Eternal Thief



The twentieth floor of the Inner Sun Domain Library, this floor was only opened for the Union Elders or higher rank union members because it was a floor filled with Soul Manifestation Realm techniques and skills. 

However, at this moment, in the skill section, a young man in white was studying a thick red book while sitting in the middle of the library while he was surrounded by piles of books. 

This young man was naturally Ace, who had spent an entire month in the library doing nothing but studying any and every kind of sword skill, arts, and even secret skills present in this library's every floor. 

When Ace started this, his goal was simple. He wanted to annex these sword skills and mold them into his Eternal Thief's Swords Style. He was still in the budding stages of developing his own sword path after condensing two heavenly sword cores. 

Furthermore, he still had no idea what those two sword cores were capable of expect absorbing the heavenly lightning, which was already a heaven-defying ability, and his sword intent had become so overbearing that any normal treasure that came in contact with it would be destroyed eventually.

Although Ace knew his Heavenly Qi was poisonous for the normal treasure, but it wasn't to this extent. Nevertheless, Ace came to terms with it now as he knew he had to pay some kind of price for creating something like the Thief Sword Cores and developing his own unique Eternal Thief's Sword Style. 

In his fifteen years of cultivation journey, he had only developed three sword arts after combining different types of sword skills according to his own unique understanding of sword path and merging those sword arts within the Eternal Thief's Sword Style. 

Furthermore, he had yet to study any new sword art or work on developing something new after his sword cores were created since many things happened after his last heavenly punishment, and his mind was filled with other thoughts than studying sword skills.

However, in this last month, when he intended to learn and mimic some sword skills of the union to keep a frontal appearance of White and not reveal his own sword skills, it would also be a lie to say that Ace wasn't interested in sword skills of the union since the Sun and Moon Sword Union also has 'sword' in its name and their flying sword skills were already out of this world. 

Anyhow, when he started to study the skills above mortal grade, he discovered something astonishing. Ace found that the more he studied different types of sword skills, art, and secret skills, both tiny sword cores in his martial and soul space started to become active!

They somehow started to revolve as he immersed himself in the study of the sword path. The soul thief sword core revolved anti-clockwise while the martial thief sword core revolved cloak-wise, completely opposite to each other. 

Although their speed was even slower than snails and hardly noticeable, as their owner, Ace knew they were revolving, and the more complex skill he studied, the more his sword cores moved. 

But the main point was not those movements that left Ace shocked and gobsmacked, but it was the result generated from those revolving. 

Ace discovered that once those two sword cores started to revolve, he could understand any sword skill's essence almost instantly, forget about mimicking it. It didn't matter if it was a martial or soul skill; he could directly perform them as long as he learned them while his sword cores were revolving. 

This naturally left Ace awed by the hidden ability of the Thief Sword Cores. It was as if, like him, those sword cores could steal the very essence of those sword skills and give them to Ace. 

So, Ace was even more thrilled after discovering this terrifying ability of his sword cores, and he named that duration of revolving Sword Stealing Time. 

After some more experiments, Ace discovered that Sword Stealing Time could only be active once he learns more than 100 new sword skills, including arts or secret skills of Earth Grade (both upper and lower), and it would only last for around 10 minutes. 

It was some kind of activation sequence, and he couldn't repeat it with those old skills he had already learned, and it always required new sword skills. 

Moreover, he also discovered this activation sequence wasn't just limited to earth-grade skills. But if he could learn just ten sky-grade skills instead of 100 earth-grade skills, he could activate the Sword Stealing Time just the same, and it will also increase from 10 minutes to 20 minutes. 

This led Ace to reach another conclusion, it was that the more complex skill he learned, the more Sword Stealing Time would activate more quickly, and he would gain more time. 

Nevertheless, just in those ten or twenty minutes, Ace could perfectly learn and perform all the skills he had remembered to activate the Sword Stealing Time and would still leave with over half the reaming time. 

It was an absolute bargaining for Ace, who doesn't need to copy or mimic any sword skills anymore and can just directly learn them and then even perfectly perform them. 

But the only frustrating thing about the Sword Stealing Time was Ace couldn't use this ability on any other type of skill except the sword skill, not even other weapon-type skills. 

But he also knew it was just him being greedy since people would absolutely kill their own kin just to get the Sword Stealing Time ability which can help them reach the very pinnacle of the sword path. 

So, he didn't dwell on this stupid thought for much longer and started to learn the sword knowledge in the inner sun library even more seriously, and in one month, he had already learned all the sword skills present in the inner sun domain library.

This also gave him many inspirations about how to develop his own sword style further and etch all that knowledge into it. 

Furthermore, Ace found himself on the verge of realizing another thing about the sword path, but every time he was about to grasp it, it just slipped away from his hand. Ace had this feeling that he needed something far more profound than just sky-grade skills to grasp that thing.

The inner sun domain library only had sky-grade skills, not sky-breaker-grade skills. But Ace didn't need to go find those high-level skills as he knew if he tried comprehending the Sky Sword Manual Jade Scroll! 

That jade scroll was unmemorable, and he wanted to see what would happen once he opened it while in Sword Stealing Time! 

But he can't do that while still being in the library or while reaming in the union as White's identity, as a matter of fact. 

Just him studying these high-level sword skills on his current level was already quite suspicious, and the Union Leader might start to suspect something if he entered some kind of strange state during his comprehension of these low-level skills.

But this didn't mean he wasn't prepared and didn't have another option other than the Sky Sword Manual.

Even if the Union Leader questioned him for studying all those sword skills, he could always say he was laying a foundation for the Sun Chasing Sword Art.

This sword art was actually a Lower Sky Breaker Grade Sword Art, and it was also Ace's second option to test the Sword Stealing Time further!