Ovid was still seated on the chair, so Cai Hua prevented to be displeased and said, “What are you waiting for? Stand up and come over.” 

Ovid come to his senses and asked, “Are we leaving just like this?” 

Cai Hua frowned and said, “Perhaps we should inform the city garrison then?”

Ovid closed his mouth and no longer spoke, the two simply walked through the path they entered the room and left through the city gates. At the outskirts of the city, Anna had already hired a carriage, travelling north.

The horses were well trained, and Anna was interested in leading the carriage. Mimicking the merchants that she would see entering the capital, Juliana, she would make a few incomprehensible noises. The horses naturally had no idea what she was saying but continued along a small dirt road northwards regardless.

Cai Hua sat looking behind the carriage with a dark and thick wool blanket covering him and acting as a cushion at the same time. While saints need to eat and drink, they could go without it for a long time, so only a jug of strong liquor was by his side. He seemed extremely satisfied and relaxed as if the guard he had killed moments ago had nothing to do with him.

“If you wanted me to leave, why go through so much effort. Why did you do so many things to purposefully provoke and trick me?” 

Travelling on the carriage, Ovid asked a question that had been on his mind since the night before.

“I have my reasons. There’s no need for me to explain it to you.” 

“Okay then… may I ask why you came here?” 

“To pick a flower?” 

“Ah… what flower is it?” 

“The everlasting flower.”

“Cai Hua, how did you kill the guard?” 

Anna suddenly spoke up, “Should I be in the carriage for this, Julia told once told me that these secrets should not be left to outsiders.” 

Cai Hua turned and look outside the carriage. “You’re extremely unsuited for the path of the Julia. Even if you forcibly memorise it, if don’t mind, the world existed for over a million years, everything that could be done has been done, I’m just treading over old territory.” 

“Of course, reading a few sword manuals can broaden one’s insight. Back when I had started the path, I knew a few hundred techniques from all sorts of manuals. But in the end, you only have two hands, so what’s the point of learning ten thousand techniques.”

In Ovid’s old world, a certain martial artist had said: “I fear not the man who has practised 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practised one kick 10,000 times.” Ovid assumed what Cai Hua was speaking off follows a similar logic.

Leaning onto the carriage’s cushion, Cai Hua narrowed his eyes and said, “A sword is just a sword. It doesn’t need to be flexible or some other rubbish, it just needs a point and a place to put your hand on.”

He plucked a passing leaf and held it between two fingers, he said, “What’s most important is the hand that’s holding it. As long as you can stab or chop with it, it can be used as a sword. The biggest question is which direction it comes from. Space is only so big, but as you advance toward immortality, the options you have will increase with it. Currently, you don’t even have a thousand ways to strike.”

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Ovid listened silently and intently. Anna to the side didn’t have any interest in the subject, closing her eyes and relying on her preception, she began to sense the mana fluctuations along the road.

Cai Hua looked into Ovid’s eyes, seeing if the youth had understood what he said. “Later, when you are able to manipulate spiritual essence, you will be able to project it as a sword intent by fusing the sword’s shape with the spirit.”

“At your current stage, you should worry about how to kill with a sword. Manuals aren’t that important in this regard. As long as you can strike faster and stronger than your opponent, that is enough.” 

Ovid recalled his experience with the bandit in the forest outside Phalaris. He asked, “What if I can’t achieve that?”

Cai Hua knocked Ovid’s head a few times with his knuckles and replied, “Then you need to use your head. Everyone that’s not an immortal or a saint has weakness and flaw. As long as you can force the person to move, you can easily see through their weakness and flaws with enough practice. As a result, what you need to learn the most right now is how to find the weakness of your opponent.”

Ovid thought about when he stabbed into the bandit a week ago and said, “Is it through calculation?” 

Cai Hua was pleased, he stroked his robes and said, “Correct, but even facing a deacon, you would only see through their first move through dumb luck. At your strange, the best method is to investigate the person beforehand and guess a few locations to strike at. Even the strongest person can lose, you must remember what.” 

