Chapter Two: The Wave-Cleaving Technique

A solitary island.

Dawn.

The sky remained dark, shrouded in mist.

“Up, time to train!”

Ye Mo woke early, crawled out of his tent, and dug up the few roasted seabird eggs left beneath the campfire from the previous night to fill his stomach.

Then, striding purposefully, he entered the waters near the beach, letting the sea submerge most of his body.

This was his habit in martial training: every day before sunrise, he began his practice in the water.

Ye Mo gripped his Azure Blade, planting his feet firmly in the sea, facing the surging waves head-on.

The force of the waves was immense, easily enough to topple a person. If a huge wave crashed upon one’s body, it would sting as if struck by an iron plate.

A cresting wave was about to engulf him.

In that instant, Ye Mo’s sword moved.

“Wave-Cleaving Technique, First Form: Breaker Slash—Break!”

With a shout, Ye Mo surged with power, his sword slicing toward the tip of the incoming wave. A potent force erupted from his arm, channeling through the blade.

A half-yard-high wave split perfectly in two, rushing past him on either side, without a single drop splashing onto his body.

The Wave-Cleaving Technique—a low-grade martial art.

Ye Mo had trained in this sword art since he was eight years old, for a full decade.

He’d earned it with half a year’s wages doing odd jobs at an inn in the royal city of Wuguo, then bought it from a ragged stall in the local market; the lowest tier of martial arts manuals. This technique was even lower grade than others like Tiger Fist, Eagle Claw, or Mantis Boxing, which were themselves considered street-level arts.

Such a low-grade manual was naturally cheap; it was the only martial art Ye Mo could afford at the time.

The Wave-Cleaving Technique had only three forms, all remarkably simple.

Just now, Ye Mo had performed the first form, Breaker Slash—the simplest entry move. Then followed the intermediate form, Vortex Slash, and finally the advanced form, Stacked Wave Slash.

The Breaker Slash was astonishingly simple, reduced to a single action: in the water, slash forward at the wave, straight through, no variation.

Because the move was so basic, lacking any variation, it was slow to yield results, and its training was dull. Few warriors were willing to persevere in mastering such a manual. The Wave-Cleaving Technique was scorned by countless beginners as trash, inferior even to Tiger Fist or Eagle Claw.

Ye Mo, at eight, knew none of this.

He bought the manual and began training with fervor.

In the streams, waterfalls, rivers of Wuguo, he faced the current, daily practicing the Breaker Slash.

In summer, he jumped into cool streams to strike at swimming fish.

In winter, when the river froze, he shivered, breaking a hole in the ice and plunging into the frigid water to continue training.

Thirsty, he drank water; hungry, he ate fish. Young Ye Mo’s constitution was nourished by the river’s bounty.

He slashed at least three thousand times a day—nearly one hundred thousand a month, over a million a year, more than five million in five years—never missing a day.

Ye Mo spent five years, and by thirteen, had honed the Breaker Slash to its absolute peak.

No matter the fish in the river, whether a massive puffer weighing dozens of pounds or a shrimp barely larger than a bean, his sword would cleave it cleanly in two.

The essence of Breaker Slash was to deliver a fatal blow in the simplest manner.

The first form of the Wave-Cleaving Technique was simple.

Yet any move, refined through five million repetitions over five years, even the simplest, could wield unimaginable power.

Ye Mo finished training the first form and began practicing the second, Vortex Slash, which generated a whirlpool of sword force, slashing in every direction.

Another five years passed, and at eighteen, Ye Mo mastered Vortex Slash.

After a decade of relentless training, he had brought the first form to perfection, the second to the pinnacle, and began attempting the third and most powerful—Stacked Wave Slash.

Training the Wave-Cleaving Technique also greatly strengthened his body.

Ye Mo was now at the mid-stage of the martial artist’s body refinement, the sixth layer.

The stages of body refinement were clear, usually measured by strength: early-stage could consistently exert one hundred pounds, mid-stage two hundred, late-stage three hundred.

Before setting out to sea, Ye Mo had tested his base strength—already two hundred pounds; if he broke through to late-stage, he would reach three hundred.

“Two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine slashes... Three thousand! Done!”

Facing the incoming waves, Ye Mo leaned forward, muscles taut, gripping his sword tightly.

In a blink, the wave crashed toward him.

Just as it was about to strike, a flash of cold light swept out; with a sharp crack, the wave split, leaving Ye Mo untouched.

He sheathed his Azure Blade.

Sheathing was to train his draw speed. Normally, a warrior’s sword was in its scabbard; when danger arose, one must draw instantly—the enemy would not wait for him to prepare.

Draw, slash, sheath—the motion seamless.

For a full hour, Ye Mo practiced Breaker Slash, completing his daily quota of three thousand strikes.

