The Power of a Divided Mind

“The Golden Dust Garment may be a treasure, but I can pierce it with a casual finger,” Ji Yichuan said, looking at his son. “These are all external things. You are going to achieve great things in Fiendgod Body Refining, and a Fiendgod’s greatest strength is his own body. What you need is to draw out your own potential as much as possible, to bring out your true power.”

“Mm.” Ji Ning nodded solemnly.

“With Fiendgod Body Refining, you will be stronger, faster, able to see farther, hear more clearly, and your recovery ability will be far more astonishing!” Ji Yichuan continued, “To turn these into true combat power—”

“First, you need weapons!” he said. “If your strength is ten times that of an opponent, but he can kill you with an arrow from far away… that is the power of weapons.”

“Second, you need to be skilled with your weapon. For example, with the sword: even a man with no internal energy at all, if he reaches the second realm of swordsmanship—Unity of Man and Sword—can easily slit the throat of an opponent with powerful internal energy who has no idea how to use a weapon. After all, a strong internal energy cannot block the edge of a fine sword.” Ji Yichuan spoke calmly.

Ji Ning naturally understood these principles.

A big, strong fool encountering a skilled assassin wielding a short sword would die in a single exchange!

The body’s power was only one aspect; technique determined how much of that power could be unleashed. In his past life’s world, boxers and mixed martial artists had very similar physiques at the top level—what made the difference was technique, strategy, and the like.

“Tell me, what do you want to learn?” Ji Yichuan looked at his son.

“Ning’er, think carefully.” Yuchi Snow also looked at her son.

They already had a plan in mind for their son… After all, they thought their son was still very young; even if he was clever from childhood, how much could he truly understand? Yet they still asked him, making him learn to think for himself, before they offered their own ideas so that he could appreciate the differences.

“I want to learn three things,” Ji Ning suddenly said.

“First, I want to learn archery!” Ji Ning said.

Given that he was on the Fiendgod Body Refining path, he would have astonishing eyesight and immense strength. Of course he should use a bow. With Fiendgod-like power behind an arrow, it would break the speed of sound, likely far more terrifying than a heavy sniper rifle from his past life. A single arrow could strike an enemy from afar. And according to what he had read about archery, learning it wouldn’t be too difficult.

“Second, I want to learn the sword—dual swords!” Ji Ning said.

The Ji Clan’s specialty was the sword!

His father, Ji Yichuan, was even known by the title ‘Drip Sword.’ With such resources, of course he had to learn the sword!

“Dual swords?” Ji Yichuan frowned. “Go on.”

“Third, I want a lightness footwork technique, a method for fleeing,” Ji Ning said. “That’s all.”

When facing a powerful enemy, you had to be able to escape!

Only with strong survival ability could one live longer. And living longer gave more possibilities.

Yuchi Snow smiled. “Ning’er’s choices cover the major categories. But I think you should train with a single sword… The entire Ji Clan has no dual-sword expert. Sword training suffers most from divided attention; you must focus your mind on a single blade to achieve great success.”

“Your mother is right,” Ji Yichuan looked at his son as well.

“Father, Mother, I have been able to use a divided mind since I was very young,” Ji Ning said, looking up at his parents. He couldn’t explain the Nuwa Diagram, so he had to attribute it to being naturally gifted with a divided mind.

“What?!”

“A divided mind?”

Ji Yichuan and Yuchi Snow were greatly shocked.

“Do you even know what a divided mind is?” Ji Yichuan barked. “It’s not simply multitasking in doing things—it’s thinking about two different matters simultaneously, completely without interference.”

“I really can use a divided mind,” Ji Ning said quickly.

“Then try it.” Ji Yichuan’s eyes blazed with a startling light. He turned his hand over and produced two pieces of grayish-white stone. “Use these two stones to write on the ground. With your left hand, write your mother’s name; with your right, write my name. Write them at the same time!”

“Yes, Father.” Ji Ning nodded.

Taking the two stones, which felt a bit like limestone from his past life, Ji Ning held one in each hand and began writing. The stones wrote very smoothly.

Scrape! Scrape!

He wrote effortlessly with both hands at the same time, using the ancient, complex pictographic script of this world. On one side he wrote “Ji Yichuan,” on the other “Yuchi Snow.” The strokes were perfectly clear, with no confusion at all.

“Ning’er, you…” Yuchi Snow was stunned.

“This…” Ji Yichuan was shaken.

“No wonder, no wonder you were able to cultivate the Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens so quickly,” Ji Yichuan said slowly. “So my son’s soul is strong enough to split his mind!”

He looked at his son as if gazing upon a peerless uncut jade, his excitement barely contained. “Up until now, I have only barely been able to achieve a divided mind. But I trained in a single sword from childhood… my heart was set, so changing paths is hard! But my son has had this ability from birth… He was born to use dual swords! Two swords wielded as if two different people were attacking, forcing an enemy to face an assault from two opponents who share the same mind—this increases combat power tenfold!”

“Starting tomorrow, I will personally teach you swordsmanship!” Ji Yichuan looked at his son.

……

The next morning.

Thick vital energy of heaven and earth made the air hazy. Ji Ning had already been dragged to the training ground by his father.

