Chapter Fourteen: Sudden Enlightenment

Page 1/3

Xiao Jie hurriedly opened the skill menu to take a look.

[Blade Weapon Mastery (Beginner)
Passive Effect: When using blade-type weapons, attack speed increases by 10%, and attack accuracy improves by 10%.
Skill Description: You have some understanding of wielding blade weapons. When fighting with such weapons, you become more adept, able to utilize them more effectively.
This skill is also a prerequisite for learning blade techniques, martial arts, secret skills, and ultimate arts.]

After reading the skill description, Xiao Jie felt a surge of joy. Choosing to develop cautiously really was the right choice.

So that’s how it is... So that’s how it is...

Any game designer would create a reasonable growth path for players to progress.

The simplest design is to make monsters weaker than players of the same level, allowing players to continuously defeat monsters, level up, grow stronger, and then challenge higher-level monsters.

A slightly more complex system might add various class quests or talent systems, requiring players to complete specific content besides just fighting monsters, thereby gaining strength through those achievements.

But the game before him clearly had a freer and more subtle growth route.

From this newly acquired skill, Xiao Jie quickly deduced the reasonable development path for new players in this game.

Players gain basic weapon skills through jobs in the village, with different jobs corresponding to different weapon types.

Blacksmithing would be for hammers, logging for battle axes, chopping wood naturally for blades, and farming perhaps for polearms.

With weapon skills, players could then learn corresponding combat techniques and martial arts to increase their strength.

Working also earns copper coins, which can be used to buy basic equipment.

With equipment and skills, venturing out of the village to explore would naturally be safer.

Exactly like that!

At this moment, Xiao Jie’s thoughts became incredibly clear.

Although this gameplay method lacked explicit guidance, and theoretically players could leave the village to fight monsters and level up directly—possibly even learning weapon skills through combat—there was no doubt that the path he discovered was the optimal solution for ordinary newcomers.

Xiao Jie swung his blade again to chop wood. After a few strikes, he could clearly feel both the control and accuracy of his strikes had improved.

The improvement was slight—ordinary players might not even notice—but for someone like Xiao Jie, a professional player who refined every detail of his gameplay, the sensation was unmistakable.

Previously, even if he chopped the same spot on a tree, the blade’s landing point would vary slightly, like the spread of a crosshair in a shooting game—something that couldn’t be compensated for by skill alone.

But now, Xiao Jie could precisely land every chop exactly where he aimed.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Wood +1 +2 +1 +1 +2!

The more he chopped, the smoother it felt. Xiao Jie’s mouse movements seemed to carry a strange rhythm, flowing seamlessly.

In an instant, a tree was reduced to a bare trunk.

He rushed to the next dead tree.

Xiao Jie’s rhythm and feel grew stronger with every chop; his blade swings became wider and more powerful. No matter how high or fast he swung, he could accurately strike the branches he intended to cut.

One bundle, two bundles, three bundles... The wood in his backpack accumulated at an astonishing rate.

Page 2/3

His right hand, sliding the mouse, seemed to exert even more effort.

Watching his character’s blade strikes grow fiercer and faster, Xiao Jie felt a subtle stirring within him, a vague sense that something was about to happen—that the calm surface of the lake was about to be shattered.

But what exactly was it?

Clearly within reach, yet shrouded as if by a thin veil, he stared intently at the screen, searching for that faint opportunity hidden in the game’s details.

Until—

Slash! He struck again.

This time the blade was raised high, the strike exceptionally clean and crisp.

Crack.

The blade severed three branches extending from the left side all at once.

One strike cut through three pieces of dry wood. Looking at the break, all three branches were cleanly cut at the base, the cuts smooth and neat.

[System Notice: Great success in chopping wood—Wood +3!]

[System Notice: Your “Enlightenment” state has been triggered. You have gained a “Sudden Insight”!]

Suddenly, a golden light flashed above Xiao Jie’s character, and a golden icon appeared in the center of the screen.

Two golden characters flashed on it: “Sudden Insight!”

