Back in his small hut, Lin Xuan locked the door and sat on his wooden bed. He closed his eyes, his consciousness diving into the Independent Space within the bead.
In the grey void, a shadow figure appeared. It was a silhouette of himself, holding a sword.
"Initiating simulation," the ancient voice echoed.
The shadow figure began to move. It swung the sword, mimicking the diagrams in the Gale Wind Blade manual. At first, the movements were stiff and awkward.
"Error in stance. Hip rotation insufficient. Qi flow turbulent."
The voice corrected the errors in real-time. The shadow figure adjusted, swinging again. And again. And again.
In the span of what felt like minutes, the shadow performed the technique a thousand times.
Lin Xuan watched, mesmerized. The Samsara Bead was brute-forcing the learning process. It was optimizing the technique, stripping away the unnecessary flourishes the original creator had added and leaving only the killing intent.
"Analysis Complete. Optimization: 98%. Technique renamed: Silent Gale Slash."
Lin Xuan opened his eyes in the real world. He grabbed the rusty iron sword he kept under his bed a piece of junk he used for practice.
He stood in the center of his cramped room and swung.
Swish.
There was no sound of the sword cutting the air. No resistance. The blade moved so fast it left a blurred afterimage. A candle sitting on the table three meters away suddenly snuffed out, the wick sliced cleanly in half by the wind pressure alone.
Lin Xuan looked at his hand, trembling with excitement. "I mastered a Yellow Rank Middle Tier technique... in one night."