Chapter 85

Chapter 85: Lin Dao Speaks with the Madman

Restricted area, the valley.

As soon as Lin Dao stepped into the valley, he noticed irregularities in the formations here. There were several layers, some for confinement, some for shielding… most were for confinement.

Confinement formations weren’t surprising. What was, was that there was a formation preventing the outside from peeking into the valley’s interior. That was… intriguing. He’d never heard of a formation for imprisoning people that blocked the outside from seeing in rather than the inside from seeing out.

After he entered, he sensed a gaze fall on him, but it vanished quickly.

He didn’t see the “senior” Rong Shu had spoken of.

Lin Dao wasn’t in a hurry. He first took ingredients from his Storage Pouch, prepared a generous breakfast, and set it out on a wooden table he had also taken from the Storage Pouch. Then he began searching.

Fortunately, the man in the valley had no interest in playing hide-and-seek. Lin Dao hadn’t gone far before he saw the madman crouched beside a rock, staring at it.

Lin Dao looked at the madman, offered a respectful salute, and said: “Senior, I am the disciple who has come to cook for you today.”

He added: “Right, the little girl who came here for the past three months can’t make it. She asked me to bring you a message.”

Lin Dao paused, fixing his gaze on the madman: “She might never be able to come again. She seems to have caused some trouble in a secret realm and was locked up by a sect elder. It sounds like they even subjected her to punishment…”

The moment his words fell, the madman’s aura changed violently. In an instant the withered, desolate air around him vanished without a trace. He straightened, and a terrifying presence swept forth like a god-demon. His hawk-wolf eyes shot straight through Lin Dao, as if to bore a hole in him.

“Say. That. Again.”

Lin Dao’s lips curved slightly: “Senior, not pretending anymore?”

He added, needling him: “All that for a little girl?”

The madman’s expression stalled for a heartbeat before he said coldly: “I never ask people the same question twice.”

“Now I’ll ask you once more. How is that little girl?”

Lin Dao remained placid and even countered with a question: “What is the relationship between that little girl and Senior?”

A cold snort rang out and the pressure around Lin Dao grew heavier, as if to crush his body. Even so, he stood straight and unmoving, tall and keen as a sword peak.

When neither gave ground, Lin Dao sighed softly and said: “She’s fine. She’s at the outer peaks watching the matches.”

At that, the pressure disappeared.

Lin Dao cupped his hands: “Please quell your anger, Senior.”

“I only wanted to confirm who it is that is teaching my junior sister and what intention he bears. You hide in a forbidden valley and feign madness day and night. I have no desire to learn why, nor to offend.”

He added, voice steady: “Only… if there is even a trace of harm toward my junior sister, then even if Senior were a reincarnated Great Luo Golden Immortal, this junior will dare to issue a battle challenge.”

“Battle challenge?” The madman acted as if he had heard something amusing and burst into laughter: “Heh… hehe…”

Lin Dao’s face stayed calm; he wasn’t angered at being laughed at: “My master once said my edge was too sharp, that rigidity snaps easily. He advised me that when I seek fights in the future, I must be cultured and polite, and say I am merely here to issue a battle challenge.”

The madman was silent for a moment. “Your master… advised you to be cultured and polite?”

All of a sudden, he found Lin Dao not quite so offensive to the eye. Though he was the sort of sword cultivator the madman hated most, there was a kind of crazed streak different from ordinary sword cultivators.

Only now did the madman look at Lin Dao properly: “There is a stench I hate on you. You are a sword cultivator.”

Lin Dao nodded: “I am.”

Being disliked didn’t surprise him. In disputes over the king of weapons, sword cultivators and blade cultivators had always been like fire and water.

The madman’s eagle-like gaze fixed on Lin Dao. For a moment his expression grew distant, then complicated: “Innate sword heart, sword bones… and even a sword body. You have even brushed a trace of the sword dao’s true meaning.”

Lin Dao’s heart gave a jolt.

By then the madman had already turned his head away: “Among the countless sword cultivators in the world, most spend their lives searching in vain and find none of these. Gaining even one makes you a one-in-ten-thousand prodigy. Even the lofty Celestial Palaces and the Nether Realms would lower their heads and extend an olive branch. Yet you have all of them.”

“Boy, you were born to hold a sword.”

Lin Dao’s gaze dimmed slightly: “Senior has keen eyes.”

He added: “The little girl’s talent lies in the blade. I imagine Senior saw that, and so you taught her.”

Hearing that, the madman’s face grew a little unnatural and his tone went hard: “It was only me being bored and casually drawing a few lines on the rock wall, childlike doodles, nothing more.”

Lin Dao offered a perfunctory thanks: “Yes, yes. This junior thanks Senior on my junior sister’s behalf.”

He obviously didn’t believe it. What powerful blade cultivator would pass down his trump-card art for no reason? Either he was a fool, or he viewed the other party as a successor.

The madman choked on his words.

He wiped a hand over his face and sighed: “How much that little girl can grasp depends on her talent.”

“Only, though she is ruthless enough and favors killing in a single stroke, she is a bit too cautious, lacking the blood-soaked, charging vigor a blade cultivator should have.”

Lin Dao disagreed: “Keep the essence and discard the dross. I don’t see a problem.”

“Compared to the sword, a blade cultivator’s methods strike with greater force, but after extended exchanges they often devolve into a brute-ox style. You end up killing a thousand at the cost of eight hundred. It’s hardly an optimal path to victory.”

“Heh.” The madman’s eyes narrowed sharply: “Boy, you dare to instruct me? You… are quite something.”

Lin Dao was unruffled: “I’m not instructing you. I’m stating a fact.”

The madman’s eyes slit further: “So the reason that little girl retains a few sword methods while using the blade is because you taught her.”

Lin Dao explained: “Her situation is special. It isn’t convenient to reveal her blade arts openly, so she needs a disguise. Moreover, given Senior’s current status of being confined, if the little girl exposed that she uses the blade, it would likely attract quite a lot of trouble.”

Reasonable as it was, the madman still found it grating no matter how he heard it. As expected, those who learn the sword are always so irritating.