Cultivation Through Artifacts

Chapter 47: Secret Arts

While others were stunned by both Janna’s and Liza’s power, Janna gently tightened her grip on her sword’s scabbard.

“I wouldn’t have expected that you will be able to defend against my Heaven Slash. It is one of my family’s most respected and powerful Secret Art.”

*Crack!*

*Crack!*

*Clang!*

As Janna talked, the jade ice before Liza started to show cracks on the surface one after another, and soon later with a heavy, metallic sound collapsed to the ground.

However, Liza still looked as unfazed as ever, showing that Janna’s Secret Art didn’t surprise her at all.

“So that’s what a Secret Art is. Truly powerful.”, said Liza as she looked at Janna.

Secret Arts were special skills, that one could only use after several years of hard practice.

Naturally, Liza knew about Secret Arts, because her family had such Arts too, but because of the incident, all of them disappeared or got burnt to ashes by the fire.

But even though she couldn’t learn her Family’s original Secret Art, she understood those skills concept quite well.

The aim of each Secret Art always differed from each other, but all of them had one, single thing in common.

Secret Arts used the Essence in the body to bring out the full power and potential from the skill. Without the knowledge of how to control the Essence in one’s body, one will be unable to utilize a Secret Art, no matter how hard one tried.

Some Secret Arts used only the body’s Essence as a fuel to create different skills, while there were some which built entirely on one specific Talent.

Anyone was able to learn the former one, while only those could learn the latter one who had a Talent that functioned perfectly with that Secret Art.

Generally, Secret Arts that worked with specific Talents were way stronger than normal Secret Arts, but there were a few exceptions that could beat Talent associated Secret Arts.

As Liza noticed, Janna’s Secret Art could be categorized into the latter one. It looked like her Secret Art, Heaven Slash operated only with weapon-associated Talents.

It worked in a way where by channeling the Essence in the body with her Talent, she could utilize both her weapon and body to surpass human momentum for a single second.

Simply put, with Heaven Slash, Janna was able to move her weapon and attack Liza like thunder in a blink of an eye.

Naturally, the skill would have been able to kill anyone with an ordinary Talent, but unfortunately, Janna chose the wrong opponent.

Liza’s Natural Talent was called Jade Ice, but unfortunately, it didn’t tell what its true worth really was.

Her Jade Ice was extremely durable, and if she wanted to, she could make it to turn into water at will. However, its most scariest aspect was not that, but its instinctive ability, where it could work out of Liza’s control.

It acted on its own will just when it sensed that Liza’s life was in danger, protecting her from certain death. It could be said that her ability had its very own consciousness.

And that was why she didn’t look scared nor anxious at all when she found out what her opponent’s ability was.

With her Jade Ice, no matter how fast one was, until it was on the same Cultivation Stage as her, she had the upper hand.

“You are strong.”, said Liza as she raised her hand and continued, “But poorly, your technique is not refined enough.”

Upon hearing this, Janna wanted to say something but saw an incredible scene.

In Liza’s hand, a similar weapon that she had started to manifest out of pure Jade Ice, causing confusion to emerge on everyone’s face instantly.

“What is she trying to do?”, thought Jane with a raised eyebrow, but the next second her eyes widened and snapped her head toward Janna.

“Watch o-!”

*BOOM!*

But even before she could have finished her warning, Liza waved her sword, and a massive explosion broke out from her jade weapon.

In a blink of an eye, crimson flames appeared around Janna, and like hungry devils from hell itself, they engulfed her body.

“!”

Dust and debris flew everywhere with insane heat, causing the whole arena to tremble like crazy.

Jane and everyone else seeing this turned speechless, not knowing how they should react at the sight before them.

“Did I overdo it?”, thought Liza, kind of worried, but suddenly the dust before her was flung away, revealing a figure in an instant.

“You have won.”, said Scarlett in an ice-cold tone of voice as she looked at Liza with a piercing glare.

Her whole body was shining with dim white light, causing the flames around her to be extinguished in an instant.

With Janna’s unconscious body in her arms, she looked like some kind of deity who descended from heaven, protecting the vulnerable.

Her whole being leaked a kind of absolute and ancient aura that told others, no matter what should happen, she was always there to help.

“We will talk about this later.”, said Scarlett calmly to Jane without glancing at her, and vanished into thin air.

Jane, who was still standing on the side in silence could just smile and shook her head after hearing that.

“There will be nothing to talk about. My disciple was stronger and won, that’s what happened. But still, thinking she was able to copy half of her Secret Art even though she had no weapon-associated Talent… Just how strong is she?”

What happened just now made Jane ponder with both curiosity and confusion.

The moment after Liza defended against the powerful assault and did a counter-attack, she used Janna’s Heaven Slash as her assault.

By forming a weapon out of her Talent and controlling a bit of her Essence into it, she was able to mimic Janna’s Secret Art quite easily.

And to make things even tougher for Janna, Liza added her second Talent’s power, just to make sure her attack will be 100% unstoppable.

If it weren’t for the fact that her Talent was not associated with weapons, rendering her to use the Secret Art to its full potential, Liza could have killed Janna even before Scarlett would have been able to help.

Such terrifying learning speed and Talent was almost heaven-defying!

“There are definitely a few ways to learn other people’s Secret Arts, but this is way too fast! How did she do it?”, thought Jane, trying to solve the mystery.

The news about Liza’s dominating victory spread in Moon Academy like wildfire, making a lot of people feel curiousity toward Liza.

And as this ruckus went on in the Academy, until then, Khal was fighting for his dear life in a dense and huge forest-like there was no tomorrow.

Since the moment he was teleported into this hell, he was pursued by tons of creatures non-stop, while Logan did nothing but watched from the side with a relaxed expression.

Even after he ran for hours in the forest as fast as he could, he was still unable to outrun the creatures that chased him from behind.

But it was not a big of a surprise to be honest. His Talent was related to his sight and not with his speed, so it was only natural that he was slower than wolves.

“From the left!”, halted his movement Khal, and prepared himself for an attack in an instant.

“ROOAAR!!”

And just as he did, with a blood-freezing roar, a dreadful creature that represented a mutated wolf jumped at Khal from the shadows, ready to tear him into pieces.

“…”

Yet, even in the face of such danger, Khal acted as calm as ever.

With the help of his Heaven’s Eyes, he avoided the creature’s assault and at the same time swung his dagger toward its neck like a hammer.

*Swish!*

“ROA-!!”

As Khal watched the creature’s ugly head flying high up into the air, turned happy, but not for too long.

Slowly, mutated wolves emerged from the shadows one by one, making Khal realize that he was trapped in the middle with no escape route at all.

“GRRR!!!”

With loud howls that could make any weak-willed cultivator to pee their pants in fear, the creatures approached Khal slowly, ready to pounce on him at any given moment.

As Khal saw that his situation turned to the worse, sighed and placed his thumb into the small gap in the bottom of his dagger.

“Let’s see if it will work once again!”, said Khal and without hesitation pushed his finger upward, causing the dagger to open into a huge fan instantly.

*Clang!*

And just like it was a signal, all the wolves roared angrily toward the sky, and with bloodshot eyes, leaped at Khal.

“ROOAARR!!!”

“Come!”, said Khal with determined eyes and swung his weapon without reluctance.

*Swish!*

*BOOM!*