Bombarding Cultivators with Cluster Artillery

After repeated confirmation,

Jiang Ding finally realized

that this was a panda born with a slow reaction time.

No wonder, despite her excellent talents, she was only at the Chuying Inner Qi Grand Achievement, especially considering that her twin sister, Hua Xiaoye, had already reached the late-stage Qi Practicing. It wouldn't be surprising if she reached the Peak of Qi Practicing in three years.

"Elder Jiang, should it be split here?"

"Elder Jiang, is this how the Inner Energy should circulate when stabbing with the sword?"

"Elder Jiang..."

Hua Xiaohua practiced her swordsmanship with a ferocious vigor, excitedly asking various questions. She had never felt like she did today, where even just practicing allowed her to clearly sense her minute progress—

Nonsense, she had never really practiced before; she was starting from scratch.

"..."

Jiang Ding opened his mouth, swallowing the words he was about to typically say.

Forget it, she's just a kid, and it's not a fight to the death. Why be so harsh?

Right then, he continuously pointed out and corrected her swordsmanship and Inner Energy circulation mistakes, allowing her techniques to improve bit by bit, with significant room for progress.

She trained for several hours straight, during which she periodically took tonic soups to replenish her Inner Energy and vitality.

"Not bad."

Jiang Ding also discovered an advantage in Hua Xiaohua.

Stubborn and resilient, she persisted for so long. Despite sore muscles and sweat soaking her fur, she hadn't complained of tiredness, hardly seeming like a teenager.

It seemed that the outside rumors of her laziness and fondness for play were a complete misunderstanding; she was just much slower to react.

"Dingling..."

The faint ringtone of a cellphone sounded, and Jiang Ding glanced at the name of the caller on the screen, Hua Chenggong.

Someone fairly important, it seemed.

He forwarded the call to his main body to see if it answered; if not, he would forward it back.

...

"Hua Chenggong..."

While Jiang Ding was refining a Flying Sword and engraving the thirteenth Earth Evil Prohibition, he casually answered the call.

In front of him, a screen of light slowly unfolded.

There were two giant pandas.

Taller than Hua Xiaohua by a good amount, standing upright at about 1.8 meters, with white fur on their body and black fur on their limbs and ears, black circles around their eyes.

They looked... quite similar.

Jiang Ding couldn't tell them apart.

They had the aura of the Nascent Soul Stage. Judging by demon beast standards, that would be equivalent to a Demon Monarch realm.

"Greetings to the two elders."

Jiang Ding couldn't distinguish who was Hua Chenggong but greeted them warmly nonetheless.

"Great Sun Swordsman? You are refining treasures; sorry for the disturbance," came a gentle female voice from the panda on the left, apologetically, almost as though she was going to hang up.

"No trouble at all,"

Jiang Ding shook his head slightly to indicate he could multitask.

Cultivators' perceptions of time varied greatly. If he waited till he was free, Hua Xiaohua would probably have finished her college entrance exams. What would be the point of talking then?

"Swordsman, I'm really sorry," the panda on the left with the gentle female voice apologized repeatedly before finally pointing to the panda beside her and saying, "This is my husband, Xiong Meilan, this fella is so clumsy that he can't even tutor our daughter with her homework, despite being at the Nascent Soul Stage!"

"Greetings, Elder Xiong,"

Jiang Ding instantly remembered the spirit consciousness fluctuation of both individuals and greeted them warmly.

"Swordsman, we meet for the first time. I've long admired your reputation," the voice of Xiong Meilan was a bit more robust.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries, they quickly got to the point.

"Swordsman, what is your opinion on Xiaohua's talent?"

Hua Chenggong asked.

"Very good. His cultivation talent is great, resilience is also strong, isn't afraid of hardship, and has made significant progress,"

Jiang Ding said out of politeness.

"You don't need to be so polite."

Hua Chenggong couldn't help but laugh and cry, "Xiaohua—mm, due to some innate defects in her divine soul, she reacts a bit more slowly, but her divine soul is not weak. It's more than twice as strong as Xiaoye's, and she could almost be considered the panda cub with the best divine soul talent in the Panda Clan, only slightly inferior to that of the old ancestor."

"Is that so?"

Jiang Ding was surprised.

He knew that Xiaohua's divine soul was strong, far stronger than that of a human at the same level, but he had thought all pandas were like this.

Then his heart stirred.

