Time flowed on. In the blink of an eye, more than half a year had passed.

Next to a towering, cloud-piercing mountain peaks. Ji Ning stood atop a cloud, staring upwards towards the sword-art left behind on the mountain wall.

“The [Five Treasures] sword-art truly is a sword-art that has surpassed the limits of the Heavenly Daos. I’m just a tiny bit away, but…I’m unable to completely master the second chapter.” Ning frowned. During this past half year, he had almost completely mastered the entire second chapter at one go, but the final bottleneck had stymied him.

Bottlenecks were terrifying things for cultivators to face. There were many who would be stuck at a bottleneck for countless years without being able to advance! Time alone wouldn’t necessarily suffice for a cultivator to break through a bottleneck; if one could constantly improve, then logically speaking all Celestial Immortals should eventually become True Immortals. Clearly, however, this wasn’t the case. The reason why Ning had been able to break through the final bottleneck and master the complete Dao of the Sword was because he had battled in the Nihilum Zone for eighteen years, and had mastered first level swordforce. This was why things proceeded so smoothly for him.

“This next breakthrough won’t be so easy. What should I do?” Ning frowned. At this point, not even his many clones could help him.

“Standing here like an idiot won’t be of any use. Breakthroughs...