Decades ago, Garberd was an ordinary teenager.
Carrying a sword on his back, he wandered all over the country, eating and sleeping in the open, his eyes were as clear as lake water.
He is a joke among all swordsmen, and he is the only young man in the world who can only lose. When the world mentions him, they will always mock him, saying that he has no talent for swordsmanship at all, and he can't see any tricks in his moves.
"Get out! Don't come to our kendo hall to find fault in the future!"
"Sorry, my shot was a bit heavy just now, and it should have broken a few of your bones."
"With all due respect, Your Excellency is a bit too weak..."
"Young man, swordsmanship is not as simple as you imagine."
"If you want to defeat us, this level is not enough—"
But even though he was beaten up every time, Garberd still smiled and handed the dueling book to all the kendo masters.
Failure after failure, Garberd never took it to heart.
He just kept reflecting on the starry sky in the dead of night, holding a branch to deduce where he lost, and then lay down on the ground thinking about how to win. And when he is confident that he can win the battle he lost before, Garberd will not go back to play again, he will choose the next target that is more difficult to challenge.
Then, lose again.
Sitting cross-legged in a deserted place again, I kept asking myself how to win.
He folded his arms again, meditated with a blade of grass in his mouth, and deduced the battle situation in his mind.
Once again, I sat under the waterfall and let the violent water wash over my body, with a peaceful heart and no distracting thoughts.
Exercise again until the muscles are sore, and then start a new day of exercise with the sore muscles.
Get stronger again. Then lose again.
And so on and on.
No one can judge Garberd's talent enough. Said he was a genius? It sometimes takes him years or even ten years to surpass someone younger than him; call him an idiot? Those who defeated him were left far behind by him in the end.
It can only be said that Garberd's desire to become stronger, to defeat opponents who are stronger than himself, and to study the strongest swordsmanship in the world has been so great that his talent has become irrelevant. He may not be the proud son of heaven from birth like other great swordsmen, but he is constantly thinking about how to improve his swordsmanship, and then defeat those geniuses.
"The way of the sword, it's really interesting."
Every time he loses, Garberd feels joy from the bottom of his heart, and the smile on his face is so bright that he looks like a child who got his favorite toy. Ordinary people only need to go through a few major setbacks, and they will be devastated, and attribute their failures to talent and luck, but Garberd is not like that. He can keep losing until he is despised by the world, and he still has to beg those long-famous sword masters to give him a chance to be beaten.
Some kendo masters are good at money, so he works four or five jobs a day, and he has worked hard to save money for several years before others are willing to sell; The village picked tea leaves secretly, and entertained each other in private; some sword masters’ relatives were seriously ill, and Garberd went alone to the cliff above the ice peak in the north to pick precious elixir—
For decades.
The first time he won was in the Lingwu Territory. At that time, he handed the dueling certificate to the previous Lingwu Lord without knowing the sky and the sky. It is rumored that when the thirty-five-year-old peerless beauty fought against him, she had suppressed Garberd in the early stage, but suddenly frowned and threw her sword to admit defeat in the middle stage, giving him the first victory in his life .
At that time, Garberd was over 40 years old and stood at a loss in the ring.
The former Lingwu lord said to him:
"Your sword seems to have no rules, but it actually incorporates many unique sword skills that have been famous for a long time. Raise your head, Garberd, now you have the right to call yourself the number one in the world."
Galbold stared blankly into her eyes, and the sword in his hand fell to the ground.
Numerous Lingwu soldiers shouted Garberd's name. Although their king was defeated, they still did not hesitate to applaud and applaud.
Garberd raised his head, and memories of forty years of failure at that moment came to mind one by one. Sword energy exploded from his body like a sharp blade, and his realm was like a volcanic eruption, which could no longer be suppressed. The purple thunder rolled down, and Garberd was promoted to the tenth level of realm.
After that, he never lost a single game.
This time it was him standing on the ring, waiting for the challenge from the rookies. There were even many people who had defeated him before who were not convinced and came to ask for another fight. Garberd won, so no one dared to say that Garberd's kendo was out of order. On the contrary, many people began to imitate his kendo.
People all over the world praised his reputation, and his past failures were also selectively forgotten.
But Garberd was not used to it.
He found that he hadn't lost for a long time. After the tenth realm, no one is his opponent. Those things that were not there in the past-power, fame, status, respect, and the joy of victory are all lacking now; but the feeling of continuous improvement and strengthening that I had in the past is now becoming more and more elusive.
So he went to Qingyun, but Qingyun didn't use the sword as a means to win or lose, and he was unwilling to engage in meaningless contests.
So he went to Mr. Tingchao again, but Mr. Tingchao rejected his invitation to a duel on the grounds that "I have no time to take care of the children at home".
Garberd still couldn't sleep every night, but the night sky was no longer as beautiful as before. He often walks in the deserted wilderness, deduces the way of the sword, sharpens the heart of the sword, stabilizes his realm, and challenges to a higher place. But without the clear goal of the past, the spirit of the indomitable young man is almost exhausted, his climbing speed has dropped greatly, and his shots have become a bit more established.
This life is probably over.
Essence declines, the temples are gray, the old eyes are dim, and the whole body is weathered.
To many people, a great swordsman at the tenth level is an unattainable honor, so what's wrong with making it the focus of life? A hundred years later, history books will still remember his name, remember that there was an old man who overwhelmed the swordsmen in the world, and remember his shocking victories one after another.
But I don't know why, when Garberd sat quietly facing the sword, he still felt full of thoughts and couldn't let go.
So when the previous Lingwu lord wrote him a letter saying "Guarding Lingwu for 20 years will lead to the next level of ascension", Garberd dropped everything and went to Lingwu without hesitation.
For him, money is a pile of useless metal, power is a fleeting cloud obtained by intrigue, beauty will eventually turn into a pink skeleton under the dust, and there is no difference between the resounding and the dying of fame. He is a man who has no stories to sing or cry about. Seventy years of ups and downs, he is thinking about how to become stronger every moment.