62 Chapter 62 (1/2)
Matt was on his sword munching on some healing pills while his wounds were regenerating slowly. He didn't like how his first mission went down, he almost died fighting that dragon then some crazy bandits wanted to chop his head off. He even got some innocent people involved, then had to kill. He'd give himself an F+ for handling things, the + just for not being dead in the end. He kind of figured that he shouldn't rush into these kinds of things without gathering some intel first. Though not like there was anyone around that volcanic mountain range to ask questions about. He could also use a detection skill of some sorts, maybe if he pined the location of that dragon before it noticed him, he could have gotten a sneak attack in.
First, he used the new points to get the first three manuscripts of the Thunder God Sword Scripture, to increase his attacking power. Each manuscript taught him one special move, but they also contained the knowledge about sword stances, methods of attacking and defending. The first one was an attacking technique, the sword practitioner would release sword energy and deliver a slicking attack that would cut anything in its way. It also added some lightning laws, and besides slicing and dicing your opponent it would kick up a storm in its wake. It had the name of Thunder God Slash, it also increased in power with every higher-ranked manuscript. There was also a variation of the skill called Thunder God Thrust.
The second one was called Thunder God Domain, it was a defensive move you formed in illusory domain calling up lightning elements and storms. In this domain, you could perceive all incoming attacks and react accordingly. The last one was a charge up attack called Sever the Heavens. It was similar to the first one, but it would deliver an immensely powerful strike and couldn't really be spammed like the Thunder God Slash move.
He decided to try out his new repertoire before moving on, starting with the basic Thunder God Slash. It was more or less a sword light type attack, if he did a slashing attack it would send out an energy blast from his sword, that would cut anything in its path. He tried it out, managing to slice up quite the big boulder with no problem at all. He could also do thrusting attacks with it, this left a big gaping hole in another large boulder that he abused.
The domain technique gathered lightning energy and sword intent around an area of about 10 meters in all directions. He threw a rock up into the air and closed his eyes, waiting for it to fall down. The moment the object got into his domain he could sense it along with its trajectory, slicing it in half without needing to open his eyes. This was quite a handy skill to predict enemy movement.
The last one was a bit harder to pull off. He grasped his sword with both his hands and started pumping his energy into it. The sword blade started expanding upwards, getting longer and wider. He performed a diagonal swipe with the 'charged up' weapon, slicing a smaller mountain peak in the process. He was left drained, sweat running down his forehead as he panted.
*I can't use this one too often...*
After getting the gist of his new sword techniques, he thought about the next destination. The closer one was the city where the cultists were in, but he needed some things before that. He looked for a fitting detection technique, maybe something to mask his aura or looks as well. He recalled that many Xianxia protagonists always had a handy technique to hide how they looked so that they could escape into the crowds whenever getting into trouble. Also if the cultist noticed that they had someone sniffing around town, they would either try to kill that person or lay low if they were too strong.
He looked at the earth graded skills as always, he aimed for something that worked on core formation experts and below as he couldn't really afford heavenly ranked skills and didn't know if he could actually use them. There was one, just named 'Earthly Disguise Art' that was supposed to work on core formation experts and below, masking the user's appearance along with his or her aura. It also helped the users detect people that were using disguising arts of lower and similar grade. Then there was an enhanced version called the 'Heavenly Disguise Art' That was a direct upgrade of this one.
He also wanted to snatch a better aura detection skill, maybe an aura tracking skill. People tended to leek their spiritual energy into the surroundings, it did dissipate after a while. He could maybe home in on this dissipating energy to track the evil cultivators. He felt that these were some quality of life skills, so he decided to drop some points into them as well.
Matt closed his eyes and focused his mind on his surroundings, the enhanced aura detection skill let him home in on the beasts and animals in the surroundings quite a bit more. His range also was increased by multiple kilometers, he dropped down to the ground. He noticed that if he used his new tracking skill a sort of mist appeared. It was a trail that he could choose to home in if he fallowed after it the person or animal in question would be at the end.