Chapter 481: A Body Full of Skills but Empty
Jiang Li felt this fight was completely pointless—what did winning prove, and what did losing change?
The other Jiang Li fought with blazing confidence. Ever since he defeated Jiang Yixing in Qingcheng, he had never lost. No matter how difficult the system’s tasks or how powerful the enemy, he always completed the missions and triumphed over opponents.
A thousand battles without defeat—that was his backbone.
When that other Jiang Li was in the Sword Tomb, he used system points on swordpath talent and, from the twelve-sided swordstone stele, grasped the twelve-form sword technique.
Those twelve forms were the Sword Sovereign’s lifelong masterpiece.
Later, the Sword Sovereign personally instructed him, and his sword technique advanced by leaps and bounds.
As he completed more tasks, he kept pouring points into the swordpath talent until he completely surpassed both the Sword Sovereign and Bai Hongtu—the twin peaks of swordsmanship in the Nine Provinces—and became the undisputed leader of swordpath.
Across the world, sword cultivators all bowed to him as sovereign.
The other Jiang Li manifested an exquisitely perfect immortal sword—razor-sharp and otherworldly—and a light slash could tear through space.
This was a reward from the system.
In reality, he often fought with that sword; it combined elegance with lethality.
In the dream, he could only manifest that sword.
“Yellow River waters descending from the heavens!”
He swung the sword, unleashing a swordpath that surpassed Bai Hongtu and the Sword Sovereign. Sword qi surged like the Yellow River filling the sky, pouring from the horizon into the mortal realm.
“Rushing on forever, never to return!”
The sword qi condensed into a lance and stabbed toward Jiang Li.
The other Jiang Li took his opponent seriously; he had never used this move before—not even against the Outer Realm Demons.
“I told you, this is useless in combat.” As the other Jiang Li gathered his energy and swung, Jiang Li appeared behind him and kicked.
That peerless sword move missed empty air.
Jiang Li weighed the immortal sword, flicked it lightly, and the sword gave a phoenix-like cry before turning into dust under high-frequency vibration.
“You actually dare to bring a weapon of this strength into a fight? You yourself are tougher than that sword.” Jiang Li could not comprehend the other Jiang Li’s logic in fighting with an immortal sword.
“Heaven and earth as the furnace!” the other Jiang Li roared. Immortal flames ignited from his brow and spread through the whole dream.
These immortal flames were another system reward. Using that fire, he had displayed miracles at the Alchemy Conference—his fire control astonished the senior elders of the alchemical world, and he even captivated the heart of a beautiful alchemist.
His pill-crafting talent surpassed Alchemy Peak’s Su Wei and even the Crimson Sun Cauldron, reaching the ultimate stage of using heaven and earth as the furnace.
He used the world as a furnace to temper himself, raising his bodily toughness to a new level.
Alchemy did not only refine pills; it could repel foes.
The vast immortal fire felt like glazed glass, roaring with overwhelming might, as if a cauldron lid had formed overhead, capping Jiang Li.
“Refine!” the other Jiang Li shouted. This move could melt the world; Immortal Elder Changcun had said even Celestial Immortals would perish under it.
“Refine? Start by redoing your qi refining!” Jiang Li made a collecting gesture with one hand, drew the roaring immortal fire into his palm, and instantly extinguished it.
“Showy and hollow combat—are you really fighting or just performing?”
“Even if alchemy can be used in combat, how can it match martial ways like martial path or body cultivation that are meant purely for battle?”
“When facing weaker opponents, you can afford to use flashy moves; but when you face someone whose depth you don’t know, you still fight like this—do you think I won’t use lethal force?”
Jiang Li refused to play along with the other version’s random fighting. He closed in for close-quarters combat; every punch struck flesh. The other Jiang Li couldn’t even defend properly.
“Your punches lack straightness. Extend your legs—use your reach.”
“You know my strength exceeds yours, yet you still dare to trade fists with me. Admirable courage, but misapplied. You don’t even know how to borrow force to strike force. I refuse to believe you’ve never learned Four Ounces Move a Thousand Pounds.”
“Skillful force—do you even know how to apply it?”
“Combos must be coherent. Don’t mindlessly copy moves. Learn to dissect, combine, and synthesize them.”
“Here a fire control method, there a formation—can’t you combine them and use flame to form an array?”
“Swordpath too—are you only capable of condensing countless sword qi into one beam and not of arranging sword qi into formations?”
“Where is your combat awareness? Right now you’re far inferior to Bai Hongtu and Yu Yin.” Jiang Li spoke of the Bai Hongtu and Yu Yin from his own world; he didn’t yet know what Bai Hongtu and Yu Yin in this world might be like.
“Impossible, impossible, impossible—I can’t be worse than you!”
“I’d like to ask that too. Your power is comparable to the First Emperor, but in combat awareness he could leave you eating dust by leagues.”
The other Jiang Li didn’t know who the First Emperor was. He found himself cornered, trying to recover face but instead being beaten down.
If the opponent came from a parallel world, how could the gap be so huge?
He couldn’t understand. In Huanyu World he learned martial path and fought the Twelve Heavenly Kings; in Tongu World he learned schemes and helped Yu Feng reach Nascent Soul stage; in Lingxi World he analyzed demon-blood and learned various demonic techniques to halt a Nation-Destroying Beast Tide; in Ayla World he learned to use faith power and soul to become the eighth deity…
He had completed every system task—things he could give up and things he shouldn’t. He even finished side tasks like obtaining origin points; he maxed every talent point in the system panel and learned all the Nine Provinces’ techniques.
He swore he had pushed the system to its limits. Even if he encountered his parallel self, it should at most be a draw—not a one-sided beatdown.
Could the other’s system be more advanced than his?
“Don’t be distracted in a fight.” Jiang Li’s voice sounded demonic to the other Jiang Li, like returning to weakness and accepting the Sword Sovereign’s demonic training.
Jiang Li made no pretense of courtesy. He swung with expansive power, like hitting a sandbag, and struck the other relentlessly.
When the fight ended, the other Jiang Li no longer tried to recover face.
“Sorry for interrupting your dalliance—yeah, that was my bad from the start. I also told you to put your clothes back on. You hardly see each other; sit and chat. Why do you assume I’m ogling them?”
“Be rational, keep your head. Don’t get lost in lust.”
The other Jiang Li had wanted to nod, but when Jiang Li said that last sentence, he stopped himself from nodding.
Jiang Li sighed helplessly: “Fine, whatever. A parallel world has its own way of living. Although you don’t fight as comfortably as the First Emperor, you’re not someone who kills at the slightest disagreement.”
The other Jiang Li murmured weakly, “Well, I actually have a pretty good reputation in the Nine Provinces world.”
He was not lying. Though he couldn’t beat Jiang Li here, in their world he was the strongest.
He protected the Nine Provinces, resisted the Outer Realm Demons, and never slaughtered innocents.
“They can all vouch for me.” The other Jiang Li pointed to his harem.
Jiang Li glared: “They’re all law graduates. They all need to recuse themselves!”
“Oh, haven’t reviewed that in a while—forgot.”