Alex spent the next year and a half either trying to learn the Dao of Radiance or improving his sword skills with Swiftslash.
For the Dao of Radiance, he used the formation to increase the amount of time he could spend on it. It was still going to take him years to focus on it fully and learn the Dao, but any amount of improvement was acceptable at this point in time.
For his sword skills, he had no method of actually improving them overall. Sadly, sword skills were based on Intent, which itself was tied to one's Spiritual Energy. As a result, until Alex could increase his Spiritual Energy, there was no way for him to improve the power of his sword skills.
The understanding, however, was a different matter entirely.
Alex didn't spend his time trying to make his attacks stronger, but instead used it to try and understand Dao Sword better. He already understood what his first Dao Sword was going to be.