Because the move was so simple, stripped of all embellishments, it became almost instinctive.

The sun leapt above the sea, casting its first ray of light.

Ye Mo stood amidst dawn and waves, sword in hand, his youthful face calm and composed.

“First form Breaker Slash complete—now for the second, Vortex Slash!”

He took a deep breath and dove several yards deep, submerging himself entirely to practice Vortex Slash on the shallow seabed.

Vortex Slash was a ranged sword technique, able to attack all enemies within a yard—an art for fighting many at once.

Holding his breath, Ye Mo gripped the Azure Blade with both hands, spinning and slashing rapidly.

The resistance of water made training much harder.

But once mastered in water, the technique’s power on land would be formidable.

Gradually, Ye Mo spun faster, the blade slicing the water, leaving a trail of white—a fissure that widened as his speed increased, seeming to carve a vacuum.

Beneath the sea, a whirlpool formed around Ye Mo, spinning faster and faster, drawing in water from dozens of yards, all sucked to his feet.

Practicing Vortex Slash was extremely difficult—the key lay in maintaining balance while spinning.

When he first began, Ye Mo could hardly complete a few spins without dizziness and staggered steps, forcing him to stop.

Just mastering the balance of spinning and slashing took him nearly three months.

After five years, he brought the second form to supreme proficiency.

Ye Mo remained beneath the waves, repeatedly executing Vortex Slash.

After the time it takes for half a stick of incense to burn, he had performed dozens of Vortex Slashes, expending all his energy. He pushed off the seabed, breaking free from the whirlpool’s pull, and burst above the surface, gasping for air.

The longer the whirlpool lasted, the greater its power.

Now, every time Ye Mo finished practicing, the whirlpool he created would persist for a full stick of incense before dissipating.

Another hour passed.

“Wave-Cleaving Technique’s first form Breaker Slash and second form Vortex Slash—I’ve mastered both. But the third form, Stacked Wave Slash, still eludes me!”

Ye Mo pondered.

The third form, Stacked Wave Slash, as its name suggested, was like river waves, each higher than the last.

It was essentially an upgrade of Breaker Slash—combining two or even three Breaker Slashes in succession. So, nominally the third form, it was really a sequence of the first.

When mastered, Stacked Wave Slash could unleash two or three consecutive slashes in a single instant, each stronger than the last, ferocious and deadly.

Few warriors ever mastered it; those who achieved the triple slash were exceedingly rare.

Ye Mo had trained for ten years, yet still hadn’t achieved the double Stacked Wave Slash.

He remembered, vaguely, what the stall owner had told him when he bought the manual:

“The secret of martial arts is summed up in four words—practice breeds skill.”

“A simple move, practiced ten thousand times, is ‘poor technique,’ commonplace. One hundred thousand times is ‘skilled,’ minor achievement. One million times is ‘proficient,’ first-rate. Five million times is ‘supreme,’ superlative. Ten million times is ‘miraculous’—a grandmaster is nothing more.”

“This Wave-Cleaving Technique may be low-grade, but it eliminates all flashy moves, retaining only the most practical two forms. Any move practiced over a million times will reach mastery; its power can surpass high-grade techniques.”

“Unfortunately, most warriors despise its simplicity and dull practice, finding no early advantage, and lack patience to reach the highest level.”

Ye Mo hadn’t thought much, simply took the manual and trained.

He spent ten years, day after day, honing Wave-Cleaving Technique—ten million Breaker Slashes, five million Vortex Slashes, far beyond mere proficiency.

With a sweep of his sword, Ye Mo unleashed two streaks of cold light, meeting a wave, dazzling in the sunlight.

The two flashes split the wave one after the other.

Watching the spray scatter, Ye Mo knew he had failed again.

His sixth-layer physique still lacked the force to produce the necessary speed—he could not master Stacked Wave Slash.

For a martial artist, strength was the foundation; without it, speed could not be achieved.

Stacked Wave Slash required extraordinary speed—at least two consecutive strikes in an instant, doubling the force and impact on the enemy. Otherwise, it was simply Breaker Slash, not the double or triple variant.

Ye Mo was unwilling to concede; he pressed his lips, preparing for another attempt.

After another hour, the day’s training was done. He had failed to master the third form, but had further refined the previous two.

Sheathing his Azure Blade, Ye Mo left the water, body exhausted.

Though training the Wave-Cleaving Technique improved his physique, it was ultimately an external art; two or three hours daily brought him to his physical limit.

“The seabird eggs I roasted last night are gone—I’ll have to find more.”

Ye Mo rubbed his grumbling stomach.

Training martial arts was never a matter of a single day; filling his belly on this island was a daunting task. He needed to search for streams, find fresh water to drink.

Meat, dry rations, fresh water—these were all essential to his survival on this desolate island.