Looking at the demon collapsing beneath his blade and beginning to dissipate,
Xiaxi reviewed the fight in his mind.
Honestly, the game's art design was excellent.
Not a single character asset seemed to be reused.
Every enemy that appeared had clearly been built with its own individual model, several unique attack logic sets, and specific behavior templates.
There was even varied AI dialogue logic.
In any other game,
only named bosses and elite enemies would get treatment like that.
As for ordinary trash mobs?
Forget dialogue—if they got a recolor or a slightly altered texture, that would already count as generous.
As for whether the three demons he had encountered were all elites?
Impossible. Absolutely impossible.
There was no world in which three enemies you could one-shot right after the tutorial were supposed to be story elites.
As for everything beyond the visuals,
if Xiaxi had to rate it, then it was good and bad all tangled together into one big mess.
The good: the physics engine was realistic, the impact feedback was great, and the assist systems had smoothed out the overall gameplay experience quite a lot.
The bad: the numerical balance had clearly been tuned with someone's feet, and the monsters had absolutely no interesting mechanics beyond basic attacks.
Sure, their stats were high, and they even had percentage-based regeneration.
So you could not just brainlessly trade blows.
But what kind of enemy unit, aside from having vastly higher numbers than the player, didn't have a single special mechanic?
All they knew how to do was charge in screaming.
If you dropped that level of play into any game next door, forget ranked—even casual matchmaking players would beat them senseless.
At best, they counted as mid-level bots.
A supposedly hardcore role-playing game, yet its monsters were designed like mindless loot-farm stat sticks...
While Xiaxi was grumbling inwardly, a voice with very little confidence came from nearby.
"Um... sir..."
When he turned his head,
he saw:
[Yukihashi Seiko (Power Level: 25)][Water Breathing Lv.1]
Low power level, low skill level, mass-market Water Breathing.
Oh. Friendly fodder NPC.
She did not seem to notice the look in Xiaxi's eyes and instead said awkwardly, "Could I... perhaps travel with you for a while?"
"This place is even more dangerous than I imagined."
"If possible, it would be much safer if two people looked out for each other!"
Then she hurriedly added, stumbling over her words,
"It's definitely not because you're strong or anything!"
"Oath" was the name she had taken for herself after resolving to join the Demon Slayer Corps.
It was meant to help her overcome some of her fear of those monsters, and to remind herself at all times not to forget the hatred she carried for the demons who had slaughtered her family.
She had endured more than half a year of training under her instructor.
Her breathing style had at least entered the basics, she had mastered half the forms, and even her body had become far stronger than the frail version of herself from before.
She had thought that by now, she would no longer be afraid when facing demons, but... but...
"Sure."
The boy opposite her, who looked like he might even be younger than she was, agreed almost without thinking, as casually as if he were offering someone an onigiri from his lunch.
Even though this was supposed to be the solemn Final Selection.
She had already prepared herself to be rejected.
"Huh?" Seiko's already awkward hands became even more uncertain about where to go. "Th-thank you very, very much!"
Xiaxi said, "Having another teammate to pull aggro—uh, I mean, another teammate to draw fire isn't bad. I'm Jiuche Xiaxi. What should I call you?"
The girl let out a sigh of relief and stepped forward to walk beside him.
"My name is Yukihashi Seiko. I use Water Breathing. But compared to you, I'm really far behind. I saw the way you fought that demon just now—it was incredible! Wind Breathing, right? Like a gale, you just completely tore those demons apart—"
Perhaps because having a companion had let some of her tension loosen,
once Seiko started talking, the words poured out of her like beans from a split sack.
"Draw your sword."
"Huh?"
"A combatant should look like a combatant. There's no telling where a monster might spawn in a place like this."
Xiaxi glanced at the Nichirin Blade still hanging at her waist and continued,
"If you keep it sheathed, how are you going to react in time?"
"Or is your Water Breathing best suited for iai draw cuts?"
Seiko's face reddened. Flustered, she hurriedly unsheathed her sword.
The two continued chatting as they walked deeper into the mountain woods.
Xiaxi figured the center of the dungeon probably had a higher monster spawn rate.
And though Seiko was timid and hesitant, when it came to killing demons, she lived up to her chosen name. She did not resist following him deeper in.
There was not much conversation along the way.
Aside from the occasional distant cries of battle from other slopes, the most common sound was the rustle of their clothes brushing against branches.
