, Mac noticed that it was lunchtime and quickly hurried to a large tree near the stone road so that no one would have any questions.

He quickly reached the tree and laid down near its trunk, hiding in the shade from the hot summer sun. Before he could lie down and get comfortable on the damp ground, Mac noticed a group of children moving in the opposite direction from the Education House.

As it turned out, they were his classmates, whose lesson had just ended.

They were cheerful and noisy like all other children their age. Passing by the tree, they noticed Mac's relaxed figure again. Some of the classmates wanted to say something, but remembering the words of their teacher, Miss Rosalyn, they changed their minds and decided to ignore the man.

But with their heads held high and in complete silence, they walked past Mac, as if not even noticing his lying body.

Mac just smiled mockingly and continued to think about where his grandfather had got such an interesting sutra, and most importantly, why he hadn't told him anything about it.

Mac knew that the sutra was so special that Elder Stry would hardly have allowed him to take it. But then why had he allowed him to read all the books in his room?

The fact is that as soon as Mac and his grandfather moved into the Sect, the boy discovered the world of books. He was interested in different books. From books that could describe the legends of brave heroes to the history of the neighbouring town.

In Mak's opinion, all of them were worth reading, and each of them contained its own deep nature and interesting knowledge. This atypical preference for an 11-year-old boy was reflected in the attitude of others.

Although the adults were normal, and some of them even admired the little boy's preferences, his peers, who were beginning to get interested in spiritual energy and various sword techniques, did not support little Mak's aspirations at all, which in turn led to various conflicts.

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Understanding the situation and the world in which they lived, the Elders of Stry made great efforts to keep Mac engaged in cultivation, but they were unsuccessful. It was not that little Mac was not interested in cultivation, sword techniques, and fighting among his peers.

After all, sword techniques were also books, but Mac was not as interested in the sword techniques themselves as he was in the books that described them, how to copy them and encrypt them. It could even be said that Mac had read the most sword techniques of any disciple of the Sect.

But still, Mac spent most of his days in the library, not at home in his parents' arms or on the training ground, practising a new sword technique.

About 2 months ago, Elder Stray allowed Mac to take and read all the books, scrolls, and manuscripts from his private room. And there were none.

You could even say that there were more than a few hundred books on various topics. Looking at the Elder's room, one might get the impression that it was not a private room, but a small library.

One reason for this was that Elder Stry was the Chief Copyist in the Sect.

His job was to control the quality of copying books and create ciphers for them. This applied to all techniques of all cultivation levels in the Sect. He was also in charge of overseeing the Sect's sword technique library.

Techniques on the Pangea Continent were on par with gems and rare centenary plants. Techniques were not sold in shops or at fairs. They were available only in sect libraries. Access to these libraries depended on the level of development and skills of the sect's disciples.

The original texts of the techniques were stored in the sect's repositories, and students were given only copies of them in the form of technique books, for example, sword technique books.

To learn a particular technique, one had to read the technique book, which contained descriptions and how to perform the technique. But in order to read the book, you had to know the code.

Each book of techniques had its own separate cipher. The books of techniques, as well as the ciphers, were never repeated; they were all in a single copy, and this was monitored by the Chief Copyist of the Sect.

The ciphers were used for cultivation techniques starting from the Energy Core Formation level.

When you came to the library, you first had to choose a book according to the description of the technique. When you chose a technique, they would bring you the book and the cipher to it.

You had to learn the cipher in one of the special rooms of the library, where there were only you, four walls, a table, a chair, and the cipher. After learning the cipher, the sheet with the cipher disappeared.

The cipher was a certain mental technique that could only be memorised by a person who possessed spiritual energy, as the cipher itself was directly related to it, as it was a text that a person would start reading and strange images of various geometric shapes and their combinations would appear in his or her head.

After learning the code, the person would take the technique book with him or her, and his or her name would be recorded as well as the technique book number.

All this was done to avoid the theft of techniques and their illegal distribution.

And although you might think that you can study a book and tell its contents to someone else or rewrite it, this is not the case. After all, the book of technology and the cipher are one and the same.

Without a cipher, someone who looks at a book sees only strange illogical symbols in an arbitrary order. But a person who knew the cipher and read the book could form images of the technique and how to perform it in his mind, which he then practised to learn the spiritual technique.

As for writing copies, books of techniques, one had to possess a special skill of Copying Techniques, which only people with high mental power were capable of.

Deep in thought, Mac didn't even notice a familiar figure appear on the horizon. It was Trevor, Mac's friend and classmate, who had also missed the morning class. Passing by a tree, he noticed Mac and said in a childish voice, "Big Brother!".

The thoughtful Mac didn't even pay attention and continued to think about his own thoughts.

But the teenager approached Mac and again said loudly, "Big Brother! Big Brother Mac!"

This time, Mac opened his closed eyes and slowly moved them towards the source of the noise.

When he saw Little Brother Trevor, Mac looked straight ahead and closed his eyes again, as if he did not notice his brother's shouting.

This development angered Trevor, so he ran over to Mac and shouted again, "Big Brother Mac!"

This time, Mac could no longer ignore him and said with a displeased expression, "Don't shout like that! I can see you. Didn't you see I was resting!", he made a face and looked away from Trevor.

"Ohhh! Good, because I thought you were deliberately ignoring me", Trevor said in a sad tone, but quickly cheered up when he found out that it wasn't true.

"No, I'm just tired and decided to rest in the shade of this big tree," Mac said quickly, and thought, "How could this kid guess so quickly? Is my acting really that bad?"

"Well, it doesn't matter," Mac continued, changing the subject.