“Ji Ning.” Ji Yichuan looked at his son and pointed to a burly, bearded man in beast-hide clothing standing nearby. “This is the foremost archer of our Ji Clan’s Western Prefecture—Meng Yu. His archery is extremely skilled. Meng Yu, first let this little fellow see what true archery looks like.”

“As you command.” Meng Yu replied respectfully.

Ji Yichuan walked directly to four large stone mill wheels placed ahead. Each must have weighed several hundred jin. He casually grabbed one and hurled it into the distance with a whoosh, then grabbed another and threw it. In the blink of an eye, all four mill wheels shot through the air like four cannonballs, turning into black specks in the sky.

“Ha!” The bearded Meng Yu suddenly produced a pitch-black greatbow in his hands, and in his fingers he held four arrows. He pulled the bowstring.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Four arrows flashed with silver light, vanishing in an instant as they caught up to the four black specks that were the mill wheels. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! The four black specks completely disappeared.

Ji Ning watched, dumbfounded.

He was frozen for a long time…

“Throwing a several-hundred-jin mill wheel over a couple of kilometers—like a cannonball!” Ji Ning was stunned inwardly. “And this Meng Yu’s arrows… less than a second and they traveled a couple of kilometers. Calculating the speed, those arrows had to be at least two thousand meters per second!”

“Legend tells of the great god Houyi, who once shot nine arrows to slay nine golden crows.” Meng Yu laughed heartily. “Young master, this is merely a trivial skill of mine.”

“Master Meng, those mill wheels shattered and fell—won’t they hit someone?” Ji Ning suddenly thought to ask.

Ji Yichuan shook his head. “Ji Ning, your master Meng Yu is already a Xiantian lifeform. When true essence infuses the arrow and strikes the mill wheel, it turns the wheel to powder that drifts down gently. How could it hurt anyone?”

Ji Ning was secretly amazed.

Impressive.

“From today onward, every morning you will train in archery with your master Meng Yu for one shichen,” Ji Yichuan said. “That will be your morning training. Meng Yu, I’ll trouble you.”

“It is my honor to teach the young master,” Meng Yu said with a laugh.

Ji Yichuan nodded and turned to leave.

The entire training ground fell quiet, with only Meng Yu and Ji Ning present. No servants.

“Young master.” Meng Yu looked at Ji Ning. “For a bowman, the bow and arrows are very important. An arrow has three parts: the arrowhead, the shaft, and the fletching. The bow consists mainly of the bow body and the bowstring. Arrows can be mass-produced, but the bow itself is precious!”

“There are two types of bows.”

“The first type consists of a flexible bow body and a resilient bowstring. When you draw the bow, the body bends… the energy is stored in the bow’s elasticity. This is the most common and ordinary type; relatively easy to make, and most ordinary archers use this kind.”

“The second type uses a rigid bow body and an elastic bowstring. When drawn, the bow body remains stable like a frame, while the bowstring stretches, storing tremendous elastic force. For example, the bow in my hand!”

Meng Yu handed the pitch-black greatbow to Ji Ning.

Ji Ning reached out and took the ancient bow, immediately feeling its weight. This greatbow had to weigh over a hundred jin. He studied it carefully: the bow body was made of a pitch-black metal, very shiny and smooth. The bowstring was about finger-thick, tinged with green, and a faint, fierce aura lingered around it.

“The bow body is forged from wind-thunder iron, extremely tough. The bowstring is even more precious—made from a section of dragon sinew taken from a flood dragon great demon. It possesses astonishing elasticity. Even if my strength were ten times greater, I couldn’t break this bow.” Meng Yu smiled. “I named it the Thunder Dragon Bow.”

Ji Yichuan’s eyes lit up when he heard this. Dragon sinew from a flood dragon great demon?

“Alright, let’s start with posture.” Meng Yu flipped his hand and produced an ordinary bow.

“Standing shot, crouching shot, back-turning shot, leaping shot, running shot!” Meng Yu looked at Ji Ning. “Young master, learning archery is divided into two stages. First is the foundation stage; second is the heart-arrow stage.”

“In the foundation stage, you must achieve ‘hand arrives, eye arrives, arrow arrives’ under the five basic postures. You must hit the target every time without fail before moving to the next stage.”

“The heart-arrow stage does not demand fixed postures. It only requires ‘the heart arrives, the arrow arrives.’ Don’t rely on your eyes—that’s too slow. You must rely on your heart! Draw and loose in an instant, hitting the target as fast as lightning. In a truly critical moment, the opportunity lasts only a breath. You won’t have time to take a slow aim. When you have mastered the heart-arrow stage, you will have graduated.”

Ji Ning listened and nodded.

He then began following Meng Yu’s guidance to first learn the correct posture.

“Straighten your waist! Left arm locked straight!”

“Hold that pose right there, with the bowstring drawn!”

“Eyes! Your eyes! Are you blind?”

Once he started teaching seriously, Meng Yu began to roar. Ji Ning, who was like a blank sheet of paper, was yelled at again and again. He could only endure and learn slowly.

A tall building rises from the ground. Even a divine archer had to start by learning to crawl.