"Sword techniques? I didn’t think I required any more sword techniques. Were my techniques not up to par, by any chance?" Alex asked.

"That’s not it. Your sword techniques are fine. In fact, they are more than fine. They are some of the best techniques I’ve ever seen," she replied. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"Then..."

"These aren’t normal sword techniques. In fact, these two techniques are meant for someone who has managed to learn Sword Heart. Since you’ve learned it, it is now time you learn these techniques."

Alex’s eyes widened in surprise upon hearing that. He looked down at the talismans once again, ready to learn them.

"You can read those later," Bladedance quickly told him. "It’s better if you see them in action first."

Alex nodded and put the talismans away.

Bladedance brought out her sword Creation and held it in her hand. The thin silver sword seemed sharper than it ever was.

"The first technique," she began explaining, "is called Falling Rain Blossom. It’s a technique that changes the shape and directions of your Sword Heart and the Qi within it to make it look like rain."

Bladedance pointed to the side and an area of the space was immediately filled with Sword Qi, forming a spherical shape. The Sword Qi in Bladedance’s Sword Heart was much thicker than Alex’s, but they also looked much stronger than his.

It was no different from watching tiny daggers flying around in a spherical storm.

"You of course are aware of how Sword Heart functions. This is Sword Domain, placed at a distance by employing my Sword Heart to remove it from myself. However, as it is, any Sword Domain I do make at a distance will always be the same."

"It may be bigger or smaller in size, with more or fewer Sword Qi flying around, but the shape of the domain is always spherical, and the Sword Qi are directionless. The first technique attempts to change that."

Bladedance took back the Sword Domain and then pointed above. Suddenly, Alex felt changes a decent distance above Bladedance where the Sword Qi began forming. To his surprise, the Sword Qi all formed in a large area on a flat plane, and what was more was that they all struck down from the sky into the ground.

As soon as they hit the ground, they vanished, barely damaging the ground at all.

From a distance, Alex could only watch in stunned silence as what should’ve been a Sword Domain had somehow changed to become rain-like instead.

"Falling Rain Blossom," Bladedance said. "It causes your Sword Qi to form above you, coming downward. Any enemy that gets caught around you ends up being bombarded with your Sword Qi constantly."

Alex nodded as he looked at everything, but he couldn’t help but find it somewhat useless. "What is the point of this technique, though, Master? Wouldn’t a regular Sword Domain work much better? Especially when I can just form it at a distance with just a thought."

He pointed to the side and formed his own Sword Domain using his Sword Heart. His Sword Domain was slightly smaller than Bladedance’s and the Sword Qi within it were much, much thinner as well. At a glance, it looked quite weak, but one could hardly judge something like that based on its size alone.

"It is different," Bladedance explained. "Falling Rain Blossom is more of a defensive technique. Since you’re forming it right around you, the Intent required to use it is weaker. You also don’t have to control the Sword Qi at all, as they already have their instructions."

Alex mulled over her words, understanding them to the best of his abilities. He watched the ’rain’ around his master and thought of someone trying to attack her at close range. They would be bombarded by attacks from above, forcing them to defend against them. Meanwhile, she could focus on her attacks down below.

"It’s also a change. There may be situations where one method might not work, so you need another one. This will hopefully come in handy."

That Alex appreciated a lot more as an explanation.

"So, this technique causes Sword Qi to fall down like rain," Alex said. "What about the other one?"

The rain around Bladedance stopped and she pointed the sword to the side, away from Alex. Suddenly, the sword glowed with white light as Sword Qi covered it once again.

Alex thought nothing of it as it was just regular Sword Qi, after all. This wasn’t even Sword Aura.

But then, suddenly, Bladedance’s sword grew.

Instantly, her sword grew in length, reaching over 100 meters in a single second. Alex watched the change with no small amount of shock, unable to understand how that had happened. Unless Bladedance’s sword was put through Metal Compounding that many times, it couldn’t work that way.

’It’s a Creation, so maybe that’s why?’ he wondered.

But the answer was something else.

"This is Sword Heart Breaker," Bladedance said. "Watch what happens when I let go of my Sword Heart."

The long sword suddenly melted away, the Sword Qi that formed almost all of it vanishing into the air. Alex stared at the scene with a look of dumbfoundedness as he hadn’t even begun to realize that the rest of her sword had in fact formed out of Sword Qi instead.

There was simply no way for him to figure that out.

"The Sword Heart Breaker causes you to elongate your sword with your Sword Heart. This way, the Sword Qi is concentrated into a very small amount, and because it is your sword, the sword reacts instantaneously to your attacks. It also has no weight at all, so the end of your blade can reach such speeds that your enemy can never see it coming."

Bladedance expanded her sword once again, showing it off to Alex.

Alex watched in awe for a few minutes before she stopped once more and turned toward him.

"These are the two techniques I wanted to teach you," she said. "Try and see how quickly you can learn them."