It was dusk, and in a private room of Poise Brothel, Dustin and the others gathered to listen to Terra’s report.
Although the murderer was still at large, Terra had found out something through his investigation.
“Dalen, based on our Shadow Citadel’s intelligence report, I’ve found something out,” Terra began.
He continued, “Someone saw the killer last night. According to the witness, the killer was skinny, and his face was hideous. There’s also a black mark on his forehead.
“I’ve hired an artist to draw a portrait of the killer based on the witness’s description. Here it is.”
Terra took a portrait out from his pocket and handed it to Dalen carefully.
Dalen looked at the portrait and frowned.
The person in the portrait was indeed hideous, skinny, and bony. There was a palm-sized black mark on his left forehead, which looked like snake skin.
His creepy appearance was hard to ignore, let alone forget.
“You sure this is the murderer?” Dalen asked, puzzled. He knew almost all the swordsmen in the martial world. Yet, he had never seen nor heard of such a person before. The man just came out of nowhere.
“I’m quite sure.” Terra nodded and said, “I took a glimpse at the murderer. Although I couldn’t see his face under the mask, I did see the black mark on his forehead. It matches the witness’s description.”
“Dustin, Ms. Wesley, have any of you seen this man before?”
Dalen placed the portrait on the table so everyone could take a good look.
“I’ll never forget such an ugly face if I’ve seen one,” Ruby said.
“I don’t think I’ve seen this person before.” Crystal shook her head.
Crystal had a good memory, so she would recognize him immediately if she had seen the man.
“Something’s weird about this guy… but where?”
Miles stared at the portrait while rubbing his chin, trying to figure out what was wrong.
“If the artist drew the details correctly, this man is either a genius or a lunatic!”
Dustin pointed at the portrait and said seriously, “Look, his shoulder is higher than the other. His left hand is longer than his right. He’s a bit hunched too.
It seems like he was born with defects.
“Despite that, he managed to master sword technique and even killed warriors of grandmaster level. It takes more than just determination to achieve that!”
“Oh, yeah! That’s it! I knew something was wrong with this guy. He has uneven hands!” Miles finally realized.
“Born with defects?”
Everyone exchanged glances. Their expressions became more serious.
There were three kinds of martial artists in the world.
First were the geniuses, who could master any technique within a short period of time. Second were ordinary people, who could master a technique after a long training. And the third, the untalented crowd, who could barely complete the training, let alone mastering a technique.
As long as the martial arts geniuses kept on training, they would eventually become masters.
Ordinary martial artists could achieve martial arts geniuses’ standards only if they trained a hundred times harder than the geniuses.
As for the untalented crowd, like the one shown in the portrait…
Technically, they were not capable of practicing swordsmanship.