Great Sun Sword Pavilion, Great Sun Swordsmanship.

They demand exceptionally high soul talents and have no interest in anything like Taiyin Daoist Body or Five Elements Dao Body; they only value the sword cultivators who fight their way up from the bottom.

The Great Sun Flying Sword amplifies the divine soul to offset all other talents.

Take Zhong Guangzi, for example; he didn't have any special Daoist body, but that didn't stop him from oppressing the Taoist disciples of the Eight Great Immortal Sects, whether one-on-one or one-against-eight, the outcome was not much different.

"Swordsman,"

Seeing Jiang Ding fall silent, Hua Chenggong was quietly pleased, "To be honest, it was with earnest pleading that we sought guidance from the old ancestor before sending Xiaohua to you.

Xiaohua, this child, isn't very good with academic scores, operating tanks, or warships, so as her parents, we just wanted to find her a path."

"Of course, this is just a possibility; it's fine even if it doesn't succeed."

Jiang Ding's heart moved.

In the nascent stage of Xianmen swordsmanship, where the path forward is shrouded in dense fog, couldn't the talent that swordsmanship draws upon include those who failed to advance on the conventional paths of Xianmen?

"Swordsman,"

the deep-voiced giant panda Xiong Meilan waved a large paw. "I heard you are setting up a Sword Dao research center? Giving money and spirit stones is too vulgar, and you wouldn't accept them, so how about I provide a primary research center development team for you? I'll transfer some people over from the Shu Capital Panda Reproduction Research Center."

"I'll also procure and set up the research equipment for you."

"Don't worry, we only buy the most expensive equipment, not necessarily the best. It doesn't matter whether Xiaohua succeeds or fails."

"Elder..."

Jiang Ding raised his head, his eyes releasing a series of small, glittering stars.

This isn't just a figure of speech, his eyes were literally emitting a series of azure stars made of sword qi, scattering in all directions.

"Actually, the two of you don't need to go to such lengths."

Jiang Ding spoke with conviction, "The Sword Dao is just beginning to thrive, and we're desperate for talented individuals. If Xiaohua truly has the talent for it, naturally we should nurture her vigorously to enhance the glory of Sword Dao. This is my great fortune."

"We understand, we understand..."

Both giant pandas smiled innocently, adorably cute and incredibly misleading.

Call ended.

Jiang Ding took a deep breath, not immediately dealing with the matter. Instead, he spent several months finishing the refinement of his flying sword.

Moon Creek Crystal sprinkled, white mist rising, and the fiery red sword once again turned azure.

The thirteenth Earth Evil Prohibition was a success.

Behind him, the Sun God Wood erupted from the ground, eclipsing the sky, gathering the light of the sun while Jiang Ding sat beneath it, entering a deep meditative state, resting to his utmost, regaining his energy.

Then he dealt with the super wealthy patron's matter.

One month later, Jiang Ding opened his eyes, a flash of divine light fleeting.

"Xiaohua's divine soul is approximately four times that of an ordinary person."

"Her resilience is immense, and she isn't afraid of the pain of training. With these two attributes, she has the most basic potential already."

"Her only flaw is that her reactions are too slow, slower even than the average person."

Jiang Ding pondered carefully and repeatedly consulted the books on Sword Dao in the Xianmen Library, finally settling his choice on a cultivation method, "The 'Divine Tortoise Magma Thorn Sword Canon,' an inheritance from the Great Sun Sword Pavilion, has its shortcomings, with the highest level of practice only reaching the Nascent Soul Stage. It focuses on counterattacking after the enemy's attack, refining the Magma Sword Qi into Thorn Sword Armor worn on the body. The stronger the attack received, the stronger the counterattack.

"If the opponent is unwilling to strike first, I will attack first and directly kill them."

"More importantly, by practicing the sword to enter the path, if the swordsmanship is practiced well, it can help condense the spiritual soul, thereby increasing the reaction speed of the divine soul, the speed of absorbing knowledge, hence indirectly accelerating the learning pace."

"At the mortal stage, one needs to refine a Magma Thorn Flying Sword Embryo similar to the Great Sun Flying Sword, and this cultivation method, being tailored for humans, needs adjustment... this aspect can be entrusted to the Shu Capital Giant Panda Breeding Research Base."

The more Jiang Ding thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. He turned on his computer and began to write and draw, designing the cultivation method and the teaching plan.