Perhaps because the two of them were moving together, or perhaps because the demons had all been lured away by other people,
but they went a very long time without encountering a single new demon.
Instead...
After cutting down another section of branches in front of him, Xiaxi glanced at the panel.
[Woodcutting Lv.1 (1/500)]
Another life skill had activated. He now had seven achievement points in reserve.
If it were not for Wind Breathing having slightly poor compatibility, he would have already pushed it up to Level 3.
The fact that converting achievement points wasted nearly a third of them
honestly hurt a little.
Maybe once the experience got close enough, he'd splurge just once and burn a skill point to push Breathing up first and enjoy it?
Yeah... the plan to start learning other breathing styles needed to move up.
"Fodder... Seiko, was it? About how long does it usually take for you Water Breathing people to learn it?"
Caught completely off guard by the sudden question, the girl froze for a moment. "It took me almost a whole year. Though my instructor said my talent was only average."
"I think the talented swordsmen probably enter the basics in a few months?"
Xiaxi thought for a moment, then said, "Show me a full set of Water Breathing forms."
"Huh?" The girl blinked. "Here?"
She looked around uneasily.
Bright moon, sparse stars, dense forest shadows. There was no telling whether demons—or people—might be watching from the dark.
"Isn't that a bad idea?"
Even so, she obediently found a patch of slightly more open ground and began to demonstrate.
The girl drew a deep breath, and the shyness and unease on her face gradually faded.
A faint white mist spread from between her lips.
Water Breathing
First Form: Water Surface Slash
For an instant, the cold edge of her Nichirin Blade seemed to gather a thin layer of mist, accompanying a simple yet disciplined slash arc that rippled outward.
Second Form: Water Wheel
She rushed forward, vaulted off a tree trunk, flipped once in the air, and cut out a smooth circular wheel of water.
One move after another.
Seiko began to display before the boy each sword form she had learned over the past year.
Water Breathing.
Flexible and inclusive like flowing water. Endless and unbroken like waves.
Compared to Xiaxi's Wind Breathing, it had less killing intent and savagery, and more tolerance and calm.
Overall, it was a gentler sword style.
Unfortunately, the swordswoman wielding it was still lacking.
Her forms were not refined enough, her movements left quite a few openings, and the transitions from one technique to the next were very stiff.
Meanwhile, Xiaxi stroked his chin and thought silently.
Pity. No system prompt for learning had appeared.
"Jiuche-kun, that's the Water Breathing I know," the girl said, breathing lightly. "Compared to your Wind Breathing, I've really only just barely entered the path."
Xiaxi said, "That's true. But could you show it to me one more time?"
"I feel like the way you use your breathing style is a bit different from other people."
Though confused, the girl still complied and performed the forms again.
Very soon, the system in Xiaxi's field of vision began to react.
[Observed: Water Breathing, Water Breathing sword forms]
[You have studied incomplete Water Breathing]
[A slight insight has been gained. Learning progress +1]
[Water Breathing (Unmastered) 1/100]
So there was a success rate after all. Good. That's more like it.
Only then did a smile appear on Xiaxi's face, and for some reason it made the girl across from him feel her cheeks grow hot.
It was just like when he had trained under bargain-bin Master.
By observing and practicing a breathing style and its sword forms, he could accumulate "learning progress."
Once that reached one hundred,
the system would naturally judge him to have taken the first step in mastering that breathing style.
In other words, it would activate the skill at Lv.0.
At that point, he could use the level-up preview to judge the compatibility of the breathing style.
In an excellent mood, Xiaxi's tone softened as well.
"Persimmon-chan, you've actually got a lot of potential. Show me one more time?"
The intimate nickname and casual praise made the girl's cheeks flush even redder.
"Jiuche-kun... I'm not really that—"
Her voice stopped abruptly, and her pupils shrank.
Because she had already seen it:
behind Xiaxi, a bloodthirsty shadow was rapidly closing in.
"Look out!"
Water Breathing
First Form: Water Surfa—
Her sword had only made it halfway through the swing when the demon was already swallowed whole by the storm in Xiaxi's hands.
Sixth Form: Black Wind Mountain Mist
[Wind Breathing Lv.2 (401/1000) +24]
Sheathing his Nichirin Blade, Xiaxi said calmly, "It's fine. Persimmon-chan, go on."
The girl swordsman stood there stunned.
Watching from a distance before and witnessing it up close now
were two entirely different levels of shock.
"A-amazing..."
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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