Xiao Jie was momentarily stunned, then overwhelmed with excitement.

He had been wondering what use the [Enlightenment] buff obtained at the ancestral hall could have, and how this sudden insight effect would activate.

He never expected it would happen so naturally.

Gazing at the gleaming golden icon in the center of the screen, Xiao Jie eagerly clicked on it.

[Words of Sudden Insight: Through your continuous labor of chopping wood, you have grasped the secret of splitting an object in two, thereby comprehending the combat technique—[One Strike Sever]!]

[One Strike Sever (Combat Skill)
Applicable Weapons: One-handed blade, one-handed sword.
Skill Cost: 50 stamina.
Skill Effect 1: Deals 300% weapon slashing damage and triggers a “limb sever” effect.
Skill Effect 2: ???? (Locked. Requires internal energy enhancement to activate.)
Skill Description: A combat skill that a nameless swordsman discovered through chopping wood. After assuming a stance and standing still, the sword is suddenly unleashed, delivering a fierce strike combining speed and precision.
It is said this blade, used to chop branches, can easily sever the limbs of living creatures.]

Haha! Finally, a combat skill. This ancestor wasn’t in vain.

Eagerly, Xiao Jie used his newly learned skill on the dead tree in front of him.

His character assumed a stance with the blade hidden behind the back, then unleashed a swift strike. The blade cut a shining arc through the air, instantly splitting a branch as thick as a rolling pin in two. The branch seemed momentarily stunned in midair before falling to the ground.

So cool!

He tried twice more, quickly mastering the skill’s power, speed, and attack range. This combat skill required a 0.5-second charge-up; after charging, the strike could be delayed to wait for the perfect moment. Once unleashed, it was nearly twice as fast as a normal swing, making it difficult to dodge.

Page 3/3

Seeing the “limb sever” effect description, Xiao Jie strongly suspected that monsters in this game could truly lose parts of their bodies.

He had played other games with limb severing effects before, like cutting off arms or legs, which greatly reduced the monsters’ combat ability.

Though “One Strike Sever” lacked flashy visual or sound effects, its simplicity and practicality, coupled with its speed, made it an extremely useful early-stage combat skill.

But learning it in the game wasn’t enough.

He had to master it in reality as well.

Logging out and returning to the village, Xiao Jie couldn’t wait to try it out in real life.

After searching around his house, he finally found a kitchen knife.

Fine, a kitchen knife it was.

He found a cardboard box and placed it on a stool as a target.

Assuming a stance, he swung the knife.

Crack! The blade sank halfway in, stuck there.

Damn, why did it feel so dull? This was just ordinary chopping.

Xiao Jie swung a few more times, chopping the once-intact cardboard box into tatters, but it lacked the sharpness and flair of the “One Strike Sever” from the game.

Something was off; this ability wasn’t so simple to use.

How had he pulled off the aerial flip back then?

Ah, yes—that was a life-or-death moment, instinctively triggered.

Xiao Jie grabbed a new cardboard box.

Standing before it, he calmed his mind and spirit, trying to summon the image in his mind.

He imagined the red sports car rapidly approaching.

He relived the moment of terror.

Fear flooded his heart—the despair and helplessness of facing death. Amid the chaotic memories, the image of Yin Yue swinging a blade in the wind suddenly flashed vividly in his mind.

That was it!

He opened his eyes sharply and swung the kitchen knife with all his might. The blade traced a gleaming arc through the air, cutting across the cardboard box.

The box remained intact, seemingly undamaged—but only for a moment. The next instant, the cardboard box split cleanly in two, crashing onto the floor with a loud thud.

Xiao Jie picked up the halved box, examining the cut edge—it was smooth and flawless, as if sliced by a precision cutter.

Looking at the kitchen knife in his hand, Xiao Jie’s heart leapt with joy. Was this strike really his own?

Yes, this was power. Although still weak, with time and patience, the target under this blade would no longer be a cardboard box, but the head of Liu Qiang.