Looking at his brother, he continued, "You better tell me, what's wrong with your legs? Do you walk as if your legs were made of wood?", Mac said with concern in his voice, looking at Trevor's legs with concern.

Trevor was a classmate of Mac's, 15 years old and in the 6th stage of Energy Core Formation. As for his appearance, he had a slightly powerful but strong body and was about the same height as Mac.

He was also one of the personal disciples of the elders, namely Elder Re's disciple, who practised techniques that consisted of swift and smooth swings of the sword, which reflected the precision, grace and softness of the sword in his skilled hands.

With each stroke, the speed of the sword increased, and with it the force of the blow, thus resembling the tides of the sea during a storm.

And "Swallow Swing" sword technique was one of his favourite techniques of the Energy Core Formation level, which Trevor was practising. Although his body was large and full, his movements were smooth and gradual. That's why this technique suited him well.

"And... this?" Trevor asked in surprise and looked at his feet, and then quickly continued, "Well... Teacher Re said that as long as my lower body is weak and immobile, I won't be able to break through to the high level of "Swallow's Swing". And to fix this, he made me stand in rider's stance for 3 hours. Can you imagine that? I can barely feel my legs! In fact, now they are not legs, but two wooden logs," Trevor complained in a frustrated tone.

"And the worst part is that I have to do this stance for the next 5 days to improve. And only then will Master Re allow me to practice the Swallow Swing sword technique again. This is just horrible!", he said each word resentfully, holding back his inner despair.

"It does suck," Mac shook his head, rolling his eyes upwards at Trevor's infantile complaints.

He stopped for a second and said.

"So you have a weak lower body?" as he spoke, Mac raised his left eyebrow in sudden suspicion and smiled slyly.

"Well... yes. Like I said, I have weak legs and a weak body, so I can't be smooth and agile at the same time," Trevor replied sadly.

Mac opened his eyes wide and raised his eyebrows a little, and in his mind he said, "Didn't he understand what I meant? Why did I disturb this innocent child?"

But Mac didn't think much about it and quickly focused on the 2nd attempt.

"But there's a definite plus here!", I said with joy in my eyes, and Mac smiled again, but this time mysteriously.

"What is it?", Trevor asked, not understanding what Mac meant.

"Well, think about it! Now you have a name in the world of spiritual practitioners!", Mac smiled gloatingly at Trevor's confused face.

"What name?", Trevor asked, still not understanding at all.

"What do you mean? You're "Wooden Swordsman now! Not many people have such a cool name! You are very lucky! Be happy about it!" Mac said, barely holding back his laughter.

Listening to him, Trevor was momentarily excited, but quickly recovered and changed his expression.

The lowered eyebrows, tight lips and anger in his eyes spoke for themselves.

Even without any words, Mac could understand what Trevor was trying to tell him, and he was barely holding back.

But that didn't stop Mac.

"Well, what if Trevor "Wooden Swordsman" sounds cool to me!", Mac continued to mock, and pointed his thumb up in Trevor's direction.

Trevor looked at Mac with even more anger. When he calmed down a bit, he said, "Ha ha ha. Very funny. Well, if I'm "Wooden Swordsman", you're the Sharp Blade! Do you like the nickname?"

His face was stony, and only his crooked smile reminded me a little of the cheerful classmate Trevor he had recently met.

"Sharp Blade?" Trevor looked at Mac thoughtfully, "I like it! "Sharp Blade Mac" sounds solid! Hahahaha! Thank you, Trevor, for such a cool nickname!" Mac added, laughing.

Trevor called Mac "Sharp Blade" because although he always carried a sword, he never went out with a real sword, but only took a training sword.

This was quite strange, because even children who had just joined the Cult at the age of 12 usually carried a real sword, but Mac, who was already 15 years old, had never carried one, and had never held one in his hands.

Trevor was surprised, because he wanted to offend Mac, but he was happy and thanked him.

"From now on, I'm "Sharp Blade Mac"! Hahahaha! That's how you address me from now on. Got it Trevor?", Mac said cheerfully and proudly lifted his nose when he asked Trevor.

And although it sounded like a joke now, it wouldn't be long before Mac would take this nickname as his middle name and in less than 10 years there would be no one on the Pangea mainland who hadn't heard the glorious stories of the swordsman named "Sharp Blade".

"Oh, Big Brother! Forget it. Let's go to the training ground, I still want to train", Trevor quickly brushed aside Mac's words and walked slowly and heavily towards the training ground.

Mac quickly got up and picked up his training sword.

"Hey, wait a minute? Listen to "Wooden Swordsman Trevor" and "Sharp Blade Mac"! It sounds great!" with a big smile, Mac went to catch up with Trevor, laughing softly.

"Fuck you!", Trevor sent a straight punch towards Mac.

Mac instantly caught his fist and said.

"Hahaha! Does the great and glorious "Wooden Swordsman Trevor" have a problem with something? Hahaha!!!", Mac continued to laugh maliciously.

Although the joke didn't offend Trevor too much, the direct punch that Mac caught surprised him a little.

And Trevor involuntarily thought, "Since when did Mac become so agile to catch my punch and so strong to be able to hold my hand? Wasn't he this strong before? Isn't he at the 3rd stage of Energy Core Formation now?"

He looked down at his right hand, which was being held by Mac's left hand like an iron claw.

Seeing Trevor's strange look, Mac turned his gaze to his hand and immediately realised what was going on and quickly released Trevor's hand and walked calmly towards the training ground as if nothing had happened.

Trevor stood there frozen for a few seconds, but when he saw Mac's figure moving away, he slowly followed him...

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What kind of training ground?