Chapter 408: Chapter 408

"Haha..." Zhuque Leiting laughed, Baihu Yingqiong also laughed, and everyone who knew about the Supreme Sword Arts laughed, because they all thought Xiaoyao was bragging.

If what Xiaoyao said was true, could he still possibly be a servant? He would have long been a world-famous peerless swordsman!

Among all the people in the world who cultivated the Supreme Sword Arts, the one who had learned the most was currently Sword God Yan Nantian. He had already reached the God Level, and he only knew seventeen of the swords. Legend said he would soon be able to master the eighteenth sword, and his strength would rise to another level.

But Xiaoyao said he only didn't know the last sword, which meant he knew twenty-two swords—that is, he was much stronger than Yan Nantian. So was he at God Level?

From his strength, this boy was clearly only between General Level and King Level. Although the specifics couldn't be determined, he couldn't possibly be Emperor Level, let alone God Level, which was two major realms above Emperor Level.

This was just a joke!

"You should mean to say that you can understand all the sword moves. You read books all day, so you should know them theoretically," Xuanwu Lingxiao's understanding differed from everyone else's. She felt Xiaoyao's words might be true—he should understand the Supreme Sword Arts very well and could even give her some guidance.

However, whether he understood well or could guide others, neither could prove he could actually execute the moves. These were completely different concepts.

"Mm!" Xiaoyao nodded. This could be considered correct. Although he had comprehended these sword moves, it didn't count as mastering them. Some powerful sword moves required deep internal power as a foundation. He could execute them but couldn't release their complete power.

"I see. Just understanding them theoretically, not really knowing them. This is just armchair strategizing, completely meaningless," Zhuque Leiting slightly despised Xiaoyao, speaking as if she herself knew them.

"If it's not armchair strategizing, how could it be possible to know them. However, although the Supreme Sword Arts are not bad, compared to our Baihu family's White Tiger Fist technique, they're much weaker in terms of power!" Baihu Yingqiong said very proudly.

Her pride had some basis. The White Tiger Fist technique was one of the few fierce and aggressive martial arts in the world. In terms of power, it was among the very best!

Generally speaking, this type of fierce fist technique naturally had certain weaknesses, such as consuming a lot of internal power, which was a very fatal problem.

If you couldn't finish off your opponent, you could easily be finished off by them—this was a flaw of aggressive martial arts.

Naturally, since they knew this flaw, those who cultivated such martial arts would definitely have ways to compensate. However, for the Baihu family, the White Tiger Fist technique didn't really have this flaw because their cultivation methods could make up for this deficiency.

It was precisely because of this that the Baihu family's people surpassed Zhuque and Xuanwu in combat power and had always wanted to fight the Azure Dragon Imperial Clan to seize their position.

This was almost an open secret. For hundreds of years, the Baihu family had been working toward this goal, and the Azure Dragon Imperial Clan recently seemed somewhat unable to hold on and might step down from this position.

The Azure Dragon Empire was a very interesting empire. The Four Symbols families established the Azure Dragon Empire, and they had a rule that any family could compete for the imperial position—this wasn't considered treason, only competition.

However, there was also a rule that the four families couldn't shed each other's blood. Whoever killed any member of another family would lose all qualifications to compete for the throne for a hundred years and would be jointly suppressed by the other three families.

This rule had always been respected by the four families and never violated. The Azure Dragon Imperial Clan had basically always held the imperial position because they were originally the leader in establishing this empire and had the strongest power, always able to maintain it.

Of course, there had been strong counterattacks from other families when heaven-defying geniuses appeared. During those times, the empire would be renamed—if Baihu seized it, it became the White Tiger Empire, and so on.

But such periods were generally very brief. At most a hundred years, and it would be taken back by the Azure Dragon Imperial Clan!

However, it was hard to say now. The Azure Dragon Imperial Clan was gradually declining while the Baihu family was becoming strong. If Baihu seized it this time, Azure Dragon might find it very difficult to turn things around.

The reason for this situation was still due to the Azure Dragon Imperial Clan itself—internal struggles for the throne, especially a major succession battle several hundred years ago that consumed most of Azure Dragon's experts. If not for a few powerful people still alive, this position would have changed hands long ago.

The rule was that the four great families couldn't attack each other, but if it was internal strife within each family, that wasn't restricted by this rule. This was also a ridiculous yet common phenomenon—the strongest fortresses were often breached from within, the mightiest empires split and weakened due to internal discord.