“What factors do I need to consider?”

“Age, level of their mana, body strength, mental strength, their preferred technique, the features of their technique, how much mana gathered, their backgrounds such as a clerical branch or family or sect, their daily routines, marital status and possible lovers, number of children, their hometown it’s geographical features…”

“What does their hometown got to do with their weakness?” 

“Those who come from cities will have more restraint motions, while rural folks are often bolder.” 

“Then what about geographical features?” 

“If that person lives by a lake, he must be able to swim, in that case, never fight him near bodies of water unless you’re a better swimmer.”

“And what if he doesn’t have a hometown?” 

“That person will be very terrifying because if he is too stupid to settle down, he’s too stupid to fear death.” 

“...so speaking of it this way, the people living in cities are the easiest to beat… Anyway, how do lovers factor into this?” 

“If a person has many lovers, he must be very powerful, because it’s possible he doesn’t fear death.” 

“By that logic, a wayfarer should be the strongest sort of person, since they fear death the least?” 

Cai Hua nodded in admiration. “Indeed, this is exactly why I was so powerful back in the days and could cross levels. This is also the reason why Julia had attempted to stop me from entering her domain.” 

Cai Hua was indeed a wayfarer, but now he was a little disciple. He took out a brush and a thick stack of Cai Lun paper and began writing detailed examples on how to use a person’s life to find their weakness. From a matter as significant as their technique to something as minor as how they fashion their hair, all carried some importance in battle. 

This could be considered a completely new manual, though it did not require the manipulation of any mana or spiritual essence. It relied solely on one’s intellect and their ability in the calculation. According to what he said, Ovid was a genius in this regard, and after mastering it, he would gain an all-seeing mind that could find the flaws of anyone below a saint easily. 

The horse infront of the carriage moved slowly, and if the sun could move in this world, it could be said to be following the sun. In the end, Cai Hua gave Ovid more than ninety detailed examples. Ovid listened with great attentiveness and sincerity, his eyes carefully going through the paper Cai Hua gave him, unwilling to miss out a single detail. 

Afterwards, Cai Hua bestowal Ovid a spare spatial ring he possessed to store away the clothing the owner had gave him and the freshly written manual.

When the sun had faded and the starry sky appeared in the sky, Anna’s face paled, she hurriedly looked toward Cai Hua and Ovid. She said, “There are wolves tailing us.”

Cai Hua took his gaze away from Ovid. In a flash, the leaf between his finger became a powerful sword intent and shot from the carriage. Within the feather grass, the pack of wolves acutely sensed a murderous intent soaring towards them. They fearfully attempted to escape, yet collectively made painful howls as their body was pierced by the delicate leaf. 

Cai Hua closed the curtains to prevent the smell of blood from entering. “Everything aside from a saint has a weak point and a strong point. I only injected a bit of spiritual essence for the leaf to glide through at a certain speed, the leaf’s structure didn’t change.” 

Ovid seemed to be in deep thought, but Cai Hua continued regardless, “While all man is unique, some things apply unless you have some horrify disformity. If you can study the biological workings of a human or whatever beast you’re facing, you would also have a huge advantage.”

Cai Hua retrieved the half a silver liang sword from his spatial ring and held it horizontally infront of Ovid. He asked, “What does it look like?”

Ovid observed the sword and found it to be completely ordinary. Its hilt was made of ordinary wood, the body of the blade consisted of the brittlest pig iron and one could even see a few cracks at its edge.

 It would be impossible to imagine that this was the sword that had cut through miles of snow and singlehandedly killed a dozen bishop. 

Yet when Ovid heard the question, he answered almost immediately, “It looks like a line.” 

Cai Hua nodded and said solemnly, “The most simple thing in the world is the dot. The next most simple is the line. There is no need to be overly complicated about it in the end, the most important thing is to be singled minded… to forget your arms and feet, to forget the hair on your body. To forget you are a person.”