The voice of the other spy was unfamiliar to Elara; she was certain she had never encountered this person before. However, judging from the timbre, he was relatively young, likely in his early twenties.
Regrettably, for safety's sake, Elara hadn't dared to sneak a longer look, fearing that the two might possess advanced cultivation and could sense her gaze, thereby revealing an outsider's presence. That would have been a risk far outweighing any potential gain.
After this incident, the remainder of her journey was remarkably uneventful.
Long after the usual dinner hour had passed, Elara finally returned to her small hut.
As was his custom, Physician Morus displayed no interest whatsoever in Elara's mysterious late return, not even sparing her a glance. Apart from occasionally delivering some concocted potions, he maintained a completely hands-off, laissez-faire attitude towards all of Elara's actions and behaviors.
Had Elara not observed that the potions Physician Morus provided were meticulously prepared from the precious medicinal herbs he had gathered on his last trip down the mountain, she might have suspected he had abandoned his expectations for her and was covertly devising some other malevolent scheme.
The current Elara, in truth, held these so-called "precious potions" from Physician Morus in utter disdain. Yet, to avoid arousing his suspicion, she'd still pinch her nose and down them.
She wasn't concerned that the potions would be laced with deadly poison; after all, if he were to harm her now, it would be tantamount to harming himself.
As for the two Shadow Wolf spies she had encountered en route, Elara had already conceived of an effective way to handle the information during her return journey.
Although she harbored no profound affection for the Stonefist Outpost, she was, at the very least, a quasi-inner disciple. She couldn't very well feign ignorance regarding something happening right under her nose that could potentially endanger the entire outpost.
Moreover, she had long since identified the perfect individual to manage this matter on her behalf—Rory Stormblade, her Senior Rory.
According to Elara's observations, perhaps due to his prolonged consumption of the "Bone-Gnawing Pills," Rory Stormblade's craving for fame and fortune was considerably stronger than that of an ordinary person, and he harbored significant ambition. He had always dreamed of ascending to the upper echelons of the Stonefist Outpost, becoming a more prominent figure who wielded power and attracted widespread attention.
Elara had once surmised that he probably wished to live more fiercely, more gloriously, in the final chapter of his life.
Now that she was personally delivering such a substantial piece of meritorious information to his doorstep, it would undoubtedly fill him with elation. This could also be considered repaying the considerable debt she owed him for helping to procure the swordplay manuals.
At the mere thought of that "Blink Strike Swordplay," Elara's heart throbbed with a fresh wave of excitement.
Regarding the "Blink Strike Swordplay," she hadn't entirely deceived her friend Rory. The core philosophy of this swordplay was indeed unsuitable for Rory, who already possessed a certain level of Source Breath cultivation. But Elara had not revealed many of its intricate details, nor its true, latent potential.
For her, maintaining a cache of personal secrets, guarded from everyone, was her cardinal rule for survival in this world.
This applied without exception, regardless of how close or intimate the other person appeared to be.
However, the contents recorded in these manuals were truly vastly different from conventional martial arts.
In Elara's estimation, it was more fitting to call it a "sword skill" or an "art of assassination" rather than a mere sword style. It was entirely an esoteric assassination art, integrating various factors such as opportune timing, advantageous terrain, and human elements—an exceedingly rare, pure killing technique that emphasized a single, fatal strike.
Within these volumes, myriad techniques were meticulously described: how to utilize one's own painstakingly honed, cryptic sword skills to deliver a one-hit kill to an enemy under diverse environmental conditions and varying light at different times of day.
It instructed the practitioner of this sword skill on how to leverage every blade of grass and every tree in the surrounding terrain, as well as the differing intensities and angles of light, to create visual illusions and induce misjudgments in the opponent. This allowed them to instantly discern the enemy's weakness, penetrate the flaws in their adversary's techniques, and dispatch them in a heartbeat.
This was a clandestine art that placed immense emphasis on innate aptitude and profound comprehension. Without an iota of the requisite talent, it was fundamentally impossible to truly understand and master this swordplay.
Therefore, those who cultivated this secret art had to possess senses—vision, hearing, and the like—far superior to those of ordinary people to entertain any hope of achieving proficiency.
If these were the sole conditions, it might have been tolerable; some outpost disciples would surely, at some point, choose to study it, coveting its legendary power.
But what made it excessive were its even more stringent, almost unnaturally demanding requirements: it stipulated that the cultivator of this secret art must not possess refined Source Breath energy within their body. Otherwise, owing to inherent conflicts with the unique force application techniques intrinsic to the sword skill, the cultivation process would become exceedingly arduous, achieving but a fraction of the results for double the effort.
Even if someone, by a stroke of luck, managed to overcome this and successfully cultivate it, in actual combat, their overabundance of Source Breath would unknowingly cause their sword moves to warp and deform. This would, paradoxically, expose significant openings to their opponent, thereby inviting fatal disaster.
Such a condition essentially extinguished the cultivation aspirations of most individuals. It was crucial to understand that in this martial world, a prevailing adage was akin to: "Skill without substance, a path to futility."
For them, not cultivating internal energy, not accumulating Source Breath, was a profound taboo. To forsake one's own energy cultivation for this obscure, ancient swordplay of unknown potency would truly render one a laughingstock throughout the entire outpost, and even within the broader martial artist circles of the surrounding regions.
Consequently, only a scant few categories of people might ever attempt to pursue its cultivation.
But even if these individuals possessed the talent and faced no issues with energy cultivation, there remained one final, colossal hurdle that definitively crushed any lingering desire to persist.
That was, the system of movements for this sword skill was excessively vast and complex, and its conditions for application were far too cumbersome and minutely detailed.
Simply gazing at the substantial pile of thick, almost identical manuals in the bundle would likely daunt most people.
Essentially, each swordplay manual represented a single, basic sword form. And each basic sword form was then meticulously deconstructed into hundreds of distinct sub-forms. Each sub-form, furthermore, demanded mastery of myriad different techniques and variations for its execution under diverse environmental conditions and at different times of day (factoring in light, weather, and so on).
With such a sheer, overwhelming volume of techniques, let alone mastering them all, even just perusing them once was enough to induce a severe headache. This didn't even account for the necessity of committing them all to memory, then independently comprehending them and engaging in diligent, rigorous practice.
These requirements, which could only be described as unconventional, almost perversely demanding, had thwarted countless outpost disciples who had once harbored illusions about this swordplay, causing them to silently curse the long-departed senior elder who had conceived this ultimate technique.
As time wore on, everyone in the Stonefist Outpost, from the highest echelons to the lowest ranks, gradually lost all interest in this swordplay. It was universally believed that it was utterly impossible for anyone to master this martial art. Some even speculated that this martial system was likely something the elder had fabricated out of thin air in his final days; otherwise, how could there be such preposterously illogical cultivation conditions? This was clearly a deliberate attempt to vex later disciples unfamiliar with its true nature. And so, these manuals recording the "Blink Strike Swordplay" were consigned to the highest shelves, gathering dust, utterly forgotten.