In the past, the Azure Dragon Empire wasn't the only empire. There was another empire stronger than Azure Dragon, but this empire had now fallen apart due to internal strife. One of its fragments happened to be the Tianyuan Kingdom that Xiaoyao wanted to visit.

Perhaps precisely because they didn't want to repeat this mistake, the Azure Dragon Empire had such peculiar rules. This way, at least the four great families could be bound together. Their combined strength already accounted for eighty percent of the entire empire. Unless this percentage dropped, there wouldn't be any problems.

Generally speaking, it was normal for one family's share to decline, but other families would rise, and when other families declined, the original family might rise again. Thus, the overall share remained basically balanced, at least maintaining over sixty percent.

Because the four great families were such a community of interests, there wouldn't be real warfare between them. But because they were competitors, their relationships naturally weren't very good. Although they couldn't kill each other's people, injuring them wasn't uncommon.

It was precisely because of this that everyone understood what would happen when these four families came together.

Xiaoyao seemed to have entered a very peculiar family. Who knew if he would be drawn into this whirlpool? But surely he would know how to extricate himself, and others wouldn't care about such a small figure.

Just like now—Zhuque Leiting and Baihu Yingqiong only thought Xiaoyao had read about the Supreme Sword Arts and researched them. There were far too many such people; one more Xiaoyao wasn't strange.

Just as the two were being disdainful, they discovered that traces of sword intent were actually appearing around Xuanwu Lingxiao. Although not much, this indicated one thing—she was gaining insights into swordplay. In this current situation, could it be that this book really was helping her?

What kind of book was this?

Zhuque Leiting looked at the book in Xuanwu Lingxiao's hands, wanting to know what book it was that could help with Supreme Sword Arts moves so obviously.

Zhuque Leiting soon discovered that this book was actually a very ordinary sword technique manual, at least she felt it was very ordinary. She had seen people from her own family who practiced swordplay read it, and in considerable numbers.

This was actually very simple. Different books brought different insights to different people. The contents of this book happened to suit Xuanwu Lingxiao at this moment. If it were anyone else, anyone at all, they might not see such effects.

Just as Zhuque Leiting was puzzled, an elderly man who looked rather unwilling came over. As soon as he entered, he said unhappily, "Who said my Hundred Flowers Needlework failed? Who?" Get full chapters from novèlfire.net

This statement undoubtedly revealed the old man's identity—he was Master Wu. When he heard someone say his work had failed, he was still quite disdainful and didn't want to come out. However, when he heard it was specifically the Hundred Flowers Needlework that had failed, he couldn't sit still.

Anyone who could identify and point out problems with Hundred Flowers Needlework was definitely a master in the tailoring world. Being criticized by a master in the tailoring world wasn't unreasonable customer complaints but someone challenging his expertise.

This made him very angry. He was a top figure in the industry, yet someone was questioning him.

"It was me!" Xiaoyao closed his book and spoke.

"You? Are you joking? You're just a wet-behind-the-ears boy. How could you possibly identify Hundred Flowers Needlework? What a joke!! Did you hear about it somewhere and just happen to guess right?" Master Wu said disdainfully. He thought Xiaoyao was just one of those small fries who got lucky with a guess—completely not worth wasting time on.

So Master Wu turned to leave...

"Please wait, Master. Since you're here, look at this dress and see if it came from your hands," Xiaoyao said lightly.

"I don't have time to play with you!" Master Wu said without looking back.

"Master Wu, since you're here, please take a look," the shopkeeper said. Although she didn't want to do this, it concerned several young misses from the three great families—she couldn't afford to offend them.

"Shopkeeper, I'm only here to make clothes. I don't care about anything else," Master Wu said with great master-like dignity. Such masters were just this difficult to serve.

He knew about Xuanwu Lingxiao and the others—the shopkeeper should have mentioned this when sending for him. But with a master's aloof temperament, he paid no heed.

"I most despise people who eat others' food and take others' wages yet don't consider their employer's interests. Since you're so capable, go open your own shop. Since you work here, you should understand your responsibilities," Xiaoyao said lightly, his tone containing some disdain.

"You..." Master Wu stopped. Although this was indeed the case, being told to his face made him feel very humiliated and quite angry.

"Stop with the 'you, me, I'—we're not the same type of people. When I work somewhere, I always fulfill my duties conscientiously," Xiaoyao said.